One minor critique: the transition from the childbirth to the lab activation was a bit abrupt. It felt like the lightning was a deus ex machina to introduce the system. But since the lab was established from her past life, it's not completely out of nowhere. I'll see how it's handled in future chapters.
The three companions are distinct enough even in a short scene. Iris is the gentle healer who gets teary, Rindou is the earnest hero trying to hide his feelings, and Lobelia is the cool sage with a dry wit. Their personalities shine through in just a few lines of dialogue. I like how Lobelia interrupts Iris’s innocent answer about reconstruction with “war” – it shows she’s the realist. Azami treating them like kids and Lobelia getting annoyed at that was funny and showed their dynamic.
The spiritual energy consumption issue is a nice source of tension. Su Xun can’t just cultivate freely; he has to budget spirit stones. It’s a resource management problem that adds a layer of strategy. He’s constantly balancing short-term cultivation gains against long-term world investment. That kind of decision-making makes the progression feel more tactical and less linear.