Story 9 - Nothing Bad Ever Happens at the Alchemy Convention (Part 16) (Patreon)

My ears rang. It made it difficult to hear the crowd. A dull pain from my dislocated shoulder reminded me that I was still alive. When I opened my eyes, the world spun.

Fuck, I’d blacked out earlier, hadn’t I?

I hoped that the body cultivator who punched the puppet toward us would get his ass kicked.

Oh! There were formation flags all around me. Where the fuck was I? A sour feeling rose up in my throat. I turned over and coughed up seven mouthfuls of blood.

I blinked. That damn puppet had given me a... a con... coction? Con—fuck. Concussion! Why the hell did I have to deal with a concussion on top of throwing up so much blood? Whatever.

The crowd was still here. Still pushing. Some screamed making my new tinnitus worse. So, it hadn’t been out for too long.

Damn it, Ghosty! Why didn’t you tell me your shield could barely withstand an attack at Nascent Soul? Not that it would have changed much. Maybe the puppet was just stronger than that recovering ghost.

I couldn’t complain too much since I was still alive, and from how they were running through the crowd toward me, I could see that my sect’s Golden Core alchemists hadn’t been harmed. They each wore expressions that were both horrified and desperate. They weren’t bad juniors, after all.

I threw up another half-mouthful of blood.

Shit. This wasn’t just a concussion. I could feel the dichotomy between my massive soul and weak body. It had increased again. Unlike when I first arrived here, I could understand the strangeness of my thoughts. Must be the perks of an increased realm.

A Lin’s Healing Dan would likely solve most of this. If not, then there was always a Lin’s Healing Dan 2. I just had to…

I brought out a pill and paused at the sound of familiar voices.

“Sister Lin! Watch out!”

“Senior!”

Ornate purple shoes stepped into view, just avoiding a formation flag. I blinked and looked up. Violet smiled down at me, but she couldn’t hide the fires of rage that burned in her eyes.

Fuck. It figured that I’d have to fight her in this state. I gathered my inner Qi and created a shield far above what my current realm could handle.

“Oops,” she called out, then she very delicately kicked my stomach.

As the shield broke, my healing dan escaped from my fingers. I spat out another mouthful of blood, staining Violet’s robes, before the force of the hit sent me flying backward.

Of course, she’d had to put her spiritual energy into her kick to try and destroy my dantian. The fucking bitch!

I slammed into a soft body. We both flew until we skidded to a stop inside a complex formation. I knew that I knew what it was. Fuck what was it? It shouldn’t be this difficult. I was better than this!

Oddly, that was when I noticed Alchemists Magnificent Moon, Radiant Skies, and Emerald Pine through the crowd. They were defending against attacks from several golden core cultivators from our Sect’s Rival, the Golden Dragon Sect. No wonder they hadn’t been able to get to me in time.

Then who was behind me? I should know this.

“Sister Lin.” Little Spring’s voice sounded weak and desperate. Shit, of course, it had been the kid behind me. “Are you okay?”

Fuck no. All my ribs were now broken even if my dantian had been protected. My breathing sounded watery, and my left arm was still dislocated. I was positive I bled internally. At this point, I could barely move from the goddamn pain. My head was working at a tenth of its normal speed... and repeating itself. And not making the connections it definitely should.

Which was why it took me so long to look up at those cultivators looming above us.

I blinked. Wait. I recognized those hostile faces.

The Irrepressible Beast Blood Sect!

I turned to Little Spring. ::Spa—::

Of course, that was when the array activated.

As soon as we reappeared on a stone receiving platform, Noxious Fangstrike flicked his finger sending a hand of spiritual energy toward me.

::—ce:: I continued.

His energy reached an inch from my neck before Little Spring moved us into his space. My ass landed on the grass beside Fairy Lake.

That had been too close.

Noxious had aimed to smack us down like flies now that he didn’t have to worry about my sect’s Immortal Bone Creation expert taking immediate revenge.

Also, couldn’t those motherfuckers have waited before activating the goddamn teleportation formation?!

“Take this. Please get better!”

Little Spring placed a Lin’s Healing Dan into my mouth.

Instead of replying, I focused on spreading the pill’s energy throughout my body.

***

The healing process took a couple of hours. My injuries had been so intense that even the power of my phoenix constitution activated and helped me as I fixed my broken bones and mended the tears in my lungs. I even widened and repaired my meridians that had been damaged from the backlash of my shield.

After I shoved my shoulder back into place, I healed all the minor injuries I hadn’t noticed in the heat of things.

My body had been a bloody mess, now it was just bloody. No wonder the kid had been worried.

Frankly, the only reason I was still alive and still had my dantian was thanks to my body cultivation and ingenious last-minute shield.

Fortunately, as the warmth returned to my cheeks, my soul-body dichotomy righted itself. Mostly. Enough that I wasn't worried about it, anyway. And thank fuck for that. I didn’t want to go through another long journey to collect the materials for an advanced healing pill again, especially on a poor foreign continent.

After using the cleaning technique to cleanse my body and robes, I could finally think clearly. And, of course, the first person I had to think of was that bitch Violet. She must have kicked me to the unorthodox sect’s teleportation formation on purpose. Since she was likely about to teleport herself, she probably got away with it too! Fuck! I had really hoped my cute little juniors would beat her ass for me. Then again, they’d had their own fight to worry about. It figured that those bastards from our sect’s rival would interfere for the hell of it.

Regardless of their interference, Violet Pill Fairy had just moved off my Fairy Lin’s People to Kill (When You Can) List. Now she was the only name on my People to Ruin (ASAP) List. It was here I keep the names of the rare few individuals who deserve a fate worse than death.

Once I returned, the first thing I would do would be to find that little Pharma-Snake, and slowly destroy her overinflated reputation. Then I’d have to find a way to make her go bankrupt, taking away the two things she loved most in this world.

The bitch had no idea how badly she courted death. Muahahaha!

Little Spring stared down at me with concern. “Sister Lin. You... look like you’re planning a murder.”

I grinned up at him. “Close enough!”

We had to return home first, of course. Then the real planning could start.

Xiao Bai ran over, tail wagging, and started rubbing against our legs. I ran my hand through his soft, fluffy, white fur. This puppy hadn’t aged since the kid brought him back. He was definitely not a mundane dog. But we still couldn’t figure him out.

Little Spring bit his lip. “I was worried, earlier. You looked so…”

I knew I had looked bad. So it was time to change the subject.

And I needed to remember to thank Ghosty once he recovered. I’d have to start seriously looking for precious treasures to make that old man a new body. But that would come later.

“I’m all healed up!”

He let out a relieved exhale.

“But, even if we’re currently out of danger, we’re not in a good place.”

“Because of the teleportation?”

I nodded. “You remember the two sects who argued with Noxious Fangstrike’s sect?”

“Of course, Harmonious Sound and Leashed Claws.”

“I know about them. They’re mid-tier, at best. But the most important part is that they’re on the other side of the world from our Indomitable Will sect.”

His eyes grew wide. “Then is the Irrepressible Beast Blood Sect there too?”

I nodded. “Probably.”

He sat down next to me and then lay supine on the grass. Xiao Bai rushed over and jumped on top of his chest until he started petting the dog... Or whatever he was. “How are we going to get back?”

“If we were to walk, it might take a millennium. To go by flying sword at our current level, it would take us a century. An Immortal Bone Creation Expert could do it in four years… if they went at their top speed non-stop.”

“Can’t we just teleport back?”

I looked up into the fake sky. “If only it were that easy. We don’t have the funds for that.”

“What about the 200 high-tier spirit stones you received?”

I chuckled. “If we were teleporting around the continent, it would take us far, but halfway across this world? Our sect would need to save up for two years to have the funds to bring us back. That means we’ll be waiting here for four years. At this point, we may as well visit a sect we’re on good terms with and wait five years for the World Inter-sect Exchange.”

The color drained from his face. “What about Clear Eyes Mad Tongue and Spear that Weaves? They’re going on that mission you didn’t want them to.”

“Don’t panic.”

“And what is Unyielding Firestorm going to do without you there? We were only supposed to be gone for two weeks!”

I grinned. I hadn’t been idle while healing myself. “I have a plan for everything. Just watch.”

“What plan?”

“During this time period, there was—”

“Is,” he pointed out.

I ignored him... even though he was technically right. “Only one organization that has a presence all over the world. The Alchemists’ Guild.” They were different from the Alchemist Association which put on the convention.

“What can they do for us?”

“You think an organization of that size doesn’t have enough funds to send us back home?”

He frowned. “At what cost?”

“You’re too sharp for your own good.”

The exasperated expression on his face was too adorable.

“It depends. It could be anything. From giving them the rights to all of my future prescriptions to the guild to having us become guards like Red Three and Red Seven for a couple of centuries. But if we get lucky, they might just ask us to do something incredibly difficult but not time-consuming.”

“And probably dangerous.”

“If you think they’d sign us up for something where the risk wasn’t equal to the reward, you’d be out of your mind.”

He nodded. “But we need to find an Alchemists’ Guild first.”

“And to do that we need to leave this space and explore this continent.”

“But they’ll have people out there trying to find us. How are we going to leave my space without getting caught?”

I brought out the bag of high-tier spirit stones.

“Our first step is to cultivate until we reach a half step from Golden Core. And then use this...” I pulled out the manual for the disguise technique I picked up off an assassin last year and tossed it to the kid.

His eyes grew bright, and he grinned.

“That’s right. We’re going to fool those unorthodox cultivators into thinking we’re completely different people.”

“We can even split up to make ourselves more difficult to find since they might be searching for two young experts!”

“Maybe. We can figure out the specific details later.” With a thought, I brought my guitar over.

[Image Link]

“But I can guarantee that they’ll be looking for two alchemists, and not an ostentatious and mysterious Four Arts Cultivator.”

And as a plus, my sect’s Four Arts Peak couldn’t blame me for introducing rock to the original dumbass author’s unoriginal Xianxia world. After all, I was on the opposite side of the planet. Muahahaha!

Fairy Lin will return in Story 10 - The Spy Who Rocked Too Hard

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Author’s Note: Thank you all for reading! You are the best readers a writer could ask for!

Thank you for your patience. I wanted to get this chapter out on Wednesday, but I ended up taking 4th of July off and then some last-minute issues caused me to miss out on my normal editing hours on Wednesday. But I think having that extra time to process the ending improved it. It also ended up being the size of a normal chapter...

I think I mentioned somewhere before that Story 9 was originally just the beginning of what I planned for Story 10. When I originally came up with the outline for The Spy That Rocked Too Hard, I had written down that it would start off with Lin going to the Alchemy Convention. She would meet Violet there, get in an argument with her, then a powerful demonic cultivator would attack the convention. In the rush to leave, Violet would throw Lin and Little Spring into the teleportation formation.

After writing that much outline, I quickly realized that this section needed to be its own story. It was too epic to not do so. Besides, any meeting with Violet (Lin’s ultimate Alchemy rival) needs to escalate or she’s going to turn into a poor imitation of Team Rocket.

I hope you all enjoyed the end of this story despite its slight cliff and are looking forward to the next one!

And thank you all for being the best patrons a writer could ever ask for.