The cultivator nodded quickly. He didn’t know Immortal Venerable Drake personally, but in his eyes, someone that powerful could only be almighty.

  “Then… may I take a look at your work?” he asked politely.

  Lauren pulled out a stack of one hundred first-grade Explosive Spirit Talismans, ranging from the most basic low-grade to shining top-grade pieces.

  The cultivator froze.

  He could see it clearly—this was the progression of her practice, id out in a single neat set. From shaky beginnings to fwless mastery, all in just a hundred talismans.

  Impossible for ordinary people. Only someone with Lauren’s talent—and the Immortal Venerable’s direct teaching—could pull it off.

  For a long moment, he stayed silent, stunned.

  Lauren mistook his hesitation for embarrassment. “Just give me the same price you give others,” she said ftly. “Don’t pay more just because of who I am.”

  The cultivator’s respect for her grew tenfold. To be this capable yet so grounded—no arrogance, no airs.

  He examined one talisman more closely. The strokes carried a strange, subtle rhythm, as if the method itself differed from all the mainstream traditions. If this had been drawn by any other talisman master in Ashenreach, they’d already be boasting about it and demanding higher rates.

  “Would you prefer points or spirit stones?” he asked carefully.

  “Points,” Lauren replied without hesitation. She’d already burned through far too many today.

  “Normally, one hundred first-grade Explosive Spirit Talismans would be worth three hundred points—”

  “Three hundred points, then,” Lauren cut him off before he could finish.

  She knew perfectly well her top-grade talismans could fetch more, but she didn’t care about squeezing every st point out of the deal. That was the confidence of someone who had backing.

  Transaction finished, she turned to head toward the library.

  But before she could leave, the heavens themselves shifted. A beam of golden light shot up from Cloud Peak, followed by a cascade of multicolored clouds that rippled across the sky.

  Everyone nearby stopped in their tracks, eyes filled with awe and envy.

  “Dante must have broken through! He went into seclusion the moment he got back, and it’s only been three months. To already reach Core Formation… Brother Dante is incredible.”

  “No, no—he’s no longer Brother Dante. We should be calling him Mr. Dante now.”

  “That’s right. Mr. Dante’s officially a Core Formation cultivator!”

  Envy burned on every face.

  “Hurry, let’s go join the celebration! The spiritual rain will help our cultivation.”

  The disciples rushed toward Cloud Peak, and Lauren followed, learning that Dante had successfully formed his core.

  It seemed she had to redouble her own efforts.

  “This kid really does have the fate of an immortal,” Edmund muttered with a sigh of relief. “When he broke through, I could sense the faintest trace of immortal energy.”

  Lauren gnced down and nearly jumped. A small bck head had slipped out of her sleeve.

  Startled, she shoved it back inside. “What the hell are you doing? There are people everywhere. Be careful—they’ll notice you. There are no dragons on the Cultivation Continent.”

  Edmund’s proud dragon features retracting. His face rounded until he looked more like an ordinary snake. The deer-like antlers shrank until only two tiny rice-sized bumps remained on his head.

  “Better?”

  Lauren pinched the bridge of her nose. “Why don’t you just retract your legs and turn into a snake?”

  “No. A scaled dragon is my limit.”

  She didn’t really get what he meant by “limit,” so she dropped the subject.

  “You—ah…” She didn’t even finish her thought before he shot out of her sleeve and took off.

  “Where are you going?” she called.

  “Wait for me here. I’ll be back soon.”

  He was already flying toward Cloud Peak, chasing after the so-called immortal energy. Even if it was faint and nearly nonexistent, it was still better than nothing.

  Lauren shook her head. “I’m not waiting. I’m going to the library.”

  “Fine,” came his distant reply.

  She couldn’t help but feel that this little bck dragon was the key to her fate. And she, the so-called cannon fodder supporting character doomed to die at the heroine’s hands, must be one of the chosen breakers of destiny. That had to be why he’d attached himself to her.

  It reminded her of cultivation novels back on Earth: the protagonist always had some ancient, heaven-defying powerhouse sealed inside them, acting as their greatest system.

  The thought bolstered her confidence.

  At the library, she immediately began searching for records on sacred trees, fairy herbs, and spiritual flora. If Weak Trees existed in this world, they had to be recorded somewhere. The books never said there was only one Weak Tree, after all.

  Edmund had told her: to find a Weak Tree, she first had to find Weak Water.

  After nearly an hour of digging through scrolls, she finally found something.

  The legends about Weak Water were just as she remembered from Earth: even a feather couldn’t float upon it.

  But now she finally understood what that really meant.

  It wasn’t that the water was unnaturally thick. It was that the river was a death trap—its surface riddled with whirlpools and hidden abysses, its skies torn apart by ceaseless bolts of Rootless Floating Thunder. Anything that touched the water—a feather, a reed catkin—would be dragged under by the currents or shattered by lightning.

  It wasn’t mystical thickness at all. It was disaster. A river cursed by storms above and chaos below.

  And at the very end of that river, there grew the Weak Tree.

  She kept searching until she found a more precise description: beyond the South China Sea, between bck waters and blue, a crimson tree with green leaves and blossoms.

  Lauren pulled out her jade identity token and, using her authority, copied the relevant passages directly.

  Convenient, fast, and discreet.

  What she didn’t realize was that Dante and his fellow prodigies—supposedly the Thunder Sect’s most valued talents—weren’t even authorized to copy records from the higher floors of the library, let alone from the restricted collections she had just accessed with ease.

  Most outer disciples didn’t even qualify to copy texts from the first floor.

  ......

  Hyakka Valley stretched for hundreds of miles, overflowing with spiritual flowers carefully cultivated by the Thunder Sect.

  Lauren briefly considered exchanging her points for ready-made flower dew directly from the sect. But she knew Flower Wife brewed hers fresh, straight from the fresh flower beds, so she worried the ones sold by the sect wouldn’t be as potent. She dismissed the idea.

  Though Hyakka Valley belonged to the Thunder Sect, not just anyone could stroll in and pluck flowers at will.

  She knew the rules. Whether harvesting nectar or cutting blossoms, one had to report to the Valley Master first. Only with approval could you touch anything.

  So that was her pn: find the Valley Master, present her disciple token, and make it official.

  “Junior Sister, where’s your Valley Master?” she asked a girl watering the flowers.