By the third night on the road, Bia Yuzhen had settled into a pretty good routine. He traveled by day, worked on refining pills at night, and practiced his cultivation whenever he found a quiet spot. It wasn't exactly comfortable, but it was effective, and right now, effectiveness trumped comfort by a mile.
That evening, they stopped at a larger place than usual – a guarded family outpost near a busy trade route where southern merchants often swapped out spirit beasts and hired new escorts. The Bia family took over the inner compound without any fuss. The outer courtyards were buzzing with activity, but by the time Yuzhen got back to his room, the family's private quarters were already quiet.
A travel lamp flickered low by his bed. His alchemy furnace was set up by the wall, and his herb boxes were neatly stacked. With the quiet weight of silence settling around him, the room finally felt like his own.
He didn't waste a second. After locking his door, Yuzhen entered his pendant space and got straight to work. The furnace felt familiar in his hands now. Just three months ago, every batch had required his full attention, and every successful pill felt like a hard-won victory against all odds. Back then, a clean result was precious precisely because it was so rare.
But now, things were different. His hands knew the order of the herbs. His fire control was steady. His spiritual sense no longer fumbled through essence separation like a blindfolded beginner. He wasn't a master, not by a long shot, but he was officially a Level 2 alchemist. That was a real accomplishment.
When he opened the furnace after the first batch, five Spirit-Replenishing Pills lay inside, all perfectly formed and stable. Two were medium grade, three were low grade. Not a single failure. Yuzhen looked down at them for a moment, then calmly began lifting them out one by one, his steady hands hiding a deep sense of satisfaction.
Xiaoren, perched on a nearby rock with its arms crossed, spoke up. "Don't get that look on your face."
Yuzhen glanced up. "What look?"
"The one where you start feeling all pleased with yourself."
"I refined five successful pills."
"You refined five *ordinary* pills," Xiaoren corrected. "At Level 2. That just proves you're not messing up the furnace anymore."
Yuzhen placed the last pill on the tray. "You really have a knack for ruining a good mood."
"I maintain standards."
Still, he could tell even Xiaoren was less dismissive than usual. That, perhaps, was the more satisfying part. He sorted the pills into bottles and thoroughly cleaned the furnace before starting the next batch. By the time he finished the second round, he had four more stable pills and one slightly imperfect one that he decided to keep for himself. Nine usable pills in one night. Nothing extraordinary for a seasoned alchemist, but pretty impressive for a fifteen-year-old who'd only been at it for three months.
By the time he finally emerged back into his room, the station had mostly settled down. Occasional footsteps echoed in the corridor, and somewhere in the courtyard below, a guard changed shifts, but the noisy part of the evening was over. Yuzhen sat at the table and arranged the bottles in a neat row: Spirit-Replenishing Pills, Meridian-Calming Pills, and a smaller bottle of his best results. This row had steadily grown over the last few days of travel. He had enough for himself, enough to help out a few Bia family members, and enough to start seriously thinking about spirit stones again.
Just then, a knock sounded at the door. Yuzhen didn't bother asking who it was. "Come in."
Anhe entered first and stopped short the moment they saw the bottles on the table. Their eyes lit up. "I knew it!"
Yuzhen capped one bottle and set it aside. "You know a lot of things badly."
"This one, I know beautifully."
Behind Anhe came Wenxiu and Lanyue. Wenxiu tried to act like he was just passing by, while Lanyue made no pretense of it. Anhe flopped into a chair. "How many tonight?"
Yuzhen looked at them. "Why do you assume there are new ones?"
"Because you have that look."
"What look?"
"The look where you pretend nothing special happened after doing something useful."
Lanyue, sitting by the window, chimed in, "That's just his normal face." Wenxiu chuckled. Yuzhen let that slide and said, "Nine."
The room was silent for a beat. Anhe blinked. "Nine?"
"Yes."
Wenxiu stepped closer to the table. "All usable?"
"Yes."
Now even Lanyue leaned forward slightly. That reaction pleased him more than he cared to admit. They understood what it meant. This wasn't just practice anymore, not some spoiled young master fiddling with a furnace out of boredom. Yuzhen's alchemy had become reliable. The Bia family could actually use his creations. Trust them. That mattered.
Anhe held out a hand. "Show me."
Yuzhen slid a bottle across. Anhe uncorked it, tipped a pill into their palm, and held it up to the light. "This is cleaner than the ones from Mingzu."
"It is."
"That was a very satisfying answer."
Wenxiu took the bottle next and examined the pill more closely. "You're getting too good at annoying people."
Yuzhen poured himself some tea. "That sentence doesn't mean anything."
"It means you're making pills now, and I don't like how useful that is."
Lanyue looked from the bottles to Yuzhen. "How many are you planning to keep?"
"A portion," he replied. "The rest can be distributed."
Anhe looked up immediately. "So, we're doing this."
"We're doing it carefully."
"That still counts."
Wenxiu folded his arms. "Inside the family only."
"Yes."
"No big announcements."
"Yes."
"And no one outside our immediate group."
Yuzhen looked at him. "You're being more cautious than usual."
"I'm capable of growth."
Anhe muttered, "A shocking development."
They had discussed this arrangement in bits and pieces over the past couple of days, but tonight, it finally became official. Not because they were desperate for pills, but because the journey made usefulness so obvious. A junior Bia family member might have travel pills issued by the family, sure, but those were tracked, allocated, and dispensed through official channels. Yuzhen's pills were different: immediate, discreet, made by someone traveling with them, someone they trusted, someone whose supply could be accessed without formal requests. That convenience alone had value. And because Yuzhen's pills were good, their value was even more apparent.
Anhe tapped the table. "I can move these."
Lanyue gave them a look. "That's exactly why I don't trust you."
"I'm being practical."
"You sound like a street vendor."
"I sound like someone who understands demand."
Wenxiu said, "Which is precisely what a street vendor would say."
Yuzhen let them bicker for a few more breaths before finally saying, "Fine."
That stopped them all. Anhe sat up straighter. "Fine, as in yes?"
"Fine, as in within limits."
Anhe grinned instantly. Yuzhen continued before they could speak. "Only among the direct Bia line, the younger group traveling with us, and trusted attendants attached to our section. No loose talk. No bragging. And no implying I'm trying to build a reputation on the roadside."
"That last one sounded a bit personal," Anhe remarked.
"It was."
Lanyue nodded. "Reasonable."
Wenxiu looked at the bottles again. "How many are you releasing tonight?"
"Four Spirit-Replenishing Pills. Two Meridian-Calming Pills."
Anhe's eyebrows shot up. "That many?"
"I said my skill is stable now," Yuzhen replied. "I didn't say I planned to hoard every single result until we reach Cangyuan Sect."
That earned a small smile from Lanyue. Even Wenxiu looked pleased. Because the underlying truth of their exchange was simple: Yuzhen was no longer just recovering or proving he could stand again. On this road, with every batch of pills and every quiet decision, he was becoming useful in ways the family couldn't ignore.
Anhe recovered first. "Good. Give them to me."
"No."
Their face fell theatrically. "You wound me."
"I'll give you the names. You handle the distribution."
"That's still trust."
"That's supervision."
The actual distribution took a short while. One Spirit-Replenishing Pill went to Wenxiu, who tried to claim it wasn't necessary before immediately taking it. One went to Shuyin, who wasn't present but had already quietly asked Lanyue if Yuzhen had any spare stock. One was for a cousin traveling with the second direct-line carriage group. And another was to be held in reserve for whichever junior pushed too hard in training the next morning and regretted it.
The Meridian-Calming Pills were distributed more carefully. One stayed with Yuzhen. The other would go to Lanyue, who accepted it without a word once Yuzhen explained he had made it recently and wanted someone steady to test its effectiveness during travel.
Anhe, watching all this, looked offended. "Why does everyone else get assigned things while I get stuck with the responsibility?"
Yuzhen answered without looking up. "Because you asked for it."
"That's cruel."
"That's accurate," Lanyue added.
A little later, Shuyin and Zichen arrived, as if drawn by the exact moment practical decisions were being made. Shuyin took one look at the bottles and said, "So Anhe was right."
Anhe sat up immediately. "I want that written down."
"No."
Zichen came closer and examined one of the pills in silence before asking, "How stable is your output now?"
Yuzhen appreciated the question. "Solid at Level 2," he said. "Basic support pills are no problem. My limit is quantity, not success rate."
That answer seemed to satisfy Zichen. It also quieted the room a bit. Because saying it plainly forced all of them to hear it plainly: Not experimentation. Not a promise. Not a maybe. Solid at Level 2.
Shuyin extended her hand without ceremony. "Then I'm taking mine now."
Yuzhen handed her a bottle. She uncorked it, inspected the pill, and gave a single short nod. "Good." Coming from Shuyin, that was practically glowing praise.
Anhe looked around the room and sighed. "See? This is what I mean. We should have started doing this yesterday."
Wenxiu said, "You only say that because you enjoy managing people."
"I enjoy being useful."
"That's even worse."
Lanyue, still by the window, looked at Yuzhen. "When we get closer to the gathering city, you'll need to be more careful."
Yuzhen nodded once. "I know." Because that was also true. Within the Bia family group, his alchemy could spread in a controlled manner. People here knew him, trusted him, and understood the context of his return. Outside, things would be different. Once they entered the wider Southern Region gathering, the name "Bia Yuzhen" would start to mean something beyond Mingzu. Then every ability he showed would become part of that meaning. That required control.
Anhe must have sensed the shift in tone because they leaned back, lighter this time. "For now, though, I'm choosing joy."
"No one's stopping you," Wenxiu replied.
"Thank you. I'll treasure this support."
Eventually, they all left. Wenxiu took his bottle and pretended not to care. Shuyin took hers and clearly did care. Lanyue kept the Meridian-Calming Pill with practical composure. Anhe carried the remaining distributed pills with the expression of someone personally entrusted with a top-secret military operation and loving every second of it. Zichen said very little, but before leaving, he paused and told Yuzhen, "This will matter later." Then he was gone.
Once the room quieted again, Yuzhen sat alone at the table and untied the small spirit-stone pouch Anhe had left behind from earlier exchanges. Not a lot, but enough. Low-grade stones, all of them, but real ones. Earned from pills refined by his own hands. The kind of return that felt clean in a way family-provided resources never quite did. He turned a stone between his fingers. On the road, money wasn't just money. It was herbs. Time. Materials for body refinement if the chance arose. Future space within his pendant. The freedom not to ask every time he needed something. That's why he cared.
When he entered the pendant space again, Xiaoren looked at the pouch and snorted. "You really are impossible."
Yuzhen crouched by the spring. "That sounds like a compliment."
"It sounds like greed."
He fed the spirit stones into the water one by one. The spring swallowed them silently. A faint glow spread beneath the surface, then deepened, sending a small pulse through the nearby land. The spiritual mist at the edge of the herb field thickened just slightly. Not enough to change everything, but enough to remind him that nothing here was wasted. Xiaoren watched with folded arms. "You're thinking too far ahead again."
"No," Yuzhen said, gazing at the glow under the water. "Just far enough."
That night, before sleeping, he circulated his qi once more. The movement within him felt smoother than before, fuller. The spiritual energy in his meridians no longer felt loose and airy as it had in Mingzu. The road, the constant work, the refining, the strain of travel, the broader spiritual environment – together, they were pressing his cultivation tighter and tighter. Not enough for a breakthrough, not yet, but enough to feel the direction clearly now. He opened his eyes in the dark room and looked toward the shuttered window. Outside, the Bia family slept within a guarded station on the southern road. Ahead lay more days of travel, more unknown cities, more gathered talents, and eventually, the wider stage of the Southern Region. For now, though, this was enough: his pills were being distributed, his skill was real, and the road was already sharpening him.