章 117: 16-18 Blueprint for Immortality: a Crafting Xianxia
Chapter 16: Refinement
Booker ducked into an alleyway on his way back to the Sect. In the space of a few minutes, the disguise of the masked physician was bundled away beneath his robes, wrapped around the herbs he'd bought from the market.
He made his way back into the Sect as an ordinary cripple, passing beneath the notice of the other disciples.
Alone in his room, he undertook the work of chopping, peeling, and treating the ingredients that he'd bought from the market. He'd expected it to be more difficult with his left hand, and it was but with the book's guidance, there was nothing impossible about doing a little alchemy with only one hand.
In his head, there was a ledger of receipts and prescriptions. Hairy wire root and sylvan blossom for headache, 6 silver. Rabbitbane and fire persimmon for impotence, 3 silver. Crowsfoot clover and butterfly wings for bad dreams, 4 silver.
He ran down the list.
All told the ingredients cost me 32 silver. And I'm charging…
128 silver. 400%.
The prices of the market were outrageous. Medicine was being sold at up to 8 times the cost of the herbs used to make it.
Of course, for the normal alchemists, costs were high. The average alchemist had a 2-in-3 success rate, meaning they would have to charge an extra 50% just to defray the costs of the 1 failed pill between the 2 successful ones. When you factored in the costs of maintaining a furnace and all the tools of alchemy, that was another 50%. The value of their own time spent making the pills would add another 50% easily. And to actually make a profit, another 50% was necessary.
All that should have set the cost around 300% of the base ingredients. But in the market, it was common to find alchemists selling pills for 600 to 800% of their value.
By comparison, Booker had none of those costs. He could form pills without a failure rate, and minimal effort. For him the endeavor was basically pure profit.
And it wasn't just a matter of making more money than other alchemists. He could price his pills lower than they could afford to, and sweep up all the business too.
But that would attract a lot of attention.
Better to keep my prices at something like 400% – something a generous alchemist could actually afford to offer.
In the end, he had assembled eight 'starter pills' – rough balls of gently molded ingredients. Taking one into his hand, he summoned the power of Furnace, and as fire wreathed through his fingers a perfectly round pill was born.
He repeated this action seven more times. The last time he'd stretched his capacities, five had been the limit, but now at eight he was only beginning to feel faint. I must have expanded my limits somehow. Maybe it was eating the soul-strengthening pill, or maybe it was uncovering the focus state.
Either way, he finished his work with energy to spare. The last pill he made was the hair-restoring pill for the clerk, and he had a secret ingredient to add:
Seven-Year Flower Syrup
Extract // Dull Quality
A common folk medicine produced by soaking flowers in sugar syrup for seven years.
Effects:
Alluring Fragrance (-)
Additional Effect: Reduce Toxicity by 5%.
When the pill was complete it smelled absolutely amazing, a rich dense mix of spices. And from the combination of the seven-year syrup and his careful work with the knife, the pill was totally free from Toxicity.
Never mind quantity; in this market, nobody can compete with me on quality either.
Sliding the pills into a bamboo tube he sealed it with wax dripped from a candle, and set it aside. With a heavy sigh he stretched his arms overhead. His day had gone largely as planned: Instructor Greenmoon was a nasty surprise, but his plans remained unchanged. He wanted to stay masterless as long as it took to complete Wild Swan's pill. Maybe by then it would be possible to mend things with Master Ping. Or maybe he would use his alchemy talents to secure a kinder instructor than Greenmoon.
Rising from his chair he stepped into the center of the room, and began to practice his forms. It had been a busy day and he already wanted to lie down, but his days were only going to get more complicated, so if he didn't follow his routine now, by that same logic he'd be letting it slip constantly going forward. It was worth being disciplined with himself on this matter.
When I'm a cultivator my life will depend on my strength. Practice is going to be everything.
His fists struck empty air, his feet danced against invisible blows. He switched easily from the Mantis clan's martial forms that Rain had practiced all his life into shadowboxing, his own preferred practice.
And it's not enough to be 'kinda good' or try 'sorta hard'.
This world is full of people who've practiced martial arts from day one.
A normal amount of dedication won't pull me ahead. I'll need to be superhumanly dedicated to make up for the fact I'm not superhumanly talented.
He moved until the sweat on his face was heavy and dripping down through his eyebrows, splashing against his eyes, blinking away the saline that pooled on his lower eyelid. He wiped it all away and sat down, breath heaving unsteadily in his chest.
As his breathing steadied and his pulse slowed, Booker found himself drifting in the post-exercise calm, when the adrenaline of the workout was just starting to fade off but still lent a sharpness to his thoughts. In that state, he tried to find his focus.
It was more difficult now than it had been in the hospital bed. His state of immobility-enforced concentration was now replaced with all the distractions of living a more-complicated-than-usual life.
But slowly he was able to let the tension shed from his shoulders, let his breathing flow clearly through his body, and reach a moment of focus. It lasted only for as long as it took Booker to notice he had entered the focus state.
Like I thought. It gets harder if you're actively seeking it; the realization you've found it will usually break you out of it.
But if you turn your attention to something else, you can slip into focus naturally…
Alright, book. Teach me about the herbs for the Seven-Times Purified Charcoal Pill. But only the ones that are likely to grow near the Sect.
The green book's pages flipped open.
It landed on the page for River Nerve Mandrake, a rare red-rooted mandrake that could scream in pain when it was plucked. Booker winced, but read on. The mandrake grew at the edge of rivers, where someone's body had landed after floating down the water. When a village was slaughtered by bandits and the river turned red, in three or four months there'd be a crop of River Nerve Mandrake, and it would sing from one plant to the next.
Booker grimaced but noted the name down. He'd have to check again at the library, but he was pretty sure the Sect knew of such a common root.
Unfortunately, that was the last of the possible ingredients that he could call 'common'. Everything else was difficult to lay hands upon. There were marrows from the bones of ancient pseudo-dragons, the tears of sacred serpents, trees of thousand year heritage, and other incredibly rare sources for Meridian Cleansing, but all of them were at the peak of what the book called Dull-Grade. In short, they exist at the peak of this Sect's lower levels. They might exist in the Sect's vaults, but they might not…
For the first time, Booker took out one of the true treasures he'd collected. The seal of authority from the Upper Sect disciple, the cultivator who had descended to fight the demonic ape, only to find a dead infant ape and an exhausted cripple who claimed to have killed it with a firework.
In retrospect I wonder if I already had Martial Intent then… He might have seen right through me.
Either way he gave me this.
If I'm unable to get the herbs from the Sect's repositories, I'll cash it out immediately to try and get the herbs sent down from the higher Sect. That's something I could never achieve otherwise, so it's definitely a worthy use.
One problem it can't solve, though.
My master.
I'm not sure what to do about that.
For a long time, Booker tried to enter the focus-state by pursuing the matter out, arguing this way and that, but he never found a resolution that seemed fitting or a chance to enter the focus-state.
He lay down, letting sleep wipe his troubles away.
— — —
He awoke the next day to the ringing of the bell.
It was a harsh, cold morning. The breakfast crowd was assembling in the freezing cold cafeteria to receive their daily dollop of congee. Mist hung in the courtyard outside his door, and the metal knob was covered in frost. Icicles dangled like hanging swords from the edge of the rooftops.
As the students assembled for breakfast, he spotted Little Snake through the crowd and made his way over.
"Brother Little Snake, how have you been."
"Brother Rain! I heard you were back on your feet!" The little disciple's face shone with enthusiasm. "You have to come back to the fighting ring – people know your name now, and want to bet on the Iron Cripple.."
"I can maybe do something like that." Booker scratched his neck. He'd taken it unhealthily far last time, but fighting did let him shed his stress.
Drinking or fighting… I have a habit of overdoing it…
"Listen, Little Snake. How much of your rice ration do you have?" Novices and disciples got a monthly ration of spiritual rice. It was small, but enough to eat only spiritual rice for one week out of the month, as long as you ate sparingly. The effects of spiritual food were much less obvious than cultivation pills, but there was said to be an effect of helping you break through your own barriers and achieve a step forward in cultivation.
So the ration was intended to give each student a week a month to prepare themselves to break through.
"Uh, nothing." Little Snake admitted, shrugging. "There was no rice ration this month."
Booker paused. He'd never heard of that happening before.
"I guess I'm not that in tune with the Sect's gossip." Booker said, rubbing his chin slightly. "Did anyone say why there was no ration?"
"Rumors all over." Little Snake replied. "Some say bandits on the road caught the grain wagon. Others are saying it disappeared out of the storehouse, or that it's some squabble between the Central Sect and the Eastern Branch."
The Eastern Branch grew almost all of the Sect's food, but lacked the strong city that Central Sect controlled. As such it was considered a rural outback full of hick half-cultivators. To say they resented that image was no small understatement.
The footing of this Sect is really unbalanced. A strong push could send everything tumbling.
"I'll see what the other cripples have to say." Booker said. "But if you can find anyone who still has their full week of rice, tell them I'll pay for it with medicine or cold hard silver."
Little Snake nodded. The breakfast line was coming together now, and Booker was obliged to shuffle to the back with the other cripples.
But this time when he made his way to the massive iron serving cauldron, the chef there chuckled, reaching into a smaller pot of fresher congee and spooning it generously into Booker's bowl. He tossed in pickled greens, chunks of bacon held together by grease, and the much-sought-after poached egg atop it all. "Chen Jie says the Iron Cripple eats like a patriarch today."
"Kh." Booker snorted. "That's such a hard nickname for doing such a dumb thing."
But he glanced back in line, catching Chen Jie's eye, and nodded his head gratefully.
As he took his seat, he smoothly slid Sister Mei's bowl aside and pushed his own bowl, loaded with extras, in front of her. Her eyes lit up. "Ooo, thank you. Elder sister greets her junior brother's gift with appreciation."
"It's nothing. Uh, but… I don't want to lead you on." Booker said. "I'm not interested in romance."
"Lead me on? You've been colder than a stone wall, I could've used some leading on at least." She rolled her eyes. "But you strike me as someone worth being friends with."
I appreciate the honesty. Sister Mei strikes me as someone who attaches herself to power, but she isn't a bad person. She really is my friend – even if her friendship comes with conditions. "Sister Mei's friendship is no small gift." He said.
"See, that's what I'm saying." She stabbed the egg and mixed the runny yellow yolk down into her congee. Booker felt his stomach revolt at the thought of skipping out on the best bowl of congee he'd seen in weeks.
Patience, patience. I'll be able to find spirit food somewhere else.
The alternative was going hungry for a full week. And while that was strictly possible, it was incredibly draining in terms of energy after the first few days, leaving the body running at a deficit. It wasn't very compatible with the lifestyle Booker was leading.
Moreover…
The book didn't give him quests for no reason. There was always something to be learned in the act of following the quest, be that studying a book or experimenting with pillmaking. If the book wanted him to eat spirit food for a week…
There must be some benefit to that even before completing the quest.
"Sister Mei, do you know why there was no rice ration this month?" He asked, consigning himself to sitting while everyone else ate, despite his rumbling stomach.
"Nobody believes them, and they're due to be whipped, but the cripples guarding the grain warehouse say the rice was delivered just fine, then somehow vanished during the night." Sister Mei said, waving a finger to the air. "I think if they were lying, they would have better lies than that. A cripple knows not to be without an excuse when trouble rolls downhill."
"Indeed, with the way things fall, we learn to duck and cover." Booker agreed. "Who were they?"
"Brothers Ming and Wei. They're being held in the seventh-east courtyard."
The courtyard where the Sect's enforcers keep their living quarters, and the punished are kept in stockades.
"I might have to pay them a visit and hear their story." Booker said casually.
"Mm, be careful. The enforcers think of us cripples as a mass of sticky hands and thieving eyes." Sister Mei immediately cautioned. "If they see you they might grab you as a conspirator. It might be better to visit them after."
"I'll be careful." Booker agreed. "But is there any promise of them surviving until 'after'?"
Being whipped is a pretty fucking brutal experience that can leave you bed-ridden for days. That's when a normal person is doing it. A cultivator could easily kill you, and it would be a torturous death.
"No, but with two of them… maybe one makes it through." Sister Mei didn't slow eating her congee, but her eyes were briefly downcast.
"Maybe I can tip the balance. But keep that between you and me." Booker withdrew from the table, walking quickly out of the hall. His schedule had just gotten one more stop on an already busy day. He made his way back to his rooms and pulled out the medicine boxes he'd stored there. They were still full of plenty of riches Booker had yet to use.
Earth-Sea Spirit Blossom
Powder // Dull Quality
Grown only on delta islands formed by a river joining the sea, these rare flowers carry the blessing of both the ocean and the land.
Effects:
Qi Recovery 15% (-)
Beast-Bone Meal
Powder // Dull Quality
Powder made from grinding the bones of vicious beasts. Frequently used to bind together cheap pills.
Toxicity and Potency 5% (-)
These were 'trash' pulls he'd gotten from prior boxes. Both of them were reasonably useful, but weren't much more than filler.
Concentrate of Stone Lion Liver
Extract // Dull Quality
Produced from the organs of a mountain-dwelling stone lion, a powerful predator that consumes the power of earth.
Effects:
Body Strengthening 10% (-)
Additional Effect: Earth-Type Cultivation Boosts contained within this medicine also provide Body Strengthening equal to their full value.
This was an actual prize, something he thought had the potential to be overwhelmingly valuable to him. Body Strengthening was a route to power that didn't rely on his crippled cultivation. If he could accumulate enough of it, he'd be able to fight on even terms.
The only restriction was it required Earth-Type Cultivation Boosts from other ingredients to shine.
And Booker had precisely none of those.
Wind-Song Palace Razorgrass
Intact // Earth Quality
Growing in delicate, glass-like stalks, this tough grass is sharp enough to cut through skin with ease. When the wind rises, it cuts against the grass and produces beautiful, mournful music.
Effects:
Cultivation Boost 10% (Metal)
Cultivation Boost 10% (Sky)
Sharpened Perception 25% (+)
Toxicity 15% (-)
Azure-Sea Coral Dust
Powder // Earth Quality
A root prized by wild bulls for its… stimulating effects. Hunters use trained steers to root out clusters, selling them to cultivators.
Cultivation Boost 10% (Water)
Blue-Fire Glassfruit
Intact // Earth Quality
A translucent fruit, the structures of pale blue luminescence within resembling a frozen candleflame.
Qi Recovery 20% (-)
Cultivation Boost 10% (+)
Body Strengthening 10% (Fire)
Fire Resistance 20% (+)
These were all the Elemental herbs Booker had gotten from his prize boxes.
And besides those…
Green Banded Mushroom
Intact // Dull Quality
Named for the green and brown rings around its puffball body, this mushroom is famous for its ability to instill cultivation in the wild pigs that dine on it, leading to it being called 'Demon Boar Pustule' in some provinces.
Qi Recovery 10% (+)
Toxicity 20% (-)
Cultivation Boost 5% (+)
Potency 5% (-)
Petrified Amber-Bound Mosquito
Intact // Earth Quality
A tiny insect preserved in hardened tree sap, like a crystalline window into the nature of the past. Contains decades of accumulated qi with a nature born of passing time.
Cultivation Boost 10% (-)
Longevity Increase 1% (+)
Qi Recovery 20% (-)
Potency and Toxicity 10% (+)
Crimson Dew Snapdragon
Intact // Dull Quality
Flowers born where blood has been shed. Frequently gathered around slaughter houses.
Painkilling 25% (-)
Qi Recovery 10% (+)
Toxicity 20% (+)
Potency 10% (+)
Hellsheart Lily Extract
Extract // Earth Quality
The pollen and nectar of a lily that only blooms at the heart of demonic corruption within the land.
Demonic Cultivation 10%
Additional Effect: Change any Cultivation Boosts to Demonic Cultivation of the same value.
Fragrant Mountain Peach
Intact // Dull Quality
A rare peach from a tree that gathered wind-swept energies of the heaven in its branches, high atop a mountain ridge.
Moderate Healing (-)
Potency 5% (-)
Toxicity Purge 10% (-)
Alluring Fragrance (-)
The last one was such a treasure Booker had trouble not eating it right away, just to see how it tasted.
But there was one more thing: Booker had bought herbs from the market place the first time he'd visited. They were Greentoe Root, Balmflower, Weaver's Nettle, and Old Oak-Eye Berries. The Balmflower in particular was a strong painkiller.
Balmflower
Intact // Dull Quality
A flower prized for relieving suffering. Toxic in large doses.
Painkilling 20% (-)
Potency 5% (-)
Toxicity 20% (-)
Toxicity 10% (-)
Now, he mixed Balmflower with Stringent Nettle from the garden, creating a mixture that would harden the skin and toughen the body against pain. But that mixture had a high toxicity. He could cut the poisonous stamen away from the balmflower to remove part of the Toxicity while the Stringent Nettle's own Toxicity had a negative interaction with the 10%, neutralizing it. But he also wanted to add in Crimson Dew Snapdragon to further the painkilling effects.
Adding in Green Banded Mushroom would neutralize the 20% Toxicity while adding Potency. He would cut away the Balmflower's native Potency to keep it from negating the Potency of the Green Banded Mushroom, while cutting away the Allergic Reaction from the Nettle. The Crimson Dew Snapdragon would even activate the Stringent Nettle's Potency. He then added Beast Bone Meal for filler.
He did all this and portioned it into two piles.
The end result was two vibrant green pills that smelled of moss.
Stringent Nettle (Peeled)
x
Balmflower (Chopped)
x
Red Dew Snapdragon
x
Green Banded Mushroom
x
Beast Bone Meal
=
Rhinoceros Invulnerability Pill (Dull)
24% Potency // 13% Toxicity
Effect:
Toughens the skin and grants great resilience to pain. Has a minor regenerative effect on Qi.
Booker smiled, but there was one last touch.
The actual whipping would happen at dusk the day after the investigation concluded. He didn't have the luxury of delivering the pills five minutes before the event – that was when they'd be most tightly watched. But the book had a trick in it…
Painting a pill with wax to delay its effects!
Many alchemists had encountered this problem before, and they solved it by coating the pill with just enough wax or resin for it to survive an hour or two in the belly as that outer coating dissolved away.
Dripping his candle into a shallow dish, Booker applied the finishing coat with a paintbrush.
When it came to alchemy, the book really was priceless. It didn't just contain the recipes, but the techniques and tricks of generations of alchemists.
Standing up, Booker slipped the two pills into a vial.
Now I just need to go get Snips…
— — —
Returning to the courtyard where the medicine dealers did their business, Booker strode up to them, nodding to the disciples who stood on all sides warily observing him for signs of trouble. He bowed his head respectfully to the three dealers. "Junior brother greets his Elder Brothers and Sisters."
"See? Obedient as anything. I don't know why you think he's mouthy, Yuxuan." The girl immediately declared, taking no time in ribbing the blonde-headed young man.
"Caihong, you know absolutely nothing about this loathsome vermin, which is all the better for you. He's not worth your breath wasted speaking to him." Yuxuan spat out, glaring daggers at Booker.
"Temper, temper. This much hate and you'll be accused of having an unnatural fixation on him." Bowl Cut chided with a mocking tone. "Or do cripples turn your wheels, Yuxuan?"
"My ingredients?" Booker asked, impatiently. Their perpetual jabbing at each other was tiring just to watch.
"Right." The girl – Caihong – looked past him and nodded to a thug. The disciple stepped up and shoved a sack into Booker's hands. Looking inside, he saw his ingredients were there, although not particularly well-treated. They had been lumped into a pile.
"You still haven't told me what they're for." Caihong said, leaning towards him.
Because I don't intend to. But Booker caught the look in her eye and considered his words carefully. In the end, the more he resisted giving a partial truth, the more likely she'd be to decide she cared enough to have his secrets ripped out of him.
"I'm using them as fodder to learn refining." Booker said in an even, steady voice.
As far as she knows, that answer makes perfect sense. All of the ingredients are low-cost medicines with an elemental attribute: the ideal fodder for refinement training.
"Is that all?" She let out a disappointed sigh. "And here we thought you might be interesting."
"Well, Elder Brothers and Sisters, I'm sorry to disappoint." He turned and stepped away. I see what my master meant by parasites in the Sect. These people aren't just exploiting the Sect, they take every opportunity they can to dig into new hustles. They're not onto my secret at all, they're just probing to see if I have any income streams they can get their hands into.
— — —
Once he'd collected his ingredients, Booker went to his room and carried out the medicine boxes. At first, he was worried about walking the halls with such a wealth of treasures on him, but the more he thought about it, the more totally unnoticeable a cripple carrying a non-descript chest was.
Sure enough, nobody even looked his way as he hauled the two boxes out and set them on a cart he'd rented. They rolled off into the city and Booker was smiling, feeling the wind of the early morning in his hair and smelling the rich aromas of the city's cookery stalls heating up their little clay ovens.
On the way, they stopped in a market and Booker bought a load of fresh pottery clay to add to the cart. When they arrived and Booker paid the cart driver, he slid the boxes into his little apartment.
It was a huge relief off his mind to no longer have incriminating evidence sitting around.
Froggy, however, seemed a little concerned by the move. The yellow-backed frog had slowly been growing his missing leg back, and had learned to move around the room on only three legs. Now he gazed warily at the new apartment, staring at the shadowy, cobwebbed corners of the room. His tongue flickered out along his rubbery lips. Booker could almost tell what the creature was thinking.
"You've got your work cut out for you here, yep." Booker said, sitting down on the bare floor.
His belly was empty, but he still had plenty of energy for what came next.
It was time for refining.
Refining was an alchemical process that took one property and exchanged it for another. The possible new properties were drawn from a pool that depended on the original property, with different possible outcomes depending on the uncontrollable minutia of the heat and freshness of the ingredients and a million other small factors that made it basically random.
But one thing was definitely true – more refinements meant better possible properties.
It also meant you needed a better technique: weaker techniques could only refine a few times, with high probabilities of losing the ingredients at every step. The Thunder Neutralization Jar was a massively valuable treasure in and of itself – it let a non-cultivator refine up to the 3rd level! The amount of value you could draw from low valued ingredients and relatively weak workers was immense: you could simply brute force common ingredients into gold.
But that's not here or now.
Here and now, I need to get my refinement rate up to 50 or 60% so I have a reasonable chance of reaching the third refinement stage.
He eyed the clay oven in his backyard, grabbing wood and tinder from the woodbox to throw inside. A snap of his fingers and the thought Furnace lit the oven, setting the fuel ablaze and making huge flames lick up to the ceiling. As he waited for things to burn down into manageable coals, Booker grabbed the first hunk of clay and let his hands run over the solid, soggy mass, shaping it into a ball.
How hard could this be?
Chapter 17: Pottery and Alchemy
Booker had exactly one high school project worth of experience working with clay. He had made a mug. And he'd made it by rolling out long, thin coils of clay, then winding them into a spiral base and stacking them in rings along the outer edge, then using pinching and careful fingerwork to combine the coils into solid walls for the mug.
Booker rolled the clay between his hands, trying to make a steady, even cylinder. The base of his vessel was nothing but a spiral, long tubes of clay laid out end to end. Whenever he needed to join two coils, he'd scratch crosshatch marks into the clay with a knife, then use the added friction to smush the two coils into each other.
Once the base was laid out, he began to stack circles of clay atop it, forming walls.
The difficult part would be firing it in the oven, when any defects in the walls, any thin points formed by careless fingers, would split and fragment the entire jar. Considering the finished vessel had to reach the highest temperatures the oven could produce for the refinement process to work, glazing and firing would be the real trial.
He spent five hours there, slowly shaping and forming the clay. As he piled up coils of clay, he would smooth them together into the walls of the vessel, slowly making the pot taller and taller. It didn't need to be big at all. Just enough for the refinement material, a little dirt, and coals from the oven.
Still, it took the better part of three hours to make the first jar.
By then, the oven had burned down its fuel supply to coals, leaving a hot bed of glowing orange ash that provided a steady heat.
Booker dropped back into the grass, letting the sweat trickle down his face as he watched a beetle crawl along the earth. Somehow, that one pot had felt more difficult than the delicate works of alchemy his master had him working on…
Thank the book. He thought. I can't measure the ways it's helped me…
Looking at the muddy jar in his hands, he grinned. But there's something fun to doing this without the book's help.
Before it could be fired, the pot needed to be glazed. This was close enough to alchemy that the book did contain recipes for it – alchemical glazes that could let the pottery dry quicker, become harder, or even take on strange colors.
But for me, all I need is for it to withstand the heat of the oven for as long as possible.
He rolled onto his feet, setting the jar aside. "Froggy, watch over that for me, will you? Snips, let's take a walk." The mantis buzzed down from a tree in an arc of pink wings, landing neatly on his shoulder.
Smiling, Booker washed the clay off his hands in a bucket of ice-cold well water, and set out for the medicine market.
— — —
Booker was careful as he approached the market. There was a danger here, even if it was only theoretical.
The Sect took very little notice of the petty alchemists who competed in the market, as their own alchemists stood at the head of the lot. Most of the alchemists from outside the Sect were experts from distant cities, or their pupils. The appearance of a strange masked man would certainly stir the gossip here, but it wasn't thatunusual – he could be an outlaw or an outcast from another city, trying to make a clean start. This was a common background among the petty alchemists.
But if I go too far, that math changes.
By comparison, a stranger with an alchemy technique better than the Sect's was in for some real pain and trouble. At best, the Sect would assume they were something between a spy and an ambassador from another city – someone sent to keep an eye and an ear out for another power. This assumption would be best for Booker because it would offer him a degree of protection, a second thought before they took any action against him.
Worse, they could assume he was an exile from another Sect or cultivation power. Exile was an exceptionally rare punishment for cultivators – death was almost always preferred, because an exile would carry your secrets and methods to another city, while a dead man would be conveniently silent.
But for the Sect that caught an exile, fortunes would surely be dancing in their eyes. An exile was like a pinata full of powerful secrets.
Flex my alchemy too proudly, and they'll start to believe I'm someone worth paying attention to. Then it'll be a question of whether they think it's worth the risk to have me interrogated…
Booker wanted to head that off. So he'd decided to make a habit of scouting the market for watchers before 'officially' arriving in his role as the mysterious masked physician.
If anything's changed, if there are suddenly more guards about, I'll know not to show up that day.
While covertly scanning the market, more to get himself used to the normal sights and rhythms than expecting to catch sight of anything unusual, Booker bought the ingredients for his alchemical pottery glaze: Ground feldspar crystals, which had become a honey-brown dust. Ashes from burnt flesh, which he purchased by the scoopful from an old woman with shaking hands, choosing goat from the selection of goat, chicken, and pig ashes. And milk-soft lead, a special magical substance that dripped like mercury from the seller's spoon, filling up a vial. Considering what he knew about lead, Booker was hesitant to even breathe until the vial was stopped up.
At the same time, he counted guards, memorized faces, and tried to get a feel for the pulse of the market.
There definitely were guards– but not from the Sect. They patrolled past, wearing the feathered cap and armored blue robes of the City Lord's men.
Compared to the Sect, the City Lord really was far from Booker's mind. The old man was powerful, but not paranoid or jealous of power like the Sect. His journey down the ceaseless road of cultivation was clearly a second concern to watching over the little civilization he had built. Accordingly, the people loved him.
Booker bowed his head respectfully as he passed the guards.
Looks like the coast is clear.
On the way back, a quick visit to a small store yielded a dozen small cooking implements, such as sieves and whisks, that he would need for this and other alchemy experiments.
Returning to his shack, Booker laid out his acquisitions on the countertop.
He dumped the ashes into a bowl, adding water from the well to make a slurry. He whisked the mixture vigorously to stir out the lumps, producing a still-watery mixture into which he mixed the crushed crystal and lead paste, lending a gleaming silvery-dark color to the finished clear glaze.
This is going above and beyond. The first glazes were nothing but ash falling from the top of the oven and coating the pottery. But if I want good results, fast, I'd better be willing to go the extra mile.
He mixed further, then grabbed a sieve and forced it through to absolutely finesse the finished product into a smooth, consistent texture. Alchemy equipment wasn't so different from cookware, and you could make do with the contents of a well-stocked kitchen.
Hell this whisk is just a bundle of sticks tied together. If I had a modern kitchen, I could revolutionize alchemy, book or no book.
Happy with that thought, Booker took the glaze outside to coat the pot with.
There, he paused and glanced around, realizing he hadn't seen the gold-backed frog since he returned. "Froggy? Where are you?"
There was a croak. For a moment Booker tilted his head, trying to figure out where it had come from. Then he realized – the frog had crawledinside the oven, a small frog-shaped shadow inside the flickering and dancing of the flames.
"Ohhh. Of course, you're a fire-type froggy. You're probably most comfortable in a nice fire..." Booker shook his head, shaking off the moment of worry where he'd thought the frog had somehow died. "I guess I haven't really been taking the best care of you, if I didn't think of something obvious like that. Sorry lil guy. I've just been busy– busy getting beaten to a pulp, among other things."
The frog let out a deep, ribbiting croak. Blue flames vented from its back and shot through the fire of the oven, forming a billowing flow of azure blue within the red.
"Hmm." Booker snapped his fingers. "Hey froggy, you stay in there, and when I say go, I want you to raise the heat." The frog croaked again.
Going back to his bowl of pottery glaze, Booker washed the pot in it, making sure to coat every surface within and without. He set it inside the oven, feeding a few more logs onto the flames while being careful not to squash Froggy. "Alright, give it your best! Go!"
Blue flame washed through the oven as Froggy let out a belching warcry. The alchemical glaze would help the pottery cure faster than normal, leeching out the moisture as the heat activated it. The resulting material would be stronger than stone, a super-refined earth without any flaws that would crack it open under high heat.
Or at least… I hope so…
It would be hours before he knew for sure.
In that time, Booker needed to head back to the market and continue his act as the mysterious physician. Bundling the cloak and mask under his arm, he departed the shack as himself, walked about halfway to his destination, and changed into costume.
When he arrived the old clerk glanced up, grinning a slightly devious smile. He had an assistant today, a short young man who might have been his grandson. "You there! I've got something to show, oh yes I do. You brought the pill, yes?"
"Of course." Booker reached into his pocket and drew out the vial of pills, rolling the fragrant milk-white pill out into his palm. "This will cure–"
"Nevermind that, nevermind that." The old man snapped. "You said the old pills were poisoning me, didn't you? And that I needed to switch to your medicine right away, right?" His dark eyes gazed accusingly. "Well, I got about halfway to my house before I thought: say, that's a pretty good way to sell yourself. Accusing some other alchemist of being a hack and swooping in to the rescue."
"It made a convenient way for me to introduce myself, I'll admit." Booker said, his voice modified by a wad of bitter herbs he chewed. The whole of his throat tingled whenever he took them.
"Well, I'm no fool. So I paid a visit to the City Lord and borrowed this." He took out a leather and brass case, snapping open the claps and flipping the lid back. Revealed within was a pair of calipers made of ivory, set on a black velvet padding.
Booker grinned. His book recognized what this was.
Calipers were a kind of measuring tool, a pair of tongs with a measuring stick that gave you an object's diameter. But these ones were tipped with small shards of lightning spirit stone. Lightning would make a gentle current through the object you placed between those tongs, and the spiritual lightning was deeply reactive to the element of toxicity, causing it to lose energy. That energy would otherwise light up another small spirit stone set into the haft. The more the spirit stone shined, the less energy was lost, therefor the less toxicity was in the measured object.
When the book explains it like that, even magical treasures seem like simple sciences applied to a problem.
I wonder, did the other fifteen books include ways of creating magical treasures? It seems like the book's creator knew a lot about them.
But he snapped himself back to the present moment and said, "I have no objections to you measuring the pill. Did you bring the other alchemist's medicine as well?"
"Of course." The old clerk brought out a vial of dust gray pills. "I'll measure both and see who I believe after that. And just to make things more interesting–" He slapped his assistant on the back of the head. "You! Go fetch up a crowd. Tell them I'm making a demonstration. And fetch Alchemist Frostraven too, his work is being judged here so he should make an appearance."
The assistant turned to scurry off, but Booker held up a hand and stepped in his path. "Please don't make me enemies within the market. I don't want trouble from Alchemist Frostraven."
The clerk snorted. "Hh! If it's what you said, he almost poisoned me, and we should run him out at once. And if you're lying, he deserves to know what's being spread about his name."
Booker hesitated, then let the boy pass.
Unfortunately his logic is pretty solid. It won't make me many friends among the other alchemists, but it will bring in clients through the show.
Slowly a crowd trickled in, drawn by the promise of a show. With no television or radio, and half of them illiterate, entertainment of any sort had a high value in the city.
Through the crowd pushed a short man with a lined face, a small stature, and a roaring temper. "You fucking masked imbecile you tried to steal my clients!?" He rushed at Booker, jabbing a finger towards his chest. "I'll have you killed."
But at that point, blue-robed guards had already stepped out and grabbed him, pulling him back.
"No you won't!" The clerk snapped. "Not until I'm done. Now, one of you two –"
The guards let Frostraven free, and the man furiously brushed his sleeves clean and fixed his tiny, pointy goatee back into order, pinching it back into a spike with his fingers.
"One of you two is lying. One says take this medicine, one says, it's killing me…" The clerk said, his finger pointing at Booker then traveling over to Frostraven. "And I intend to find out who. If this motherfucker is lying, Frostraven, you won't have to kill him. I'll have him hanged for theft. But if you've fucking poisoned me–"
He sat down without finishing the threat.
Frostraven was sweating, Booker noticed. The man probably knew his work was sloppy – he'd probably not realized it had almost amounted to a poisoning.
"I ah, don't think we need to be that harsh on this stranger. A little known effect of my pills is a slight blackening of the veins. It certainly looks like toxicity imbalance, so one can forgive him, perhaps, for making the mistake." Frostraven said, nervously glancing back to the test.
"I'm happy to take the test." Booker said. "So long as this man isn't hung for a mistake."
"What? Are you– you self-righteous twat! Go ahead then, test them. This imbecile can't do better than me!" Frostraven's face twitched with rage as he realized Booker was moving to protect him.
The clerk looked at them in confusion. By Booker's guess, this was the opposite of what he expected to see. "Well…" He grumbled. "Alright then."
Setting Booker's pill on a small platform, he pressed the calipers down around it. As the crystals made contact with either side there was a faint humming sound, and the crystal on the grip began to glow. Faintly at first, then brighter, and brighter, until it was shining brilliantly.
Frostraven's face sunk. He had probably seen these calipers used before, and knew that kind of result meant impeccable work.
The clerk seemed stunned, his mouth hanging open. "It's ah– ah– It's pure as gold."
"My work is good." Booker said.
"I uh…" Frostraven screwed up his face, biting back his words, but as the clerk reached for his pill with the calipers he suddenly belted out, "No wait! I didn't make that pill!"
The old clerk paused. "This is the pill you sold me, isn't it?"
"I um, allowed an apprentice the chance to make those pills. They must have made a mistake." Frostraven's face was totally pale and his voice was a whisper. People were beginning to jeer, and it was easy to lose his words entirely in the sound of the crowd.
"You old bat! You almost poisoned me!" The clerk stood up. "Take a good look at this, people, take a good look at what he tried to sell me!" He grasped the pill in the calipers and the crystal dimly flickered. With a snort, the clerk threw it to the ground. "This is trash! Guards, seize him!"
"Hey, he made a mistake– there's no need for him to be hanged over this." Booker said, trying to speak over the sound of Frostraven wailing as the guards grabbed him.
God, the punishments here are draconian.
"Fine, fine." The clerk waved his hand. "You want to be generous, we'll do this generous. I'll ask the judge to exile him instead."
The guards pulled Frostraven away, and Booker scowled.
"Everyone, be careful! There are predators everywhere – but there are diamonds in the rough too. I hear this masked alchemist still has space on his waiting list! They could see you in less than a day, and I've never seen a purer medicine!" The clerk called out to the crowd.
I'll have to remember – city officials around here, even minor ones, have a lot of power to wield the guard against you. Pissing off even a clerk can have consequences.
"Thank you, sir. That pill really will cure your medical issues entirely." Booker said to the clerk. But any reply was cut off as a nervous merchant shoved his way forward, grasping Booker's gloved hands.
"Merciful sir, I've been having the worst pain in my legs, it keeps me up all night…"
"Come along then. I'll take a look at you over at my tent." Nodding gratefully to the clerk, Booker led his new acquaintance over to the medical tent and sat him down, examining the leg. It looked like a case of gout or another swelling disease.
"I'll have the prescription ready for you by tomorrow. Something to bring the inflammation down." Booker said, opening the tent's flap to peer outside. There was a long line assembling. Some were the clients he'd promised medicine yesterday, but others were new patients
I don't know whether it'll bring good or bad, but that clerk sure whipped up attention around me.
I'll be busy all day.
— — —
Booker broke away from the market when the sun was just beginning to sink towards dusk. The promotional benefit of the testing challenge had brought him nearly a dozen customers, and his head was spinning as he tried to keep their conditions and the medicines they needed straight.
He made his way back to the shack, changing costumes halfway, and arrived in time to pull the pot out of the oven. It was completely cracked. A single massive tear had ripped down its side, blasting the walls apart into thick shards. The glaze had turned the raw red-brown clay a vibrant green color, but it was nothing but pretty-colored fragments.
Damn.
Below, his stomach grumbled. It had been more than a day since he'd eaten. There was no spiritual rice on the horizon, so it was looking like the start of a seven-day fast.
Sitting there, gazing at his pottery shards, feeling his empty stomach cramp, Booker sighed and sat down. Closing his eyes, he sought the focus state.
I've learned a lot. This day wasn't a waste. It wasn't. I can't expect to demolish every problem in one try, even with the book's help. If I start getting impatient – if I start expecting instant results – I'll just frustrate myself.
So what have I learned…
I think I made the walls too thin. Thicker walls will stand up to the high heat better. I can also raise the heat slower, thanks to Froggy, so I should try that with him.
And at the market…
I learned that I might not like the City Lord's justice. If I hadn't asked for leniency, it's very possible that man would have been executed. I can't deny he was dangerously incompetent, but…
But I also cultivated a reputation. People know me now…
Hmm.
The best thing now would be to stop giving tailored service. Instead, if I could come up with a product everyone finds useful, I could sell it in bulk. Assistants could handle that, and I'd be freeing up time while keeping my profit high.
My time is valuable. I only have a scant few years to really leap forward in cultivation before my body starts to age out of its prime. But if I can break through quickly, I'll stay young forever.
What else do I need more of…
Time, money. Information.
Maybe the solution to my problem is simple. If I use the Apprentice Page to absorb a book on pottery from the Sect library, won't have an instant hit of knowledge?
He looked at the broken shard in his hand and grinned.
Yeah, that could work.
— — —
In the seventh eastern courtyard of the Sect, there were heavy metal cages that held prisoners awaiting trial. Even being put in these cages meant that the investigation being done was focused on you, and the Sect would surely find you guilty of something, if only to save face. The best you could hope for in that situation was for them to find very little, and give you a cursory punishment.
But for a cripple, even a cursory punishment could be deadly.
Booker paused in the next courtyard over, taking out a tiny piece of folded paper and tucking the two moss-green pills inside. He kept a careful eye out behind him, kept behind the cover of a tree in the courtyard, and listened acutely; every laugh and murmur echoing through the Sect was potentially a threat, someone headed his way.
He had to finish this stealthily.
Snips buzzed down off his shoulder and took the paper. "Go to the next courtyard. Give that paper to the people in the cages while nobody is looking. And come back with the paper they give you. But don't let anyone see you except the people in the cages."
He had folded the edges of the paper to make a little pocket, and tucked both a second folded piece of paper and a fingernail-sized fragment of charcoal inside.
Snips took it and flew up, over the top of the Sect's walls. Booker waited patiently, relaxing and looking like he was meditating under the tree.
Soon enough, Snips buzzed down.
The letter Booker sent had been simple: "Brothers, I am sending you medicine. Take this one hour before you are to be whipped. In exchange, please tell me everything about the disappearance from the warehouse."
The letter he received was equally simple.
"BROTHER, ONE THOUSAND THANKS. WE ARE INNOCENT. THE WAREHOUSE JOB WAS SILENT, HAPPENED AFTER THE DOORS WERE SEALED, AND THEY KNEW WHEN THE GUARDS WOULD CHECK. IT HAPPENED AFTER THE LAST CHECK OF THE NIGHT."
Booker gazed at it for a moment, then tucked it into his pocket. It was time to go.
Chapter 18: Greenmoon's Trial
Booker awoke slowly, feeling something foul in the back of his mouth. He leaned over and coughed up black tar across the floorboards.
Oh god…
The book flipped open, revealing a page on pill toxicity. As his head swum with a nauseating dizziness, Booker took it in. His fast was actually an excellent way to remove pill toxicity, as consuming only spiritual food would keep any new toxins from entering the body, allowing a chance for your wounded system to recover. It was like soldiers fighting at the frontlines – a moment of relief between waves was a heaven-sent intermission.
So basically, this fast is going to let me purge things lodged in my system…
And the purging isn't going to be fun.
Scowling, Booker wiped his lips and staggered over to the basin to wash out his mouth. Snips balanced on the basin's edge, eating a moth bite by slow bite. Booker watched with a nature-documentary fascination as the legs twitched throughout, the tiny creature somehow still alive with half its head missing.
"Is it gonna be that kinda day?" Booker asked to nobody in particular.
A boom of thunder on the horizon answered him, a gust of wind rattling the shutters of his window.
"Okay, okay…"
He dressed and shaved himself with the precision of days spent in the exact same routine. Being 'Rain' was getting easier, even as Rain's life got more complicated. Anyone who would notice the shift in his mannerisms had already noticed, but apparently they chalked it up to a new direction in life or some lucky secret break. Such things were not unknown.
The only real worry is Rain's sister coming back.
She knew Rain as more than a cipher – she knew him from the day he was born.
Not only would she be hard to fool, I don't particularly want to be in the position of lying to her. Nor is telling her the truth the best idea. So honestly…
I'd like to get out of here before she comes back from the frontlines.
Rain's sister, Song, had been a star of the Sect. Not quite on par with Wild Swan's clear genius and dominance from a young age, she had instead progressed her cultivation slowly, but showed such talent for fighting that she could topple opponents of a higher stage.
In fact, Rain standing up after three blows from a cultivator was now frequently added to her accomplishments – the blood of the Valley tribe was so strong, even a crippled member of their family couldn't be brought down.
Booker smiled gently. Rain would be proud of the life I'm living.
And me? Myself? I'm proud as fuck. I've done so much shit…
I guess I've just broken myself out of…
Of whatever makes you stumble or stop before telling a lie, or throwing yourself into dangerous situations. It's not entirely a good thing to be missing.
But now that I don't have it, it's incredible what I can do.
And in the end, with all the gifts I've been given – the book, a second life, another world – damn straight I'm going to make good with them. Anything less would be a failure.
He brushed his teeth with a stick of antiseptic wood, using a knife to shave away the portion he'd used yesterday and reveal fresh green wood underneath, sticky with antibacterial sap. It tasted like mint but far more bitter, and left his tongue oddly numb. That last bit he'd actually started to enjoy. It left him feeling minty fresh, like he'd just chewed a piece of ice.
There was a knock on the door. Snips shot off the basin and buzzed around to land on his shoulder.
Booker raised an eyebrow, but opened the door without expecting any great harm.
Standing on the other side was an alchemist's apprentice. One of the three from Greenmoon's procession at the market. Instantly, Booker read the situation. This is a recruitment call. Time to fight kicking and screaming to avoid Greenmoon.
"Hey little Junior Brother, while your master is away Instructor Greenmoon will be graciously educating you as an alchemist. And he's sent me here to be your minder, so don't make me say anything twice and we'll get along." The bald disciple dipped his head in a rough nod, as much of a bow was due to a cripple.
Damn, Master Ping went away? There goes my first and best shield against this recruitment effort. I wonder how long he'll be gone for…
But it also sounds like he hasn't formally disowned me. That means… maybe there's hope yet.
What he said was, "Junior Brother greets Elder Brother. Can I make you some tea?" As he stepped aside and allowed the disciple into his apartment.
"No thanks. We've got to be going soon." The disciple shook his head. "Master Greenmoon keeps a tight schedule and I'm already off-course getting you."
"Do we just skip breakfast?" Booker asked, already feeling apprehensive.
"No of course not. But we don't eat slop from the communal pot. We cook our own." The disciple held up a finger. "First lesson: Attending to Master Greenmoon is a full time job. Forget the rhythms of the Sect. We run at our own pace."
"I understand." Booker said neutrally. "Consider me an empty jar, ready to receive wisdom."
The disciple raised an eyebrow, as if faintly sensing sarcasm, but said, "Alright, well, come on."
Inwardly, Booker thought, It's best to make the worst impression I can without being whipped. No bungling an order, but do everything slightly subpar, rub everyone a little wrong – don't be a failure, be a trying-too-hard. Make it funny to run me through all this, watch me try as hard as possible, and then refuse to give me the job.
They walked through courtyards, through the stately shaded walkways of the Sect, and to a smaller compound that branched off across a small garden walkway into a pagoda. There, opening the door, Booker stepped into total chaos.
It was a large room, and well-furnished, but it could barely contain the people inside it.
Two disciples were arguing over a pot of congee, while a third desperately rearranged furniture, moving at a whirlwind pace to gather peaches and pears fallen from a bowl, gathering them up in his arms while he scrambled about on his knees.
Every single person in the room was shouting and none of them seemed to be having the same argument:
"– you shit eating motherfucker he doesn't want it sweet he wants it savory –"
"– you're overcooking the duck and your fucking mother is a whore so shut up –"
"– would you idiots stop and look at the state of this place he is going to kill us –"
The disciple leading booker sighed, looked back to him, and said, "It isn't always like this." Then he stepped forward and shouted, "HEY YOU, MOTHERFUCKERS!"
The other three disciplines snapped their heads around on a swivel. "You, stop killing that duck. You, throw out that sauce and start a new one, FAST, before the duck goes cold. You, why the fuck did you knock over the fruit to begin with."
"Sorry."
"Sorry!"
"I didn't–"
A threatening glare cut off the last one, and he amended it to,
"Sorry."
Instantly the room was remanded into diligent silence, rushing to complete their tasks with a hurried pace. The disciples sniffed, waving to Booker. "See? They just need a little direction."
Right – they've been trained to rely on someone shouting orders, and they fall apart without that pressure. Not exactly something I'd advertise.
"Of course." Booker said.
"Grab that pan." The instruction came, and Booker followed, grabbing a cast-iron pan over a hot stove. "Stir, and don't stop."
Booker followed suit. Beside him, sweating over a pan, the bruised apprentice he'd rescued two days ago was floundering at an egg crepe. Scooping the rapidly-forming egg to one side, he gestured to a nearby chopping board. "Make yourself useful, chop some mushrooms."
"One side."
"Add more wine to that."
"Why is this taking so long?"
"Move over."
Booker was shouldered from one task to the next, a concert of chaos unfolding around him as they jockeyed and argued. Everything he lay hands on, he sabotaged just a little, chopping the mushrooms unevenly and overpouring wine until he was stopped.
It looked like a trainwreck, but it delivered a finished product that was second to none. A beautifully pale egg-and-scallion crepe wrapped around bean sprouts and mushrooms, alongside a perfectly cut breast of duck, an oblong diamond of flesh grading from a sizzling brown outside to a deep pink interior, all drizzled in a savory sauce.
Not that Booker hadn't tried. His hands had been slapped away from miscutting the duck, oversalting the sauce, burning the omelet, and everything else he could think of.
"Alright, make yourself something." Taking the plate, the head apprentice carried it upstairs – unlike Rain's apartment, this one was two-storied and significantly larger.
The apprentices relaxed, slouching into chairs and taking a moment to breathe.
Suspicious glares settled on Booker.
"You, why in hell does the master want a cripple about?" The shortest of the apprentices demanded. He was small but broad-shouldered, and the shaved hairstyle mandated for novices did him no favors, revealing a broad and uneven skull that made him look like a gargoyle.
Gargoyle is a good enough name.
"I heard you're supposed to be an alchemy genius or something." The one Booker had saved from a beating the other day was small and slight. Yet to receive the added height of his teenage growth spurt, he looked like a child in oversized robes.
Sprout works.
"Well, the newest apprentice cooks for the rest, so…" The second-oldest of the apprentices was a cultivator, allowed to grow his hair out, and was trying to imitate Instructor Greenmoon's hairstyle. Unfortunately, strands of black had escaped his bun, and the overall effect was a mess.
Little Greenmoon.
"What should I make?" Booker asked, looking at the mess on the stove. "I see we have plenty of scallions. Scallion pancakes?"
A favorite dish of Rain's. Savory, crisp and flaky with a doughy-soft inside and an onion-y sharpness cutting through the rich indulgence of the oil-fried batter.
Rain would not appreciate what Booker was about to do to his childhood favorite.
Pouring together water and flour for a simple dough, Booker purposefully undercounted the water, leading to a clumpy and dry dough that barely stuck together. For the scallions, he cut up way too many to add into the dough as he flattened it out into a wide disk, sprinkled the surface with scallion, then rolled it up and cut down through the rolls to make spiral cross-sections. He cut them a little too thick, and tossed them into the pan with not enough oil.
Then he burned them.
"Would you– Get out of the way!" Little Greenmoon swatted him on the shoulder and pushed him away from the smoking pan, rescuing the pancakes as best he could.
"A thousand apologies, Elder Brother." Booker stammered out, sounding absolutely apologetic.
That should get the apprentices squarely against me. He thought, perfectly satisfied with the overcooked, burnt disks of soggy-on-the-inside dough that got tipped onto a plate.
Grumbles filled the table as everyone dug in.
"Did your old master not teach you to cook?" Gargoyle asked with his mouth full of pancake.
Booker shook his head. "Master Ping never had me cook for him." And I didn't realize how grateful I should be. Not that cooking is the worst part of being an apprentice.
"Ahh, easy assignment." Little Greenmoon shook his head and glared at Booker. "That's all over! Get your head on straight! These pancakes are garbage." He waved a fork.
"Er, Brother Rain, you should be careful. If you made this mistake in front of Greenmoon, things could end badly for you." Sprout said. "And the pancakes aren't that bad."
Well, I'm glad I saved you, at least.
The eldest apprentice came back from upstairs, and said, "Rain! The master wishes to speak with you." He glanced over Booker once, scanning the tying of his robes, the flour on his fingernails, and scowling. "Try to be respectful at least."
Booker nodded and stepped onto the stairs, ascending to knock at a door made from lustrous black wood. Ornate panels were carved into it and set with pieces of ivory, depicting a stag being hunted through a forest.
"Come in."
He opened the door and stepped inside, bowing low.
Instructor Greenmoon was a tall man, with a long white beard and ferociously hairy eyebrows, which made his green eyes stand out dramatically. He wore his robes in exquisite fashion and had a scholar's cap perched atop his head, and his clothes were stitched with jewels and golden thread. Everywhere in the small room, Booker saw expensive instruments and tools of alchemy set on decorative shelves.
This is the house of a wealthy man, and he aims to impress.
"My, what beautiful instruments." He said, aiming for a dull kind of obvious buttering up.
"Yes, things I've collected over a long career." Greenmooned waved his hand, and a cerulean teapot hovered up into the air, pouring a stream of rich red tea into a cup. "Many treasures, many victories. Your master says you have a fine career ahead of you too, despite your…" His eyes settled on Booker's tattoo, making him acutely conscious of the blue mark that sat on his cheek. "Disability."
"My master is very kind to me." Booker said. "I've tried to be diligent."
"Have you?" Greenmoon raised an eyebrow. "He also said you were quite troublesome, ambitious, and headstrong. I was under the impression… Well, that he was looking for a new home for you."
"I… have ambitions my master does not agree with." Booker admitted. Honestly, the news stung.
"And what are those, boy? Your master is right to be cautious. Ambitions are like serpents, they often bite the hand that feeds them."
"I wish to become a cultivator." Booker didn't know what his master had said, so it was best to be truthful and avoid stepping into traps.
"My." Greenmoon sipped his tea slowly. Booker noticed that the breakfast his apprentices had sweated over was barely picked at. Most of it sat uneaten on the plate. "A dangerous ambition indeed. How is it that you would be the one to leap the dragon gate? So many cripples, all harboring the same dream, but I've never heard of a cripple turning around to become a great cultivator."
"If I could become any kind of cultivator, that would be a step forward. So long as I am moving forward, I am satisfied." Booker replied. "Surely, a great man such as you could cure a small condition like mine?" Ask directly – be off-putting, greedy, and direct. He's a man who values elegance, asking directly is a surefire way to bore him.
"Hmm." Greenmoon kept his opinions to himself, but sipped at his tea. Setting the cup aside, he leaned across the table, looking directly into Booker's eyes. "I'll be watching you. If you want this position, all you have to do is show me something spectacular. I've seen you perform a miracle once, but one miracle can be an accident. Show me something incredible and I'll know you're someone who can conjure miracles on demand."
"That's… a high bar." Booker said, grimacing.
Greenmoon laughed and lifted a finger. "Ah, but I'm too old to bother with mediocrity." He chuckled at his own joke, leaning back in his chair. "Head along then. Eat your breakfast, converse with the other apprentices… It will be time to work soon."
Booker bowed once more and left. Downstairs, the apprentices were crunching through his charred scallion pancakes.
He took his plate and sat down, glancing warily at his companions. They were a strange lot. Gargoyle barely seemed to notice the pancakes were burnt as he crunched them down, and Booker didn't gather that he had much going on between his ears. Little Greenmoon was eating delicately, dabbing at his lips with a silk cloth. Sprout wasn't eating, just nervously fussing with his robes.
The silence in the room meant they were probably talking about him a second ago, Booker knew.
Their leader, a tall disciple that Booker named Beanpole, licked his fingers. "I hear your crippled master thinks you're an alchemy genius. I want you to know, you're already behind if you hope to impress around here."
"I'm sorry?" Booker said, more a question than a statement, blinking and playing the incredulous idiot.
"He means don't expect us to carry you." Sprout waved his chopsticks. "Everyone on this team pulls their own weight."
"Even him?" Booker pointed his own right at Gargoyle.
The boy surged from his seat, roaring, "The fuck!?"
Little Greenmoon's face twisted. "You dare speak to your Brother Han that way?"
"Look at his hands." Booker said quickly. "Those aren't the hands of an alchemist. His knuckles are too broad, his fingers are too heavy." Act like I think I know better than them. Surefire way for a newbie to piss off the old guard.
"They'll feel fucking heavy on your nose." The thuggish disciple quickly advanced, but Booker held his ground. They won't beat me without Greenmoon's say-so, meaning I only have to keep from outright offending him.
"Sorry, Elder Brother." Booker said, backing away. "I didn't mean to offend…"
"Hmmph." As Gargoyle sat back down, scowling furiously, the tense mood was brought to a new high by the creak of a door opening at the top of the stairs, and the descending quiet footsteps of Greenmoon. As the instructor arrived, everyone did their best to tidy their appearance, and the apprentices bowed low to their master.
"So decorous. No need, no need…" Greenmoon said softly, waving for them to stand up. "I wouldn't want you showing our new hopeful better manners today than you intend to show every day…"
"We aim to exceed, every day, master." Little Greenmoon said dutifully, and Booker almost gagged on the pure suck-uppery on display.
"Well, as long as you're showing a sincere good face to our young junior brother here." Greenmoon chuckled. "Come along. It's time we put everyone through their paces. Today will be a full day of instruction – you can forget about the market."
And I can forget about my free time. Damn.
They all shuffled out, walking towards the alchemy lab with Booker glancing faux-nervously at the faces of his fellow disciples, and reading a dark expression. They all seemed like they were going under the knife for a major surgery; their brows were knit together, apprehensive, as if their future was on the line. It was nothing like the quiet instruction that Booker had enjoyed from his old master.
They had their own alchemy lab, Booker noted: Greenmoon apparently commanded his own space in a small private courtyard with a single furnace and several workbenches.
"Here." Greenmoon unrolled a scroll of birch bark paper across the main workbench. "Is our recipe for today. Everyone, come forward and read carefully." He said, stressing the final word.
They advanced together, and Booker glanced down at the scroll. It was instructions for making a Nine-Fermentations Purifying Pill, a medicine Booker was sure had been chosen for its obscure and unusual nature. It had been divided into four parts.
"Each of you will take one of the four stations, with Eastbird–" Greenmoon nodded to the lanky eldest apprentice. "Overseeing and making sure none of you stray. At my command, you will switch stations, so everyone has a chance to try all stages of the process."
They all nodded.
"I'll take the chopping and peeling of the two-legged root, and I'll dice and grind the seafoam herb." Gargoyle volunteered. Sprout and Little Greenmoon nodded, clearly wanting to give him the chance to redeem his reputation.
"I'll handle the boiling of the barren peach leaves."
"I'll bottle it all for fermentation."
"I, ah–" Booker glanced conspicuously down at the list. "I'll… sieve the ground seafoam herb and mix it with flour?"
The instruction was significantly better than that. He needed to push the ground seafoam through a sieve and a cheesecloth to strain out the liquid, leaving only the flesh. Then, pushing it through the sieve a second time to ensure a fine texture, mix it with flour, feeling for the precise point the mash of flour and seafoam root took on a doughy, spongy consistency, then roll it into small balls.
He had to do all this in five minutes.
Time to destroy these stations.
He headed to the task with gusto as Greenmoon cried, "Begin!"
Rolling up his sleeves, Booker began preparing his station, waiting for the first bunch of seafoam paste to come down the line. Gargoyle was cutting and chopping with his tongue wedged between his lips, already sweating with the intensity of his concentration. "Could you be a bit faster?" Booker said, making the apprentice slip for a moment, his glare at Booker warning him to shut up as he painstakingly tried to recover the miscut portion.
I feel a bit bad. I'm really pissing them off…
As soon as he slammed down a clay bowl full of the ground-up paste, Booker proceeded to ruin it. He slapped the paste down into the sieve with no lining of cheesecloth, ensuring much of the fine pulp would be lost with the juices. Sieving it only once, leaving the mixture lumpy and uneven, he proceeded to splash in an overgenerous helping of flour, ruining the whole lot by overfilling it with binder.
He rolled it all into pasty white orbs, feeling satisfied with himself as Greenmoon cried "Switch!"
Booker rotated left while the rest rotated right, and then doubled back, nearly knocking into Sprout. He was now at the station for boiling the leaves, a delicate process of managing a small fire and keeping the water at a steady temperature for a precise amount of time, all while preparing the leaves by cutting out their stem and veins.
You know, this is fun.
Rather than delicately cut the veins out of the roots, Booker hacked down on them, destroying the entire supply and rendering the work twice as hard as it needed to be. He let his pot come to the edge of overboiling before he noticed.
Okay, but that's enough. I don't want to shame my master here. I might have already gone too far and cost him face.
Catching the pot at the edge of disaster, he doused the flame and hastily restarted it, barely managing to control the temperature in time. He fished the boiled leaves out of the pot with a wooden stick and donned heavy woolen gloves to pour the pot's contents into a jar.
"Switch!"
At the next station, Booker acted like he had just gotten his feet under him after a bad, possibly nervous, start. He was aiming to look like he was trying hard to recover from his mistakes as he set to the new task, managing the fermentation. The peach-leaf tea he'd boiled had to be mixed in a precise ratio with sugar, and then reduced down by boiling it further. Once it was a thick, syrupy mixture, it was added to a jar packed with precise ratios of spices, salts, and the flour-and-seafoam-herb balls he'd made at his first station, preparing it to ferment.
He didn't see anything here but measuring and mixing, although the instructions on how much sugar to mix with how much tea was somewhat unclear. He whisked the ingredients through a series of bowls, working fast to pack and prepare the jars. Working with the scales turned out to be the hardest part. Far from precise electronic measurements, the scale was just a few pieces of metal hanging free, their dangling weights making a small needle move across a plate.
He was just beginning to feel comfortably when he sensed Greenmoon's eyes on his back.
Looks like I've caught his attention.
"You know, young man, it occurs to me that not everyone is eager to exchange one master for another. Perhaps they have some lingering sentimentality." His voice put cold water down Booker's spine. Dammit, he's onto me.
"Let us put that sentimentality in context of what it is costing you." Greenmoon said, and strode away, moving to the front of the room. "Everyone! I wish to add some stakes to our game!" Here it comes… Booker closed his eyes.
"A fantastic Sevenflame Paintbrush Flower! It goes to whoever puts forth the most impressive display!"
Booker put his head down and clenched his hands. He'd been totally outplayed… The Sevenflame Paintbrush Flower was an ingredient for the Seven-Times Purified Charcoal Pill. It was a curative that could, on its own, restore some small possibility of cultivating to someone with corrupted meridians. Unless they found further medicines, they'd never progress past the first stage, and there was only a small chance of reaching that stage at all….
But he was being offered a road out.
Fuck.
Without thinking twice, he diced and cut the two-legged root, separating the valueless rind from the pale pith with a razor's edge accuracy. He diced the seafoam root incredibly finely, and mashed it down to paste with the pestle and mortar, achieving an already-smooth consistency even before the sieving.
"Switch!"
The five minutes had passed in a heartbeat. Booker wiped the sweat from his brow, turning back to see Greenmoon watching him with a faint smile. As he left his station, Greenmoon stepped in, dipping a finger into the fine-grained and smooth seafoam root paste.
Next he was back to his original station, sieving seafoam root paste. He barely needed to strain it out, but he did so anyway, separating off the liquid and patting it dry before mixing in the flour to absorb the last of the moisture. The mixing was the most delicate and difficult task in the rotation. It had to be done – if it was going to be done properly – by a precise sense of touch, feeling out just when the texture was right and the paste was mixed properly with the exact amount of flour to seafoam paste.
He swirled his fingers through the flour, carving out a bowl in the center, and then dropped the seafoam paste in the center. Every time he needed to add flour he simply spilled in some from the sides, absorbing some of the dry powder into the wet mixture.
By the end he had shaped the entire remaining stock of seafoam paste into small flour-dusted balls.
"Switch!"
He had done his worst work here, at the boiling station, by ruining the supply of barren peach leaves. Now he frantically dissected the hacked-apart pieces, cutting out the stringy and bitter-tasting veins. Often he was working with fragments smaller than the pinky of his fingernail, trying to separate pieces as thin as hair.
Booker sweated over the task, casually maintaining the temperature of the tea and straining out the leaves frequently, making a perfectly fragrant mixture.
He looked up and Greenmoon was smiling.
"Switch!" He called one last time. Booker mixed on to the finals station, assembling his finished product into a jar. As he capped it off with wax, Greenmoon called.
"I've seen enough!"
週次パワーステータス
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