-=[Ash Sparks]=-

I woke up to severe cramps and uncontrollable spasms shaking my body. I was alive. Qi-infused blood cells were rushing through my veins once again.

Hooray!

The wonderful, wholesome radiance of Celes was nearby and I eagerly embraced it, submerged myself in calmness and tranquility, regaining my focus, centering myself.

My limbs stopped spasming wildly and the ache in my chest dulled as I took control of my Dantian.

I looked at myself using my Qi, examining the damage. It was severe. I had been very stupid. I had won repeatedly and got far too careless.

My aura still had a whole bunch of gray spots swimming in it. It was a very sad sight to see. If I was metaphorically a planet, then the colorless spots were gaping holes in my ozone layer, screaming of terrible future afflictions.

My mouth tasted of alcohol. I licked my lips.

“Ash?” Celes asked. “Are you feeling better?”

I opened an eye and saw a very blurry kitsune staring down at me. I groaned, attempting to move. It wasn’t the best idea as everything spasmed once again.

“Pfrlfff,” I tried to say something but my mouth wasn’t working properly, feeling too dry.

My head was lying down on a pillow. It was far too wonderfully soft compared to what I usually enjoyed. Ragged cloths and mossy rocks weren’t best for a good sleep, yet I had managed. The dead city was a nice place for naps, as long as you didn’t nap in the way of the glowing feelers of Lord Boundless.

Celes pushed a gold chalice filled with water into my face. I greedily gulped it down, sputtering and coughing.

“Thank you,” I finally groaned and opened another eye.

“S… sssparks!” I heard the shaky voice of Arianna Manning. “G-g-gods you’re f-ff-finally awake.”

I turned my eyes in her direction.

Arianna was held by one of the hands of Mr. Murr, immobilized in the air by the phantom. The front of her dress was ripped and she was trying to hold it closed with both of her hands. Her body was covered in sweat and she was shaking and whimpering.

“Why does my mouth taste like booze?” I gulped some more water down, swishing it in my mouth. “Did you try to get me drunk while I was out so you could have your way with me?” I addressed Arianna.

“What?! I would never! Why?!” The highborn cried indignantly.

“I dunno,” I shrugged. “Maybe you lordly-types are into that sort of a thing? Let them eat cake and what-not.”

“I’m not into that sort of a thing!” She denounced. “What? Cake??”

“Uh, I… gave you some alcohol,” Celes commented. “I wasn’t sure how it was supposed to help…”

“Right. Girl, I have to teach you everything I know about medicine. I seem to be getting hurt on a parabola of increasing trajectory and multiplying pain.” I focused on keeping my spasming arms still.

“I know some things from taking care of cultivators, but I’m always up for learning more,” Celes said with a slight tremor to her voice. “But I would prefer... if it wasn’t at the cost of your safety, please.”

I nodded, totally understanding. I didn’t want to cost myself my own safety either!

“Let me go already!” Arianna whined. “She’s awake and she’s alive!”

“Why is Ludj holding her like that and what happened to her dress?” I asked Celes.

The geisha began to explain everything that I had missed while being passed out.

. . .

“I see,” I said, my mood darkening with every word. “Looks like I almost died here.”

“You didn’t though,” Arianna said. “I would have given you the tonic myself… tomorrow. I just wanted to know…”

“If this was a test, then you failed it… Anathema.” I put all of my irritation and dislike into the name. “You wanted to know what?”

“I wanted to know your secret,” Arianna lowered her emerald eyes. “I wanted to know how you got so powerful so quickly. You lied to me… you’re not a high-cultivator, nor a god-blessed hero. You smell like… Ash sparks, but you’re not.”

“Oh…. you want to know who lives in my head?” I wiggled my eyebrows.

Arianna nodded, sniffing. Her legs were trembling. She must have been held there by Ludj a very long time indeed.

“Oh how the aristocracy has fallen! Harassing a poor, sickly girl for answers when she hasn’t got her beauty sleep at all!” I dramatically declared. “I’m going to sleep now. Goodnight everyone.”

I closed my eyes and waited.

“Please…. please... it hurts to stand…” Arianna whimpered. “Please let me go…”

“Should we let her go, Ludj?” Celes asked our phantom friend.

“Who’s Ludj?!” The noble girl asked.

“Ludjfurkvv-Murr is the free servitor phantom that’s holding you by the neck right now,” the geisha explained. “You should really be asking him to let you go. I think he’s pretty irate with you for nearly getting Ash killed.”

“I don’t understand… free servitors don’t exist,” Arianna whined. “It’s an antithetical, a contradiction, an antipodal paradox.” She yelped as another spark struck her in the neck.

“Mr. Murr probably doesn’t appreciate being called an antipodal paradox. He’s right there, you know. He has feelings,” I commented without opening my eyes.

“Let me go! It’s so hard to stay still like this! My neck is killing me,” she whimpered.

“You know what else is hard? Staying alive after getting the Kiss of Celesteel.” I sighed. “That was a terrible experience. Let's not do that again.”

Arianna let out another whine as another ghost-spark struck her in the neck. This is why I had electrical tape wrapped around my neck - it was where servitors usually tried to grab you to hold one in place until their Master arrived. Her continuous whimpering was adding to my headache.

“Mr. Murr, let her go,” I said with a sigh. “Her incessant whining is disrupting my concentration.”

The phantom opened up his hand, cadaverous fingers unfolding. Arianna immediately collapsed down onto her knees. She hissed quietly as she rubbed her neck covered in little, crystalline, white scars. I knew exactly what those felt like. It wasn’t very nice to be held down by a servitor hound.

As I thought about how my day went, I realised that I had been going about things a bit wrongly. I was currently suffering pretty badly because I had not earned my power. I spent the day prancing about like a hyperactive kitten prodding at things curiously.

With all the talk I had given Celes about science I did no actual testing or experimentation. I was bumbling about, relying on being right automatically, thinking that I would always be successful. Little, stubborn Ash had been empowered by the knowledge of the Pharmacist - she threw herself at the world and got burned in the process.

The Pharmacist wasn’t the smartest or the greatest or the most rational person in the universe. I wasn’t living in some god-damned power fantasy where no landmines lay in my path. I needed more power, friends, connections, money, a safe place to live, a lab. I looked at seventh scion of the Manning house. I needed to... take her place in the world. But how? I briefly wished that I was born in the Magistrate's family. Things would be so much easier if I wasn't a lowborn nobody.

“I really need to be more careful,” I finally said.

“You do,” Celes agreed. “I keep trying to ground you. You’re flying too fast, Ash.”

“I flew too high and melted my wings,” I replied. I thought myself of Prometheus, but I was more of an Icarus at this point. “Here I now lay, broken and hurt, scarred by my careless foolishness.”

Celes gently caressed my hair. I sighed, enjoying the pets. It was a miracle that I wasn’t dead. There were dangerous people out there, individuals operating on brutal logic of fear and pain, vicious highborns like Anathema. They wouldn't hesitate to hurt me if I crossed their path and I was inevitably heading to stand in their way if I wanted to change the world.

I needed Arianna’s talent and knowledge, but I couldn't trust her at all. Did Qi have an answer? How did the Gold city citizens build trust? I thought of what I heard and seen in the market and a memory revealed itself to me.

. . .

A skinny merchant and a fat merchant argued over the details of a big sales contract as I hid beneath a nearby table.

“One hundred pots. They have to be in pristine condition,” the fat merchant specified.

“Nothing is perfect in the world, except for the gods,” the skinny merchant replied.

"I don't want these semantics, I want the best quality, you understand? All of the pots have to be perfect. They're servitor made, yes? The defects should be because of supply down the chain. Have someone examine the product before I receive it. I'm paying for the absolute best quality here. Let us make a binding contract now."

"Fine," the salesman sighed.

"I, Risara Eifua, do hereby swear upon the divinity of Boundless Chorus to pay Fakwag Hooks 90 silver for the one hundred cerulean pots of perfect quality. I bind these words with my Qi. Let the archangels strike me down where I stand if I do not fully fulfill my part of the binding pact."

The merchant wasn’t talking with his normal voice. It was almost as if he was singing the words, his Qi doing something extremely odd to his tone of voice, echoing, magnifying it somehow. Something interesting was definitely happening! I curiously glanced at the merchants with Qi-infused eyes.

"I, Fakwag Hooks, do hereby swear upon the divinity of Boundless Chorus to deliver 100 cerulean pots of perfect quality to Risara Eifua in exchange for 90 silver. I bind these words with my Qi. Let the archangels strike me down where I stand if I do not fully fulfill my part of the binding pact."

I saw two distinctively-colored shimmering lines connect between the hands of the merchants as they shook them. The lines detonated with a small crackle of colorful sparks that rained down to the ground. Pretty!

. . .

I looked at Arianna who was still sitting on the ground and rubbing her phantom-singed neck.

"Arianna…" I began. "Here's how I see it. You already know too much. You are a big problem for me, but also an opportunity to learn and to influence the nobles. I'm not a high-cultivator, you are right. I'm not a monster or a murderer."

The scion of Manning looked up at me. There was fear, hatred and aversion in her eyes.

"I cannot trust you one bit, especially after your recent performance," I critiqued. "But there is something that can be done to correct this problem."

"What…?" She croaked, glancing up at the tall phantom that was still looming over her.

"You and I are going to make a pact and reinforce it with our Qi."

"A pact?! What? Like a binding contract between two merchantiles?

“Yeppers,” I nodded. “Like the merchants do… and you’re going to put as much Qi in it as I will to bind it properly.”

“Why would I do such a thing?” Arianna ground out. “The backlash could…”

“Cripple you?” I raised an eyebrow. “Yes, that’s the idea. I’m tired of your stabbing, treacherous ways. I presume that the backbone of the nobility is treason, but seriously - you gotta take it easy on the betrayals.”

“You said you wont hurt me…” The little noble shuddered.

“Oh, I won’t hurt you. Mr. Murr on the other hand…” I left it at a pause, so that she couldn't smell me in a lie. “He’s pretty upset with your behaviour. Aren’t you, my long, beautiful pal?”

The phantom's fleshless hand opened up above Arianna like an enormous, spindly spider, as if to snap her in half.

“Fine! FINE! I’ll do your stupid contract!” She retreated from the limb. “Just tell your stupid hound to leave me alone!!!”

“He’s not a hound. Free servitor - remember?” I sat up on the bed, wobbling slightly. Celes supported me by the shoulder.

Arianna stood in front of me and wiped sweat away from her face. “What are the terms?”

“No hurting me or Celes, no betrayals, no backstabbing. Cooperation only. Protection.” I waved my hand.

“What about your side of the contract?” the noble demanded, emerald eyes staring me down.

“I’ll tell you the truth about my incredible power.” I smiled. “A secret privy only to one other.” I nodded at Celes. “Knowledge that you are not allowed to share with anyone, because of how truly dangerous it is,” I thought about the power of atomic bombs when I spoke the words.

“I will add my Qi to the contract as well, bind it further as the witness,” my geisha friend confided, up-selling me. “Ash has already taught me much and yet I am but a clueless child compared to the arcane world-moving knowledge she possesses.”

“My incredible power is a pathway to many abilities some consider to be unnatural,” I added darkly, in my best Emperor Palpatine impression, watching sparks of greed beginning to manifest in Arianna’s eyes. “Long ago, it ruled the entire world and reached out to the very stars themselves. It allowed anyone to fly faster than the speed of sound, vaporized entire cities with summoned hellfire, and let men walk on the moon… and it does not require the use of Qi.”

Celes grinned deviously, sharp-foxy chompers glinting in the dim twilight of the room, lit up by the ever-present silver-blue glow cast by Ludj. It raised the overall ominousness of the supernatural offer tenfold.

“Deal,” Arianna exhaled, believing that she was about to sell her soul to diabolus forces in exchange for absolute power.