The next morning, Su Bai stepped out of his courtyard to find a familiar figure waiting for him on the mountain path.

Liu Meng stood there. Her hands were clasped nervously behind her back. The moment she saw Su Bai, her eyes lit up, and she rushed forward with a bright, genuine smile.

"Senior Brother Su!" she beamed, bowing deeply. "I heard the news yesterday! Congratulations on restoring your foundation! I never doubted for a second that you would return to the peak!"

Su Bai smiled warmly. Liu Meng’s earnest, straightforward support was incredibly refreshing. "Thank you, Junior Sister. Your belief means a lot to me."

Liu Meng’s cheeks flushed slightly. She then quickly cleared her throat and got down to business. "Actually, Senior Brother, I am heading down to the auction house today to fulfill my weekly alchemy quota. I thought... maybe you would like to come with me? We can craft the Shattered-Soul Oblivion Pills together without anyone interrupting us."

Su Bai nodded immediately.

Even though he now possessed the Void-Sunflower Supreme Method to autonomously refine his Qi, he still needed to gather ambient energy to actually fill his limitless void. The Shattered-Soul Oblivion Pill acted as the ultimate overclocking tool for his Spirit Root. Popping one of those highly toxic pills would aggressively multiply his Qi absorption rate.

"Lead the way, Junior Sister," Su Bai agreed.

Liu Meng happily turned on her heel. She led the way down the mountain. As they walked along the main paths toward the sect gates, they passed dozens of Outer Sect disciples.

"Senior Brother Su!" a young disciple called out. "Thank you again for your profound guidance during Office Hours!"

"Yes, Senior Brother!" another chimed in. "And please, rest assured! Because of the miraculous Dao Manifestation the other night, the healing leaves completely cleared all our clogged meridians! You don’t have to risk your health demonstrating techniques for us anymore!"

Hearing the disciples praise Su Bai, Liu Meng unconsciously puffed her chest out, feeling immensely proud just to be standing next to him.

Su Bai, however, froze.

’Wait... the leaves cleared everyone’s meridians?’ Su Bai realized. A sudden wave of profound sadness washed over him.

Because his giant, illusionary "Tree of Death" had acted as a global antivirus, it had forcefully cured every sick or Qi-deviated disciple in the Outer Sect. That meant there were no more clogged meridians for him to aggressively vacuum out with his Devouring Maw.

He had just accidentally cured his entire target demographic.

’My infinite free Qi supply... gone,’ Su Bai sighed heavily. ’I have to wait for them to inevitably mess up their cultivation again before I can exploit them. Devastating loss of KPIs.’

The disciples, however, completely misinterpreted his heavy sigh.

"Look..." a young disciple whispered to his friend, wiping a tear from his eye. "Senior Brother Su is sighing in relief. He is just so happy that we are no longer suffering."

"What a saint," his friend sniffled. "Truly a peerless senior."

Oblivious to the tragic loss of his passive income stream, Liu Meng and Su Bai continued their journey.

When they reached the Liu Family Auction House in the mortal city below the mountain, the heavily armed guards at the back entrance immediately snapped to attention.

"Welcome back, Prin—" the captain started to say.

Before the guards could finish addressing her with her aristocratic title, Liu Meng forcefully coughed, cutting them off. She grabbed Su Bai by the sleeve and quickly dragged him inside.

She led him through the luxurious, sprawling complex, bypassing the public auction floors entirely until they reached the high-security alchemy chambers deep underground.

The moment they entered the massive, highly ventilated room, several assistants in pristine robes immediately stopped their work and bowed respectfully.

Liu Meng walked over and whispered rapid, sharp instructions to the head assistant. The man nodded frantically and immediately rushed out of the room to execute her orders.

"I am just having them gather the raw materials, Senior Brother," Liu Meng explained as she turned back with a sweet smile.

She then quickly broke down the specific herb ratios and processing temperatures required for the highly toxic recipe. Su Bai listened with absolute, laser-focused attention, mentally logging the data.

A few minutes later, the assistants returned, accompanied by Xiao Ran, the pretty clerk Su Bai had met days ago. They carried several large jade trays piled high with rare spiritual herbs.

"Senior Su," Xiao Ran greeted, bowing gracefully.

"Sorry to impose on your workspace," Su Bai smiled politely.

"Not at all, Senior," Xiao Ran beamed. Her eyes darted between him and her Young Miss with a knowing, highly amused grin.

Once the assistants were dismissed, Liu Meng quickly rolled up her sleeves and began meticulously cleaning the massive bronze cauldrons in the center of the room.

"Alright, Senior Brother," Liu Meng said. "You can take that entire table of ingredients and start crafting your pills. I apologize, but I don’t fully understand your unique method, so I can’t assist you directly. I need to finish crafting my weekly quota of standard pills for the business first. I will come help you as soon as I am done!"

"Take your time, Junior Sister," Su Bai nodded.

With his Cold-Forging technique, he didn’t need a cauldron or an open flame. He simply walked over to the stone table, sat down, and picked up the first bundle of toxic herbs.

***

Time slowly ticked by.

Su Bai’s concentration was absolute. He crushed the herbs in his palms, projecting his freezing Ashen-Frost Blight Flame into the raw materials.

It was a painstaking process. Different herbs required different attention to properly extract their essence without destroying the volatile compounds.

It took him nearly half an hour of intense, uninterrupted focus to successfully forge a single Shattered-Soul Oblivion Pill.

When he finally pulled his hands apart, a perfectly round, translucent pill rested in his palm. It radiated a terrifying, heavy aura. It was a flawless, Transcendent-Grade pill.

Highly satisfied with the result, Su Bai let out a long breath and glanced over his shoulder to check on Liu Meng’s progress.

His jaw instantly dropped.

There she was. The Corporate God of Automation, Liu Meng.

She hadn’t just fired up one cauldron. She had taken over two massive bronze cauldrons simultaneously. She was standing between them, her hands moving in a blur as she simultaneously regulated two entirely different sets of spiritual flames while telekinetically throwing dozens of herbs into the boiling vats.

Her control was inhumanly smooth. It looked less like alchemy and more like a highly synchronized factory assembly line.

Resting on the cooling racks behind her were literal piles of jade bottles filled to the brim with freshly forged pills.

Su Bai completely forgot what he was doing. He was utterly mesmerized by the sheer, terrifying efficiency of her multitasking.

’So this is how she finishes an entire month’s quota in a single afternoon,’ Su Bai gulped.

He activated his spiritual sense to observe her output.

Every single pill she produced from the dual-cauldrons was a perfectly solid Mid-Grade pill with at least 60% purity, and occasionally, a High-Grade pill would pop out of the batch. She wasn’t aiming for flawless perfection. She was aiming for maximum, acceptable-quality volume.

To Su Bai, she wasn’t just a genius. She was the ultimate production manager.

But Su Bai didn’t know the truth.

Inside Liu Meng’s head, she was actually panicking. She was forcefully rushing the entire tedious process, pushing her multitasking to the absolute limit simply because she desperately wanted to finish her chores so she could turn around and watch her Senior Brother perform his peerless Cold-Forging technique.

Oblivious to her internal fangirling, Su Bai slowly looked back down at the single Transcendent-Grade pill resting in his hand.

Suddenly, it didn’t look so amazing anymore.

Sure, his pill was technically flawless and completely devoid of impurities. It would probably extend the "overclocking" effect on his body.

But it took him thirty minutes to make one.

In that same thirty minutes, Liu Meng had mass-produced dozens of perfectly usable pills. And because Su Bai possessed the Reversal Body, he didn’t actually care about "pill impurities." His body inverted impurities into pure nutrients anyway!

High-volume, low-quality pills were actually better for him than low-volume, high-quality pills!

Su Bai sighed a heavy, defeated sigh.

’Geniuses really are built different,’ Su Bai thought. He shook his head at his own inefficiency. ’I am truly just an ordinary corporate slave.’