Surviving as the Heavenly Demon’s Concubine - Chapter 66

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Riser was still in the mental world.

You know, that thing.

The cliché where martial arts protagonists take elixirs and meditate while seeing visions of fighting dragons, waterfalls, or waves, or wandering through snowy fields. That’s it.

From the outside, she still appeared to be sitting cross-legged with her eyes closed.

Going beyond focusing consciousness inward through meditation, one reaches a zone where consciousness and unconsciousness blend ambiguously—this is called the mental world.

Think of it as something like lucid dreaming and you’d be roughly right.

However, what’s remarkable is that events occurring in the mental world actually reflect in the process of controlling internal energy or gaining enlightenment in reality.

What this means is…

‘It means you can handle complex surgeries or similar things that are impossible in reality by struggling through them in the mental world.’

Taking the previously mentioned case of ‘fighting a dragon’ as an example, it goes roughly like this:

1. The rough energy of an undigested elixir appears as a dragon’s form in the mental world.

2. Whether by beating it or taming it, you bring that dragon under control.

3. When you open your eyes, the elixir’s energy has been obediently converted into the user’s internal energy.

It’s pure fantasy, just without the magic wand.

There’s a good reason why surgical procedures remain underdeveloped despite most characters fighting with swords.

‘I have no idea about the principles though.’

So what? In my previous life, I used smartphones just fine without knowing how they worked.

Thanks to the Sichuan Dang Family’s tradition of supplying elixirs like vitamins to direct blood relatives only, Riser was quite familiar with the mental world.

However, 80% of what truly made Riser a seasoned mental world user was poison.

For dealing with countless assassination attempts and various toxic substance experiment accidents from childhood, nothing was as convenient as the mental world.

‘I can change the surrounding world at will too.’

When Riser waved her hand once, the surroundings instantly transformed into Dang Family Village, the Dang clan settlement in Sichuan.

She hadn’t done it with any particular intention, but since it was the place she’d stayed longest since birth, she seemed to have unconsciously manifested it.

“Don’t touch it if you’re not buying.”

Coming to her senses, she found a middle-aged man glaring at Riser with an unpleasant expression.

The man’s gaze went to the fine brush in Riser’s hand.

When she turned her head with a puzzled expression, she saw ‘Dang Family Brush Shop’ written on the signboard. She must have been trying to buy a brush.

‘Pretty realistic.’

To reproduce not just the space but people too.

It seemed her skill at handling the mental world had improved without her knowing.

“I’ll buy it. How much?”

“Three taels of silver.”

Ridiculous. This is a world I created, so why do the prices exceed my imagination?

Riser put down the high-quality fine brush made of sable fur.

Of course, as a skilled mental world user, she could arbitrarily create three taels of silver…

But even in a mental world, she couldn’t become a sucker who’d burn three silver pieces on a single brush. This was a matter of principle.

‘I should buy dumplings instead.’

Riser purchased one spicy meat dumpling (/roubao) from a shop with the oddly unsettling name 【Dang Family Dumplings】. Fortunately, it was reasonably priced.

Then she chewed the dumpling thoughtfully.

‘A form that’s easy to divide or combine would be best.’

The innovative idea of filtering out only the impurities from the undigested elixir energy to recycle as poison energy.

How should she visualize this new internal energy operation method she’d named 【Eco-friendly Renewable Internal Energy System for a Sustainable Future】?

‘To cleanly filter pure energy from spiritual energy, solid forms would be more convenient than liquids. Gases are completely out of the question.’

But rock-hard forms wouldn’t work either.

They’d be inconvenient when mixing impurities and poison energy later.

‘A material that’s solid yet soft would be good. Something like clay…’

Soft.

Suddenly, Riser’s attention was drawn to the sensation touching her fingertips.

Warm, soft, and fluffy.

“…This is it!”

And so half a jiazi of Riser’s internal energy was replaced with freshly steamed meat dumplings.

A large bamboo steamer too big to embrace with both arms.

Opening the lid revealed fluffy, soft meat dumplings filling it completely, with white steam rising.

The appetizing appearance of the dumplings was so mouth-watering that Riser…

“Ahem.”

…felt slightly embarrassed.

There would be few, no, probably no martial artists who expressed their internal energy as meat dumplings.

‘There’s no need to use grandiose imagery, so…’

Not making excuses, but this humble mental image was much easier to handle than fighting dragons or waterfalls. It might lack style, but since they’re dumplings, they’d at least taste good.

“One, two… Good. Exactly thirty.”

Riser’s internal energy flowing along the conception and governing vessels was roughly half a jiazi.

Depending on the cultivation method, it’s usually the amount obtainable through 30 years of steady practice.

It was irrelevant to Riser who bought internal energy with money, but since there was no other unit to measure internal energy quantity, she decided to just borrow the numbers.

‘Next is the spiritual energy…’

Roughly checking her dantian, the undigested elixir energy was slightly over 2 jiazi.

In dumpling terms, a massive amount of ingredients equivalent to 120 pieces.

About half was destined never to become dumplings. But this time she had recycling plans, so it wasn’t regrettable.

Riser closed her eyes, decided to visualize the elixir energy, then slowly opened them.

A large cooking counter had suddenly appeared before her eyes.

‘Oops.’

An island counter with a marble top.

It even had a sink with running water and a cooktop.

Having done no kitchen work in this world as she was treated as precious despite being unwanted, she must have unconsciously recalled the modern kitchen she knew.

“…Thank goodness no one’s watching.”

The mental world was too strongly influenced by the unconscious.

This couldn’t be solved through training alone, requiring special attention.

“But this part came out as intended.”

Riser looked around the counter with a satisfied expression.

On one side, dumpling filling was kneaded in a stainless steel bowl the size of a washbasin, while on the opposite side, fermented flour dough was puffed up like a balloon in a wooden basin.

In other words, dumpling ingredients.

‘Soft solid forms are easy to divide or combine, and when completed, their quantity is easy to count.’

This was why she initially set the rule through mental imagery that her internal energy was ‘one year’s worth per dumpling.’

If internal energy was dumplings, then elixir energy had no choice but to become dumpling ingredients.

First, she enjoyed the long-missed sensation of thin streams of water patting her hands as she washed them clean.

‘Alright. Shall we begin?’

Riser rolled up her sleeves and began making dumplings in earnest.

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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