"Deliver this to Thunder Ridge. Don't touch anything. Don't talk too much. Don't flirt with the alchemist's granddaughter."
That was what Senior Brother Feng Zhi told him before tossing a sealed pouch of herbs into Jiang Yunfan's arms and sending him off.
Naturally, Yunfan did all three.
Thunder Ridge looked more like a thunder dump. The sky above it constantly roared, yet the terrain below shimmered with faint spirit energy. The grass buzzed underfoot. Lightning danced through the trees. A crooked cottage sat near the top of the slope, surrounded by worn-down formations etched in ancient script.
Yunfan whistled. "Cozy. Smells like someone exploded enlightenment in a soup pot."
He knocked.
The door cracked open, and a single bloodshot eye glared out. "What do you want?"
"Herb delivery, honorable alchemist, sir. Also, unsolicited commentary and mild chaos."
The door slammed shut.
Yunfan blinked.
Then the door slammed open again.
"You're staying for three days. If you touch anything without asking, I will boil you in your own blood."
"Noted. But quick question how do you boil blood that's mostly lightning?"
Master Han, the alchemist of Thunder Ridge, was short, sour, and spoke like every word physically hurt him. His cottage was filled with scorched tools, spirit herb piles, and half-melted cauldrons. Even the fire spirit that tended the hearth looked depressed.
Yunfan spent the first day hauling ore and picking spirit grass with bugs that bit back.
By day two, he was scrubbing cauldron bottoms while Han stirred a potion like he was mixing enemy guts.
By midday, Yunfan had to ask.
"Can I try alchemy?"
"No."
"I promise not to explode anything."
"You're lying."
"Accurate."
Han sighed. "Fine. You get one attempt. If it explodes, you leave."
"Deal."
He chose the Thunder Pulse Pill simple in theory, used to stabilize lightning Qi and reduce backlash in early cultivators.
Easy, right?
He added ingredients too fast, the flame too slow, and at one point he stirred the pot using a spoon blessed by a thunder beast. The cauldron trembled like it had stage fright.
Boom.
The explosion only took out half the shed.
But in the wreckage… was a single, cracked, faintly glowing pill.
Yunfan held it up with two blackened fingers. "It's beautiful."
Han stared. Then grunted. "Ugly pill. But functional. That's more than most outer disciples."
Yunfan grinned. "High praise. I'll inscribe that on my gravestone."
That night, with the pill in his hand and the storm rolling in above, Yunfan climbed a high ridge just past the cottage and sat beneath a lightning-scorched pine.
The zither lay beside him, humming faintly under the thunder.
He took a breath. Then the pill.
The effect was immediate; lightning surged through his meridians like wildfire, but now it flowed. The chaos in his dantian twisted into something sharper, stronger, and more defined.
He laughed—not at a joke, not out loud, just a quiet exhale of joy.