6 Sad Reality

This time, as she walked up, a force pressured her down. She furrowed her brows in wonder; after thinking for a split second, she encompassed herself with her soul force and continued to climb the steps.

In the fourth layer, there were only four one-meter high white pedestals to her right. A black pill furnace was on each of them.

She walked to the first pedestal; when she got before it, she saw a rectangular, palm-sized white jade lying beside the black pill furnace.

"What could this be?" She asked herself with an anticipating smile while extending her right hand to pick up the white jade. She knew this kind of thin and rectangular-shaped white jade; it was a White Jade Card, a type of card used to record information. Therefore, she was really curious, though the card didn't seem to be of high grade as it had something like black dust on it; this meant it couldn't possibly have much information recorded in it.

"Ugh…" Just as she was about to channel her energy to read its contents, she was hit by reality and her excitement dissipated, "Right, this body doesn't have a shard of martial energy." She won't be able to read its contents in the main time.

She bit her lower lip and placed the card back in its place, she wasn't worried about it running away. She didn't go where the other pill furnaces were but towards the stairs instead; her mood had been spoiled, after all.

And that didn't end there, her humour became worse. Aside from the fact that she felt another force pushing her down and that she had to circulate her soul force yet again, there was nothing on the fifth layer. There was only a white floor with its white walls.

The corner of her mouth pumped and she continued to go up. The sixth level was practically the same, even though it had several showcases, they had basically nothing in them; there were only empty jade bottles and small palm-sized boxes.

But something picked her interest; the white showcases had black inscriptions that glittered silver light from time to time engraved on their surfaces. Some of the bottles had them too. She had not much knowledge in regards to inscriptions and had never seen ones like these so she could only hope to discover it later.

She pressed her lips together and blinked in helplessness as she gave to the black inscriptions a last look before turning around to go to the next floor.

"Huh? No way…" She rubbed her eyes, not believing what she was seeing. "Oh, what an idiot," she tapped her forehead; she wasn't seeing with her eyes and could still see the marvellous things displayed before her.

The white showcases in this floor had several kinds of herbs in them; she could recognise some from where she was standing and all were herbs that could be used to refine high-rank pills.

"Blood Fragrant Lotus!" She exclaimed when she saw a red lotus of the size of a head. She went up to it, "I have only seen it in an old book but…" she furrowed her brows and observed it from up close without touching it; she was afraid of damaging it.

She counted the little red motes that were on its base, "… three, four, five…" as she the counting went on, her tone became rough "… ten." She swallowed some saliva and counted again.

"They are really ten," she whispered with unbelief. "A ten thousand year Blood Fragrant Lotus," she was without breath, "But how can it be so well preserved?" She tilted her head. Though this herb was more precious as it had more years, the older it was, the faster it whiter after harvesting it. A ten thousand year one needed to be refined within one hour after it was picked.

It was really strange. Also, normally, medical herbs were kept on jade boxes but she could only see no more than ten jade boxes in all the showcases, leaving many herbs outside. Moreover, the black stone had been with her maternal family for centuries and all the herbs were in their ripe moment to be used.

She pondered while holding her chin.

And as smart as she was, she made her conjecture; her hand left her chin to cares the black inscriptions and she said, "Perhaps it is because of these inscriptions."

"Hmmh, then, the jade bottles and boxes with them should have a preserving function too," she added.

She didn't think about it after deciding to test her assumption on the inscriptions later and gave all her focus to survey the herbs; there were 96 medical herbs and she only could recognise 23 of them.

She was really happy now but her heart was depressed, there was a sad reality that she couldn't change right away; she couldn't use them at the moment, she was weaker than a non-cultivator now.

*Sigh* She sighed, dejected.

Her feet dragged her to go up; she couldn't keep her attention away from the many invaluable plants until she felt a force blocking her. She prepared herself to resist it but without previous advice, that force increased several times and she got pushed down.

*Thud*

"Aaaghh…" She fell onto the floor.

"Urghh… this is the fourth time," she berated and let herself rest on the floor; she didn't feel like moving.

After a while, she tried it again but the result was the same and not wanting to be hurt a sixth time, she gave up and decided to go down.