I can hear loud scolding as I continue up the steps. There’s a crowd near one of the camp areas surrounding the alchemy cauldron area. Moving through the crowd, I can see that some people that I invited later on, that didn’t initially join the group, are being berated for not initially accepting my offer.

Already some people are using their status in the group to fight for positioning.

Not in my group, they won’t.

“If we can consider them late and holding the leader up, then maybe I should be the one to be berated for my decision to help them.”

I sneaked up on the group that was berating and say this out loud. The speaker turns to me, to now scold me, before their face drains of blood.

I try to defuse the situation rather than escape.

“I appreciate your thoughts on defending me and my time, something which I have a tendency to neglect. However, I think this is an opportunity to bring up a new way of thinking.

“Is there not some admiration reserved for attempting to strive for something with your own power, then acknowledge your weakness by asking for help? It would be better if they recognized their limits at first, but who among us could claim to be perfect? I know I’ve made mistakes, and silly ones at that.”

I dramatically pause, in accordance with the scan.

“But I’ve also made lifelong friends out of those same mistakes, people I wouldn’t trade the world for.”

I walk over to the berated people in question, placing a hand on one of their shoulders. The young woman I do so to gives a wince, but I resist the urge to remove my hand and instead give them a reassuring smile. Their eyes glazes for a moment, before appearing slightly brighter.

I turn back to the offending group and approach them.

I placed my hand on their shoulder, and they flinch, clearly assuming I would discipline them. Once again, I do something similar that I did to the other person, and it works in the same way.

Both members seem to be of the commoner class.

My aim for these two actions was to show I have no hard feelings for both sides. I’m carefully using the scan to mediate this, so this approach would only work for this group.

I speak out my thoughts.

“My goal for this group is it for it to be a place where we can temporarily put aside our statuses and offer sincere, constructive, and good faith interactions with each other. If we can keep to that, all of us can benefit. Case in point.”

I gesture over to the alchemy cauldron.

“As many of you know, what I have given yesterday and plan to give today again freely could normally be sold for a price. Whether that price is favors, money, or other types of bartering, it would be sold nonetheless. In this case, I’m giving it to you guys freely.

“I’m investing in a relationship with each and every one of you, regardless of your incoming status. I truly believe that all of you have something that makes you special, and you have something that you want to strive for.”

I try to look as many people in the eyes that I can, before continuing. Emphasizing my sincerity.

“I want you to succeed in those things.”

I give another pause before resuming my dramatic monologue.

“All that I hope for with gifts like these, is that you would also want others and I to succeed in my goals. This is my way of showing my sincerity to you, that I want you to succeed.”

I focus my attention back to the two original people.

“With that said, the greatest gift you all can give to me is to treat each other with respect, kindness, and goodwill.”

I quickly realizing I’m leaving out my intentions for the personal group.

“For my personal group, I mean this in a much deeper way. I Will make sure that you’re taking care of, to the best of my ability. Though, with my increased contribution, I have much greater expectations of you.”

My scan lets me know to stop, as it could cause issues within the group if I go any further.

Many people appear to be contemplating my words.

What I said sounds nice, but involves giving up benefits for yourself regularly in order to help others. For some people, that may not be worth it. Especially in a world like this, where the norm is to prioritize yourself above others. Unless forced to.

With everything that needed to be said having been said, I move my attention to creating the next batch for the concoction.

With everything being there, it’s quite easy to just go through the steps of creating the concoction. The only thing that’s really different is that instead of just a cultivator watching my actions, now everyone is. Throughout the entire process, while things are mostly silent, there’re mummers throughout the crowd making comments on the different things they actually see me doing.

There are clearly some aspiring alchemists here, who have done some studying and recognize some things I’m doing.

I specifically notice one person who is staying silent, whose hands are twitching in time with my actions, subtly mimicking them. It shows a great deal of control, far beyond the average person.

His eyes look intense, and he’s one person who joined the coalition and had packed away the first vial of my concoction. However, he only shows a low amount of dedication in my scan, but high value.

The longer he watches, the higher his dedication grows.

I suspect that out of these people, he would actually know the difficulty of what I’m doing here.

Sadly, all good things come to an end.

Eventually, out of one group that isn’t part of the coalition or the personal group, I can hear a comment made that disparages my work.

“Did he just put the threefold debilitating root in that pot?! Is this what we’ve been drinking?

“With this, it’s clear that I won’t take any more of that concoction he’s been making, as he has no idea what he’s doing. Everyone knows that any elixir with that root in it is bound to fail or is a slow acting poison.”

He increases his voice for this last portion, clearly trying to affect the surrounding group.

“If it’s not an accident, he clearly must be distributing this to everyone, so that he can sell us an antidote later.”

I can’t let this one sit. I have to address this immediately.

Since I’m already using the scan to focus on making this concoction and am quite deep in the process, I can’t allocate it elsewhere to finesse my words for this situation.

Luckily for me, the use of my conversation/merchant scan on an intuitive level shows some of its benefits now. I can already have a general idea of how I should respond to this situation.

Before I can say anything, though, I can see Dana’s shivering form rise behind him.

Since she usually keeps her body compacted and dense, her full mass is usually not apparent. A giant woman-shaped blob, 5 meters tall and wide, appeared.

He notices and his flapping lips stop in their tracks.

In an instant, this brings to everyone’s minds one reason why many of them wanted to join my group in the first place.

Power and connections.

Especially at this tier of strength, having a tamed creature is a sign of strength and additional leverage when in a fight.

This doesn’t even include when those creatures are intelligent, and when you have three of them. To add to that, as I showed with one of the young masters from earlier, I have lots of personal power as well.

With the information given out by brokers, I’ve already made plenty of alchemical contributions for major groups. Increasing my backing.

Only a few people know of the Alchemy Group’s animosity against me, and haven’t shared it, for whatever reason.

Many people, at this moment, decide to separate themselves from this person’s side.

Unlike what I wanted before; this has become an us versus them situation. In-Group versus out-group.

Unfortunately, I need this dynamic at this moment. He’s not only questioned my integrity, but is also risking the group itself.

I raise a hand, without looking in that direction, indicating for Dana to stand down. All eyes move to my hand and then Dana shrinking back to her normal size and then moving back to my location.

Such a simple action shows complete control over a situation.

I keep working for a breath of time before finally deciding to speak. Leveraging this situation to make a statement.

“I suppose it is true what they say about some people…

“A person can have just enough knowledge to think they are right, but not enough to recognize how wrong they are.”

I shift my position around the cauldron so I can look straight at them.

“The threefold debilitating root has many properties. The most well-known of them is its poisonous effect. However, it is also used in a great number of Constitution building elixirs.

“For the knowledgeable ones out there, you may have heard of the 10 men power pill, which gives a person the strength of 10 men over the course of a day. Like in this concoction, one can use ingredients that, because of their natural qi properties to generate heat, can break down the threefold debilitating route and expend its harmful energies, leaving only a powder that helps amplifies the effects of others. Of course, this only works for ingredients and concoctions below a certain level.

I continue working silently, already expecting that a certain someone will raise their voice. And just as I had anticipated, The Alchemist gentleman from before speaks up.

“The Esteemed Sir is correct. The root is used in several other elixirs or concoctions that are not harmful and, in fact, greatly boost constitutions.”

Everyone’s eyes shoot over to this new speaker, and someone speaks out.

“Oh my God, is that Han Mingying, third son of the Han clan? They say he’s already put three novice alchemists to shame with his knowledge. Why would someone like that be here?”

Mingying pauses briefly, but ignores the question. He apparently continues with his words.

“What the esteemed Sir is not saying, is that the reason that it’s not widely known that the threefold debilitating root has healing properties, is that it takes an extreme amount of skill to properly powder it into such a way that it could work positively within a solution or concoction.

“In fact, being able to use such a root in a concoction would normally only be possible by someone of the Qi condensation stage or above. Only they (normally) would have the skill, control, and perception necessary to manage all the different effects of such an item.

“… Skill, which he is showing right now to a great degree. Just being able to use this root itself in a concoction would already raise the rarity of such an item with that ingredient.”

He seems to get more and more worked up, but is coming down slowly.

“Though, the only reason someone would have used such a thing for something like this, is it is the only common herb around here that could make such a large quantity and quality of concoction, for so many people.”

After glancing around at everyone, he shakes his head.

“Truly, showcasing such abilities before the common person is like throwing pearls before swine. You know not the gifts you’ve been given.”

He falls silent and begins staring intently at my actions yet again.

Some people look offended at his words, while others are astonished

The group eventually goes silent and everyone’s attention slips back to the only sound left; the gurgling of the pot and the actions I’m taking to make thing.

The whole time, I said nothing and did nothing else but work.

Doing my best to give off the air of an expert focused on their work.

The original offender, now being scorned by everyone around, has retreated to another campsite that has others who didn’t accept the original offers.

However, as word spread quickly about what happened, he has been chased off from even there, as they are not looking to offend others.

He has to fend for himself now.

It’s unfortunate, but a necessary action. Such words could cause not only division between the group, but taint everything I do in the sect.

I’m grateful to that alchemist young master, though, as he stated the things I was doing and lent a significant amount of credibility to my work. It would have been much more difficult to convince people, being the one under the critical eye of the public.

Just like Shi Ji, I will need to pay him back somehow.

The rest of the night proceeds relatively normally, with me finishing the concoction and helping my team prepare for the night.

I’m actually surprised to see that Huang Kaida and his group decide to keep pace with our group. Normally, such teams would finish early. It appears he is staying back to gather more information about me in my groups.

During the night, I run a scan on that man who said the disparaging remarks and found that he was a plant from the Alchemy Guild. It had to be someone who knew a bit about alchemy, and could speak on it confidently, but could still be a sacrificial piece if things went wrong.

They seem to like that tactic.

Now I’m left wondering what their follow-up will be. From what my scan hints at, they always start with a sacrificial blow first and then a final one for their Plan B.

Just like they did with the assassin.

Obviously, I stayed up all night and was vigilant for any trickery.

No attempts were made.

The next day approaches quickly as we proceed up the stairs.

I looked around for the offender, and it appears he picked up a few vials of the concoction by buying them from those who didn’t need them for exorbitant prices. I suspect they aren’t for his own use.

Moving my thoughts back to the situation at hand, I think about what everyone will need.

Since the efficacy of the concoction for people has gone down, it is likely the weakest of the group will only make it to the 80% mark of the stairs.

After that, it will be a straight shot. For that portion of the journey, I’m expecting to hand out two concoctions to the weakest people. One to start, and one to finish.

Just as before, I lag far behind the entire group as everyone else goes ahead, keeping to the 4 day ‘sweep’ bus idea.

I help anyone else who falls behind, giving them additional portions of the concoction. Since there are some that had already moved ahead before I gave out the concoction, I had to give some of them an explanation of what I was offering and for what.

That’s how I saw a trio of people up ahead about 70% through this part of my journey

The group was composed of an older man, clearly about to go into his 30s, and two younger men. Each of them supporting each other as they limped up the stairs.

From what I can tell, the older man and one of the wealthier looking young men can make it up with no help, The youngest one, who appears to be the leader of their group is having a significant amount of trouble, telling the rest to move without him.

Although the scan is telling me that these people neither have neither high skill nor a high possibility of dedication to me, I can feel something special about this group.

I hang back and watch to see what’s happening. To see what choices these people make.