Zhihu rolled her eyes. “Don’t be so mean to her. She is just a mortal, remember?”

“Obviously. I’m not going to tell her to go slay a Flesh-Gulping Fathom like someone.” Zhihu very pointedly didn’t look at her fellow disciple after that. “These tasks should be easy if she is as skilled as she says she is. First, I want you to make a sanctified ground on this island.”

Lily glanced down nervously, mouth suddenly feeling very dry… “sanctified… ground? I, um. May or may not be aware of what that is.”

The inner disciple facepalmed. “A foundational alchemy array?” No recognition. “An Ukkan-hai four point stabilization?”

Thankfully, Zhihu stepped in before the inner disciple’s frustration could boil over. “As far as I’m aware, he just wants you to make an area where the ambient qi flows smoothly and without any particular alignment. Something about how a bunch of pill recipes can get pretty persnickety about external influence? I dunno.”

“Oh!” Lily breathed a sigh of relief. “I can do that. It might take me a while to set up though…” frowning, she realized that she hadn’t actually brought anything with her when Zhihu had picked her up. “I might need some of my tools that I left behind. And a notebook.”

Zhihu just reached into her robe and tossed something her way, fast enough that it was only all the time spent in Applied Combat class that allowed her to catch it. It was a heavy notebook, inlaid with golden filigree and looking very officious and cultivator-y, and one hundred percent like something she was not

supposed to handle. Zhihu gave a very poignant look to the inner disciple that Lily could not for the life of herself interpret. “I can go get the tools, if Suli here goes and grabs his alchemy equipment.”

Suli crossed his arms. “Fine. I’ll admit that I underestimated her, but my second task is still unfulfilled. I need to see whatever secret ingredient you have that Zhihu has been so enthusiastic about.”

Hesitantly, Lily pulled the box out of her jacket, holding it out. “I… trust that a disciple of the Bloody Saffron Sect will be more honorable than the last person to try and get their hands on this.”

“Obviously.” After realizing that Lily wasn’t going to let go of the box without something concrete, Suli huffed, then nodded, far more seriously. “I swear on the honor of the Bloody Saffron sect that this ingredient will be returned to you if I decline to make a pill.”

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“Alright…” she passed the box over, then stood back as Suli opened it, and waited.

She didn’t have to wait long. Pretty much the moment he opened the box, his eyes widened almost comically. “This formation…” then, he grinned. “It’s not often I see such a perfectly preserved specimen, and a bona fide Eightfold Yang Golden Dragonfruit… yes, this would fetch quite the pretty penny on auction in the sect, if you wanted to sell it.”

Lily shook her head, trying not to betray her sudden panic. “It’s aspected perfectly for my friend’s cultivation— there’s no point in selling it.”

“Fair enough, I suppose. I know full well the extent that cultivators can go to get resources matched to their paths… like someone who had a poor noncombatant

alchemist go fight a Flesh-Gulping Fathom so she could make her Nine Bindings of Shadow.” A short pause, as he turned to glare at Zhihu. “Ahem.”

“You can’t still be salty about that. How was I supposed to know that one of the spirt beasts that never advances beyond Opening advanced beyond Opening?”

“You still owe me.”

“Which is why I got Lily to come here! Or at least partially— trust me, she’s good at formations, even if she’s not classically trained.” Both of their gazes flowed over almost seamlessly to the orbiting runes wrought out of light and impossibility that revolved around the dragonfruit, and even though that wasn’t her work… it was certainly impressive. “C’mon. Just go grab your cauldron and stuff already.”

The inner disciple pursed his lips, then unsheathed his sword and stepped onto it. “Fine.” Before he took to flight, he tossed something Lily’s way— “and you’re going to need this. I expect at least a proper plan to make this place fit for alchemy before I return.” It was a pen. A rather boring, normal ballpoint pen the likes of which she could probably find essentially anywhere, if she was so inclined…

Then he took to the skies, and Zhihu did the same, leaving her alone on an island far out beyond the city, so far out beyond everything that… she laughed, softly, chuckling then cackling as she for a moment put aside the burning question of why and focused on what. To think, that over the course of only a short while, here she was fraternizing with sect disciples and bargaining for pills, and…

Her dream never felt closer to being possible than it did in that moment, right then.

She sat on the long dense heather, wind whipping at her hair and sun rising, glorious and warm with the coming of spring, and flipping through Zhihu’s notebook— trying her best not to be too nosy towards all the various little bits of fascinating cultivator stuff tucked between its pages— set to work. After all, she daren’t fail to impress. It was an interesting challenge, too…

The sun continued across its arc overhead.