"Ah, it's so big! How can it fit in my mouth?!"
A girl exclaimed, staring at the gigantic pill in her hand.
"Senior Sister, you asked me to concoct a very potent Petal Bloom Pill, and this is the result. I warned you that a potent version wouldn't be easy to handle."
A boy of about 14 years old shook his head with a wry smile. However, the girl couldn't see his expression; all she saw were his deep crimson eyes contrasting starkly with the white mask he wore.
"But this is too big! I can't take it in my mouth. Can you make it smaller like normal pills?"
The girl pouted, clearly unsatisfied with the pill in her hand.
Li Yun, the masked boy, furrowed his brows and pondered for a moment.
"I can do it, but it will be difficult to reduce the size without affecting the pill's quality."
He smiled at her, awaiting her decision.
The girl frowned and sighed deeply. "Fine, decrease the quality and make it the size of regular pills."
She regretted asking for a potent Petal Bloom Pill, but the temptation of having a more beautiful face got the better of her.
"That will be 10 extra low-grade spirit stones," Li Yun said.
"What? 10 more spirit stones?" She asked, feeling shocked. "You charged 10 extra for the potent pill, and now you're asking for 10 more?"
Li Yun shrugged and explained. "Senior Sister, you can't blame me. I warned you before, but you didn't listen. A normal Petal Bloom Pill costs 20 low-grade spirit stones, and a potent one 30. Reducing the quality from potent to normal means a loss for me, hence the extra 10 spirit stones."
She reluctantly nodded and paid the extra 10 spirit stones.
"Senior Sister, please wait for five minutes."
Li Yun took the potent Petal Bloom Pill and placed it in the cauldron. He then put a spirit stone on the furnace, causing it to release an intense amount of heat into the cauldron. He controlled the heat subtly, ensuring it was neither too hot nor too low—just right.
After about five minutes, his face was covered in sweat, but a smile was etched on it.
Opening the cauldron, he took out the now regular-sized pill and put it inside a jade bottle.
Wiping the sweat off his face, he presented the pill to the girl.
"Senior Sister, here you go."
The girl took the jade bottle, nodded, and left.
'I scammed another one,' Li Yun thought, smiling and nodding to himself. He felt his father was right when he mentioned that scamming people could be fun, but he also warned not to do it unless necessary.
'I really don't have an option if I want to survive in this world.'
He sighed and noticed the moon high in the sky.
'I should return to my cottage.'
Putting the cauldron, furnace, and all the items from the stall into his storage ring, he left the market area and headed towards the living quarters of the sect.
---
Arriving at his small hut, he locked the door and took out three jade bottles containing blood.
A moment later, he removed his mask, revealing a cute but slightly mature face.
'Sigh, this thirst for blood never goes away.'
He remembered how he suddenly came to this world of cultivation three months ago.
He was on a date with his girlfriend, having the time of his life when she mentioned wanting to reveal a secret and would only whisper it to him.
Curious, he leaned closer.
She said something in his ear and then suddenly bit his neck, causing intense pain to course through his body.
"Time is running out."
Those were the last words he heard before he died from blood loss—or so he thought.
He transmigrated into the body of a trash disciple of Mystic Cloud Sect.
The worst part was that, for reasons unknown, after his transmigration, he had turned into a vampire who regularly thirsted for blood. This made him wonder if his girlfriend in his past life might have been a vampire.
It had been three months since then, and he had somewhat accustomed himself to this life of cultivation.
However, only he knew how difficult these past three months had truly been.
Looking at the three jade bottles full of blood, he gritted his teeth, opened his mouth, and gulped down the blood from the first bottle. Without wasting time, he did the same with the other two.
Only after drinking the blood from all three bottles did his thirst finally subside.
Even after three months of regularly drinking blood, he still hadn't gotten used to it.
'Thankfully, it's only beast blood. I don't dare drink human blood.'
To him, this blood tasted like the sweetest nectar and worked like a miraculous elixir, recovering his body from any fatigue.
And it was only beast blood.
He reckoned human blood would taste even better and would help his body in unimaginable ways, but he couldn't bring himself to drink human blood. He felt that if he tasted human blood, he would crave it again and again, just like with beast blood.
Li Yun, as he was now, wasn't ready for that either physically or mentally.
Most importantly, he felt he would lose his sense of humanity if he drank human blood. That was why, even though his thirst for blood was increasing day by day, he didn't dare feast on human blood.
After drinking the blood, he stood in front of a mirror and looked at his reflection.
'I'm becoming even more handsome.'
Looking at his childlike but handsome face and his charming red eyes, he felt this was the only part of being a vampire he liked.
However, he was soon reminded of his parents as he looked at himself in the mirror.
According to his memories, his parents suddenly left him alone four years ago when he was just ten years old.
He waited for days, but they didn't return.
Depressed and disappointed, he waited a whole year, but they never came back.
He was devastated and didn't know what to do. In the end, to meet his needs, he joined the Mystic Cloud Sect and had lived there since.
'In my previous life, I was an orphan, and in this life, I have parents. I will do anything to meet them.'
With that thought in mind, he made sure to become stronger. He reminded himself of this every day to stay motivated and strive in this hellish world.
'It's time to cultivate.'
Sitting cross-legged on the wooden floor of his room, he took a deep breath.
'I've been cultivating the Cloud Sutra for three months, but I still haven't entered the Qi Training Realm.'
He sighed and took out all the spirit stones he had, placing them on the floor.
'Should I use blood?'
He hesitated. It was his last year as a nominal disciple, and if he couldn't enter the first level of Qi Training and become an outer disciple by the end of this month, he would be expelled from the sect.
'There's only a week left until the month ends, so I can't care less about that.'
He gritted his teeth and took out five more bottles of beast blood. He hadn't tried it yet, but he had a feeling that drinking blood while cultivating would yield twice, if not more, the results of cultivating normally.
He had only ever drunk blood when he couldn't control his thirst; he had thought of doing this many times but always backed out in the end.
But now he had no other option.
'I'm only doing this to survive.'
He told himself this and gulped down one bottle of beast blood, then began circulating the Cloud Sutra.
However, at that moment, something unexpected happened.
The door to his small hut was slammed open, and a young man around his age stormed inside, his eyes blazing with fury.
"Li Yun, how dare you—"
The words died in his throat as his gaze fell upon Li Yun's bloodstained lips and the four jade bottles of blood strewn across the floor.