Chapter 180: Ulterior Motives

Stella reached down and grabbed the cursed sap pill from the depths of the cauldron fruit. Withdrawing her soul flame from the cauldron, she rigorously checked the pill for any issues under the dim blue hue of the glowing mushrooms and sighed with relief after finding nothing wrong.

"I did it!" Stella yelled triumphantly as she held up the pill, her voice echoing through the cavern, "Thank the nine realms! I've hardly seen the sun all week for this!"

Sadly, there was nobody around to celebrate her success. Elder Margret had returned to the cavern below the White Stone Palace to collect the finished batches of pills from the rogue alchemists as the meeting with the Merchants was scheduled for this afternoon, and Stella could feel that Ash's attention was elsewhere.

Collapsing onto the rim of the earthen bowl like a towel, Stella lay there with her arms dangling. Just a brief moment of rest before she would get back to work and make an entire batch of these cursed sap pills.

"I really wish my ruler bloodline would activate on command," Stella murmured as she clenched her fists, "This would have been so much easier with its help, but I suppose this is good practice for my alchemy either way."

Stella had to admit she was a little jealous of Diana's demon transformation, but she logically knew her bloodline's true potential was yet to bloom.

With a sigh, Stella stood back up and reignited the cauldron with her soul fire, and her face was once again illuminated by her purple flames. She only had a few hours to make enough cursed sap pills to sell to the merchants, so there was no time to waste.

***

"You're really enjoying that fiery fruit, aren't you?" Stella crocked a brow at Elder Margret, who happily bit into an orange fruit. Stella had noticed these strange orange fruits growing in a cluster next to the paralyzing fruit earlier. So she asked Ash what they did, and he replied that they were spicy fire fruit.

Stella and Diana had tried to eat one, but they both ended up on the floor, coughing up their lungs and begging for water. The spicy flavor was so overwhelming Stella was convinced it could be used as an attack, and if not for Diana's conjured water, she might have died.

Okay, maybe that's a little dramatic, but that fruit is lethal! How is Elder Margret eating it with such a pleasant expression?! Is her mouth not on fire?

Elder Margret finished the fruit and licked her lips, "I haven't eaten something this filled with fire Qi in a long time. Are there any more? I'm sure the other elders would be delighted to try such a delicacy, and it would benefit our cultivation."

Stella blinked in awe. Is that what fire Qi tastes like?

"I can grow as many as you want, but they cost Qi," Ash's voice filled their minds, "Maybe I could give them out as compensation for any corpses the young ones bring back from the wilderness? What do you think, Elder Margret?"

Elder Margret nodded, "That could work. I'm sure everyone would be more than willing to trade a monster corpse for one of these delicious fruits."

"How is that going, by the way?" Stella asked, "Last time I was foolish enough to venture out into the wilderness alone, I almost died. Will the Redclaws be fine?"

"They should be fine," Elder Margret smiled, "Elder Brent is currently escorting a group of ten youngsters out into the wilderness in search of corpses. With him there, I doubt anything too drastic could happen. They aren't going that deep after all."

"Say, Elder Margret, whereabouts are they hunting?" Ash asked, "I have a large area out in the wilderness that I check every now and then, and even with sweet-smelling mushrooms to attract monsters, I find there's often nothing there but a few weak monsters."

"That makes sense. A strong monster will only come by briefly, kill some of the weaker monsters, and then leave again," Elder Margret explained, "So if you are only checking occasionally, it's unlikely you will see anything but groups of weak monsters attracted by those mushrooms. Strong monsters must be sought out and hunted rather than baited, as they will never stick around one place for long. Only the truly strong monsters dare to stay in one place and declare the land as its territory."

"So I have been too passive in my hunting?" Ash asked.

Elder Margret shrugged, "I'm no expert. All I can suggest is to keep your hunting near the path of leylines, as the monsters always follow them. You could search for days, find nothing, and then suddenly run into an entire horde of monsters fighting over a Qi-rich lake."

"Don't worry about hunting," Stella told Ash telepathically while stretching her back, "You're a tree, silly. What kind of tree does anything proactively? Leave those tasks to the Redclaws, Larry, or those Ents. We got more important things to focus on here in the sect."

"Yeah, you're right. I used to spend hours searching the wilderness but mostly came up short, so I started giving it less attention. If I can trade some fire fruit I can grow in an hour for a corpse, then that's a far better use of my time."

Stella grunted in agreement and then clapped her hands to draw everyone's attention, "Alright, we are getting off-topic. Let's focus. Meeting with the merchants is within an hour... right?"

Elder Margret nodded, "At the White Stone Palace."

"Okay, and we have everything ready?" Stella asked.

Elder Margret strode over to a nearby stone table, and with a flash of silver light from her ring, the table was decorated with many labeled porcelain pill bottles.

"Florist's Touch, Enlightenment, Neural Root, and Deep Meditation." Elder Margret said as she pointed to each group of bottles in turn. We have a set of thirty bottles of eleven pills for each pill type."

That's insane... I can feel enough spatial Qi traveling through the roots around me to push me up a stage, yet half of all this was used on getting Khaos combat-ready.

Shaking her head at the ridiculousness, she snapped closed the final box and realized she had completed the preparations. Everything was packaged up and ready to present to the Merchants.

It was finally time to face the meeting she had dreaded for the entire week.

"Guess it's time to get ready and become Roselyn," Stella waved her hand and collected everything on the table inside her ring.

***

Nox tapped her foot on the lush grass with impatience as she glanced around at the endless rolling meadows of the wilderness. Moments ago, there had been a giant tear through space that was their entrance to the rift, but now it was nowhere to be seen. Rifts were fickle like that, popping in and out of existence as the realms of creation slowly moved past one another.

"If you keep fidgeting, you will distract Hammond."

Nox tilted her head at Lucius, who had made the snide remark. The tall man with a darker complexion and mellow brown eyes was busy wiping away the foul-smelling blood from his artifact armor that had apparently once been his father's with a ragged cloth. The armor had clearly been heavily used, with chips and scratches across its metallic surface. Nox had always found the armor an eyesore, but its reflective and polished surface was useful for amplifying his light Qi.

"We wouldn't be running late if not for you going so deep into that horde of monsters for something you thought was a relic but turned out to be jackshit," Nox hissed—careful not to distract Hammond, who was setting up a long-range spatial array to teleport them straight to White Stone Palace instead of having to fly for three days on a sword. The air around the seated man was rippling and cracking apart as if he were trying to reach through the fabric space and tear open a path.

"What's the big deal anyway," Lucius hissed back, "She's just some woman with connections to the Redclaws and a habit for defying the Skyrends. What's so special about her to warrant even half a day of our time?"

"Well, according to someone working with Roselyn called Diana, whom I met at the Immortal Gourmet Pavilion, they have pills that are unlike anything we have ever seen."

They exchanged a knowing look, and both snorted.

"As if," Lucius shook his head as he summoned a pristine white cloak and clipped it onto his shoulders, "Just another hopeful alchemist that thinks they have something special."

"Yeah..."

"So..." Lucius narrowed his eyes at her, "What is the real reason you're so impatient to meet her? Something else about her catch your eye? Or perhaps something she has?"

"You could say that," Nox looked away and smirked.

"Oh?" Lucius licked his lips, "And what would that be?"

I don't want to tell this bastard. Nox thought. Otherwise, he will try and swipe them too. There's no pill Roselyn could produce that would sway my focus.

"Now you really got me curious," Lucius leaned in so close his voice tickled her ear, "What has caught your devilish eye, Nox?"

Nox was about to push Lucius aside but was saved by a thunderclap and a rush of air.

"Come on, you bastards," Hammond cursed as he got up and stood before a pathway through reality with a distorted view of a pristine white palace. "And remember, half of anything we buy goes to me. This spatial formation has set me back a month of cultivation."

"Fine," Lucius and Nox agreed without issue.

And with that, they stepped through. Once in the courtyard strangely filled with crimson-haired youths cultivating, a mortal maid directed them through the doorway.

The trio followed the terrified maid through the hallways. Nox noted that the white walls became more barren of decorations the deeper they went until it got so bare and devoid of people that she was convinced this part of the palace was utterly deserted.

"There are three in the room up ahead," Hammond whispered, "And a strange, ominous presence throughout the mountain that's blocking my spatial perception."

"Keep your eyes peeled," Nox whispered back, "This place reeks of a trap."

Hammond gave a slight nod as the mortal maid opened the door, and Nox came face to face with an annoyed woman with blonde hair and crazed pink eyes. A piece of black cloth obscured her mouth, and the clothing and tattoos were a nice touch, but Nox could see past it all.

So we meet again, Stella.

"You're late," Roselyn gestured to the three seats across from her, "Come take a seat, let's not waste any more time."