I'm Just Gonna Happily Grow Spirit Herbs and Make Spirit Pills
Cho-young was utterly dazed upon returning home.
‘So just grow your spirit herbs, craft spirit pills under our full backing, and sell them happily.’
Full backing from five peak Nascent Soul cultivators? Did that even make sense? To have the absolute support of five grandmasters secretly ruling the human domain meant she never had to worry about dying again.
‘I shall instruct the External Affairs Elder to pay you standard market price.’
Full price, no haggling! An unexpectedly reasonable arrangement where she would be compensated precisely for the work she put in. And then there was the crown jewel:
‘Ah, and rest whenever you wish. You have complete freedom. Rest as much as you need, then craft even better pills for us.’
Unlimited paid time off whenever she felt like it!!
In short, Cho-young had just become a megacorp-contracted superstar streamer. No wonder she felt dizzy. It was hardly the sort of rational proposal one expected from lunatics whose moral baselines had long since drilled straight through the floorboards.
‘Maybe I judged cultivators too harshly…’
Then memories of sickening sounds flashed in her mind—crunch, snap!
‘P-Please, have mercy on my life—!’
“……”
Yeah, no. They were definitely psychos through and through. What had become of Secretary Jeok, anyway? Was she dead? She had seemed rather pitiful.
Shaking the grim thoughts from her head, Cho-young tuned her senses to the varied spiritual signatures lingering outside her home. The grandmasters’ promised backing had materialized immediately: guards posted to protect her from any would-be assassins. Cultivators of at least the third layer of Foundation Establishment had set up a tight perimeter around her residence.
These were experts several times—no, thousands, millions of times stronger than Hye-yeon. And there were more than ten of them stationed out there. At this rate, she could not die even if she actively tried.
On top of that, the deed of ownership for the surrounding land had been transferred entirely under her name. Even the eerie, barren mountain behind her house, its dead trees standing like blackened bones, now belonged to her. Had it stopped there, she might have shrugged it off. But then came the real sweetener:
‘Name whichever neighborhood you fancy. We can easily purchase an apartment complex for you.’
A super-luxury apartment complex!! Owning one’s own home was the universal dream of modern humanity. Never in her wildest dreams did Cho-young imagine that dream would be realized inside the 15th-floor executive boardroom of Pajeok Group Headquarters.
‘Gangnam! Gangnam, please!!’
‘Gangnam…? Where might that be?’
‘I believe it was called Gangnam in ancient times. She must be referring to Sector 77.’
‘Ah, Sector 77. You certainly have an eye for prime real estate. Would New Chrome River Palace 77 suffice? I shall grant you an entire building. A trivial matter, after all.’
Holy shit. Prime real estate in the golden heart of Sector 77—and not just a single unit, but an entire skyscraper? Lifelong loyalty unlocked (salute)!
Guarded by ten Foundation Establishment experts and overnight owner of prime real estate, Cho-young clenched her fists and nodded resolutely. ‘You’re all in for a treat. Prepare to die of sheer bliss once you taste my godly pills, Righteous Sect cultivators!’
Now, what kind of pill should she brew for her lovely new benefactors? What would work best…?
Cho-young cast her gaze toward a dim corner of her living room where the Dark Shadow Herb sat nestled in darkness. Since sunlight proved fatal to it, she had placed it deep within the shadows. Already, sleek leaves had unfurled and tight flower buds had formed. Too fast, one might wonder?
A widely known truth about spiritual flora was that, in essence, they differed little from ordinary crops or wildflowers; cultivating them typically demanded considerable patience. But that was mere novice-tier knowledge. Spend tens of thousands of hours solely farming herbs in a hardcore open-world PK game—she had lost count of the exact tally—and one naturally unlocked trade secrets.
Provided the environmental parameters were tuned to absolute perfection, spiritual herbs could mature within a single day!! Had she hung blackout curtains to shut out every sliver of natural light, she could have harvested the Dark Shadow Herb in under twenty-four hours. She simply refrained because she had to live in this house too. Living in perpetual gloom was depressing, and Hye-yeon had previously warned her that the dilapidated cottage was haunted. If it became pitch-black, actual ghosts might crawl out of the woodwork.
Cho-young booted up her broadcast gear.
· · ·
“Hello, everyone.”
Because Cho-young had streamed directly from Pajeok Group Headquarters yesterday, the entire incident had been broadcast live to the net. With countless mortals and cultivators tuning in, the Righteous Sect leaders had essentially issued a decree to the world: hands off Cho-young.
“To sum things up briefly,” Cho-young addressed the camera, “I’ve secured full support from the five Righteous Dao Masters. From now on, I can craft and sell spirit pills out in the open without walking on eggshells.”
“So today, everyone—is our grand grand opening for spirit pill sales! Now that the sect masters are watching my back, I have to craft them properly, right?”
“Yes, pill prices are entirely separate,” Cho-young affirmed with a sweet smile. “For now, the low-grade Black Moon Pill sold previously will be one mid-grade Chrome Stone. The mid-grade Black Moon Pill infused with the Ten-Thousand-Year Extreme Blood Herb will run about five mid-grade Chrome Stones.”
“So today,” Cho-young announced, leaning closer to the lens, “I plan to craft a high-grade Black Moon Pill.”
“Don’t fight over it, guys. I’ll make plenty.”
Reaching over to the pot, Cho-young gently plucked the nascent leaves sprouting from the Dark Shadow Herb. Once the flower buds drooped, tender shoots formed along its stem, and these shoots served as the foundational reagents for alchemy. Unlike the vibrant green of conventional flora, the Dark Shadow Herb’s leaves were pitch-black, living up to their dark name.
“Did you all know? Spirit herbs exist across the Five Elements.”
“Into our earlier Black Moon Pill formula,” Cho-young continued, completely brushing off the donation, “I’ll be blending the earth-aligned Ten-Thousand-Year Extreme Blood Herb with the darkness-aligned Dark Shadow Herb.”
Spiritual herbs imbibed natural worldly qi as they grew, naturally imbuing them with elemental properties. The classic Five Elements: Metal, Wood, Water, Fire, and Earth. Beyond these lay special variant attributes: Darkness, Light, Lightning, Ice, and Wind. And rarest of all, the ultra-elusive Null attribute.
The Dark Shadow Herb belonged to the rare darkness attribute, heavily laden with Yin energy. Meanwhile, the Black Moon Ginseng—the foundational herb used in crafting Black Moon Pills—was metal-aligned and naturally Yin-dominant. Because the two shared harmonious affinity, fusing them would result in an exquisite spirit pill.
Cultivation protocols also differed entirely across each element. Wood-aligned herbs thrived upon living trees. Water-aligned herbs grew atop clear, still waters. Fire-aligned herbs required their plot to be scorched into blackened ash first, using the cinders as fertile nourishment. Earth-aligned herbs took root in standard cultivated soil.
The metal attribute and the special variants—Darkness, Light, Lightning, Ice, and Wind—demanded their own bespoke regimens. For instance, Black Moon Ginseng had to be gathered under the full moon when lunar power peaked, just as the Dark Shadow Herb needed to be raised and harvested entirely within deep shadow.
Furthermore, when refining spirit pills, one had to balance elemental interactions with surgical precision. To concoct a pill from metal-aligned Black Moon Ginseng, an alchemist needed to introduce an earth-aligned catalyst. If one mistakenly threw in wood, fire, or water herbs, the mixture would invert from an elixir into a lethal, flesh-dissolving poison.
Conversely, special attributes—Darkness, Light, Lightning, Ice, and Wind—did not follow standard Five-Element cycles. Instead, they answered to the polarity of Yin and Yang. Darkness and Ice brimmed with concentrated Yin, whereas Light, Lightning, and Wind overflowed with radiant Yang. When fusing these special herbs with the Five Elements, the crafter had to evaluate whether the foundational ingredient leaned Yin or Yang. If one carelessly combined the Yin-drenched Black Moon Ginseng with a Yang-heavy herb of Light, Lightning, or Wind, the result was instant deadly venom.
In fact, the concoction Cho-young had fed to the Chang-gui in the basement had been a lethal toxin born from tossing mutually contradictory herbs together with zero harmony. An ordinary mortal could never distinguish between them, and even high-realm cultivators were utterly oblivious unless they possessed deep alchemical study. That was precisely why the Chang-gui had swallowed that fatal brew without suspecting a thing.
‘……’
This master-level expertise had not fallen into Cho-young’s lap for free. How many countless pills and lethal venoms had she brewed and swallowed during her gaming days? Believing that she had to taste her products before selling them to other players, she had turned her character into a living test subject, testing thousands of experimental concoctions. It was precious, blood-soaked data earned through hundreds upon hundreds of grueling retries.
Crafting a high-grade Black Moon Pill required using exclusively high-grade complementary herbs, and even their Yin and Yang balance had to achieve flawless equilibrium. Even if someone possessed the baseline recipe, refining a genuine high-grade spirit pill remained virtually impossible.
And that applied merely to Black Moon Ginseng, a reagent considered the pinnacle of what a cultivator in the first layer of Qi Condensation could handle. As her cultivation realm advanced, the sheer potency of the supreme elixirs Cho-young could brew would surpass human imagination.
Ignoring the chatter, Cho-young popped both the Dark Shadow Herb and a sprig of Pain-Relieving Herb into her mouth, chewing them together. Her tongue rolled with practiced grace, weaving the crushed stems into an intricate knot before spitting the compact mass neatly into her palm.
“I know some people find this dirty,” she explained cheerfully, “but this is the authentic, orthodox method. Nothing infuses the crafter’s spiritual qi better than this. To mortals it might look like mere saliva, but to cultivators, it’s concentrated spiritual energy!”