Zhang Wuli rubbed his aching hands. He had started working halfway through the day but he still ended up washing several hundred plates in the five hours before the restaurant closed. It was now the evening, and the bright sunlight from the windows had turned to a reddish orange glow that cast the wash room in a soft glow. The flow of plates had finally trickled to a halt just a few minutes ago, but the heat from the kitchen had yet to falter.

“Li Bo, is the workload always this heavy?”

Zhang Wuli addressed his washing station partner. The bearded man was casually cleaning his last plate next to him, the light from the setting sun outside gleaming off his sweaty bald head.

“Hmm, not always. It’s a little lighter during the week, but on special order days like today we always see a lot of people.”

Li Bo placed the clean plate down on his stack and controlled an orb of water to scrub the sink itself as a porter moved the stack to storage.

“You’ll have many more days like this in the coming weeks, especially on the first and last days. If you’re going to keep working here you’ll have to work on your physical cultivation a bit.” Li Bo punctuated his statement by slapping Zhang Wuli on the back, drawing a pained hiss from the young man.

“You’re not too bad for a man your age, but you could stand to do some more work! Even a specialist like you shouldn’t neglect his body.”

Zhang Wuli laughed nervously in reply. Just like his spiritual cultivation, his physical cultivation was hampered by his blocked channels. In fact, Wuli had never even bothered to learn how to do it! Like Li Bo said, he wasn’t bad for a seventeen-year-old, but all of his strength came from the chores he did to earn his keep and some natural strength from his mother’s side of the family. Most people would not start making great gains in physical cultivation until they were around his age, so it was easy to mistake his lack of strength as him simply being lazy. As time went on however, his condition would be obvious.

With their station cleaned up, Li Bo directed him outside through a side door Wuli had seen the porters going through. The door lead to a hallway that stretched from a door at the back of the restaurant to the dining area, with doors to the kitchen and washing room. Before the two could exit the building however, another pair came out behind them.

“Li Bo!” Wen Ai exclaimed, “Could it be that you are running away from your bet?”

From the sour look on Li Bo’s face, he had been attempting to do just that.

“Of course not Wen Ai! I was just getting some fresh air while we waited for you and Ding Da.”

The man named Ding Da glanced between Zhang Wuli and Li Bo with a dubious expression. Unlike Wen Ai, Ding Da was muscular and fit with square and flat features. He looked like a brick wall came to life and started to wash plates.

“The others have things to do tonight,” Ding Da rumbled in low baritone, “so it will be just us four.”

“Look happy Li Bo, you’ll only have to buy two extra drinks” Wen Ai chortled out.

With that the group headed towards the back door, Zhang Wuli sheepishly following behind. There was no question that Zhang Wuli’s speed had caused them to lose the bet. While he had started strong, after the first fifty plates the other veterans started pulling ahead and soon Wen Ai had cleared the one hundred plate limit.

The back door led straight outdoors and right unto the roof of the neighbouring building. Despite this, the small group were not the only people out here, and a steady flow of foot-traffic moved from roof to roof without pause.

Eternal Flame city was perched halfway up a mountain and ran all the way around it. While normally a city would not have formed like this, in this case there was no choice. Eternal Flame Peak was the strongest source of natural spirit energy for hundreds of miles and the Eternal Flame Sect for which the city and mountain were named occupied the entire upper half of the landmark.

A thick blanket of unnatural clouds divided the upper half of the mountain from the lower half and kept the majority of the spirit energy behind it. What little escaped through the barrier grew weaker and weaker as it flowed down to the base. As a result, every inch of space below the barrier on the mountainside was filled with buildings. Any small space was filled with whatever could fit until the spirit energy became too weak to fight over.

As a result buildings were pressed together, roofs became walkways, and the city was naturally divided into building layers with stairways allowing people go to up and down. There were even some businesses that could only be reached by walking through a completely unrelated building! Unless one had the strength or money to secure themselves room, they would simply have to get used to working in cramped spaces.

The restaurant was located just a few layers below the cloud barrier on the western side of the mountain. While it meant that it would be dark in the mornings as the sun rose on the other side, the restaurant’s customers could enjoy beautiful sights as the day drew to a close. The setting sun bathed the city in light and reflected light from the cloud barrier caused the sunlight to last far longer than it otherwise would have.

It allowed Zang Wuli to see the lower third of the mountain quite clearly as he stepped out into the city. Slums took up the lower third of the mountain. The spirit energy barely existed that far from the peak, but it was the best option many people had. Ramshackle houses and tents surrounded the city like a skirt, soaking up what little dregs of spirit energy they could and making ends meet by working in the city. It was in those slums that Zhang Wuli had grown up all his life.

“Zhang Wuli, you’re coming to drink with us, right?” Li Bo’s question pulled his eyes from the slums back towards the waiting group. Li Bo, Wen Ai, and Ding Da stood in a line by the closest stairway down, waiting for a chance to join the flow.

He winced and felt his pockets, knowing there was nothing in them.

“Sorry Li Bo, I’ll have to pass tonight. I didn’t bring any money with me today.”

Li Bo waved him off idly.

“Forget about that. How could we brothers let you miss our first drink together for something like money?”

“Besides, Li Bo is already buying the first round!” Wen Ai declared

“Come on, we need to hurry if we want a good spot.” Ding Da rumbled.

Zhang Wuli made a few more attempts to refuse, but gave in as the three men pulled him by the shoulders and joined the flow of people going lower in the city.

The trio moved confidently, stepping off the stairway after three levels only to join a different set of stairs where they made their way up once more. It continued in this fashion for a while, with the three men making enough twists and turns that Zhang Wuli was hopelessly lost by the time they arrived at a cheap looking building somewhere between the twelfth and fifteenth level.

The trio went inside without pause, pulling Zhang Wuli with them and the scent of cooking meat hit his nose.

“We left a restaurant to go to a restaurant?” Zhang Wuli asked with confusion. This tiny building was several levels below where they had come from.

“Ha! You think we can afford to eat at Ma Cheng’s?” Wen Ai asked “The cheapest thing on that menu would bankrupt me twice over.”

“A Spirit Chef’s food is made with expensive ingredients. Only the wealthy and full sect members could afford to eat such things daily.” Li Bo chided “For normal workers like us, normal food will have to do.”

Zhang Wuli recalled the Pebble Back Boar on the menu and was forced to agree in his mind. He realized with a start that he had no idea what else the restaurant cooked. He would find out later.

The restaurant they had just entered was cramped, with barely enough space between tables for a single person to shuffle past. The owner had somehow crammed twelve tables in a space meant for six at most and still managed to surround them with chairs. Each table had a shallow, blackened depression in the middle. Even so the place was almost full of people and the group of four barely managed to get a table when another group slipped out.

“Ha ha, thin beef, thin beef, thinly sliced beef.” Wen Ai cheered “When you go out to drink you have to have thin beef, right? Bartender, eight servings of beef here and four house specials.”

“Hey! I’m not buying the meat. We only agreed on drinks.” Li Bo cautioned

“Don’t be so stingy. This is Zhang Wuli’s first day and so we have to give him a proper welcome. That means beef!”

As Wen Ai spoke, a man squeezed his way through the tables and placed a thin metal tray, four sets of chopsticks, and four cups of a cloudy liquid before the group. On the tray were 8 slices of raw beef so thin Wuli could see the metal through them at places.

Li Bo looked at the beef and audibly swallowed.

“Fine, but any more than this and you buy it yourself! Come let’s set up the grill.”

Li Bo grabbed the tray and put it above the blackened depression, fitting it firmly above it so it wouldn’t slide around. Zhang Wuli quickly realized that they were supposed to cook the meal themselves.

Zhang Wuli gave out the chopsticks and drinks to the others while Li Bo set up, but when he looked around he realized something was missing.

“Li Bo, what about the coal?”

The bearded man smiled.

“Coal? You won’t find anything like that here. This is one of the cheapest places in the city that serves food and drink where you don’t have to worry about the origin. In exchange for the cost they only provide the bare minimum and the rest you’ll have to do yourself…”

Li Bo snapped his fingers instantly filling the space below the grill with wavering flames.

“…using Spirit Arts.”