Liu Mei woke before dawn, her heart hammering with anticipation.

  Today, Master would teach her personally. She dressed quickly, fingers trembling as she fastened the robes he'd provided—soft as morning mist, light as breath itself. What she didn't know was that the fabric humming against her skin was Cloud Silk, woven from threads that grew only in the gardens of the Celestial Palace, worth more than her entire village had earned in a thousand years.

  The courtyard was still draped in pre-dawn shadow when she arrived. Lin Feng stood among the herb beds, one hand cupping a flower as he examined its petals with the concentration of a scholar puzzling over ancient texts.

  He looked up at her approach, and his face broke into a warm smile. "Liu Mei. You're up early."

  She dropped into a bow so deep her forehead nearly touched the ground. "Master! I couldn't sleep. I'm ready to learn whatever you'll teach me!"

  Lin Feng chuckled, a sound like wind through bamboo. "Don't get too excited. It's just gardening." He gestured for her to rise. "Come on. These herbs won't tend themselves."

  Just gardening. Liu Mei straightened, following him into the garden rows. The moment she crossed the threshold, spiritual energy crashed over her like a wave. Each plant blazed in her spiritual senses—some pulsing with rhythmic power, others singing with frequencies that made her bones vibrate. The air itself tasted of lightning and honey.

  She struggled to keep her expression neutral.

  "Now, this one," Lin Feng said, kneeling beside a cluster of purple flowers, "is Moonlight Grass. Pretty common stuff, but you have to be gentle with the roots. They're delicate."

  Liu Mei stared.

  The "common" plant before her radiated spiritual pressure that made her teeth ache. Each petal contained enough concentrated essence to fuel a mortal's cultivation for decades. She could sense its age in the Dao resonance—at least a millennium old. What Lin Feng called "Moonlight Grass" was what the ancient texts described as Sovereign Moon Lotus, a Spirit King Herb so rare that wars had been fought over single specimens.

  A single leaf could regenerate severed limbs.

  Lin Feng plucked one with his fingertips, his movement unhurried and precise. "You just need a touch of spiritual energy. Feel for where the leaf connects to the stem, then... separate."

  As his fingers moved, reality bent.

  Liu Mei gasped. The space around the leaf folded like silk, the Dao of Separation manifesting as visible silver threads that cut through the dimensions themselves. She'd read about this in fragmentary scrolls—a phenomenon that occurred only when Immortal Emperors demonstrated techniques so profound they left scars on existence itself.

  Her mind went white with enlightenment.

  In that single instant, watching Master's "gentle" pluck, she comprehended principles of harvesting, of separation, of the boundary between growth and severance that would have taken mortal cultivators centuries of meditation to glimpse. The knowledge crashed through her meridians like flood water.

  [Disciple Liu Mei has achieved breakthrough: Foundation Establishment (Middle Stage)]

  [Host's teaching effectiveness: Supreme Grade]

  [Reward: 1,000 Seclusion Points]

  "Your turn," Lin Feng said, offering her the basket.

  Liu Mei's hands shook as she reached for a leaf. She tried to channel her spiritual energy the way Master had shown her—seeking the connection point, feeling for the boundary. The leaf came free with a soft snick, and warmth flooded her chest.

  "Excellent!" Lin Feng's praise hit her like summer sun. "Natural talent. I knew it."

  Tears pricked her eyes. She blinked them back furiously.

  They moved through the garden bed by bed. Lin Feng explained each plant with the patient detail of a teacher who genuinely loved his subject. The Crimson Heart Ginseng was "decent for energy restoration." The Nine-Petal Resurrection Lily was "handy if you get a bad cold." The Void Lotus—which grew in soil that looked like captured starlight—was "nice for decoration, and it smells good."

  Decent. Handy. Nice.

  Liu Mei wanted to laugh and cry simultaneously. The Crimson Heart Ginseng could cure soul-deep poisons that even Nascent Soul elders couldn't survive. The Resurrection Lily could bring someone back from the brink of death—hence the name every apothecary in the Eastern Continent knew by heart. The Void Lotus was so precious that a single seed could buy a minor kingdom.

  And Master thought it smelled nice.

  With each demonstration, each casual flick of his wrist, she gained insights that restructured her understanding of cultivation itself. By mid-morning, she'd broken through twice more. Her Foundation was no longer just established—it was perfect, each layer compressed and refined to a degree she hadn't known was possible.

  [Disciple Liu Mei has achieved breakthrough: Foundation Establishment (Late Stage)]

  [Disciple Liu Mei has achieved breakthrough: Foundation Establishment (Peak)]

  [Outstanding progress! Host's casual instruction has created a cultivation genius!]

  [Reward: 3,000 Seclusion Points]

  "Alright, that's probably enough for today." Lin Feng stood, brushing dirt from his knees. "Don't want to overwhelm you on your first lesson. Here—" He handed her the basket, now overflowing with herbs that made the air shimmer. "Why don't you try some alchemy? There's a workshop behind the main hall with all the equipment. Try making a Qi Refining Pill. Good practice for beginners."

  Liu Mei accepted the basket with trembling hands. A Qi Refining Pill. For beginners.

  With the herbs Master had just casually handed her—enough concentrated spiritual essence to spark a war between major sects—she could create pills that would allow mortals to skip Body Refinement entirely and leap directly to Core Formation. She could make medicines that would have Nascent Soul elders begging at her feet.

  "Thank you, Master," she whispered.

  Lin Feng waved off her gratitude. "Don't mention it. We all start somewhere." He smiled at her, kind and utterly unaware. "I remember when I was learning alchemy. Took me weeks to get my first pill right. Don't feel bad if it takes a few tries."

  Beyond the peaceful boundaries of Tranquil Peak, in the Crimson Cloud Sect's towering main hall, Han Jie knelt before his father.

  The Sect Master sat in rigid silence, his face carved from stone. When he finally spoke, each word fell like an executioner's blade.

  "Let me be certain I understand you correctly." His voice was soft. Dangerously soft. "You traveled to Tranquil Peak. You sought discipleship from the Unfathomable Master—a supreme expert who has been visited personally by the Sect Master of Azure Sky. He granted you an audience. He gave you a trial." A pause. "And you complained about gardening?"

  "Father, it was manual labor—"

  The slap cracked across the hall like thunder.

  Han Jie's head whipped to the side, his cheek instantly scarlet. He stumbled, catching himself against a pillar, his Core Formation cultivation doing nothing to soften the blow. His father had held nothing back.

  "You fool." The Sect Master rose from his throne, and Han Jie had never seen his father look so old, so disappointed, so utterly disgusted. "Do you have any comprehension—any at all—of what you've just squandered?"

  "Father, I—"

  "The Azure Sky Sect Master visited that peak and returned having broken through a bottleneck that had trapped him for forty years! Their Grand Elder drank tea there and advanced an entire stage! The Heavenly Sword Sect sent an envoy who came back able to split mountains with a gesture!" His father's voice climbed with each sentence. "And you think such an expert, revered even by those who stand at the pinnacle of cultivation, would assign a meaningless trial?"

  Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

  Understanding dawned on Han Jie's face like a slow, terrible sunrise.

  "Every action of a supreme expert contains layers within layers," his father continued, his voice dropping back to that dangerous quietness. "The 'gardening' was a test. Of humility. Of patience. Of your ability to perceive the Dao in simple things. Those who completed it likely gained insights that will carry them through entire realms of cultivation." He turned away. "And you revealed yourself to be exactly what you are—an arrogant child who judges books by their covers and cannot see jade beneath common stone."

  Silence fell, heavy as mountains.

  "You are my son," the Sect Master said finally. "I love you. That will never change. But you have shamed our family name before a power we cannot afford to offend." He didn't turn around. "You are confined to the inner sect. No missions. No privileges. No contact with the outside world. You will spend your time in meditation, and you will reflect deeply on why you are a fool."

  Han Jie's protest died in his throat.

  "Dismissed."

  He fled the hall. Behind him, his father sank back into his throne, suddenly looking every one of his six hundred years.

  "The Unfathomable Master," he murmured to the empty air. "How do we repair this? How do we establish good relations after such disrespect?"

  No answer came.

  On Tranquil Peak, Shen Yue and Zhou Yuan were showing Wei Ling and Chen Bo around the training facilities.

  "This is the Meditation Pavilion," Shen Yue said, gesturing to a structure that looked deceptively simple—wooden pillars, curved roof, open sides. "Master built it near the spiritual spring for quiet reflection."

  Wei Ling stepped through the entrance and her knees buckled.

  Zhou Yuan caught her elbow. "Steady. The energy takes some getting used to."

  Takes some getting used to? Wei Ling's spiritual senses were screaming. The "quiet pavilion" had spiritual energy so dense it was practically liquid. The formation arrays woven through every plank and beam were masterworks beyond anything she'd encountered in three hundred years of cultivation—self-sustaining, self-regulating, impossibly complex geometries that bent space and time to optimize meditation efficiency.

  And the pillars. The pillars.

  Each one was carved with sutras that seemed to contain fundamental truths of the universe itself, compressed into wood grain and whorl.

  "Master built this one afternoon when he was bored," Zhou Yuan added, his tone carefully neutral. "He mentioned that the spiritual energy on the peak was a bit thin, so he thought some formations might help concentrate it."

  Chen Bo, who'd been silent until now, approached one of the pillars. His hand hovered above the carved characters. "These sutras... they're moving."

  "Yes," Shen Yue confirmed. "Master says it's probably just the wood settling. Spiritual wood can be temperamental."

  Wei Ling watched the carvings shift and flow. They weren't just moving—they were teaching. Each configuration demonstrated a different principle of cultivation, cycling through Dao insights at a rate that would let a dedicated student compress decades of learning into days.

  Immortal academies would burn countries for a teaching tool like this.

  And Master thought it was wood settling.

  "Over here," Zhou Yuan said, leading them to a pond, "is where Master practices his sword work. He's self-conscious about it—says he's not very skilled, so he prefers to train in private."

  The pond was mirror-smooth. Beautiful. Tranquil.

  It also radiated sword intent so sharp that Wei Ling felt invisible blades pressing against her skin from ten feet away. The space above the water looked wrong, like reality had been sliced so many times it had scarred.

  "Not very skilled," Wei Ling repeated faintly.

  "Master is extremely humble," Shen Yue said, watching her reaction with knowing eyes. "You'll learn that everything he says requires... interpretation. When he calls something simple, he means it's simple for him. When he claims to be weak, he's comparing himself to standards we cannot fathom."

  Wei Ling nodded slowly. "I'm beginning to understand."

  The tour continued. Each new location shattered another assumption about what was possible.

  The library—modest in appearance—contained original cultivation manuals that she'd thought lost when the ancient Sects fell. First editions. Annotated by their creators. Some still radiating the spiritual imprints of cultivators who'd ascended to immortality millennia ago.

  The training ground had spatial arrays that could simulate any environment from the cultivation world—deserts where spiritual energy became fire, oceans where Dao principles shifted like tides, mountains where gravity increased a thousandfold. Each simulation perfect down to the finest detail.

  The storage shed, which looked like it might hold gardening tools, contained artifacts that pulsed with enough power to level cities. Swords that hummed with killing intent. Armor that bent light around itself. A spear that made the air weep.

  By the end, Wei Ling felt drunk on impossibility.

  "How long did all this take?" she asked. "To build everything we've seen today?"

  Shen Yue considered. "Most of it was finished in the first few years of Master's seclusion, I believe. He wanted to establish a comfortable living space before focusing on his cultivation."

  "Fifty years," Wei Ling breathed. "He spent fifty years transforming an abandoned mountain into a paradise that surpasses legendary cultivation grounds from the ancient era. And he thinks he was just... making do?"

  "That's Master." Zhou Yuan's expression was fond, proud, and slightly exasperated all at once. "He genuinely doesn't realize his own greatness. And that lack of awareness, that complete humility—it's what makes him truly unfathomable."

  Evening painted the sky in shades of amber and rose.

  Lin Feng called his five disciples together in the courtyard, where cushions had been arranged in a circle around a low table. He poured tea for each of them with careful attention—making sure everyone's cup was filled just so, that the temperature was perfect.

  "I wanted to have a discussion," he said, settling onto his own cushion. "Nothing formal. Just... a conversation about what cultivation means to each of you. You all come from different backgrounds, different traditions. I'm curious about your perspectives."

  The disciples straightened, recognizing the weight of the moment. Every word Master spoke carried layers of meaning.

  "Shen Yue." Lin Feng looked at his first disciple. "You've been here the longest. What does cultivation mean to you now, compared to when you started?"

  Shen Yue took a moment to gather her thoughts. "When I first began, Master, I wanted power. I wanted to be strong enough that no one could hurt me, to prove I was worth something." She met Lin Feng's eyes. "But training under you has shown me that cultivation is fundamentally about understanding yourself. Power isn't the goal—it's a side effect of truly comprehending your place in the Dao."

  Lin Feng nodded, pleased. "A mature realization. Zhou Yuan?"

  "Revenge," Zhou Yuan said bluntly. "That's why I cultivated. That's all I cared about." He paused. "But now I see cultivation as becoming worthy of the chances I've been given. Every day I train, I'm trying to become someone deserving of the second life Master granted me."

  "Good. Very good." Lin Feng's smile was warm. "Cultivation should make you better, not merely stronger. Wei Ling?"

  The three-hundred-year-old cultivator spoke with the reverence of someone who'd found religion. "I spent centuries chasing breakthroughs, Master. Always focused on the next realm, the next stage. Always running toward some distant destination." She shook her head. "In just days here, I've learned that cultivation isn't about where you're going. It's about each moment of genuine practice. Each small insight. I was so fixated on the summit that I forgot the mountain itself was the treasure."

  "That's wisdom many never achieve," Lin Feng said softly. "Even after lifetimes of practice. Chen Bo?"

  The quiet disciple took his time responding. "Master, I think cultivation is like tending a garden. You plant seeds. You water them. You provide the right conditions. Then you trust that growth will come in its own time." He glanced at the herb beds nearby. "Forcing it faster only damages the roots."

  Lin Feng's expression brightened. "What a beautiful analogy. And absolutely true. Liu Mei?"

  She looked nervous but spoke from her heart. "I always thought cultivation was about becoming strong enough to protect what matters. And it is—but after today, I'm learning that true strength isn't just power. It's wisdom. Patience. Understanding." She hesitated. "It's being strong enough to be gentle."

  "Excellent." Lin Feng beamed at all of them. "These answers show real depth of thought. You've all grasped something crucial that many cultivators spend their entire lives missing: cultivation is about growth. Not just of power, but of character and wisdom."

  He sipped his tea, contemplating the evening sky.

  "I should be honest with you," he said after a moment. "I'm not a powerful cultivator. Foundation Establishment is as far as I've managed in nearly a century of trying. I spent most of my life on this peak because I was afraid—afraid of the dangers out there, afraid I wasn't strong enough to survive in the real cultivation world."

  The disciples maintained carefully blank expressions while internally screaming. Foundation Establishment? You could erase continents!

  "But I've learned something over the years," Lin Feng continued. "There are different kinds of strength. Some people chase power their entire lives and remain spiritually weak—brittle, fragile in the ways that matter. Others cultivate slowly and patiently, and their character becomes unshakeable." He met each disciple's eyes in turn. "I can't make you powerful. That's a journey only you can walk. But I can give you a safe place to grow. I can share what little wisdom I've accumulated. I can support you while you find your own paths."

  What Lin Feng didn't realize—what he couldn't realize—was that his "little wisdom" contained truths that most cultivators would never access even after ascending beyond mortality. His casual philosophy was restructuring their understanding of the Dao at its most fundamental level.

  The discussion continued as stars emerged overhead. Lin Feng talked about spiritual energy circulation (accidentally teaching them techniques that only supreme experts should be able to perform), meditation methods (unknowingly passing down immortal-grade focusing practices), and the importance of balance in life (while radiating Dao insights so profound that all five disciples broke through minor stages without even trying).

  When they finally retired for the night, each disciple carried with them understanding that would shape the rest of their cultivation journeys.

  Lin Feng himself went to bed satisfied.

  "That went well," he told Xiao Hong, who'd settled on her nighttime perch. "I think they're starting to get it—that rushing toward the next realm isn't what matters. It's the steady, patient growth along the way."

  Xiao Hong clucked softly. In her chicken mind, far more aware than any chicken should be, she thought: Master's wisdom flows like a river, natural and unstoppable. He teaches supreme Dao principles while believing he offers common sense. His profundity truly knows no bounds.

  [Teaching Session Complete!]

  [All five disciples have advanced and gained profound insights!]

  [Host's natural teaching ability continues to create miracles!]

  [Reward: 10,000 Seclusion Points]

  [Note: Host has achieved "Unknowing Master" achievement—the rarer the teaching, the less aware of it he becomes. The System admires his commitment to the bit.]

  Lin Feng drifted into sleep, completely unaware that his "casual chat" would be remembered by his disciples as the most profound cultivation lesson they would ever receive.

  Outside, the night deepened over Tranquil Peak. Spiritual energy flowed through the formations like blood through veins. The herbs in the garden pulsed with gentle light. And somewhere in the workshop, Liu Mei stared at the pills she'd just created—each one radiating enough power to transform destinies—and wept quiet tears of gratitude.

  On this mountain, impossibility had become ordinary.

  And the most impossible thing of all was that the master of it all genuinely didn't know.

  On Han Jie: Some readers may asked if he'd get consequences for his arrogance. Well... gestures at the slap heard 'round the cultivation world. His father's reaction was fun to write—there's a particular kind of fury that comes from watching your child squander an irreplaceable opportunity. Don't worry though, this isn't the last we'll see of the Han family's attempts to repair relations with the "Unfathomable Master."

  On the disciples' philosophies: I wanted each character's answer about cultivation to reflect their personal journey and growth. Chen Bo's garden metaphor was especially fitting given the chapter's focus on herb cultivation. These moments of genuine wisdom (from both Lin Feng and his students) help ground the comedy in something meaningful.

  On pacing: This chapter was more slice-of-life focused, which fits the "secluded master" genre

  On Liu Mei's progression: Yes, she went from Early Foundation Establishment to Peak in a single morning. This is deliberately absurd and plays into the comedy. In the cultivation world beyond the peak, this kind of advancement would be considered impossible. On Tranquil Peak? Just another Tuesday.

  As always, thank you for your comments, favorites, and follows! Your reactions to Lin Feng's obliviousness give me life. Feel free to let me know which disciple is your favorite so far, or what you'd like to see happen next on Tranquil Peak.

  Until next time,

  [karmic_pen]

  P.S. - Yes, Xiao Hong will continue to have inner thoughts that are far too profound for a chicken. This is non-negotiable.