Lost in endless visions of safety, dangerous entities kept out, and a top-tier blue grade formation on the horizon, Yang Qing just barely caught what the five-elemental petal lantern flower went for at the periphery of his consciousness.

It did not go for fifty thousand lesser dragon jade crystals, but Yang Qing could hardly care about that; he had finally gotten the full sum needed for the upgrade of his abode’s array from that final bid. He had only needed fifteen thousand lesser dragon jade crystals, and the lantern flower ended up going for twenty-five thousand. The Falling Ember Grove Sect acquired it after they saw Tang Xiadan make no bid for it, as he had with the previous items. There was an audible, relieved sigh from the elder of that sect when no competing bid came in.

Perhaps due to the shock of seeing two hundred and five thousand lesser dragon jade crystals spent by a single person, and the absence of any competing bids, when that elder made his bid for the five-elemental petal lantern flower, no one spoke up. A prolonged silence ensued, one that even Li Gang with his seasoned mercantile tongue couldn’t fill. The only bid made became the winning bid.

With Yang Qing’s items all sold, the auction was nearly at its end; only one item remained: the heart-quenching mulberry dew.

On a given day it would have been worthy of a closing item for any auction house, but for an auction that had just seen a hidden radiance pearl go for a blue token from the Jade Leaf Academy, or witnessed two hundred and five thousand lesser dragon jade crystals come out of a single individual’s pockets, the heart quenching mulberry dew, as precious as it was, felt a little lackluster in comparison. 𝒇𝒓𝒆𝒆𝙬𝒆𝒃𝓷𝒐𝓿𝙚𝙡.𝒄𝓸𝒎

Hence, there were not that many audible gasps or gazes of exhilaration when the item was brought to the podium, even though said item was just as wondrous in appearance as it was in its uses. While it was called a dew, the quantity being auctioned was hardly a dew drop; it was enough for a good sip. The dew was stored in a clear jade vial that was half a palm’s length and no thicker than two fingers across. The heart-quenching mulberry dew had filled the entire vial, leaving only a small inch of space at the top where the neck met the stopper.

The dew looked exactly how one would imagine a heart-quenching mulberry dew to look. The viscosity was like that of water, only its color and how it felt were another matter entirely. The liquid looked exactly like a lake or river refracting light; different colors swirling ethereally within it to the point that one couldn’t even tell what its true color was. The movement and appearance were so ethereal that the dew felt almost misty light to the point of barely holding its liquid form.

Two seconds after the heart-quenching mulberry dew had been placed on the podium for viewing, more than a few spiritual senses were pulled back by certain cultivators, who went to the extent of lowering their heads slightly to avoid eye contact with the vial, some looking fearful as they averted their gazes.

No one around teased them for it, nor found it strange or funny; such was the effect of the heart-quenching mulberry dew. When you gazed upon it, you felt like you were staring at a relaxing sunset with calming waves accompanying it. Every strain of fatigue from your body, soul, and spirit would be washed away by the gently swirling prismatic lights within. Whether you wanted to or not, your entire being would enter a state of relaxation upon gazing on it. Every guard you had raised would instantly drop beneath its lustre, especially your mental defenses. And with your defenses down, that was when its other nature would kick in.

One of the greatest uses of the heart-quenching mulberry dew was in tempering the heart, and both stabilizing and strengthening the mind. The way it did so adopted the same training regimen the Instructors of the Order used when training their students to defend against sneak attacks and other underhanded means, which, to no surprise, was by using those very same methods on them, repetitively and obsessively, to the point that students started to heavily distrust even their own shadows. Shamed as he was to admit it, Yang Qing had reflexively attacked his own shadow more times than he would like to acknowledge. At least he wouldn’t get sneak-attacked through it. That was some comfort.

As for the heart-quenching mulberry dew, it adopted the same inspiration in its effects as the instructors, or perhaps it was the inspiration behind their training regimen, given how like-for-like they were; lower your target’s defenses, let them fall into a false sense of safety, and then study them closely and thoroughly. Uncover every scrap of information you can about them, to the point that you know even their subconscious habits, and after that, use everything you have learnt about them to tailor the perfect tormenting environment, guaranteed to break them every which way.

The heart-quenching mulberry dew was like an uncensored mirror of the heart. Everything hidden within it, consciously and unconsciously, it would dig out, bring to the surface, and use swiftly and smoothly against you to break your spirit and mind. And once it had broken you, it would mend you back, almost as though the spirit-crushing session never happened, then do it all over again; rinse and repeat, with a certain ruthless proficiency.

This nature was what earned it the moniker: the Dew of Grace and Torment, given the opposing duality of its nature.

Yang Qing on the other hand simply considered it another instructor of the Institute, given how eerily similar its methods were to those of the Instructors; the dew knew the perfect sweet spot of breaking you where it did the most damage it could inflict on you while remaining just within the absolute threshold of recovery, so it could keep the cycle going endlessly.

You wouldn’t die, but you would feel like you had, a few thousand times over.

So those cultivators who quickly averted their gazes and spiritual senses from the heart quenching mulberry dew did it with good reason, otherwise who knows what that harmless, ethereal looking prismatic dew would do to them if they looked long enough for it to sink its hooks on them.

Yang Qing on the other hand, did the opposite. His spiritual sense was fully deployed, even more so than it was with the other treasures. His spiritual sense completely enveloped that clear jade vial and its contents, and while he had a way to resist the dew’s effects via his peerless jade physique, his purple grade art and a host of other options ingrained in him from his days at the Institute to guard against things that could influence his mind, he didn’t use any of those measures. In fact, he did the opposite: he proactively lowered those defenses and acted against his ingrained reflexes, allowing the heart-quenching mulberry dew to affect him.

He needed to know... he needed to know how far along he’d come from the incident with the Ice Emerald Sect and Ma Yuan. Yes, the saint grade senior, the auspicious wood grove tree, had helped him deal with the majority of the mental and heart demons that had been born from that incident.

And the experiences he had since, such as being temporary branch chief of the Deer Mountain Branch, and these little trips of his all over the continent, had inadvertently helped him cultivate his heart and mind in the process, which made him all the lighter and better than he was before, stronger even. Yang Qing still needed to know the state of his mind and heart, more so now that he was almost parting ways with Ma Yuan and his daughter.