What do you want me to do?

"Excuse me?" Li Jun asked. He thought he had misheard her question. Pill refining took years to master, and if he wasted time refining pills, he wouldn't progress with his cultivation.

"I asked if you would like to become a pill refiner." She repeated with a kind smile.

Li Jun thought for a moment and shook his head.

"Thank you for the offer, but I will pass." He said and continued to leave.

"Wait!" She called out once more, and Li Jun turned his head.

"I will be completely honest with you. Grandmaster Mao wanted me to watch you take the exam to become a pill refiner. It won't take very long, and I will even throw in a special pill that will help with your cultivation." She said quickly as she tried to bribe him.

"What kind of pill?" He considered the offer. If it was something that would truly help him, he wouldn't mind. He was curious about why Grandmaster Mao had sent him the letter, but he didn't want to play into his hands. He had seen through the old man's schemes, and he didn't want to be used as a tool to pay back his debt to Shen Guo.

"A Core building pill." She said with a smirk.

Li Jun narrowed his gaze towards her. He had heard of that pill from Master Shen. They were extremely expensive but were only useful if you reached the ninth level of body refining.

However, unlike regular pills that had an immediate effect, the core-building pill lay dormant within your blood until you began to step into the core refining stage. With each advance in cultivation, there was a high chance of failure, so it had to be done in stages and not too quickly. But with a core-building pill, it would almost guarantee a quick break through to the core refining stage when the time came.

"What do you want me to do?"

"Just come with me; it's easier if I show you," she said, stepping out from behind the counter and leading him up the winding staircase to the higher floors.

She finally turned to the small black Kitten perched on his shoulder as they walked. 

"Excuse me for asking," she said hesitantly. "But why is there a cat on your shoulder?"

She had found it strange how Li Jun didn't seem to pay attention to it. She almost thought he hadn't noticed as she walked beside him.

"I don't know. It wanted to sit there, so I let it," he said and looked back at the woman.

She looked incredibly beautiful. Her long hair was tied neatly behind her head, revealing the soft, pale skin of her neck. A fragrant scent of berries lingered in the air around her, and her large, piercing eyes looked as though they could cut through steel. There wasn't any way to tell, but she seemed no older than twenty, and her cultivation was already nearing the peak of body refining. 

Although Li Jun wouldn't act disrespectfully to someone with her strength outside, he knew that within the pill tower, the only person who could hurt him was Grandmaster Mao.

"It's cute." She smiled and then reached out to pet the Kitten. In response to her approaching hand, the Kitten hissed and bared its teeth.

"Be nice!" He demanded as the Kitten's head sank down and settled against his shoulder. Although he had scolded the Kitten, its strange behavior returned his attention to the woman beside him. 

She was at the eighth level of body refining and could easily kill him if she wanted to. The Kitten was his only protection, and for some reason, it had reacted to her as if she was a threat.

Li Jun felt lightheaded as he looked in her direction. It was as if a strange mist distorted her features slightly. His heart began to race. 

'She's beautiful.' He thought as his head began to ache. His vision became blurry as the scent of berries that radiated from her body seemed to grow stronger.

She smiled as she noticed Li Jun was looking at her intently. She reached out once more, but this time, her hand didn't approach the Kitten. 

"You look pale. Is everything ok? Do you have a fever?" She asked innocently, but just as her hand was about to settle on his forehead, an excruciating pain shot through her arm.

She recoiled in pain and looked down at her torn sleeve. Blood ran down her arm and dripped onto the floor. She was stunned and unable to understand what had happened.

She examined the three deep gashes in her arm that almost reached the bone and quickly swallowed an assortment of pills that she summoned from her universe bag. The wound began to heal.

The entire interaction was over in a flash and Li Jun regained his senses, he stared at the woman's face that now wore a grim expression as a voice echoed through the staircase. The only thing out of the ordinary was the Kitten had stood up on his shoulder with a ferocious look on its face as it hissed louder than it had before.

"Su Xiang, that's quite enough! If you value your life, then quickly throw away that pendant." Grandmaster Mao had witnessed everything that had happened since Li Jun had entered the pill tower. His senses spanned throughout the entire building. 

"Grandmaster Mao!" Su Xiang exclaimed, shocked by the sound of his voice. She reached into her purple robes, pulled out a necklace with a large circular pendant, and threw it down the stairs. The pendant bounced along the stone staircase until it spiraled down far enough for it to vanish from her sight. 

The black Kitten eyed Su Xiang suspiciously but then directed its gaze at the ceiling as if it could see through the foundations of the pill tower. 

"What was that pendant!?" Li Jun demanded an explanation as he reached for his sword. He knew he wouldn't stand a chance against her in a fight, but his training had drilled the reaction into his brain.

"I— I can explain!" Su Xiang stuttered as she raised her hands to show that she meant no harm to him. The sudden injury she had suffered had shaken her to her core. She didn't even have time to process what had happened.

A sudden gust of wind shot through the spiral staircase, and an old man appeared out of thin air. 

"It seems that my pill tower has offended you again. I must again beg for your forgiveness." Grandmaster Mao bowed deeply, offering his most sincere apologies. He never wanted any of this to happen; alas, his scheming had again caused him trouble. 

If Li Jun reported what had just happened to his Master Shen, he would surely lose his position as the grandmaster of the pill tower.