The night had long fallen over the bustling Pill King Market, blanketing the Half Moon Inn in a hushed, reverent silence. Only the occasional flicker of lantern light and soft creak of wooden beams stirred the shadows.
Inside the inn, cultivators rested after days of intense bargaining, study, and alchemical madness, knowing tomorrow's final Forbidden Spell Lecture would mark the grand close of this year's legendary gathering.
But inside a corner room on the third floor, Kent was wide awake.
Herbs lay scattered across the floor—dried lotus roots, dream dust, broken jade powder, and liquefied snow pine bark—surrounding a squat, battered cauldron he had purchased for a meager sum from a street vendor.
