It was a pill, and it was literally lightning in a bottle.

The pill’s insides fizzed and jolted about, like it was trying to break free of the casing.

Dorian looked at it side-eyed, with a little apprehension.

“This,” said Tuketu, “Is a Vigor Spirit Pill. When the Tribe last docked at the Azcan Oasis, Chief Rust personally bartered for a batch. They were made by a Grade-Four Alchemist. It is a pill made from rare ingredients found only in the depths of the Azcan Sinkhole. Ingesting it aids cultivation at the Origin Realm and increases the odds of breaking through to Vigor—truly, a heaven-sent pill. Now it is yours.”

He pressed the thing into Dorian’s palms.

Dorian stared at it, eager and the slightest bit apprehensive. For volatile pills, the Multiversal Standard of Alchemy dictated that a dampener be inserted in the pill’s formation—something to take the edge off, calm the violent spasms of qi. No such thing existed here. It probably did as Tuketu said, but taking it raw would be a little like undergoing surgery without an anesthetic.

“Well?” Tuketu raised an eyebrow.

“A thousand thanks!” Dorian bowed low, making a show of trembling with excitement. As he did, he took a close whiff of the pill. No scent. A faint echo of qi drifted off it, hinting at a water aspect. He gleaned nothing past that.

Without a formula, it’d be impossible to replicate. Oh, well.

“Take it now,” intoned Tuketu. “It will sting some. Such is the nature of these pills. But it will help your growth tremendously.”

Sting some? Dorian squinted at the thing, suspicious. Even as it cackled in his palm he felt qi lashing out at him. For an Origin Level 2, it’d do a lot more than sting…if given to the average rube, like the previous Io, it bordered on dangerous.

“Is something wrong?”

“No, Master!” said Dorian immediately.

It’s abnormally strong. Is he messing with me? Does this have to do with my tricking his son? Surely not. Still Tuketu eyed him expectantly.

He was dragging this on too long. There was nothing else to do, really. Here goes. Bracing himself, Dorian brought it to his mouth and swallowed.

Tuketu nodded, satisfied. Kaya cheered. Kuruk glared. Hento snapped his fingers.

“Young Io has been gifted this pill because of his great promise.” Tuketu made a point of making eye contact with each one of the Chosen left. “Show promise—prove yourself worthy of the Tribe’s investment—and you, too, will prosper.”

Two seconds had passed and Dorian was already pre-cycling, readying his body for the blast. Three seconds… four… then the pill finally made its way to his stomach.

Sting some was the understatement of the decade.

Qi blew out like firecrackers in his stomach. It felt like he’d swallowed a swarmful of angry bees that were trying to burrow their way out to the surface. He gritted his teeth; instantly, he felt his face reddening, his eyes watering involuntarily. The rest of Tuketu’s speech was drowned out by a high whine of pain.

I was right. I was so stupidly right.

He cycled furiously, trying to take in the qi. It wasn’t as bad as the elixir—certainly nowhere as ponderous—but what it lacked in weight, it made up for in sheer bite.

Soon it spread to his whole body. He felt like he’d been lit on fire from the inside. Every vein bulged on his skin. He stood there, unmoving, as a dull roaring drowned out the whine of pain, the sounds of the world.

Out of the corner of his eye, he caught Tuketu glancing at him. Assessing.

This is not only a reward, but a test. It dawned on Dorian instantly. He fed me a pill he knew was beyond my level. He’s not only ‘rewarding’ me. He wants to see what I’m made of.

Though it felt like he was being cooked alive in his own skin, he bit down on every instinct to cry out. Instead, he threw the man a strained smile and a nod.

To his surprise, Tuketu returned the gesture. There was even a hint of approval in his eyes.

After thirty more grueling seconds—during which Tuketu talked, and Dorian roasted—a faint sheen of black appeared on Dorian’s skin. It sublimed into the air, smoking off of him in tufts.

Impurities cleansing!

So Tuketu had spoken the truth. The pill would increase his body’s latent talent. In this case, it was burning out the gunk in his meridians. It’d speed up his cycling a degree. He needed all the degrees he could get.

Only a body with few impurities could ascend to the [Vigor] realm.

By the time Dorian had siphoned off the brunt of the pill’s volatility, assimilating half the qi, Tuketu had finished speaking. Dorian could only tell because the man’s lips stopped moving.

After this small encounter, it wasn’t only Tuketu who’d gotten a sense for who Dorian was. In a move Tuketu had shown his cards too.

This man throws his trainees to the fire. Those that survive, he showers with favor.

The Chosen were forming into a standard grid formation. Dorian followed along, marking out his spot, chest puffed out, shoulders back, pretending he knew what the hells was going on. By now the pain had fallen three notches. His ears finally decided to work again.

“—warmup,” Tuketu was saying. “Master Tocho shall demonstrate the first Kata.”

With a rough grunt, Tocho leapt into a horse stance. Then his arms slowly shifted in smooth arcs, a not-quite-dance: aesthetic, but with a fighter’s ferocity. There was a logic to the way his body moved; pivoting off the balls of the foot, into the legs, shifting the hips, turning the torso, an unbroken kinetic chain. He cycled his qi in tandem with the movements; as he did, sunlight clung to him like a second skin. He positively glowed.

“The first Kata: Daybreak,” said Tuketu. He gave Tocho a curt bow, a picture of courtesy. “Thank you, Master Tocho. Aptly done. The Kata’s purpose is to draw energy from the celestial bodies to aid in cultivation. It energizes the body and replenishes the spirit!”

He jabbed a finger in the air. “By now, most of you know better than to mistake simplicity for ease. There is a reason it is only taught to Chosen. Fundamentals are not the basics. Conflate them at your peril.”

He inclined his head. “This Kata doubles as a cycling method. Naturally, is a far more effective one than our tribe’s default, the [Peerless Yang Sutra]. It is also much more difficult. Most of you have tried it for months with naught but mild success. From some of you, however, I expect greater things…”

His eyes flickered to meet Dorian’s for an instant.

“Once more, if you please, Master Tocho! Slower this time, so I may offer a full account of the move’s specifics…”

By the time the second run had finished, Dorian was reasonably sure he’d gotten it all down. Ah, these lower-realm bumpkins, with their silly, flashy moves! The Kata was not bad, per se, but he counted two wholly unnecessary twirls and three stops at nonsense unathletic stances. And the footwork—the footwork! It was evident Tocho was no natural martial artist. To Dorian’s eye the movements were wooden, stiff; likely he’d only achieved this level via hundreds of hours of painstaking repetition.

No amount of practice, however, could ever match the effortless ingenuity of talent.

It was a guilty pleasure of Dorian’s in any speedrun to take special care to curbstomp the silly talentless shmucks who thought their years of hard work and determination counted for anything. He wouldn’t try it with Tocho, of course. Amusing as it might be, showing up the instructor straight-up wouldn’t end well.

Hmm. As Tocho barked at them to start drilling, he turned to his now-brethren.

It’s not like I’m lacking for fools. Maybe I should establish myself by beating up one. He kept an eye out for any notables. In particular he scouted out the pecking order—who inspired the most reverence? Who deferred to whom? There was Kuruk, to the side, alone, puzzling through the Kata’s basic steps with searing intensity. He took three steps, twisted his massive torso, and toppled. Then there was Hento, who opted to whistle to Kaya rather than try the move. A death-stare from Tocho had him scrambling back to practicing.

For her part, Kaya seemed tops in competence. She had Earth-grade Martial Talent and it showed. She might be missing steps, or throwing in nonsense improvisations, but there was a natural fluidity which still eluded most of the other Chosen.

To her left, a hairy boy did a rabbity punch, shouted, “ha-cha!”, overshot the qi, set the hairs on his arm on fire, and dove into the sand to put it out. Dorian would’ve awarded the boy’s diving form more points than his Kata form.

It was a better showing than basic training, but not by all that much. Dorian nearly snickered. In this tribe, as it often was in the Lower Planes, power levels went up but idiocy was a constant.

Meanwhile, Tuketu and Tocho strolled and marched about respectively, offering pointers.

Tocho spat long, exacting lists of mistakes. Tuketu, meanwhile, seemed content to sit back and offer one-word judgements.

Dorian made a few testing motions, pretending to feel his way through the moves; most of his attention was on Tuketu. He wanted a feel for the man.

“Poor,” was Tuketu verdict for one Chosen’s try. He moved onto the next.

The hairy boy tried again; this time, he managed not to set himself aflame, but earned only a wrinkled nose from Tuketu for his effort before the man drifted away.

“Decent,” he said as he got to Kaya. “Very decent.” From his interspatial ring he plucked out a pill and tossed it to her.“You earn a qi gatherer’s pill. Well done!”

So that’s how things work. Dorian’s eyes lit up; he licked his lips. I see!

This time, Tuketu came to his own son. His smile dipped to a thin line. Kuruk was still struggling through the first half of the Kata with little success. Dorian winced—all the boy’s blessings had been dumped into his physique, clearly. He moved like he was hungover. There didn’t seem to be a talented bone in his body.

“Useless,” said Tuketu. His eyes narrowed. The word didn’t echo, but it might as well have; Kuruk cringed.

His lips were almost in a sneer. “After all these months, still? What have you been doing, fool boy, when I’m out on hunts? Twiddling your thumbs? Playing fetch with your hellspawn?”

A crease went across Kuruk’s forehead. He looked down. “They are not hellspawn. They are crows. Baby crows,” he muttered.

“Oh, son. They could be basilisks for all I care! You spend more time on them than you do training, don’t you? Perhaps I should strip you of your Chosen title so you can devote your full attention to raising the blasted things instead.”

Kuruk gulped; his massive chest heaved with the motion. “No. I tried. I’m trying,” rumbled Kuruk. “I practiced lots. Really.” Kuruk stood almost a full head above his father, but he somehow managed to look very small.

Tuketu sighed. A corner of mouth turned down. “Hum. Perhaps you need more motivation. Perhaps I should put one of your little birds down.”

“N-no!” Kuruk yelped. He tugged at Tuketu’s sleeve; Tuketu batted his massive hand away with contemptuous eave. “’S hard, father. I’ll do better. I’ll do better.”

“Of course it’s hard. That is no excuse. You insist on using it as one anyways.”

Kuruk’s massive frame shifted and squirmed. “I’m sorry.”

Tuketu sighed. He patted Kuruk the way a man pats a dog he’s thinking of putting down.

“Son, every day I hope that today is the day you cease to disappoint me. Every day, that hope only disappoints me further.”

With one last, firm grip on the arm, Tuketu left Kuruk standing very still, looking very pale.

Now Tuketu trained the full brunt of his smile on Dorian.

“Our newest Chosen! I’m sorry I’ve made you wait all this time. Why don’t you show me your Kata?”

Time Elapsed: 1 Day, 5 hours.