Chapter 3: Begging for Trouble

"You saw it dodge and reflect your lightning, you really had that one coming."

Pepper flew up with her red flame wings to catch Yansha, her expression was certainly far from pleased.

Sometimes, she felt that taking care of others is a full-time job, despite Yansha being only slightly younger than her.

"Nah, the Nimbus Strike wasn't for the killing blow."

Yansha laughed and looking down at the confused stone snake still wondering how he was flying, he made a hand seal to release some kind of binding.

Suddenly, a blast of lightning exploded out like a series of fireworks, the ground beneath stone snake quickly crumbled, before it could scramble away, the stone snake already found itself tumbling down the mountain.

"I placed quite a few talisman seals before I got knocked away, my lightning can ignore the durability of the stone, after all."

Yansha proudly said, the proud would have been much more convincing if not for his broken ribs.

"I can't believe you. If I didn't fly up and catch you, what would be your plan of getting out of this? Your sword form was broken with the Nimbus Strike, so you can't use flying sword."

Pepper sighed, and slowly drifted back down. Her flame wings quickly dispersing as they land.

"Uhh, right. I guess I would have to think of another plan then. By the way, can I borrow a Rejuvenation Elixir?"

Yansha seemed a bit too unfazed for someone with a couple of broken ribs, but Pepper supposed that this attitude can from his inclination to randomly challenge others.

"Did you really gave me all your healing items? As a cultivator, you should know to always have spare healing handy."

Pepper almost tripped over upon hearing Yansha's request, after all, he seemed to have no common sense as a cultivator in Pepper's eyes.

But she can't have the Sect Leader's son limping back with her, so Pepper guess she can afford to part ways with a Rejuvenation Elixir.

"We're heading back now, do you mind giving me the special elixir now?"

Pepper may have smirked a bit, but she mostly kept it to herself, and popped a Rejuvenation Elixir into Yansha's mouth like a sugar bean.

"I have ran out of Qi reserves too, yeah. And here it is, the special elixir thing."

Yansha casually tossed the wax-coated elixir pill to Pepper, who fumbled to catch it as all the commotion exhausted her.

"You really need to stop tossing around important things."

Pepper carefully put the elixir in her inner pockets, taking a quick note to examine the wax coating.

This was the first time that she's seen wax on an elixir; she's heard from Sect members that good elixirs use wax to seal in the potency.

"'One shouldn't rely on external objects,' that's what teacher always told me. Plus, elixirs never really had much effect on me."

Yansha explained his carelessness towards the special elixir, an attitude that Pepper does not share.

"Only with your single-spiritual-root cultivation rate, can you say that. Normal cultivators would risk their hide to get an elixir that will improve their Cultivation Base."

Pepper sighed.

…

Moving swiftly, Pepper had hope to get rid of the tag along Yansha, but the latter seemed to be intent on following her.

"Shouldn't you be heading off now? If you stick too close to me, you'll..."

"Don't worry, I have a disguise."

"No, it's no that."

Pepper waved her hand in hopes of shooing away the young man, but before she could finish, she found a pair of older disciples standing in her way; one wielded a saber by his side, while the other held an axe.

Their atmosphere were filled with ill-intent, which Pepper could have read from 100 meters away.

"Oh, if it isn't the Necrobound freeloader herself, you do know that outsiders need to pay a tax when using the 'Cloud Road' right?"

The saber-wielder pulled blade out and swung it around in an over-grandiose flourish, the intent was probably to intimidate, but lost a lot of fear factor on account of the wielder's poor proficiency.

This saber play would only strike fear in the eyes of children and those uninitiated in the art of swords.

"Here is half, can I pass now?"

Pepper grabbed some large pre-portioned cloud mushroom and tossed it towards the pair.

Cloud mushrooms have a growth cycle of ten years, where every ten years they shrink back down and develops a band around their base; therefore, of course, the ones that Pepper picked out were all only nine years.

"Hold on now, you've still got another person here with you. Don't you think the fine needs to be higher?"

The other disciple, eyeing Pepper's herb basket, greedily said.

Now, Pepper wasn't going to give away the more valuable herbs, not without a fight at least, but she didn't expect what's gonna happen next.

Yansha, being the crazy challenger, pulled out his sword on the two disciples before Pepper could even strike up a negotiation. 

"Your Qi levels seem to be also nearing Core Formation. Let's fight!"

Yansha seemed to have enacted the "when two cultivators' eyes meet, it's battle time" rule (which does not actually exist).

And before everyone else had a chance to react, Yansha's sword quickly forming a cloud sheath, it's his Nimbus Strike.

The cloud blade soon overwhelmed the two disciple and sent them tumbling into the woods.

"What, they were kind of asking for it."

Yansha looked to Pepper, who had a disapproving look.

"They are not as strong as the people that you challenge, probably because of the lack of rigorous training. But they still have a strange sense of pride, beating them up will only make them bring more people to gang up you."

Pepper sighed, but shook her head and said: "Judging by their nature, they are going to ask their gang's higher ups to irritate me now, especially since they know where I live."

"Why? Aren't you stronger than them?"

Yansha questioned, pulling his sword back into his sheath.

"There are many ways that the weak can mess with those that are stronger. They pestered me when I first arrived. I really don't want to deal with that again."

Pepper picked up her herb basket and began to head back, before remembering something and turning back to telling Yansha: "By the way, don't reveal your identity to them. It is going to make my life a lot more annoying if you, the Sect Leader's son, has some news with me, the Necrobound."

"Ah, I guess if you say so."

Yansha clearly had it in mind to use his title to protect Pepper.

…

After submitting 70 percent of her cloud mushrooms to the Sect in return for a few Sect contribution points, Pepper traded for a few essentials and lunch to bring back.

It nearing the end of noon by the time that Pepper got back to her dwelling. 

"Bell, I bought lunch. Finish your last set of training and we can eat."

Pepper reached in the formation area and then shouted out, as the formation can block out noise.

She had set up a small concealment formation on the outside of where she lived, but unfortunately, due to material constraint, the formation can only block out the detection of passersby and not those that come by to stir up trouble.

"Sister? You bought food this time? Thank goodness."

Bell jumped out of the training area, still sweaty from his exercises.

"Hey, my cooking isn't that bad. By the way, I got you an elixir to use for the upcoming trials."

Pepper disgruntled a bit, before pulling out the wax-coated elixir and placing it by Bell's food tray, while Bell rushed up: "Hey, go wash your hands first before eating, as for the elixir you should..."

"Sis, your hair is still red."

"Ah, I forgot about that. You go eat first, I'll be right there."

Pepper pat her brother on the head and gave the bags to him.

As Bell went to set everything on the table, Pepper took a final good look of her brother for the day and took a quicksilver tablet from her sleeve, swallowing it down.

The world darkened, as Pepper felt her sense dulling down, almost as if the invisible hand of death enveloped her whole body.

The clothes on her shoulders became heavier than stone and a sense of weakness washed over her, like she's some helpless lone boat at the mercy of the seas.

Pepper sighed, noting that the transition always takes sometime to get used to, and slowly walked to the lunch table.