The next three days passed in an alchemical haze. At first, XP and skill points rolled into my new profession steadily as I made restorative and accelerant pills. I got far less XP per pill than I got for killing monsters, of course – something like a tenth of the experience, in fact – but I could just make them all day and grind the profession and skills. That lasted for a day or so before I noticed my XP and skill gains dropping precipitously.

“What’s going on with that, Sara?”

“Well, two things are happening. First, you’ve gotten good enough at making these pills that it’s not much of a challenge anymore, so reduced skill gains. Second, you’re much more efficient at making them, so there’s less free energy for me to absorb. You’ll need to either try to make harder versions of these recipes or get new ones if you want to keep advancing.”

Dancer-in-Flames wasn’t on board with that right away; instead, she wanted me to revert to her recipes, probably hoping that I’d be the amazing physician she imagined I could be. It took another few hours of me failing at her original recipes – and her smacking me for those failures – for her to realize that her dreams simply weren’t going to happen.

“Very well, Xu Xing,” she sighed. “I admit defeat. Your spirit will not be bent or coerced. It is a great tragedy, as with the speed that you learn and grow this skill, you could become an immortal master of the art one day and shake the world with your footsteps. Still, I will not deny your skill. I will aid you in repairing that atrocious Accelerant concoction, and I will teach you three more recipes.”

“Can you teach me stronger versions of the ones I already know?” I asked.

“You must walk before you run, Xu Xing,” she laughed. “Grow your skill, and when you have become at least proficient with it, we will work on weak medicines.”

She offered me a selection of recipes, and I chose three that worked for me. The first two, Dif enthusiastically taught me. The third, though, she was a bit more hesitant about.

New Alchemy Recipes Unlocked!

Minor Qi Cultivation Pill (Celestial), Minor Restless Slumber Powder, Minor Qi Venom Pill

The Qi Cultivation pill was basically a concentrated dose of celestial qi that I could take to refill my qi pool by twenty points or so. Restless Slumber powder would put a non-cultivator into a light sleep if they inhaled it, a deeper one if they ingested it. A Wood-ranked cultivator would feel slow and tired for a few minutes after breathing it in, but it wouldn’t affect higher-ranked practitioners at all.

“I will teach you the formula for Qi Venom, Xu Xing,” she told me gravely. “However, you must promise me only to use it for the preservation of life.”

“Preservation of life?” I asked. “How can a poison preserve life?”

“Qi Venom will cause its recipient to cease cultivating to protect their spiral and dantian,” she explained. “In the correct dosage, it can protect a cultivator from natural qi poisoning and the effect of befouled meridians.”

I looked at the recipe hidden in her palm. “What about using it to avoid taking a life?” I asked slowly.

“What do you mean, Xu Xing?”

“Well, if this pill shuts off someone’s cultivation, then I could use it to weaken them, right? Then, I could capture an enemy without having to kill them. That’s preserving life, in a way.”

She stared at me, then snorted in laughter. “I understand, now. Your spirit is that of both a healer and a warrior, Xu Xing. Yes, I concede that incapacitating a foe that you do not wish to kill is preserving life. Come, let me show you how to fashion a poison that saves lives.”

Unlocking those new recipes – and working out how to make them mine – was all it took to push both my skill and new profession up a rank.

Skill: Alchemy has gained a level

Alchemy (Initiate 1)

Benefits: You can create weak alchemical recipes; your minor creations are 50% more effective.

Profession: Alchemist has gained a level!

New Level: 2

For every level of Alchemist, you gain:

Reason, Perception, and Skill +1

1 Skill Points

I dropped the single skill point into Alchemy and pestered Dif for an hour about learning weak recipes before she finally gave in.

“Very well, foolish one. You will likely injure yourself in the process, and once you do, you will concede that I as your teacher should dictate your progress.”

The Weak Restorative Pill required more ingredients than the minor one did, of course. It was also vastly more complex. The formula needed two separate cauldrons, and half of the recipe was made in each. The first held the ingredients that would create the matrix of the pill, while the second contained three energizing ingredients, one of which had a rarity of unusual. I had to heat and mix each cauldron in a different fashion, but I had to create both at the same time, as well. When they were done, I stirred the energizing ingredients into the matrix and added a metal qi stone. The fragrant mixture flashed into powder that I pressed into two pills.

Weak Restorative Pill (Altered)

Type: Alchemy

Usage: Boosts natural healing by a moderate amount briefly, then a small amount over time. Removes fatigue. Only half as effective for anyone except its creator.

Dif took the pill from me and examined it, her face unreadable. “So,” she said simply.

“So,” I agreed with a straight face, concealing a grin.

She grunted and tossed the pill back to me. “I suppose you will wish to learn the weak versions of your other recipes, as well, then?”

“If you don’t mind, yes.”

My head rang as she smacked the back of it with her stirring rod. “You are incorrigible, Xu Xing. You seek to learn formulae that most pupils work for years to be found worthy of, ones that could kill if administered incorrectly. You cause me no end of frustration…” She grinned at me, taking the sting out of her words. “But I will show you. Let us see how far your natural talents will take you.”

I threw myself into producing the weak medicines. I only gained two skill ranks and a couple hundred XP, but that wasn’t the point. I’d chosen those items for a very specific reason, and if it was going to work, I’d need a lot of them.

At the end of the third day, as I cleaned up my workstation, I looked over at Dif. “How are the battle plans going?” I asked curiously.

She sighed and shook her head. “Poorly,” she admitted. “The Bright Ocean Sect, those who rule this city, refuse to meet with us for fear that they will be seen as taking sides. The Scarlet Blade Sect is willing to join us, but while their weapon skills are beyond compare, they lack the powerful cultivators we will need to strike at the Inner School.”

“None of the other schools will help, then?”

“Most hope that Brilliant Ocean School and the School of Earthly Fires will exhaust themselves in the coming conflict and be left weakened,” she sighed. “In truth, this is the most likely result, should Brilliant Ocean stand alone.”

“What do you think it would take to convince them?” I asked.

“If I am being truthful? I do not believe that they will be convinced until their own power or safety is endangered. It is a sad truth, but the sects in general are concerned more for their own power and honor than they are for the welfare of the city.”

I nodded. I was worried about something like that; I really hadn’t met too many school or sect members who weren’t looking out for themselves. Obviously, I wasn’t in a place to judge, but I still needed to deal with that reality.

“What we need, then,” I said slowly, “is for Earthly Fires to move first. If they present an actual danger to the city, then everyone will have to respond, won’t they?”

“That is true, but the School of Earthly Fires will not move precipitously, Xu Xing.”

“They might if they thought that the other schools were all massing against them,” I shook my head. “And I have an idea of how we could make that happen. I’ll need to speak to your husband, though.”

“Then I will tell him so. If you can indeed draw the School of Earthly Fires into rash action – that would save all a great deal of difficulty, Xu Xing.”

The rest of the day passed without incident. I returned to the travel house, where Shi was the only one waiting for me. Bai Ren and Jing were staying at the Brilliant Desert School while Wim trained them, leaving Shi and I alone. That was somewhat convenient, since Shi Lo still insisted on seeing to her “duties” – not that I was complaining – but I couldn’t help but wonder how things were going for the two women.

I’d seen Bai at the Amber Teardrop hall the past two days, checking to make sure she wasn’t in danger of becoming cursed, but I hadn’t spoken to her. In fact, when I approached once, she hurried off, as if she was afraid to speak to me. I didn’t know what that was about, and honestly, I didn’t care. Hopefully, she’d be helpful in the coming battles; after that, I assumed she’d be taking the black pill Dif gave her, while hopefully, I’d be done on this world. There wasn’t much point in getting to know the woman, really.

Jing, on the other hand, I hadn’t seen at all since she left for her father’s school. He was supposed to be training her, but really, I had no clue if that was happening or not. For all I knew, Wim used the “training” as an excuse to get his daughter enrolled in his school, and now that she was, he was keeping her out of harm’s way. I wouldn’t blame him, of course. I supposed that if I had a kid, I’d do the same, really. Still, I’d gotten used to having Jing at my side in battle, and I supposed that if she wasn’t joing us, I’d feel a bit disappointed. I’d live, but I’d be disappointed.

As I had every night, I waited until Shi fell asleep on my shoulder before slipping out and leaving the travel house. My days were spent training with Dif, which meant I only had nights to cultivate. Fortunately, the travel house wasn’t very tall, so it was a simple enough thing to climb up using my modified Thorn’s Embrace technique.

I sat atop the shallowly sloped roof and stared up at the moon overhead. I could feel the energy radiating from it, swirling down to bathe me in its light. I opened myself up to that power, drawing the qi into my spirals and swirling it through my body. I liked alchemy, but it didn’t help my qi skills at all. Creating medicines drained a small amount of qi from me each day, but it wasn’t enough to really work my Qi Cycling skill, and being indoors stifled my Qi Absorption skill. Nights were my only time to really practice my qi – and my techniques.

My new understanding of how qi worked had made my techniques more powerful, of course, but more importantly, I could now use them more instinctively. I’d always struggled with that; I forgot to use my techniques because they just weren’t natural for me. Channeling qi in specific patterns in the middle of a fight took time and concentration, and I rarely possessed either during battle. Fighting was something that had to be instinctive; there was no time to stop and think about what to do in combat. That was why I’d always trained my combat skills so hard. I needed my body to recognize what needed to be done without my conscious will, or I’d end up getting pummeled in every battle.

Now, though, I knew that my techniques were more about using my qi with intent rather than the arcane patterns of my meridians. I held up my hand and willed a burst of power to shoot from my palm, and a blaze of light streaked up into the sky as my Sun’s Scorching Ray technique activated. I thought about wrapping myself in a protective field of power, and a glowing skin of qi enveloped me thanks to my Guardian of the Heavens technique. I imagined a wall of vines stretching up around me, and Embrace of the Jungle surrounded me with waving, thorn-covered branches that grew up from the wooden shingles below me. My techniques were nothing more than my desires expressed through qi, and knowing that made them come much more easily to me.

Using them also helped my qi skills grow much faster. My techniques drained power rapidly from both my spiral and my dantian, and I had to draw both wood and celestial qi in constantly to replace what I was losing. Apparently, taking in qi and then spitting it right back out again was more effective for my training than just sitting there and cycling it, at least according to my skill status.

Skills:

Unarmed Combat (Adept 8) Weapon Focus (Unarmed, Adept 2)

Qi Absorption (Savant 3) Qi Cycling (Savant 3)

Disguise (Adept 3) Stealth (Initiate 4)

Alchemy (Initiate 4)

I’d gained a point each in Unarmed Combat and Weapon Focus from my two nights of training, but I’d gained two of Qi Cycling and Absorption, and I guessed that was from using my techniques to constantly drain and refill my qi pool. I frowned; what if I combined my Krav Maga Retzev drills with my techniques? Would that boost the growth of all four skills? It certainly couldn’t hurt, and it would probably help me fight more reflexively with my techniques. It was worth trying…

I stood up and dropped into a guarding stance, my unclenched hands raised defensively and my feet slightly apart to give me better balance without affecting my movement. The rest of the night passed in a blur as I ran through every drill I could think of again and again. At first, I simply did the drills, loosening my body up and getting my brain into the right mental state for combat.

The next round, though, I started adding techniques. I covered my striking areas in thorns, delivering spiked fists, knees, and elbows to imaginary foes. I shielded my forearms and chest with a skin of hardened wood or a layer of celestial qi to deflect blows, then coated my knuckles in glowing light as I snapped a fast series of punches into the air. I used short bursts of Lightness of Being as I practiced dodging and defending or to close swiftly to slam my knees and elbows into envisioned enemies.

I felt the presence in the street below before I heard the soft snuffling sound rising up from the alley beside the travel house. I froze in my training as a wave of unease and nausea swept over me, twisting my stomach into knots. I knew that feeling; something that screwed up this world’s balance was near, and whatever it was sounded like it had a cold coming on. Quiet but regular sniffs rose above the near silence of the city; something or someone was just outside the travel house.

I dropped into a crouch and crept to the edge of the rooftop, lying on my stomach and peeking my eyes over the curved lip. The alley below was bathed in darkness, hiding whatever moved in it from my sight, but I could barely make out movement on the ground. I watched silently for long moments, trying to let my eyes adjust to the darkness after the brilliance of the moonlit roof. The sniffing sound reminded me of a bloodhound; was there a beast in the city? Was it one of the ones from the School of Earthly Fires, tracking me from there to here?

“They came this way, without Bai Ren,” a quiet, female voice spoke up, dispelling any doubts I might have had about the identity of the person in the alley. Or persons, I supposed; it didn’t make sense that whoever was down there was talking to herself aloud. That suspicion was confirmed a moment later.

“Where did they go?” a deeper, male voice asked softly but imperiously. I kept staring into the darkness, and a bright flash of orange rewarded my patient vigil. A teacher from the school, then. That made things complicated.

“I assume they went into the travel house, Holder-of-Green-Fire,” another female voice replied in a bored tone.

“We will go in after them, then,” Holder said firmly.

“No, we will not,” the second female replied just as strongly. “Can you not feel the presence of the practitioners within? We would risk much for little gain.”

“Little gain, Builder-in-Stone?” the man replied. “This intruder came to our school, stole our student, and likely killed a fellow instructor!”

“Banisher-of-Waves died due to his own arrogance, Holder-of-Green-Fire,” Builder said dismissively. “You saw his remains as clearly as I.”

“You cannot deny that the intruder killed two student of the Seventh Circle,” the man persisted. “And they likely know of Banisher-of-Waves’ experiments. We cannot allow such information to spread into the city!”

“If the intruder knows anything, then the information is already out in the city. That damage is likely done. It simply means that the Inner School must advance its timetable before the Bright Ocean Sect learns of our plans.”

“And what would you have us do about the intruder?” Holder said angrily.

“Hanying, you will observe the travel house from hiding,” the woman ordered. “Ling Song, you will guide us to wherever the intruder went from here. Perhaps they will lead us to Bai Ren, and we can recover her body before more damage is done.”

“Can I kill the intruder when I see them, teacher?” a high-pitched but still male voice asked deferentially.

“No!” I heard a sharp smack and a pained yelp, like a dog being kicked. “Control your new nature, Hanying!” Builder took a deep breath. “Simply watch. You will have no way of knowing who the intruder is, but make note of all who come and go.”

“What if Bai Ren returns?” the man’s voice whined.

“Then, you may hunt whoever is with her,” the woman said after a moment’s hesitation. “However, do not let yourself be seen, and you will only use your new abilities on them and poison their qi, not kill them. Once that is done, bring them back to the school with Bai Ren. We will interrogate them both there.”

“And when the interrogation is done?” Holder asked menacingly.

“We will decide Bai Ren’s fate based on her actions, and we will attempt the process on the intruder, perhaps using the newer methods developed by the Inner School. I am told those grant their bearer great power, albeit at the expense of much of their ability to reason.”

As I heard the group moving toward the alley’s exit, I swiftly considered my options. It sounded to me like the school was back to performing their experiments on students, and one of them had gotten some sort of tracking ability from that. The female student was obviously following the trail I’d left coming back from the school. That presented several difficulties, at least one of which could seriously jeopardize my plans.

If I let them go, they might get word back to the school that I was alive and knew about their hidden tunnel and secret lab. That would make the school clamp down security there, and that was the last thing I wanted. Plus, they would learn that Bai had gone to the Amber Teardrop Society – they might even track her from there to the Brilliant Desert School. I wasn’t really worried about the school since I figured a bunch of cultivators-in-training could take care of themselves, but the society wasn’t really geared for battle, as far as I could tell. If they decided to force their way in to “rescue” Bai, they could kill some people, and that might convince the society not to help deal with the school anymore. Or, I supposed, it might make them even more eager. It really depended on the higher-ups in Amber Teardrop. Was I willing to risk that they’d want revenge instead of washing their hands of the matter?

At the same time, there were four of them down there, and at least two of them were instructors at the school who were likely stronger than I was. I couldn’t just jump down into the middle of them. Hell, I could barely see them or the alley they were in. I could illuminate myself to light up the alley, but that would just give them a target to attack. What I wouldn’t give for a pair of night-vision goggles or a damn low-light scope…

I froze as I heard a rustling sound, and suddenly a dim, orange light lit up the alley below, giving me a good glimpse of the four speakers. They were easy to identify; Holder was a tall guy with long hair that fell in a braid down his back, while Builder had to be the short, orange-robed woman with hair that draped loosely down to her ass. The students were the ones who really caught my attention, though.

The one who’d presumably been sniffing out my trail was a young woman, maybe barely out of her teens. Her hair was black but streaked with a lighter color I couldn’t make out in the dim light, and she walked with a stoop-shouldered gait that made her look like an elderly woman. Her face was narrow and pointed, with a nose so long and pointed that it made her look curiously rat-like. The young man in the student robe beside her was tall and frighteningly thin, almost skeletal, with skin that looked oddly dark in the firelight.

The light emanated from a ball of fire held in the hand of a third student, a short, round man who stood at the head of a group of four more robed individuals. I swore silently; I might have been able to handle the four of them if I took Builder and Holder out with rapid surprise attacks, but nine? There was no way I was dealing with nine, at least not in a stand-up fight.

“Put that out, foolish one!” Builder hissed, her face visibly angry in the flickering light coming from the student’s palm.

“F-forgive me, teacher,” the student stammered as the flame vanished. “I presumed that since we were passing back into the open streets…”

“You presume nothing, Yazhu. You will do as you are told, when you are told, and nothing more. Is that understood?”

“Yes, teacher.”

“Excellent.” I watched as the group left the alley and passed out into the brightly lit street. The thin student glanced around before walking across the street and slipping into a dark alley, presumably to hide and watch the travel house. The remaining eight turned and made their way toward the main boulevard, no doubt following the trail I’d left coming and going to the school. I slid back away from the roof and jogged silently over to the other side of the travel house. It was an easy jump to the next roof, and I made it without making a sound. I smiled grimly to myself as I crossed that roof, as well.

I knew where they were going and the path they’d take to get there. I just had to move faster. I couldn’t take all of them in a straight-up, fight, but then, I didn’t have to. It was time to go hunting.