Soon after, Bai Xiaochun hobbled back to Fragrant Cloud Peak, hair standing on end, face smudged with ash. Heart pounding with residual fear, he crawled back into his courtyard and thought back to the rain of lightning he had just passed through, and shivered. Then he swore an oath to never again fly on a sword through a thunderstorm.

That wasn't flying, that was risking one's life!

Back in his log cabin, he grimaced in pain for quite some time before composing himself. Sitting down cross-legged on his bed, he looked at the rain falling outside, and then slowly rotated his cultivation base.

“Tier-2 spirit medicines are appropriate for the eighth level of Qi Condensation and lower. If I want to raise my cultivation base any further, I really need to concoct some tier-3 spirit medicine.” Resting his chin on his hand, he pondered the matter.

“Tier-3 spirit medicines are even harder to concoct. The only way to do it with confidence is to first be very familiar with numerous tier-2 spirit medicines. Without a stable foundation, the chances of success are small.” With that, he opened his bag of holding and examined his current accumulation of resources. The result was a long sigh. Although he had collected quite a few gifts due to his status as a Prestige disciple, he had consumed a terrifying amount of ingredients in his pill-concocting efforts recently. The result was that his stores were running low.

“I can’t keep going on this way,” he said, bowing his head thoughtfully. “I’ll definitely run out! I'm already a pretty incredible journeyman apothecary. Maybe I should try to sell some medicine.”

That thought started to get him excited. By the next morning, the rain had stopped, and he left his residence to go to the market and ask some questions. After getting a clearer idea of the prices of various medicinal pills, he bought a huge batch of medicinal plants, and then went to the sect to buy more with merit points.

Finally, he took another...