A Drunkard

"Uehehehe, Hong Lian you hag, even my disciple is greater than yours, you can't even compare to this old lady now!!" the lady sleeping in the bed flailed her hands around still asleep, obviously dreaming about something good from her dumb joyous expression and cheerful voice.

Seeing her current state, Wu Xiaotian's patience is starting to snap as he starts cleaning around the room, occasionally finding some of the lady's inner wears causing him to be annoyed even further.

If there is one thing that surprised him the most during the beginning of his stay here with his master, it's the fact that not only is she sloppy at anything aside alchemy, leaving everything all around, her used clothes around her bed, sometimes hanging in the shelf, and even sometimes left in front of the door.

She's also one hell of a heavyweight drunkard, the proof being the dozens of bottles scattered around the floor, currently being cleaned by him. Every night, she will celebrate after a 'hard' day of work by buying bottles of liquor and chug it down all by herself, even flexing on him that she's the greatest heavy drinker of the entire continent, seemingly prouder of it rather than her being the third in the Goddess Ranking.

Sloppy as she might be however, she still treats him really well like a younger brother rather than a disciple, and even cover him from the troubles that greedy outsiders often bring. Thinking about this, he thought to himself, 'I can't just compare all the women I meet to mom, right? After all, there's no one like her' as he comforts himself that even though this master is careless and sloppy, sometimes even lacking dignity, she's still a great tutor and an elder who treats him well.

After cleaning the place, he started preparing something to eat in the kitchen, the only place that she keeps clean, not to be mistaken though as her cooking talent is far different than her alchemy, well, except for the part that she also always brings out the best of the ingredients in cooking, albeit in a negative way.

Taking out ingredients from his spatial ring, he decided to whip up a simple meal. He finishes quickly, preparing a simple soup, steamed buns and some fried dough, along with soy milk, its aroma really good, making the still sleeping master get up of her bed.

Walking towards the dining room without so much as a care for her appearance in front of her disciple, she sat down the chair in front of him while still scratching her head, yawning from time to time. Reaching out towards the fried though bare handed, she was stopped by a chopstick hitting her quite hard, leaving a red mark on the back of her hand.

"Why?!" she indignantly asks as if she doesn't know what she did wrong.

Erasing the trace of [Chaotic Order Weapon Art] from his chopsticks, he looks at the chopsticks in front of her, causing her to pick it up as she resentfully looks at him, the grievance on her face comically disappearing replaced with a blissful face once the food enters her mouth.

"I could eat this all day" she said as she stuffs more food on her mouth, clearly finding everything in the table good.

"Stop talking with your mouth full…" he said helplessly as veins starting to bulge again on his temple, there's just something about this expected to be cold and elegant empress acting the way she does that annoys him so much, despite finding her great for being genuine.

Forcing all the food in her mouth down, she stood up and carried her chair beside him, clinging to him with her arms around his shoulder and her hand poking his cheeks.

"Come on, don't be so hard on your master, we've been together for more than a month, why won't you be a bit kinder when taking care of this old lady?" she said as she pouts, clearly still tipsy despite the entire night of rest.

"Act like a master just once, please, my dignified image of you can't crumble anymore, that image's ashes are already blown away by the wind" he said as he continues eating, completely unfazed by her teasing despite all her soft parts pressing on him.

Hearing this, she removes her arms from him, before standing up as if she thought of an idea, something that she deems a great move, even for a genius herself.

"Then let's stop this master and disciple relation" she said with all seriousness as she stare at him, causing him to choke at his food before she continues, "I think it would be better for us to be brother and sister instead."

"Finish your damn sentence properly" he said as he started drinking his soy milk, forcing down all the food that choked him before continuing, "Are you serious though? You're far greater in alchemy compared to me, besides, that might mess up your reputation, right?"

"I don't even give a single damn about what other people think about me, so what about my reputation?" she said while shrugging her shoulders, completely unconcerned to the implication of her action, "As for your skills in alchemy, well, it will only take some few years before you surpass me I guess, and that's even accounting the fact that your progress will slow down when you reach greater heights, in short, even if you're currently far behind me in terms of alchemy skills, I consider you as equal."

"That's… well, oddly reassuring" he said, completely unsure of how to proceed the conversation.

"So you agree?" she asks as she sit beside him once again.

"It's not like I can refuse anyways" he replied helplessly before nodding his head, causing her eyes to gleam.

"Then from now on, I'm your Big Sis, that's right, I never told you my background right?" She spoke quickly as if she's excited, before stopping and turning serious as if introducing herself this late is still an extremely important thing.

"There's no need for that, you're my big sis from now on, it doesn't matter where you came from, as it's you whom I sworn brotherhood with, and not your identity or whatever" he said stopping her, causing her to find a newfound respect for him not caring about her background.

"Well, I'll accept that, but this one you can't reject" she said before handing a jade token to him, carved on it are nine stars surrounding the moon, on the back, an extremely vivid sculpture of a fairy can be seen, its corners with unique patterns as if some sort of rune.

"This…" Wu Xiaotian muttered as he observes the token, unsure of its purpose and why she gave it to him.

"That's a right of entrance to the Crescent Moon Secret Realm, a magical place where only cultivators from the Pedestal Establishment to Nascent Source Realm can enter" she explained a bit before observing him curiously inspecting the token before speaking again.

"There are a lot of treasures there, cultivation manuals, alchemy manuals, and even other auxiliary job manuals. Not only that, there is a travelling herb garden with materials for pills used by Body Integration Realm cultivators at the very least appearing and disappearing everywhere in the secret realm, in addition, there's also a hidden area there that is rumored to be the inheritance of an ancient celestial that fall down the sky and eventually dies here"

'Celestials!' Wu Xiaotian thought to himself as he recalls his mother's tales of those people when he was a child. Apparently, they are also just cultivators but different from them, they are ones who transcended the limit of the mortal level, jumping to a completely different level with strength far beyond the ascension realm.

"The inheritance of such being is ought to be good right?" he asks as his eyes glowed, his interest was now clearly piqued.

"It seems like you decided to go?" she asks back as if there's no need to answer his question.

"How about you though? This token seems to be a bit too important to pass out"

"There's no need to worry my dear brother, this big sis has got a lot of that token when smashing the heads of some young masters who think they're worthy of chasing after me" she replied as she flexed her lean arms, an arm that no one would ever think was a nightmare to many talented young masters of her generation.