.

It had only been a single day since Zhu Rong had first stepped out of the secret realm, and already two major families had fallen.

One had lost both its future and its current driving force, while the other had lost the main pillar that held them together. With their financial support quickly dwindling, even the little that still kept that family afloat was beginning to crumble.

In just one day, two of the main families were essentially on the verge of collapse, and the man responsible for all this was currently sitting in his office, enjoying a cup of hot tea in the company of two mature beauties and a younger one.

Zhu Rong wasn't worried about taking any further action against the Li family, nor was he interested in doing so.

With the patriarch dead and their funds cut off, that family would suffer, and for a long time. There was no guarantee they would ever recover.

That, for him, was enough for now.

He had decided to take a few days to settle some external affairs before returning to the secret realm to enter seclusion for what would likely be the longest period of closed door cultivation in his life,

this one atleast.

After dealing with the Li family, part of those external matters had been taken care of.

What remained were those more closely related to his own business, specifically, the situation concerning a few individuals in particular.

Huo Lian, who had accepted Zhu Rong's invitation, was sitting in his office, sipping from a steaming cup of green tea.

Although it looked like an ordinary tea at first glance, it was anything but. And after she took a few small sips, she could tell as much herself.

Her eyes widened as she took in the delicate aroma and flavor of the tea.

But it wasn't just the that, she could feel a certain sense of relaxation spreading through her entire body, and even her spiritual energy seemed to react to it, as if it were being gently nourished.

She was slightly surprised by these unusual yet undeniably beneficial effects, and couldn't help but ask what kind of plant it came from.

"It's a variant I created of the Emerald Vein Herb.

I liked its flavor, but its effects were lacking, so I modified and cultivated this version. Don't you think it's better?" Zhu Rong said, completely relaxed, with the expression of someone who had just done humanity a great favor.

That said, while it might have sounded like a small matter, it was far from that.

When she heard what he said, she couldn't help but exclaim in surprise:

"I see, I thought it seemed familiar.

Indeed, I must say, it's an improvement over the original, actually better than many other spiritual teas," she said.

And it was obvious why.

Spiritual tea herbs of various kinds, though popular, were extremely hard to come by.

Few could afford them due to their rarity, and even fewer due to the difficulty of their preparation.

That made them incredibly valuable, and as a result, only a handful of people could ever hope to taste them, let alone buy them.

And if that weren't enough, spiritual herbs capable of benefiting cultivators of the spiritual realm were even rarer, so rare, in fact, that they were regarded as natural treasures of great worth.

And yet, this herb, one of the most common among spiritual herbs, easy to cultivate and harvest but still holding decent value, had somehow reached a new level with just a few modifications?

She didn't know much about the genetic modification of organisms such as plants, it was a very obscure and rarely practiced branch of alchemy, and even she had only some theoretical knowledge of it.

That said, she had always been curious and liked discovering new things. Though her skills in that field were limited, she knew she would never have been able to achieve such results herself.

In fact, she was certain that none of the masters or grandmasters she knew could have done it either.

This only deepened her impression of the young man, who had become increasingly mysterious in her eyes lately.

Perhaps, she thought, this was the very reason her master paid him so much attention.

Speaking of her master, she couldn't help but glance at Zhu Rong and wonder whether that mysterious grandmaster who had trained him might actually be her own master.

Though hard to believe, it was the only explanation that made sense, given their recent interactions.

"If this modified plant keeps its original growth rate, then we could really cultivate it in large quantities and create a high quality tea line that would bring enormous profit in record time," she said, losing herself in her thoughts as she began to realize more and more the value of this tea.

Zhu Rong, watching her, didn't know whether to laugh or cry.

He had merely given her a cup of one of his best teas, one he had personally created, and here she was, already planning its commercial future and profits.

'She really is a businesswoman,' he thought, finally understanding why she was also the head of the Masters' Pavilion.

Then, out of the corner of his eye, he noticed the expression of the young girl seated beside him.

Seeing her expression as she stared at her cup of tea, he reconsidered his thoughts.

"These two would definitely get along," he thought, realizing that even Ye Ning seemed to be lost in similar thoughts about the tea's potential market value.

In that room, it seemed the only ones actually enjoying the drink without such trivial concerns were himself and Yuan Lan, sitting gracefully at his other side on the large sofa.

"Well, if you'd like to cooperate on the commercialization of this tea, I can provide the seeds as well as the proper method to cultivate them. But let's put that aside for now," Zhu Rong said, setting his cup on the table and looking at her calmly.

Hearing that, Huo Lian snapped out of her thoughts, a faint blush coloring her cheeks as she realized she had completely drifted off in the middle of their conversation.

Still, she quickly masked her embarrassment, her tone enthusiastic at his last words.

"I see. I assume you didn't invite me here just for the tea,

there's something you wish to discuss, isn't there?" she said, effortlessly brushing away her awkwardness as if it had never been there.

Even so, both Yuan Lan and Zhu Rong couldn't help but notice it, the latter simply shaking his head while thinking how amusing it was that this woman, who had probably lived for centuries, still had such a shy side.

"That's right," he replied.

"You see, I plan to go into seclusion for cultivation in a few days, and I need your help to take care of a few things in my absence."

Zhu Rong had left everything related to Ye Ning's cultivation in Lin Xian's hands for quite some time.

Unlike him, she had far more experience in that field and could guide her much better through the initial stages.

He had merely been providing the cultivation resources all along.

However, she was now in the fourth stage, and from this point onward, every step of her cultivation would become crucial, for several reasons, though a few in particular were tied to her bloodline, as well as the cultivation method she was practicing.

While Lin Xian could assist her with the first issue, she couldn't, even if she wanted to, help much with the second.

That was why Zhu Rong intended to bring her into the secret realm as well, so she could focus entirely on her cultivation and on building a more solid foundation,

especially since her bloodline was beginning to awaken.

He had already sensed signs of it even before entering the secret realm.

He and Lin Xian had already predicted this day would come, though it had arrived sooner than expected, especially considering how long it had originally taken her in her past life to awaken her bloodline.

Back then, she had already been an adult, and yet when he met her, she was barely at the early stages of the Mortal Realm, something that normally shouldn't have been possible given her talent.

Zhu Rong later discovered that the reason for this wasn't only that she had been captured at a young age, but also because this had caused her to start cultivating much later, which in turn led her bloodline to awaken far too late,

so late that it had basically erased her best years in terms of cultivation and progress.

Even so, she had still reached the peak of the Spirit Realm in her past life.

But the damage caused by that delayed awakening became far more evident later on, when she reached the peak of the Mortal Realm.

At that time, when the fragment of Lin Xian's consciousness awakened within Ye Ning, she and Zhu Rong managed to repair part of the damage.

However, some of it was beyond their reach, not only because Zhu Rong himself had been too weak back then, but also because Lin Xian was merely a remnant of consciousness left behind by her original self.

Now, however, things were different.

In this life, he had found her much earlier and had managed to fix most of those issues, but the problems related to her bloodline awakening were still far from resolved. I

in fact, they were only beginning.

Yet by a twist of fate, or perhaps by pure coincidence, he had, in this life, actually been lucky enough to find the only person capable of resolving that part of her bloodline problem.

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