"You need the tiger's core. Well, would another core suffice? I have all of Master Xinya's possessions, now, and her cubic crystals. What if I have something else you can use? Will you spare him, then?"

The sage looked dismissive.

"Any core from a powerful creature would have the potency I need, but this tiger is of a scarce kind, in this forest. Very few beasts have ascended to the level of mastering communication with human language. It was for precisely this reason Master Xinya chose him. She could have killed him herself and kept the core until it was time for the elixir to be made, but she generously let him keep his life until now. The kindness has already been done, Jin, and his fate is sealed."

But Jin wasn't listening to this. The sage had given him hope of a way out. He had mentally retreated briefly into the cavernous dimension of Xinya's Interspatial Ring, and now, the core of the goblin spirit appeared in his hand.

"Can you use this? We had to fight our way past a goblin spirit on the way here - one created, it seems, by whatever other killing and misery you cause in the course of your alchemy. The tiger made the final blow and saved me from it, while it was attacking me with soul violence. It seems quite fitting to me that its core might now save this tiger, and strengthen my soul."

The sage's expression changed, and the ball of plasma in his hand dissipated. He took a step forward, the indigo light from the core reflected in his intelligent eyes. The tiger let out a low growl behind Jin, as if to warn the man not to come any closer, in spite of the poor position the beast was in in the current situation.

He looked into Jin's eyes, seeming to scrutinize him for a moment, before speaking.

"The core of a spiritual creature - a malevolent one, at that - would have the power I need to complete the elixir. But using the core of something evil, something that traded on soul violence, to reforge your soul... well, it will cause some changes to the behavior of the elixir. I believe it may even create stronger effects than what I had originally planned, but that means you will need to endure greater pain..."

The sage looked unsteady, as if the idea of the pain frightened even him. There was something personal in it, like the thought gave him a memory he would rather keep suppressed.

Jin couldn't help but wonder.

"Have you... ever used a core like this on somebody before?" he asked, slowly.

"The soul reforging process is something very few people undertake. It requires a lot of things: expensive resources, an alchemical expert like myself, and for the person to have already had their body and mind reforged. As such, even I have only performed the procedure three times, and I am perhaps the most experienced in this in the empire. The second and third subjects were people I have no inclination to tell you about, though they were people far older and more advanced than you. They used the cores of high level beasts. The first, well, the first person I prepared the elixir for was myself. I had easier access to the cores of unpleasant creatures than of high level animals at that time, and so I used the core of a mid-level water demon. Its power would be something akin to your goblin spirit core. It was a fierce battle to keep my sanity, and, well, when I show people the strength of my soul, some have said that there is something of the demon about me, now."

Jin understood what he meant. He'd found the sage, and even his house, disturbing and awry in a way he couldn't quite identify, even on his first visit, before he'd known he was supposed to endure pain here. The man, thinking back, had never actually been cruel to him, though he hadn't lavished him with kindness and sympathy, either, and he had always been polite, even friendly, to Master Xinya. With anybody else, one may have just thought he was someone who didn't particularly enjoy the presence of children, but was otherwise a pleasant, if somewhat serious, man. But his whole presence had something sinister about it, something that seemed to even permeate his living space. The weapons and instruments hanging in the shack, they were, if Jin remembered it properly, just normal things - no different from the things inside Master Xinya's ring. But he'd always suspected that they were evil weapons, demonic ones, probably forged in the boiling blood of people who dared to wander into the forest. The strangeness in the man's soul had stirred his childish imagination.

"I will take it, then. If I am to suffer anyway, it might as well be for the strongest results. Besides, it's only once. I'll withstand it."

He spoke bravely, but inside he was terrified. He was already weak from fighting the goblin spirit, and he couldn't imagine a pain that combined the experience of soul violence with the pain of his previous reforgings. He didn't want to become somebody who people found disturbing, with a soul that had been touched by demonic power, either, but he was trying not to think about that. Surely if he was a good person, and made noble choices, it wouldn't matter, and if it did, well, he'd be strong. If people didn't like him, he'd use his strength, like Xinya had done with the tiger, and win any allies he needed that way.

He had little choice but to accept it, in any case, if he wanted to save the tiger.

"Jin, are you sure about this? I am not willing to give my life, whatever I have owed, but I will forgive you if this is too much for you to take on to save me. I will stand my ground and fight, and if my death comes, so be it. It was never your fault."

"No, I'm sure. Fuck it. What's the worst that can happen, eh?" he said, with a smile.

Neither sage nor beast seemed to enjoy the levity.

"If your mind is made up, then I am willing to proceed. I will need to give you medicine to recover your soul before the elixir can be administered. You'll need your full resilience to tolerate the process. Come inside, I have something for you to read while the medicine takes its effects," the sage said, inscrutable and professional once more.

"And the tiger? He can go free? You won't hunt for him, or think he still owes anybody any life debts?" Jin asked shrewdly, wanting a clear confirmation that his choice really would ensure his companion's safety.

"I think it's clear he does owe a life debt. To you. But no, I have no quarrel with him."

Jin turned to look at the tiger, whose great head reached almost as high as his own.

"Don't worry about owing me anything. I don't care about that. Just, well, if I ever come into the forest again, don't treat me as an enemy. OK?"

The beast nodded silently. There were a lot of things Jin would have liked to have said, but there was no need. This would just be one strange day in the tiger's life now. He was free to go, and free from the debts of honor Xinya had held over him for two years. The tiger turned and padded back into the dark of the forest, breaking into a run as soon as he passed the first trees, hoping to get a safe distance from the house without encountering any more goblin spirits. He didn't look back.

Jin turned back to the sage, who had been waiting, with an impassive expression on his old face.

"Shall we begin?" Jin said.