Chapter VIII: Burgeoning Alchemist I

Shizukana Gake

Heian Kingdom

The Great Plateau

Month of the Pangolin 4, 172 ,328 DE

With a thick plume of black smoke billowing from the the stack of my steamer truck's stack, I enter the plaza. My speed is fast enough to make people rush to clear a path, and I head straight fo the gates of the City Lord's manor.

The wreckage of Hoshi's steamer car no longer blocks the entry to the City Lord's manor, but even though its front end was destroyed two days ago, it still sits off the side of the gate. Neither Hoshi's clan nor the City Lord's staff have bother to have it carted away. The burn marks remain on the cobblestone. On the northeast horizon, the dark silhouette of the Shinobiyoru Tora . stands out against the blue sky and white clouds.

Whether the captain of the Shinobiyoru Tora is aware of it or not, his airship is relatively safe where it is. The weapons in the Watch Tower, to which I have access, have an attack range or about twenty kilometers. The Watch Towers were designed to work together in a network, and the amount of Power that the weapons can draw on is only a small fraction of a Watch Tower's total Power. Most of the Power in the Watch Towers is channeled into machinery that is doing something related to the Great Plateau itself, but I do not even know where to start to figure out the purpose of that machine

I do particularly like the Shinobiyoru Tora hanging around outside the city, but they are far enough from the Watch Towers that I cannot

As Vorn and I walk through the gate, the guards, both of whom are middle-aged men, stare hostilely at me. They are Cultivators, but they are trapped in the Qi Condensation realm. Pausing my steps, I send out a thread of Trinity to touch the Soul of one of the guards. His Soul is weak and completely lacking anything resembling defenses. The anger, hate, and fear, which I find in his Soul, matches the sour mix of odors in his scent. Unlike with his scent, the dominance of his fear stands out clearly in his Soul, and it appears to be the root cause of his hate and anger. If I had was only able to go by his scent, I would have though all three emotions to be in a rough balance. Shifting the thread of Trinity to the other guard, I find his Soul to be just as weak. Hatred to be the dominant emotion within it, but his hatred is so strong, I cannot tell if fear has influenced his other emotions.

While the citizens gathered in the plaza fronting the manor watch me enter its ground, a gloomy atmosphere hangs over them. Few of the them are Cultivators, but more than half of them appear to have, at least, practiced the standard Body Tempering of the Heian Kingdom. In only a few seconds, I sweep my Empathy thread across dozens of their Souls. Fear dominates their Souls, but the ones looking toward the gate have a mix of hate and anger riding on top of the fear. The only problems is that I cannot identify the reason for their anger and hate. It could be the City Lord, the guard, me, or something entirely different.

Whether it is what I feel through Empathy or what the scents of others tell me, it is not close to enough information to provide a compete picture of them. I need master Telepathy and Empathy to the point where I can use them at will. I need to turn them into true senses and expand the breadth and depth of my awareness.

I walk past the guards, and neither dares to object of so much as ask about my business. With Vorn at my side, we follow the path that Otoko no Kage took to reach the infirmary. The humans, servants and guards, we pass in the halls move out of our way, and the servants, many of them visibly trembling, bow low to us. Brushing an Empathy thread across their Souls, I sense the fear dominating their emotions.

For the time being, I lack the skill to manage both Empathy and Telepathy at the same time. I can only use one of the other. Releasing my Empathy thread, I form one for Telepathy . As I focus my awareness into the thread, the world around me slows to the point is almost seems to stop. If it is not fettered by the Body, the Mind operates at incredible speeds.

The servants Minds are weaker than those of the guards. I reach out and touch the Mind of one of them. My Telepathy thread penetrates it more easily than breathing. The most recent of the servant's memories open up before me like a panoramic tapestry. Each memory has layers to it, and each layer differs in minor or major details. I skim though the memory most prominent in her Mind, looking for something that will explain the fear in the servants. Like all her surface memories, this one has multiple layers, but one thing remains constant throughout them all. At night in a room with a group of female servants getting ready for bed, two of them paint an elaborate and embellished tale of my confrontation with the okama, his lackeys, and the City Lord. The difference between the layers of the memory lie in the emotional content and the female servant's belief in what she heard. She clearly dislikes the two, who told the tale, and with each layer of the memory, the female servant sees the tale as more and more of a lie.

Do all humans subconsciously change their memories? Do I do it? While I find myself curious, I can look into the Minds of more humans at a later time to see if the phenomenon is common. I do not know how I can examine myself for the phenomenon, but I do know that when I read a book, I remember it word for word, character for character, down to the unique stylistic quirks of how the letters and characters are written or printed. When I focus on a memory, I can dig out minute details that I was not even aware of seeing at the time. It will be problematic to determine if I subconsciously change my memories.

Withdrawing my awareness from the Telepathy thread, I continue on to the infirmary. Upon reaching it, Vorn and I both throw open one of the doors, and we storm into the room. Seeing us, the patients seem to shrink into their beds. It looks like the story about my confrontation with the okama and the City Lord has made its way here.

"Beast! Vorn!" Lying on a bed in the back corner of the room, Hoshi looks excited to see us. He squirms his way into a sitting position, but wincing with pain, he glances at his leg, His expression crumbles.

As I walk over to Hoshi, I expand my awareness, but the wound in his leg has already turned into a scar. I cannot tell what the condition of the bone or muscles might be.

"Your leg?"

Hoshi shrugs and tries to smile. "Fujiwara-sensei says I'll probably never walk right again. He says he could fix it, but he would need miraculous herbs, maybe heavenly herbs to do it. We don't have anything like that in Shizukana Gake."

Testing the air, I spread my awareness and find the old Physician in the back room, where he was when Otoko no Kage brought Hoshi here. With soundless step, I move to the door and throw it open. Fujiwara-sensei, looks up from the papers spread out on his desk.

"Old man, you can't fix Hoshi's leg?" My words carry the cold contempt that I cannot bother to conceal.

As his Yuan Qi stirs, Fujiwara-sensei frowns. "I am a Physician. To restore a shattered bone to its original condition, I need materials with strong enough Earthly Essence. Bring me Corpse Bone Dawn flower and a bone from a Rank 5 or higher Ferocious Ape, and I can concoct a pill to restore his leg."

"Corpse Bone Dawn Flower? What the fuck is that?" I might know what the flower is, but I do not know most of the strange names that Cultivators use for plants.

As a result of the Dragon Seal placed on the Realm, many plants, metals, and minerals have been altered so that they can store loose Yuan Qi. When that happens, Cultivators label it as an Earthly Treasure and call the Yuan Qi Earthly Essence. Cultivators can often directly consume Earthly Treasures and obtain an increase in their Cultivation, but they more commonly process them into pills and elixirs, which is more effective for them. Some of the pills and elixirs are for Cultivation, and others are medicines to heal otherwise irreparable damages.

Heavenly Treasures have large quantities of Trinity, which Cultivators call Heavenly Essence. A Heavenly Treasure is thought to be something that is used by the Dragon Gods and Immortal Cultivators. The Cultivators do not seem to understand that Trinity is the very basis of all Amalgamate Realms. Without Trinity, the Amalgamate Realms could not exist. Their ignorance is all because of the teachings of the Daos and the Dragon Gods.

Because of the twisted methods Cultivators follow in the attempts to 'defy the Heavens', they cannot directly use Trinity. However, through the use of Alchemy, Cultivators can twist Trinity into a usable form, which gives them far greater benefits that Yuan Qi.

Whether Trinity, Mana, Psi, Ki, or Yuan Qi, they are very seldom found in a pure form; they commonly have taints or affinities with other Powers. The Cultivators tend to attach a descriptor to Earthly and Heavenly Treasure based on the taints and affinities. Earthly Fire Treasure or Heavenly Fire Treasure is how they refer to their various 'treasures'. When I hear a Cultivator refer to an Earthly Earth Treasure, I cannot keep from laughing at them.

Tia. Can you restore Hoshi's leg?

I can, but you would have to reveal my existence. I cannot do it from within your Core Realm. As usual, Tia's thought bring an air coldness with them. She is indifferent to the plight of humans, and probably, most everything else.

Fujiwara-sensei shakes his head. "Something that you won't find near here. It grows in the far south of the Great Plateau.

I sneer, but I cannot tell if I mean it for Fujiwara-sensei or Tia. "Useless. I'm taking Hoshi with me."

Turning back toward the infirmary, I spot a chain with wheels in one corner of the room. I grab it and bring it over to Hoshi's bed.

"We're going someplace to fix your leg."

Hoshi's confusion is plain to see on his face. "What are you talking about, Beast? Fujiwara-sensei is the best Physician in Shizukana Gake."

I snort derisively. "He's a half-assed healer. I'm taking you to someone can heal for real. She'll fix you."

Vorn raises his eyebrows. "The tree?"

"Who else?"

Vorn nods. "Come one, Hoshi. Let's get you fat ass in that chair. We're going for a ride."

"You should lose some weight. I almost tore my back muscles lifting you out of bed."

Vorn laughs. "What are you talking about, Beast? You can lift a steamer bike over your head and carry it around."

"Like I said. Lifting Hoshi out of bed, I almost tore my back muscles."

Hoshi looks indignant. "Hey, Beast. I'm not that fat. I need to eat a hundred kilos a day for the next few years to get to my ideal weight. Why are you trying to butter me up with lies?"

Standing in the door to his office, Fujiwara-sensei glares coldly at me, but he does not try to get in our way. He simply watches, as Vorn and I leave with Hoshi. We follow the path we came in by back to the steamer truck. No one so much as tries to talk to us, but while we load Hoshi into the cabin, Otoko no Kage stares impassively at us from a window on the second floor of the manor house.

As I bring the steam engine up to pressure, an odd pulse of Power passes across my Soul. The Power is not Ki or Trinity nor was it the Soul Power used by Cultivators, but the Power was definitely travelling through the Pneuma.

Vorn looks at me with his eyes wide-open, but looking around, I do not see anyone else, who appears to have noticed the pulse. "You felt that?"

I look back at Vorn. "Yeah."

"What was it?"

I shake my head. "I have no idea."

In the northeastern sky, the Shinobiyoru Tora floats in the sky. I have no idea how, but I suspect that whoever is in control of that airship has something to do with the pulse of Power.

Feeling like we are pressed for time, I throw the steamer truck into gear.

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