13-15

Chapter 13: Contact With the Enemy

Now that the boy's condition was stable, Wild Swan was carried to his room, and a physician from the higher Sect was summoned to tend to him. All throughout the Sect rumors had already spread and the writing was on the wall: Wild Swan had experienced life-changing luck. His body had been completely tempered by the lightning! He now possessed incredible powers! His star was rising!

As a cripple, nobody asked Booker's opinion. And Booker was concerned he'd created a monster.

Wild Swan getting the power to kill as he pleases isn't going to help anyone – even Wild Swan, in the long run. But now that he's truly the golden child of the Sect, he'll just be given even more permission to misbehave.

He moved from one courtyard to the next, rain sweeping in around the edges of the rooftops and scattering cold water against his robes.

It was with a great sense of relief that he arrived at his destination, one of the Sect's many libraries. It was a tower built seven stories tall, and while Booker had seen some impressive libraries back on earth, there was no comparing it to this. Seven stories of scrolls, jade slips, and books printed on vertical strips of bamboo. Every one of them an artifact from another world; many of them explicitly magical. At every tier there were columns that held the next ring up, leaving a central space clear through all seven layers down to the bottom floor, where the floor was patterned with a massive mandala pattern.

As he entered, a crippled attendant stepped forward and bowed her head. "Where may I direct you, junior brother?"

"I need the book Ruminations of the Grass…" His master had told him to study it. And while Booker didn't think he needed to study for the test, so much as find a way to escape the teacher's notice, he definitely wanted his master to hear that he'd come and asked about the book. "And a basic medical textbook." That would be the one he really poured his attention into.

His book had finally given him the new quest to replace Miracle Worker.

Quest: Theories of Medicine

Goal: Read and memorize the contents of 1 (0/1) medical textbooks.

Reward: Page of the Apprentice Book.

A page from the Apprentice Book… A single page from the Master Book had allowed him to gain total mastery over a single crafting process, and given him Snips. He was eager to see what a page from the Apprentice Book was worth.

"Very well sir." The girl bowed and led him to a small reading desk enclosed by cloth screens to form a cubicle. A lamp hung over the desk for added light.

In moments she returned carrying a large book and a scroll.

The book was a slim volume bound in red while the scroll was capped by ornate bronze knobs. She set them down on the reading desk. The book was obviously more modern. Looking at it, Booker realized that his master had given him an easy assignment.

This book was obviously a simplified textbook for beginner students. It translated ancient works, scrolls in languages Booker didn't even know how to read, and made them comprehensible in modern terms.

It's important to remember that even though this world is ancient history to me, to them history begins now and stretches back for millennia. They have their own definitions of ancient. And the origins of alchemy are definitely ancient. Looking at this, they might be as old as ten-thousand years or more. Enough time to have faded, been rediscovered, and lost again.

Whereas with the alchemy text book Booker had his master to pick out an especially suitable volume, the scroll on medicine was completely oblique. It contained scraps of languages not held in any of Rain's memory. The diagrams were obtuse.

Glancing through it, Booker's head began to spin.

Memorizing this won't be easy, he thought. "Thank you", he said to the attendant.

"Of course," she replied, "is there anything else?" Booker paused for a moment. There were truly many things he wanted to know about this world. But he had to keep these scope of his studies focused.

"That's all for now."

As she departed he unfurled the scroll and began to read.

It wasn't any kind of comprehensive medical literature. It didn't explain how diseases were born or the root cause of maladies – the Sect's medicine was much simpler than that. It simply described how to identify thirteen different ailments, and the treatment. It began with stitching a wound shut and concluded with how to remove the cornea to 'cure' cataracts.

So the Sect really does only know the most basic theories of surgery and disease. But I suppose that makes sense; alchemy is far more popular, while practical medicine is second-best, only for the poor who can't afford an alchemical solution.

I guess I can't complain. If I'd become a doctor, I'd be able to bring modern medicine to this world; I chose a degree in architecture.

The archaic language the scroll was written in was barely related to the modern dialect Rain spoke, and Booker was struggling to follow.

At that time, there was a knock at the wall of the reading cubicle, and a lanky apprentice with shaved blonde hair leaned over the top. He was chewing tree sap in the corner of his jaw.

"Hi-ya, cripple."

Booker didn't quite like his tone, but it wasn't exactly hostile either. "Evening, brother."

"Studying?"

"As you can see." Booker's smile became increasingly thin. If he wasn't at a disadvantage, he'd tell this pest to get to the point.

"How about a focus pill then? My own personal concoction." Slipping his hand out of his sleeve, he dangled a glass vial on a golden chain. Within the vial was a light blue powder. "Only ten liang."

Instantly the book flipped open. It wasn't good news.

Lilac Focus Powder (Dull)

12% Potency // 39% Toxicity

Effect:

Assists focus and memory, but causes headaches.

Ingredients:

Clear-Water Meditation Pill

Alchemical Ash Scrapings

Synthetic Spirit Crystal Shavings

"Get that away from me." Booker's face darkened and he waved the disciple away. "I'm an alchemist. Don't you think I know what I'm looking at?"

"Hey, I made this myself…" He laughed. "Really, I'm hurt."

"You broke down a Clear-Water Meditation Pill and added cheap accelerants." Really, the crudest procedure you could still call alchemy. "It's second-rate."

The disciple squinted, suddenly sensing something. "Are you saying you could do better?"

Booker saw where he was going and stood up, collecting his books. The disciple stepped into his path, leaning in to whisper, "You said you were an alchemist?"

"I'm not for hire." Booker responded.

"We could make a lot of money here." The disciple grinned, his hands in his sleeves. "And I know everyone in this world needs more money than they have. Listen to me, it could profit you."

You know what…

He looked up and met the lanky disciple eye-to-eye. "Does Zheng Bai know you're on her territory?"

His new 'friend' froze up for a second, and then chuckled nervously. "Look, if you think dropping a name is going to make me disappear–"

"Get the fuck out of here." Booker spat.

The disciple made a silent calculation, bit down his objections, and turned to walk away. Booker watched him coldly.

That felt pretty good…

But using Zheng Bai's name could get dangerous.

Either way, my master was right. The Sect truly is full of parasites.

He settled back down, resuming his studies.

But what can I do about that? I'm just a disciple.

— — —

That evening, Booker went to the practice hall. Besides my main quest, Martial Basis has taken the longest to complete. I suppose that's because there are no shortcuts with it. You simply have to put in the ten hours.

Shrugging off his outer robe and hanging it on a peg, Booker slid off his sandals and walked to a straw mat. Stretching his body, he jogged in place for a few seconds, getting warmed up fully.

And then with a single hard pivot he fed the whole of his body's force into a single spinning back kick. The post the mat was wrapped around shook like a leaf in the storm.

With these long, lanky legs, Rain's body is perfect for kicking.

But the Sect's martial style doesn't focus on kicking.

For several minutes he practiced his kicks, high and low, feeling out the limits of his new body's strength and range.

Rain would have smoked any of the guys I've ever fought. He's got a lifetime of practice. But his body isn't fully built out like a top fighter. We have better understanding of nutrition and muscle-groups; the first thing I need is just to get better food.

As he practiced, Booker noticed he was drawing an audience. First one of the black-robed novices stopped by to watch, then two, then three…

Booker ignored them until one of the novices asked. "What is this? It's not any Sect martial art."

"Just some kicks." Booker replied.

The novices paused and glanced between each other. One of them grinned. "How about a sparring match, oh tall one?" He was tall for a novice but still short, with a lean build and darker skin than moist.

"I've got a foot of height on you." Booker warned.

"Won't matter." The novice waved his hand. "Y'see, I don't practice the Sect's martial art either."

Booker nodded and stepped back, allowing the young blood to step into the ring. They assumed their martial stances – the boy's was odd, low to the ground, his hands half-open and curled into claws. "Younger brother greets elder brother." He said.

"What is that?" Booker asked.

"In Mount Hudan, which is my home, this is known as the strongest martial art. Hudan Bone Locking!" The young man grinned ear to ear.

With a name like that… a grappling technique, for sure. Booker thought. "Older brother greets younger brother." He replied.

One of the boy's friends held up a hand, shouted, "Ready?" And then chopped the hand downwards. "BEGIN."

Instantly, Booker started forward, lifting up his leg for a simple front kick. He was offering a grappler the perfect opportunity to grab him, and the boy was already shifting to defend–

When Booker snapped his leg out to the side and converted to a high, head-aimed kick.

A question-mark kick. Never could do this one in my old body.

It collided with perfect accuracy, catching the boy off guard and slamming dead into the side of his face. The boy fell side ways, caught himself before he hit the ground, and lunged for Booker.

Booker jabbed a straight left punch with the full reach of his arms to force a block and stop the movement in its tracks. The moment his legs stopped moving, Booker sensed weakness, and kicked into his left leg. The boy stumbled and Booker kicked again, tapping the left leg twice in quick succession.

The boy feinted back, and Booker followed aggressively with a thrown right hook. His opponent, faster than he'd anticipated, ducked under it. Booker threw out another straight left–

And the boy's wide open guard closed like a trap. His hands grabbed onto the punch before Booker could pull it back, and the moment he'd wrapped his arms around Booker's limb he was throwing his full weight to the ground, trying to drag Booker with him. His legs swung around and grasped on, his full body wrapped around Booker's one arm.

Booker slammed to the ground on his knees, fighting desperately to keep his arm curled as the boy tried to pull it out straight for a joint lock. Disengaging one leg from the grapple he slammed it into Booker's face, using repetitive heel kicks to try and keep Booker off guard.

Scowling through a mouthful of blood, Booker rolled off his knees onto all fours, on top of the boy. The interfering leg was now under him, trapped in the act of fighting to push him away. His good arm pulled back and he slammed an open-palmed strike down into the boy's face. Again. And again.

The boy, dizzied, loosened his grip for a single second. Booker pulled his arm free and planted his hand across the boy's face to push off, rolling away from him.

As they both stood up, exhausted and panting, Booker flicked another low kick into the boy's left leg. The bruised and weakened limb locked hard with the blow, the boy sagging like he could hardly stand. Booker switched things up with a high kick coming from the right into the boy's head.

He fell over, collapsing to the ground.

"Done!" The novice-turned-ref shouted. "An easy win to the cripple!"

"I did have a foot of height on him." Booker reminded them, walking over to offer the boy a hand, "And that grapple was lightning-quick. I barely had time to react." He praised his opponent.

And if I'd been a little less familiar with tiny guys who are bringing killer grapple games, I wouldn't have known how to respond. This guy must wipe the ground with the average novice.

"What's your name?" He asked.

"Me? I'm Little Snake." The boy wiped the blood from his mouth and grinned, although it must have stung to even move his swollen face. "And when I get my growth spurt, I'll come back and we'll see who beats who."

"You've got a good attitude." Booker could only smile himself.

"What's your name, then? I've got some friends I want to introduce you to." Little Snake glanced back to the others, who nodded.

"You can call this elder brother Rain." Booker said. It barely feels like lying anymore.

"Elder Brother Rain, you fight like a demon." Another novice, a girl, said.

"It hurts worse than it looks, too." Little Snake complained.

"You should come with us. We're going to a place where the strong bare their fangs." Her smile was beautiful but her eyes were totally cold. "You could win a lot of money, being an oddity like yourself. A cripple who can really fight."

"Is it okay you're just telling me about this place?" I've never heard of this, so it might be a secret.

She put a finger to her lips. "Hmm. It's not a secret, exactly. Actually there are high-ranking members of the Sect who sometimes attend. But it's tradition not to mention it to someone, unless you're inviting them there to fight."

"Alright, I'll go. It sounds like an interesting place."

What sold me is the mention of high-ranking Sect members…

I still have a quest to win one of them over as a sponsor.

— — —

The fighting ring was outside of the Sect proper, in a laundry house nearby where the Sect robes were washed in massive pools of hot water. At night the pools were empty, and the Sect held fights in the stone-lipped basins. Lanterns held in hand lit the place, and massive shadows crossed the stone walls as people walked in front of the lights. The air was thick with conversations.

In the depths of one pit, two men were fighting. They traded fast jabs left and right, not bothering to dodge, but trading blows directly.

In another there was a knife fight, fast brutal cuts slashing through the air and the crowd cheering whenever a knife found its mark and blood sprayed up.

What interested Booker most was…

These people aren't all from the Sect.

Scattered among the crowds were men and women from the city, both rich ones here to gamble and lower-class ones, with thuggish faces and eyes that said they knew the sport well. Many of them were wearing the faded scars of brutal wounds, such as missing teeth that caved in a jawline, or a dent to the skull dimpling a bald head.

The Sect might know martial arts…

But these are real fighters.

Just the atmosphere was enough to excite Booker. The crowd and the sweat reminded him of his few fights in the ring. Yeah, I can't wait to see what this world really has.

The three novices who'd collected Booker led him up to a woman with plaited black hair and a pair of ragged crescent scars on her cheek. She was standing at the edge of the VIP area, collecting bets from the crowd with the help of two disciples.

"This is Brother Rain. He'd like to fight." The female novice introduced him.

Looking past the woman, Booker got a nasty surprise. The VIP area was simply a few high-backed seats that resembled thrones and a clear space away from the crowd. But sitting in one of the thrones was Instructor Greysky. Their eyes met, and the man's gaze lit up in recognition, and a small smirk emerged on his face.

Wrenching his gaze away before he was compelled to throw a punch, Booker's eyes landed on the second occupant of the seats. It was another Instructor, but this one wore an alchemist's red robes alongside the yellow sash that indicated they were a teacher. He didn't happen to meet Booker's gaze – his eyes were fixed on the ring.

"He can't cultivate, but he's a great fighter." Little Snake said. "I'm sure you've got some good citizens who can't fight a full cultivator, but don't want to waste their time beating up novices half their size. Our Brother Rain is just a perfect match for them!"

"A cripple against a full grown man, who could resist taking the easy money? But people do love an underdog. You'd get plenty of people rooting for him too." The female novice added.

The woman hardly seemed to pay attention to them. She looked him up and down once, judged him, and said, "He'll do."

In the background the crowd around the knife-fight erupted into screams of triumph and groans of despair. One of the fighters was down, clutching an arm with a severed tendon.

But before he could blink, the woman with the scarred face stuck her fingers into his face and snapped them. "Don't look at them. Don't get distracted now. All eyes on me."

"Right, right…" He turned his attention back and tried to ignore the screams. "I want to fight. Hand to hand."

"I can see that. You're all fired up." He got the impression she was talking about more than his body language. Can she read martial intent like Fen can? "We'll warm you up with a novice who owes me a favor. Don't bother to make it look good for the crowd. Make it fast and show the fighters in the audience why they want to fight you."

In the ring below one of the fighters lost his legs. It was all over as his body turned from agile and fast to slow, desperate, and weighed down. The other fighter simply punished him at a range where his own punches were too slow to land. When he fell over, the woman stepped forward to shout,

"DOWN! GIVE HIM THREE…"

"TWO…"

The fighter struggled to get to his feet, and she paused. Slowly he got one of his legs under him. But it was too much. Something gave out, he collapsed back down, and she called…

"ONE!"

"OVER!"

Hands reached down and pulled the triumphant fighter out. A friend gave the loser a hand as he clumsily beetle-crawled his way out of the pool, struggling to get himself over the high ledge. Money was furiously changing hands now, and Booker was pushed into the VIP area as people piled up demanding their payouts from the woman. Her two disciples were attending, counting coin so fast it blurred through their palms.

"Alright, it's your turn. We go until my call. And my call is final. No gouging the eyes, no tearing the genitals. You get a tenth of the take and anything you bet on yourself if you win." She held up a hand. "NO BETS THIS ROUND." She turned and called to the crowd. "THIS ONE'S FOR WARM-UP."

Booker slipped down into the stone pool and watched his opponent clamber down from the opposite side. He was an older novice, maybe sixteen, who'd hit a generous growth spurt early on his career. The boy was simply built like a brick house.

But can he move?

Booker began to dance, to move his feet in a boxer's bounce, weaving left and right.

The novice responded with the Sect's movement technique, a series of circling steps, each feeding into a defensive pose of the upper arms. It was supposed to resemble a mantis.

But it's also a technique for cultivators…

And almost useless in a fight without magic.

Booker feinted forward and faked a kick. The novice responded with a fast left that found nothing– and he made a crucial mistake. He leaned further into the punch to try and hit Booker with it, fully overextending himself past his guard.

Booker dodged in and willingly caught it to trap the arm against his chest with his arms locked in a figure 'x' over it. His foot swung up and whipped a high straight strike into the novice's chin, knocking his head so hard he could see veins bulging in the novice's neck, then simply let himself fall backwards and pull the enemy's body with him. He rolled, twisting the arm and using his knees and legs to lock it straight and in place, so the joint was locked in a brutal angle.

And then he simply applied pressure until the enemy was white-faced and the crowd was staring and the woman called, "OVER!"

He made one very bad mistake.

But let's see how the crowd likes my switch-up from striking to grappling.

He unraveled his body from its serpentine grip on his enemy's arm, and the boy let out a gasp of relief as the pressure released off his joint. Booker got to his feet first and offered a hand down.

"Never thought it would end so fast…" His opponent mumbled, nursing a sore jaw. Booker's foot felt swollen and he was sure he'd broken a toe on that kick.

But it was worth it: he looked up and caught Little Snake's face in the crowd, wearing an expression of utter shock.

I guess to him, it looks like I learned his technique just from seeing it…

That's going to start some rumors…

But Booker couldn't help but smile. As much as he wanted to remain hidden, he couldn't help but let out his war side every now and again. He had this powerful new body, and like a tool demanded to be used, the strength in his frame demanded violence to inflict.

He licked the sweat off his lips and looked at the crowd, waiting for somebody to challenge him.

"He fights like a street brawler!" Somebody called. Booker's gaze snapped to a heavy-set man, with a thick black beard combed into a braid and unruly masses of hair bound back in an untidy bun. He looked like a bear and had scars that suggested he might have fought one. "I like him."

"Bearded Devil, Lin Feiyu!" The woman called. "A soldier of the streets versus a child of the Sect! ODDS ARE EVEN!"

The Bearded Devil dropped down, cracking his shoulders with a long stretch that made a whipcrack sound as his spine snapped into alignment. He took a coin purse from his belt and threw it up to the woman.

Booker, taking a fifty liang purse off his belt, threw it to her as well.

Their eyes met and by silent agreement they squared up, circling around the ring.

Booker shot forward, his back foot hammering the ground. The man met him with a right hook, which Booker took on the back of his arms, blocking it away. He got into the opening that left in the man's defenses, getting him with a right jab before he could close his guard up.

The bearded devil rushed forward and tried to catch him with a grab, going for his lower waist and throwing his whole body and fat-bellied weight into a jumping lunge. Booker dodged back, but the man's arms still caught his legs and dragged them out from under him.

Booker hit the ground and kicked down into the man's face, squirming out of his grip and rolling away.

They both stood up heavily.

If that grab had fully connected, he's twice my size; he would have buried me.

I can't afford to let him take me to the ground.

He broke the ceasefire by lunging forward and throwing out a roundhouse kick. The man tilted and blocked with his shoulder, then swung into Booker's midsection with a hook.

Booker went dancing back, breathless and aching from impact. He lifted his hands to catch a left jab aimed at his face, trying to catch him up by quickly switching from low strikes to high.

He's clever. But he's expecting me to try and maintain distance all day. He's wide open to…

This!

The brute swung heavily into a right straight punch, expecting to get to punish Booker's blocking arms for free while Booker dodged back. Instead, Booker dodged around it, grabbed hold, and hooked his other arm around the man's neck. As the man tried to swing him off, turning and pulling away, Booker kicked off from the ground and used the momentum to sling himself around onto the man's back, grasping his neck with both arms.

The man immediately pulled his chin in, expecting a chokehold. Instead Booker brought his elbow swinging in to chop against the man's throat, repeating the motion again and again with vicious stinging force. When the man's hands came up to defend, trying to grab the arm still around his neck and pull it away, Booker switched it up and began hammering his elbow down onto the top of the man's skull.

The impact jarred through his entire arm. He felt the skin around his elbow split and bloody warmth drip out. The man roared and tried to slam backwards into the wall, attempting to crush Booker like a bug. The hard edge of the pool smashed against Booker's shoulder blades and he cried out.

The bearded devil pulled back to try the same maneuver again. Booker got his legs pulled up, pushed his feet flat against the inner wall of the pool, and kicked off. The man was sent tumbling forward, crashing face-first towards the concrete ground. He lifted his arms to brace and Booker slid from his back, grabbing the man's topknot on the way down.

They crashed to the ground, landing on their shoulders. White pain exploded in a kind of flash in front of Booker's eyes, a burn-out searing open the center of his vision for a moment before washing away and letting the colors return.

When he woke from the daze, his body was already punching Lin Feiyu in the face. He had his legs locked around the man's neck, absorbing weak inward punches as they threatened a triangle and kept him busy. His hand was mechanically reeling back and slamming into the man's crushed nose. His other hand was clutching the topknot and ripping out the man's hair.

He woke up and kicked away, rolling onto his feet as the man gasped and stood up slowly, pushing his way off the ground.

Too much danger holding that position. Once he stopped being winded, he could have reversed me easily.

The man's face was a mass of red and black bruises. He could barely see, his eyes closed up by swelling. His feet were leaden on the ground.

Booker kicked high, and the man's right arm jerked up to block the blow from reaching his head.

So Booker danced back, danced forward, and kicked high again– the man's arm slashed up to block again, but this time there was less strength behind it.

He was in total control of the distance. There was no fight left. But the woman wasn't calling the end, not until she saw a knockout.

So one more…

Booker spun into a roundhouse. Like a trained puppy, the bearded devil's arm shot up. His right arm, as Booker's kick slammed into the left side of his face.

The man's knee buckled and he slid down.

"OVER!"

The crowd roared in approval. Booker saw Sister Mei cheering, jumping up and down and clapping her hands together like she'd just seen him wrestle a lion.

"This cripple's getting pretty full of himself!" Someone called out, and at their voice people hurriedly backed away, revealing them among the crowd. It was a face that was vaguely familiar to Booker, because it belonged to one of Wild Swan's henchmen and toadies who'd attended the spirit beast fight.

A cultivator and a full disciple.

He dropped down into the ring, not waiting for people to help haul Bearded Devil out. His every posture and expression reeked of cockiness, his hand sitting with his thumb hooked through his white disciple sash.

"I think it's high time someone teaches him a lesson." The man said to the crowd, who jeered back, a disapproving bellow of sound.

"You hear them, Redwater! No fight!" The woman stepped forward, slashing an 'x' in the air with her arms. "You won't beat up the cripple simply because you lost your bet."

"Wait!" Booker shouted.

The whole crowd froze. Even the seemingly unflappable scar-faced woman seemed surprised.

He could read the thought behind their eyes: Was he really going to…

"No, I won't fight you." He said. "What a losing proposition. But I do have an idea that might satisfy everyone."

He held up three fingers. "Three punches." Booker said. "If I can't get back up after taking three punches from you, its my loss. If I can… Then it's my win."

The crowd let out a holler of approval. And in the VIP section, the red-robed alchemy instructor had leaned forward in his seat, and was watching the fight intently.

Time to see…

Time to see how deep the gulf between me and a cultivator is.

Chapter 14: What It Feels Like

"Hey junior brother Little Snake, can you bring me a mat?"

There was a pause before Little Snake dropped down, carrying a rolled straw mat.

The cultivator glanced up to the announcer, who nodded. "Alright. Three hits, with the mat. No aiming anywhere else." The cultivator rolled his neck.

Booker swallowed down the Iron Hell Crucible Pill as the world erupted into a gambler's frenzy.

"Three hits! If the cripple is still standing, he wins! Three-to-one odds against the cripple!" The announcer cried out, as money changed hands at a furious pace. The crowd was pushing up against the edge of the VIP area, calling out bets, their roar filling the midnight air.

Three blows…

The pill was erupting into a fiery strength that poured through his frame. He felt himself coming alive after the last fight, focus returning to his mind, the vague edges coming off his vision. A full revitalization.

"Let my bet ride." He called out. "One hundred on the fight."

The announcer nodded.

Already, the stomp and beat of the crowd's feet against the floor was forming a rhythm. A war drum sound. He smelled blood and felt sweat beading down his face, dragging heavy trails as it moved. The night's cold air felt fantastic on his burning skin.

His opponent's face was covered by a strange disbelief; he wasn't sure if Booker was crazy, or worse, if there was something he didn't understand going on.

Taking the mat, Booker squared up. His feet set and he balanced out his stance, trying to make himself unmoveable. Whatever's coming next, I just need to roll with it. A human can survive being hit by a car. I can survive this. I can survive this.

The cultivator drew back his fist–

Booker exhaled—

The blow slammed into his chest through the mat. His feet skidded back against the smooth stone, and his muscles locked in place under the pressure. Even through the mat, he felt the bones of his arm shake and the muscles bruise, felt the impact lift him.

"Hhhaaa…" He let out a slow gasp. "That wasn't so bad…"

"That was half-strength. Just to see if you would break." The cultivator said. "Feel like giving up, cripple?"

Booker's mind froze. That was half strength? He felt like he'd been run over. All the breath was gone from his chest, and his lungs hurt as he forced them to expand and draw in more oxygen.

"One hit! The cripple isn't down!" The announcer yelled.

"Fuck you." Booker breathed out.

"Suit yourself." The cultivator just smirked, but Booker clocked the worry in his eyes.

He drew back. It was a punch that came low from the right, leaning down, almost scooping upwards to intersect with Booker in an upper right cross.

It collided perfectly.

The impact drove into him. Pain shocked through his system, drilling in through skin and fat, muscle and bone.

Booker's feet fully left the ground. His whole body was frozen by brutal pressure lifting him from the center of his belly, right where the blow had collided with the mat. It was a sickly, tight sensation, every joint in his body pressed to its limit. The force with which he left earth behind was rolling through his entire body in shockwaves, making his stomach tighten up with pain, his lungs let go of their breath, the world spin.

His body slammed into the stone wall of the fighting pit and slid back to the earth. The stone felt cold, which was good.

His chest wouldn't move properly. His lungs were supposed to lift and fall, but they were tight and getting air through them felt like torture.

For a long moment he lay there, until his hearing came back, the ringing scream in his ears subsiding to let him hear the count of, "ONE!"

Booker stood up on his knees. He clenched his fists – or tried to. His right hand was refusing to close. The fingers curled in so far, then met a paralytic wall, a numb inability to close any further. He looked down and the bone was broken, a strange bulge sitting about halfway down his arm.

"Oh…"

Standing up slowly, Booker let his right arm trail limp against his side.

The pain was something else entirely. The way his bone was pushed out of place felt primally wrong, a sick intrusion on the normal state of his body. Shockwaves of cold and hot ran through his spine, hot pain and cold wrongness.

But the pill was doing it's job. A new sensation was replacing the pain, numbing it and making it bearable. It was a fizzy, uplifting buzz that was spreading throughout his chest and arm, where he'd taken the brunt of the blow. As he got to his feet he began to smile. A euphoric rush was coming on fast.

Well getting literally high off the pain wasn't in the plan…

But being honest, it was kind of a stupid plan to begin with.

As his hearing blurred in and out, he realized the crowd was cheering for him. The night was in uproar with their chants and their yells. The sight of his broken arm was just blood for the sharks.

He gripped the mat awkwardly, picking it up off the ground with one hand and bundling it against his chest.

"Two blows and the cripple isn't down!" The announcer called. "Lasts bets!"

"I think I'd like to… as they say, double down." A soft voice rang through the crowd. It carried no power, but seemed to silence the world in front of it.

"Really?" Instructor Graysky raised an eyebrow. "Then I too will double my bet."

"Doubled bets from both instructors!" The noise was the noise of a human sea. It sloshed back and forth, highs and lows, but there was always the dim rushing of voices blended together like the tide.

And the sea spoke his name.

"So…" He couldn't help himself. For every time he'd had to turn his eyes down to avoid eye contact, or bow, or just tolerate these pompous pricks, he said, "Where are your fans, exactly?"

The cultivator's eyes flashed. He stepped back, cracking his knuckles.

"To the mat, only!" The announcer called, sensing something foul between them.

"You cocky little defective." The cultivator spat. "I'll kill you with one punch!"

He reeled his whole body around the punch, winding back. His whole body fed power into the blow, the full twisting force of the forward punch coming from his hips, feeding into a lightning-quick forward step, pushing up from the ground to land a rising right cross.

Booker went into the air. His joints groaned like the creaking of old trees, his left arm fully snapping out of the socket. The world spun wildly, no sense of weight or momentum through the overwhelming pressure in his stomach, crushing him flat even as he flew into the air. Muscles, organs, bones… they were all bent and bruised under the force of the punch.

Straw rained from the sky. Broken straws…

The mat must have ruptured.

The sensation of spinning was so strong. All he could see were blurs of color, not quite solid, but broken apart into droplets that spun independently through a white haze. He didn't even realize when he hit the ground, he only knew he was there because he could feel a cold smooth pressure against his jaw, his shoulder, his ribs…

It took him a second to realize it was the cold stone of the earth.

The fizzing sensation in his chest had intensified. He thought he might have laughed, but he probably only mumbled.

He tried to push his way up with his arm, and regretted it deeply. The sick pain located in the broken bone exploded and shot down his arm, up into his shoulder, where it burned like embers sinking deep into his muscle.

But slowly the pain transformed into more fizzing. It was like the pill he'd taken was eating up the pain and transforming it.

He slid his right knee underneath his body, and pushed up, forcing himself through a wall of pain that rose up to stop him from lifting his head.

Ribs are probably broken. Was probably the thought his brain was trying to put together.

Except he could barely think, so what he really thought was, oh shit rib bad.

He had to go by degrees. Straighten himself a little taller, let the pill slowly ease the pain until it became bearable, and then lift by another degree.

It felt like an impossible climb. Somewhere among the haze of pain, his mind came up with an image. An image of a man pushing a boulder up an endless cliff.

But there is an end…

I can beat this cliff…

It's just ahead…

Just ahead…

Just…

The world seemed like it was trying to fall away beneath him, but his head was up. The world was oddly silent except for a dim ringing that was slowly growing louder, louder, louder…

He slid his other leg up, and got it beneath him.

Pushed up and stood at the center of a spinning world.

He felt triumphant and dizzily euphoric. The world was piecing itself back together, his vision returning. The crowd roared.

But as soon as that was done, he started to sag down again. Picking himself up had taken all his strength.

Passing out was as easy as closing his eyes.

— — —

The sound of a nurse walking past woke him up.

Rain woke up in a clean white bed, staring up at the fragrant pine timber beams of the Sect's ceilings. He tried to roll over and found that pain spiked through him. His chest and his right arm were wrapped in bandages with a deep, bitter herbal smell. The whole of his body was aching, but the pain was definitely most fiery, most alive in his right arm. His left arm, at least, seemed to have survived relatively intact.

Snips was standing on his bedside table. He reached out painfully with his left, letting the mantis hop onto his hand. The nurse caught the motion out of the corner of her eye.

She turned. "Oh, you're awake. You were given lily-draught to help you sleep… It usually doesn't wear off so quickly."

Rain must be resistant…

"I have a stupid habit of getting up when I should stay down." He said. "Speaking of, did I…"

She raised an eyebrow, her lips pinching into a frown. "Did you win the street fight where you broke your right arm, bruised three ribs, and dislocated your left? Is that your first question?"

He sank back down. I got back up, I remember…

I won.

"Nevermind then. How long will I be down for?"

She walked over and turned the wooden shutters open. Light fell onto his bed. "The medicine will take three days to repair what you did to your ribs. The arm, maybe another two."

"Can I have a book from the library brought here?" Booker asked.

"That can be arranged."

"And… Do you know how Wild Swan is doing?"

"The master who came down from the mountain cured his injuries, but he's still bed-ridden. The master said he had a demon in his heart that was causing seizures." She helped him sit up, against a pillow.

"You seem to know what's going on."

"I do, and I know you're trouble. Good day."

"Good day. I'm going to lie back and think of my mistakes."

He sank back down into the pillows, letting her leave on her rounds. As he lay there the first thought was…

What was that?

The whole fight. You didn't need to do that…

So why did you?

He let the answers echo until he had an answer for them.

I could say I did it for purely logical reasons.

And that's a part of it…

Getting beaten to a pulp helped the Iron Hell Crucible Pill work…

And hopefully it attracted the attention of that instructor…

But nobody lets themselves get beaten up just for logical reasons…

And even within logical reasons, you can find someone's real motivations hiding.

What were his real motivations? What did he want from this world and his new life within it? He had worried about those questions at first, but as things to do and adventures to chase pile up, he'd become so preoccupied he forgot to ever answer them.

I did it because…

Every time I've been trampled, overlooked, or treated poorly by the cultivators…

I think…

Someday.

Someday. Someday I'll have the power to change things.

Me and Rain aren't so different, I guess. We're vulnerable to making the same mistake.

Promising yourself something impossible, but letting the dream be enough… Letting the dream comfort you, even as you wander farther from making that future a reality…

I tried to keep my calm by promising myself that someday I would be strong enough to stand up to the cultivators…

And when that day didn't come soon enough…

I got impatient. I started a dumb fight where I got beaten half to death.

He sighed. The reasoning really was that simple. Even though, walking into that situation, he would have sworn it was to feed the Iron Hell Crucible Pill and to win a sponsor… That was a cold reason without introspection, and it didn't take much digging to unearth the fact he'd wanted to find a reason to fight. And now he was paying the price.

Book.

The green book flipped open in his head. The pages began to turn, and the open face landed on the pages for his quests.

Quest: Repairing Your Life

Goal: Create a Seven-Times Purified Charcoal Pill and use it to repair your poisoned body.

Reward: Materials Box

Quest: Wondrous Healing

Goal: Create a pill with a potency above 25%, a toxicity below 5%, and the Moderate or Great Healing property.

Reward: Materials Box.

Quest: Theories of Medicine

Goal: Read and fully learn the contents of 1 (0/1) medical textbooks.

Reward: Page of the Apprentice Book.

Quest: Sponsorship

Goal: Impress and befriend a ranking member of the Mantis Sect

Reward: 1 Hour Practice Token.

Quest: Martial Basis (Complete)

Goal: Practice your martial arts for 10 hours.

Reward: 1 Hour Practice Token.

Right… Three days gives me time to finish Theories of Medicine, hopefully. Sponsorship and Wondrous Healing will have to wait..

But the big one…

I finally have my answer.

He watched as Snips buzzed around his fingertips. Watched the light shine off his beast's translucent, glass-like body, and the sharp edges of his scythe-blades. The mantis was beautiful, his wings beating so fast they became a haze of pinkish color in the air.

Rain dreamed of it but…

I will become a cultivator.

In the end…

I can't be who my master would want me to be.

Quiet and meek, keeping my head turned down.

That's…

That's not actually answering the question.

The question is, how do you cultivate and keep yourself good.

How do you prevent yourself from treating the people you could crush to dust like they're second-class.

My master…

He thinks the only way to keep yourself good is to turn away from cultivation.

But good without power is just hopes and dreams without the willingness to chase them. Empty words.

Even my master is a hypocrite, in the best way. He learned the same alchemy that cultivators use, and he uses it to help people.

The tools of the cultivators…

You could do a world of good with them. And I'm not the first to think of that – I know I'm not. There's nothing revolutionary about what I'm saying. If I were to leave the Sect, I could find another home. Someplace where the cultivators aren't so brutal.

Even if I have to make that place myself…

In the wilds, a warrior who reached the upper stages of cultivation could become a chieftain of a clan, and that clan could someday hope to found a city, elevating their leader to a City Lord. All of the Mantis Clan's great city was built in the lifetimes of two City Lords, the latter of whom was now an old man despite his cultivation.

If I could become powerful enough…

Fuck it. I could found my own civilization if I needed to. Perfect alchemy is that much power. I just need the cultivation to protect myself and avoid being enslaved the moment I reveal it.

And even if only for myself…

I need to cultivate.

There's no other way to guarantee I won't be wiped off the face of the earth at any moment.

No other path to survival, except maybe letting the reins of my life go and hoping fate steers me blindly in the right direction.

If I want to control myself – be something more than a slave to the whims of any petty cultivator –

I need to cultivate.

It's what I said to Wild Swan…

The future is born from the present you make. If I don't make myself stronger, now, I'll just continue drifting along fighting to get by.

And if…

If that really does mean killing and someday dying.

I'll save one more life than I take, always.

I don't know if trading life for life is actual good or just a meaningless attempt to trade things that can't be traded with. But when it comes to the end…

I'll leave behind a world that's glad I existed.

That's enough.

That has to be enough.

But right now, if I died, so few people would remember my name in a year…

Except maybe the story of the time I stood up after three blows from a cultivator.

That's why I did it…

That's really why I did it.

I wanted to be someone you didn't forget.

That's pride, and I know it's pride, but I also know it's me.

It's me all the way down.

So fuck everything else.

If I have to make my mark on the world, for pride's sake, to die without feeling like I'd lost my chance…

Then I can try to make that mark the right way, and leave behind a world that's glad I existed, in whatever small way, a world where I'm a legend.

Because I have the book, and the knowledge of two lifetimes.

Because with gifts like those… Then the least I could do is leave a legend behind.

Anything less would mean I'd wasted them.

So one last time…

For the gratitude of the gifts I've been given–

For Rain and the book–

I have to cultivate.

— — —

On the first day, Booker read the medical textbook from one end to the next, unfurling the entire scroll and reading over it twice to slowly to commit to memory. He asked for pen and paper and used his left hand to copy the text. On the next day, he read it twice more, and copied it out again. On the third day, he could remember the entire scroll, but continued to read and copy it out to make sure it was cemented permanently in his memory. At this time the quest had already completed, but Booker wanted not just the contents of the book, but the lesson to be complete in his mind.

The lesson was: When you're surrounded by distractions, you feel like days go by in minutes, but when you really concentrate, when you're alone trapped in bed with nothing to do, you find those missing hours. If you really concentrate – if you do nothing else – you can do things like memorize a book in a very short amount of time.

On the third day he asked for a candle.

The nurse brought him one and lit it. When she left, he snuffed out the mundane red flame, and replaced it with a blue spirit flame from his right hand. "Furnace."

Waving his hand over the spirit flame, he saw that it didn't move in the slightest. The edge remained straight as a razor.

He had learned to draw his martial intent into himself and disguise it totally. The only obstacle was, a sick feeling began to overtake him just when he was feeling the most focused.

This isn't normal. This isn't possible. Back on earth… You couldn't focus all day. You got distracted. You got tired. You got bored.

Here it is. This is cultivation. This is cultivation, even if my body is ruined.

This is the cultivation of focus.

There's a specific sensation…

It feels like I'm washing my mind, almost. Like clear, cold water is running through me, pushing out the impurities that would make my mind lose focus. My mind feels sharp and crystal-clear, like I pursue one thought with a total purity of purpose.

At first this sensation occurred randomly, and never for longer than a minute. During that minute, he felt like he could remember everything perfectly, and like his mind was a precise and nimble instrument that felt no distractions and never had to pause before answering a question. As long as he could ignore the overwhelming nausea his body felt in those moment, he could think through almost anything.

This was impossible back on earth.

This is a form of cultivation.

By the third day, he had managed to extend the duration to a minute and two seconds by slowly luring himself into the mental state where the sensation occurred, where he was at once relaxed, confident, and focused on the task at hand, then holding onto the sensation for as long as possible. Every time, sickness eventually shook him so hard he leaned over and retched.

I think all cultivators must find this state intuitively.

But because I come from a world without cultivation, I know this is magical, and I can find the language to express that magic. I can identify where human limits end, and magic begins.

I don't think the Sect has a strong understanding of this magic, even though I imagine long-established clans must have discovered it. So far, this clans cultivators have simply been those who could intuitively find this focus state. Maybe some of them have described it to their disciples, but each disciple has to find it in themselves…

Leading to vague terms like 'prana state' and 'meditation'.

Being able to find it this easily and understand it as something repeatable, concrete, and controllable…

Nausea spiked from deep within Rain. Pain arose, as if resisting the next thought….

Is a gift.

Gratitude. Gratitude is also possibly an element in the equation: It feels like as I gained gratitude and appreciation for this ability, using it got a little bit easier. It's not about happiness or unhappiness exactly; even if you're unhappy you can still be grateful for what you have.

Human nature is to overlook what you're used to, familiar with, and have always had.

To keep the happiness and gratitude for what you have, even when the world is at its worst, is a way of making happiness within unhappiness.

It's also a fight against human nature.

I'll have to keep an eye on that one.

Booker noticed he was sleeping better since discovering the prana state meditation, or as he preferred to call it, focus. It might be possible I'm entering the state during my dreams, and gaining some benefit from that. Or it might just be that I'm exercising the same 'muscle' – expanding the same capacity. Some commonality between this meditation and sleep, so that enhancing one enhances the other.

But all the same…

Every time I do I feel sick. I feel overwhelmingly sick, the same way I would if a bone was out of place. It's the fact that I'm crippled – that my system is poisoned by the drugs Rain took. That's what I'm sensing…

I should have reached the first level of cultivation by now. If my system wasn't clogged, I would have stepped naturally into cultivating the skin…

This weird state is a half-stage that exists because I'm a cripple. I can enter the focus state, but not use it to cultivate.

The levels of cultivation could be divided into: the cultivation of the skin, the cultivation of the muscle, the cultivation of the bones, and the cultivation of immortal self. No common person knew what remained past the stage of immortal self, except that the way remained, rising ever higher.

The longer these meditation sessions went, the slower Booker felt the passage of time within that minute was, but the more content he felt in each second. He knew that if he could have somehow extended this focus from one minute to being able to hold on forever, he would have been a born cultivator. But at the end of three days, his progress in holding onto the focus had bottlenecked at one minute two seconds.

For his last day in the hospital bed, Booker seemed totally asleep, except for a few moments when he was furiously active. In reality, he was spending entire hours seeking the focus state, then working while he could hold onto that state. In his mind, this was far more important than the actual reward for the quest, because the practice he was getting in achieving the prana-state was immeasurably valuable.

Because this is it.

This is cultivation.

If I can keep following this path, then with the medicine knowledge I have…

I can climb the mountain.

With the book, I can replace any weakness within me. I trust it to carry me as far as I can go.

Most people never get this chance.

Most people die like Rain did – still hoping – or worse, having given up hope long ago.

I have a promise of hope – the book.

I can keep going. I can climb the mountain, for Rain and all the rest.

I can cultivate.

I just need to finish this pill.

— — —

On the fourth day, they let him out of bed. His right arm was still bandaged, but he didn't feel bothered by that. Rain had few enough enemies that he could probably avoid fighting for the next two days. His mental state was calm and cool, like a pond after a rain.

"Thank you." Booker said to the nurse.

She tutted in annoyance. "Don't thank us, thank your master. He insisted we use good medicine on your dumb ass."

"He didn't come to see me." Booker said. "Is he angry?"

"He's furious." She said matter-of-factly. "And you'll be lucky if he doesn't have you whipped."

"He would never." Booker said, with immense fondness.

"Sad to say, but true. He'd never have your dumb ass whipped. Which is why you should be grateful and not make him worry so much." The nurse said, irritated.

I wish I could say I would worry him less…

But the truth is…

I plan to worry him a lot, and make him proud even more often.

And I can live with that.

— — —

"Master, I'm sorry. But I have to become a cultivator." Booker said when he and his master were alone, in the alchemy hall.

"Absolutely not." His master said. "I will forbid you to the end of my life."

"Master, it's something I have to do." He said, but the old man only walked away. "You knew I would say this. You had to know…"

I've been manifesting martial intent from day one. Maybe this isn't even the real first stage…

Maybe the first stage was simply to unconsciously learn martial intent.

"You are not a cultivator." His master replied. "You have a talented life ahead of you. You are good at alchemy. You will go far, but you are not cultivator."

"I'm afraid that's exactly what I am. I will try to be a better one." Booker said honestly.

"Get out." His master spat. "Let reality disabuse you of these foolish notions, then come back. I will not accept you until you are done with this bullshit for good."

Booker left.

But as he stood outside the door of the alchemy hall he didn't know exactly where to go.

How dangerous. A cripple with time on his hands.

New quests had appeared in his ledger:

Quest: Break the Thread

Goal: End Zheng Bai's Influence Over You

Reward: Materials Box.

Quest: A Birthright Recovered

Goal: Reclaim Rain's heritage amulet at the auction.

Reward: Materials Box.

Quest: Right the Wrong

Goal: Hunt the Murderer Behind the Boy in the Wall.

Reward: Materials Box.

Quest: Act of Charity

Goal: Cure or Tame Wild Swan's Lightning Heart-Demon within 7 (0/7) days.

Reward: Nothing.

Quest: Purification of the Body.

Goal: Eat nothing but spiritual food for 7 (0/7) days.

Reward: 10-Hour Practice Token.

Chapter 15: Like a Hammer Needs Nails

So.... I have two rewards, and plenty of new goals.

Within the book, a long green bookmark made of silk had appeared. When Booker flipped open the page it was set to, he saw an instruction.

These bookmarks contain the knowledge of the mortal world. By concentrating on a task and using the bookmark, you can enter a mental realm and attempt that task again and again for a number of hours. This will take no time in the real world.

That's honestly incredible. I wonder if I can use it to spar against someone.

And if my arm would still be broken inside the 'mental realm'. Which is… some kind of dream world?

He allowed the book's pages to turn, almost idly. When they landed on a blank page, he knew he'd found his second prize.

This is an Apprentice Page.

Touch any written work to permanently record its contents into the book. Whenever you use the Apprentice Page, you will also gain access to a written work recorded by a previous holder of the book.

Previous holder? This is the first time the book has mentioned them.

Although I suppose it might give me a blank.

Then I'd know I'm the first to inherit the book, but that seems unlikely.

The funny thing is, the right play might be to copy a worthless scroll right away, just for the random other book I'll receive. But the value of that play is strictly based on my predecessors not doing that; if they had just copied random books, there'd be nothing worth learning in the pool.

Although…

It doesn't actually say the 'written work' is chosen at random. It might be connected to what written work I copy to begin with.

So for every reason, I'd better save this to use on a valuable book.

He flicked the pages over, turning to his quests.

Quest: Repairing Your Life

Goal: Create a Seven-Times Purified Charcoal Pill and use it to repair your poisoned body.

Reward: Materials Box

At the end of the month, there's the Sparrow's Examination. Assuming I can find a way to get my qualification past Instructor Graysky, I'll be able to purchase alchemy materials from the Sect.

But the very next day, there's the auction at the Gold Moon Auction House. I might have to spend a lot of money if I want to get the amulet back.

Quest: A Birthright Recovered

Goal: Reclaim Rain's heritage amulet at the auction.

Reward: Materials Box.

That's my most important line. Uncripple my cultivation and reclaim Rain's amulet.

Both of them require cold hard cash. The more I'm able to get, the better things will be. Considering the talents of the book, I'll probably never be in a situation where I can't use more money.

But…

Quest: Act of Charity

Goal: Cure or Tame Wild Swan's Lightning Heart-Demon within 7 (0/7) days.

Reward: Nothing.

This is the most urgent.

I have only seven days to do something incredible. I don't entirely know where to start.

Quest: Purification of the Body.

Goal: Eat nothing but spiritual food for 7 (0/7) days.

Reward: 10-Hour Practice Token.

And this one is easy enough that I might be able to do it at the same time.

So those three goals should guide my next week: make money, rescue Wild Swan from his Lightning Demon, and eat only spiritual food.

Booker paused as he passed a doorway, and stepped back, examining it carefully.

Have I gotten taller?

He rocked from his heels onto his toes. Booker was definitely about half an inch taller.

Must be the Iron Hell Crucible Pill.

For a moment he glanced back, at the door to the alchemy hall. It didn't sit right with him– the old man had never shown anything but kindness to his foolish apprentice. And Booker genuinely had no clue what would convince him this was necessary.

Ah well.

I guess you can't win 'em all.

— — —

He made his way to the courtyard at the Sect's gates, where a huge eight-foot pillar had been set in the middle of the pavilion. Hung on that pillar were bamboo slips carved with requests and missions from the city. They rattled like wooden bells in the wind.

Waving to the granny at the rewards kiosk counting out pill stamps and coins to a group of cultivators, Booker swept his eyes around the square. There was a group of novices who were on their knees around a small ring where chickens fought, feathers flying and talons flashing.

Another smaller group was sitting together on the steps up into the Sect, gossiping, novices and cultivators. This group was the ones who needed assistance for a request: they were waiting for someone else to come along who was interested in the same job.

But it was the last group of people that interested Booker, because he spotted a particular apprentice among them. A lanky novice with a blonde buzzcut, the one who'd tried to sell Booker cheap medicinal powders in the library.

Didn't expect to see him again.

The lanky apprentice was one of the three central figures of the small group. Everyone else orbited around them, vying for their attention, but they were the powerful figures in the equation. Well…

The lanky apprentice seemed less important than the other two. He was in the inner circle in a way none of the toadies around them were, but the toadies seemed less interested in winning his approval.

Looks like the other two are the real players. These people are medicine dealers.

He stepped forward, walking up to the group.

"Eeeey, if it isn't the Iron Cripple." The eldest of the medicine dealers greeted him. She was a striking beauty with long black hair bound in two bows over her head and then allowed to fall in braids behind her back. Her earlobes were stretched by two massive disks of jade set into them as plug earrings. But she had something absolutely sneering about her smile. "What a celebrity."

The other dealer was dressed in absolutely exquisite robes hemmed with golden thread. His hair was bowl-cut and jet black. "Ah, it's such a shame I missed that show…" He leaned casually, one leg bent up with the foot planted on the wall behind him.

"Junior Brother greets his Elder Brothers and Sisters." Booker replied, sticking to the Sect's formal greeting.

"Oh, he's polite." The girl said.

"Hey you, where was this shit when we first met, huh?" The lanky apprentice immediately cut in, directing a furious stare at Booker, who had barely even turned the boy's way yet.

"Did you try to sell him some of your powder, Yuxuan?" The girl snickered out, with sing-song sarcasm illuminating the word powder.

The lanky apprentice looked like he wanted to yell something out, going red-faced – but instead he buckled in his lip, leaned in to the bowl-cut youth's ear, and whispered it behind the back of his hand. Booker didn't catch what was said – but he saw Bowl Cut's eyes light up.

"I'm told you have dangerous friends." Bowl Cut said, seeming deeply amused.

Well shit I didn't expect this to come back around so fast…

There's the possibility this guy actually works for Zheng Bai, and knows I'm lying…

But I don't know if admitting the truth would help, so I'm just gonna keep lying.

"You heard right. But I'm here on my own business." Booker replied.

Book. I need a recipe that can help Wild Swan. Something that works with common ingredients the Sect is likely to have.

The pages flipped open, landing on…

Spiritual Earth Rebalancing Pill (Earth)

5-9% Potency // 16-20% Toxicity

Effect:

Neutralizes maladies, curses, and inner demons. Especially effective against lightning-attuned effects. Difficult to create due to requiring refined ingredients.

Ingredients:

3rd Refinement Earth-Type Beast Blood

3rd Refinement Earth-Type Frog Liver

3rd Refinement Earth-Type Koi Heartcore

Hmm…

"Beast blood, frog liver, and koi heartcore. Ten vials, ten livers, ten cores." I'll handle the refinement process myself. Otherwise, I'd probably have to pay hand and foot for these ingredients – probably more than I actually have to spend. "I haven't passed the Sparrow's Examination yet, so I need someone to buy them for me."

"Oh?" Bowl Cut seemed amused. "I can't think of any recipe that needs those three…"

"A mystery! Brothers, let me take this one. Cripple, you can have all of those for sixty liang if you show me what you're using for them." The girl leaned forward, stepping up to Booker.

His smile was thin and set. "And how much to keep my secrets?"

"Seventy-five liang, and the cost of knowing you've disappointed a pretty girl." She tried.

"Sad to say, I can't afford to give up my secrets for a smile. Seventy-five…" He counted out coins. "How soon can you have them brought to me?"

"Tomorrow." She frowned. "Not even a hint?"

"A hint…" Is it better to give her nothing, or to hope that playing along means she won't investigate further. "Sister, you'll have to forgive me, I'm not good at playing these riddle games." Better play it tight-lipped.

He took a very cold step back. She laughed. "Uptight! Extremely serious. Stiff-backed old Master Ping has made a stiff-backed little apprentice man. Made him like a spirit beast in a jar."

"Oh, is that how he's so tough?" Bowl-Cut laughed. "Is junior brother a homunculus?"

"Tomorrow is good." Booker replied, skipping all their foolishness. "Thank you."

— — —

Going out into the city, Booker asked politely at the nearest teahouse if anybody had houses for rent. Within an hour he'd purchased a small cottage on the edge of the city, an extremely bare-bones shack with a raised foundation to keep out wild insects. It was pretty shabby as a living space went, but for Booker's purposes it was perfect, especially as it had a small backyard that was shaded and concealed by oak trees.

He wouldn't be sleeping here. Sect members were largely forbidden from living outside the Sect. He just needed somewhere to experiment.

Cicadas and moths buzzed out as soon as he opened the door. It seemed the house was less insect-proof than he'd hoped.

I'll bring froggy around here. That'll show them.

Ever since the golden frog had begun its recovery in Booker's rooms, that apartment had become a fortress of death that no insect dared step foot inside. Any that did were added to the corpses lined up for Booker's inspection each morning.

He clambered inside. There was enough room for the medicine chests, which was all Booker needed to store here, and he could use the back yard to experiment with alchemy.

If I come back here often enough, I can get a dog. That'll solve the problem of thieves. For now, I'll have Snips guard over it.

The mantis flickered off his shoulder and flew through the air, buzzing around the confines of the shack.

I still need something else.

The earth-type refinement for the materials was a laborious process. The book could describe it best:

Thunder Neutralization Jar Refinement Procedures

A refinement ritual of moderate difficulty that can be performed by non-cultivators, making it valuable despite its low limit of 3rd stage refinement.

Refinement procedure as follows:

Create a clay jar sized to hold roughly double the size of the refinement material.

Place the refinement material at the bottom, then cover with rich dark soil. Pack the soil to a firm consistency.

Pour in burning coals, and feed in small branches enough to burn long and strong.

Seal the jar with additional clay as the branches begin to burn.

Heat the sealed vessel in an oven, raising the temperature as high as possible.

The jar will crack open naturally. At this time, douse the oven's heat immediately.

Cool the ingredients swiftly with ice.

If done correctly, material will be refined with a 10-60% success rate. The success rate depends on how much of the natural air energies are removed, and how long the vessel can sustain high temperatures before cracking.

So in short… It's a primitive way of creating a vacuum… It wasn't that complicated of a process, but the overall procedure took a lot of skill. Working with clay was a craft of its own, and it looked like Booker was going to have to learn.

But I can hire someone to build the actual oven for me in the backyard. That should save me several days of trying to figure out how to do it on my own.

Sure enough, there was a local potter who agreed to have an oven built for him by tomorrow. Booker was quickly burning through cash at this point: he had spent 20 liang to rent the space for a month, another 20 to have the oven built, and another 75 for the ingredients.

Adding that up to 115 liang hurt a fair bit…

But I'll make money back at the market today. With my alchemy powers, there isn't much chance of staying poor for long.

While I'm waiting for the oven and the ingredients, there's not much else left to do here, except move the medicine chests.

So…

He took a small bundle from his robes. It was the white-furred cape he'd bought in the market, cut into tassels that resembled feathers. Wrapped inside was the fortune teller's mask.

— — —

He arrived to the market in disguise, his injured arm concealed under the fur cape, and handed the unsuspecting clerk a golden hundred-liang coin.

"For the license." Booker explained, his voice disguised by herbs so it was a deep, scratchy croaking. The herbs made his throat itch horribly, but it was worth it for the added layer of protection. This market was close enough to the Sect that running into someone he knew was inevitable.

"Ahhh… We have to see your face…" The clerk started to mumble out. Another ten liang hit the counter. "Nevermind sir."

The clerk drew out an impressive-looking seal. It was carved from ivory with a dragon curled around the handle. He stamped down on a slip of paper written with dense legal jargon, and passed it over to Booker.

"This license entitles you to sell Earth-Grade medicines in this market. If the Sect finds anything they deem Sky-Grade, they are entitled to buy it from you at a fair price."

Or more realistically, seize it and offer me pennies.

Sky and Earth-Grade… Antiquated names for the upper and lower reaches of Dull-Grade medicines. I guess to whoever wrote the book, they were so similar as to be the same. But down here, Earth-Grade and Sky-Grade are a world apart.

"Don't worry. I'm only going to be selling medicines made with ingredients sold here, in the market."

The scribe paused, and looked up. His eyes were bloodshot and deeply ringed with dark pouches bagged up underneath. "Are you a pillmaker?"

"Yes, why…" Booker paused. The veins in the man's eyes were black. "You're showing signs of pill toxicity."

"Yes," He nodded, clearly miserable. "I was taking some for ah, a personal matter of pride, and they work well enough, but the moment I stop taking them my hair starts falling out again. It's been two weeks and…"

"Two weeks. And you've been taking a pill daily?" Booker asked.

The man nodded. He was a thin, gray-haired man whose skin was withered tight to his skull, a wiry beard standing out on his chin.

No prizes for figuring out what happened here.

The pill must be truly low-quality. Low enough Potency that it doesn't fully do its job, so he has to keep taking them.

And high enough Toxicity to add up.

Toxicity was the constant price of using pills. Every pill had a certain percentage of Toxicity, and you could understand it as a chance of lingering side effects. 100% Toxicity would be a guarantee of consequence, and likely lethal ones. Thankfully, anything below 30% or so Toxicity was considered 'safe'. While these pills could have side effects, they would be almost invisible unless you were constantly taking pills.

So he takes them until lingering Toxicity kicks in.

Lingering Toxicity was poison left in the body after taking a pill. The body would naturally flush these out, but the shorter a time you waited before taking another pill, the more the first pill's Toxicity would stack up with the new pill.

This guy's stacked up enough pills that the old Toxicity is never leaving his system. So it just builds up, getting higher each day.

"Stop taking that medication immediately. It's poisoning you." Booker said. "And whoever gave them to you, don't trust them again."

"But my hair…" He said.

"I'll make you a medicine that will solve that permanently." And I'll try to make it as non-Toxic as possible. "But you'll have to wait to take it. Right now, adding another pill to the mixture in your veins could kill."

"Hmmm." The old man combed his hair with a distressed look in his eyes. But slowly, that changed to suspicion. Booker could see the thoughts turning. Who was this masked stranger insisting he was in deadly peril? He felt a little under the weather, sure. But it was hardly a matter of life and death. More likely, this stranger was trying to con him. "And how much would this medicine cost?"

"Nothing. I'll bring the medicine to you tomorrow." Booker said, just to watch the man's mental train derail. He smirked under his mask as he said. "Just send people my way. Tell them that because I'm a new alchemist, there won't be any customers in front of them and they'll get their medicine right away. And tell them I'll match the price of anyone in this market."

Usually it took a week or more to meet an alchemist. And they were so in demand outside of the Sect that it could take two weeks to get your medicine. These delays were probably why the man hadn't been helped before; any alchemist could have said what was wrong with him, but going to an alchemist meant spending money and, even more importantly, time he didn't have.

"Think of it as me letting you sample my merchandise, so you can recommend it to others." Booker added.

"Huh." He stroked his beard. "That's a pretty shrewd deal, sir. Alright… Today I'll send customers your way. But if that pill's no good, tomorrow, you won't see a single client at your doorstep."

Booker nodded, taking the license and departing.

In a short time he was back with several laborers and a market tent, setting up his space. It would be a small, closed tent, in comparison to the large open canopies of the nearby market stalls. Booker couldn't compete – but he could maintain a sense of mystery.

I can't afford to remain here for long. This market is mostly for the middle-class.

I want to get a reputation that will attract rich clients. People I can charge four or five times the price without even hurting them.

The old man kept his word: customers arrived soon after. A young man and woman seeking a fertility cure, a middle-aged man complaining of an aching tooth, and so on. Booker met them all with the unmoving smile of his mask and an equally unmoving politeness. Over the last few days, he'd done a lifetime's worth of lying, and he'd been pretending to be someone he wasn't every waking moment. It had done something to him. He no longer felt any pressure from lying. Nothing squeezed or constricted in his chest and his pulse didn't even rise when he had to invent a new lie.

His performance as 'Rain' had been do or die. Now he got to occupy a different part, and Booker found himself naturally approaching it like a theater actor might, subtly adjusting his voice and mannerisms to create an image of himself: detached, professional, and remote.

He greeted the patients, explained his prescription, and took their money. They'd be back tomorrow to collect the medicine: the license acted as a deposit to keep scam-artists from disappearing with the money.

But even a fairly busy afternoon for an alchemist had long empty stretches, and didn't occupy much of his attention.

He spent his time and energy gazing out from the edge of the tent, taking in the market. In particular his gaze settled on the competition. He was hardly the only Sect alchemist to think of this hustle: most of the other alchemists in the market were established members of the Sect, and had tents and stalls worked by their apprentices, novice Sect members bustling around the market doing petty tasks and sweeping the cobblestones.

It wasn't unusual to put your apprentice to work like this. Most apprentices only trained under the master a small portion of their time, and spent the majority of their service earning a wage they gave directly to their master.

I was lucky to get the old man…

Goddamn it…

Really lucky.

The largest of the alchemist tents naturally belonged to the richest and most prestigious alchemist in the market. This was Instructor Greenmoon, and Booker recognized the name. It was the same Instructor who was credited with rescuing him from a 'street fight' and bringing him to the infirmary.

In short…

Instructor Greenmoon had been the mysterious Instructor betting on the fight.

Booker knew he had captured the man's attention. Now he was curious: how did Greenmoon treat those who worked under him?

The man himself only showed up to the market once, and while he was there, every apprentice was on their best behavior. They stood stiff-backed like soldiers, attending to his every need. The Instructor took a leisurely seat in a chair that was hurried forward by two apprentices, who appeared behind him without any need for him to gesture or call. He reached out, and like magic there was a golden cup of wine waiting for his hand. The sheer rigor of the routine was stunning: he had his apprentices trained like mechanical men.

He sat in his chair and drank his wine, conversing idly with a rich customer. As the customer left, satisfied that they'd received the actual alchemist's attention instead of an attendant. Once they were gone, Greenmoon rose, waved for the chair and the wine to be taken away, and walked off without looking back once.

As soon as he was out of sight, the apprentices slumped their shoulders and heaved sighs of relief.

Looks like he's… demanding, to say the least. Booker thought, grimacing beneath his mask.

As the apprentices relaxed, there was an accident. One apprenticed stepped backwards, his elbow struck the cup of wine sitting on a table, and it splashed over the chair.

You could have drawn a Renaissance classic out of the poses of horror the apprentices all struck in that moment. The nearest apprentice was clutching his hair, aghast, eyes bulging fully out of his socket as the hands in his hair pulled his skin tight to his skull. The apprentice who'd actually done the deed had recoiled like the wine cup burned to the touch, and was currently frozen there, balancing on the toetips of one foot like the floor was repellent to touch. The last apprentice had made a dive to catch the cup, and was lying facefirst on the ground.

And then the moment of horror ended, and they all unfroze, and the one grasping his hair shouted "YOU MOTHERFUCKER!"

The on one of the floor scrambled up and grabbed the one who'd done it in a headlock, whipping punches onto the back of his head. The first one grabbed ahold of his hair and began to rip at it. "STUPID MOTHERFUCKER!" He repeated.

"I can fix it I can wash it let me go!" The one in their grip begged. "Let me go its going to set we have to clean it now!" His words tumbled out like a river as they dragged him and the chair out behind the tent. A moment after the fabric of the tent had fallen still, the oldest of the apprentices stepped back through and returned to serving the horrified customer who'd witnessed it all.

By this point, Booker was already in motion. He walked at a hurried pace around the back end of the market, the alleyways for workers between the tents.

What he arrived to was a truly miserable scene: the youngest apprentice frantically trying to wash out the stain with water and no soap, on his hands and knees scrubbing at the chair.

"He'll kill us." The other apprentice said frankly, marching in a wide circle. Every time he came back to the start of the circle, he would kick the young apprentice hard in the ribs. Every time the whimper of pain in response got less pronounced. "He's going to kill us!"

"Nobody's going to kill you. Stop kicking him." Booker said, interrupting them. The frantic scrubbing stopped for a moment as the apprentices looked up at the masked man above them.

"No, maybe not, but we'll be whipped for sure." The one doing the kicking spat out. "And I don't know you and I don't give a fuck so go away."

"Don't help don't help me. I don't fucking deserve it." The other one said in a choked, small voice. "It's not fucking coming out!"

They aren't kidding are they.

He would have them whipped over a wine stain on a chair.

They're fourteen.

"Both of you need to shut up and turn around." Booker said.

"Why the fuck would we–"

"Because you aren't getting out of this without a miracle. And I'm offering you one." Booker said, very calmly. Sometimes all very frightened people need to hear is a certain level of calm, and they just followed whatever that calm voice said.

They turned around.

Booker ran his hand over the stain and thought, Dialyze.

A clean shimmering disk of water materialized across the surface of the fabric. It filled the tiny spaces between stitches, the surface tension rippling as it sank down into the material, pulling out threads of rosy pink wine.

But wait there's more. It also dissolves pills, purifies ghosts, and it's only nine easy installments of nine ninety five..

Doing magic will never stop feeling like cheating.

He was grinning underneath his mask, the natural response to a hammer-wielding mind that had just found a nail-shaped problem. As he pulled his hand away, the shimmering water pulled the wine out of the cushion completely.

Booker let the water splash to the ground and stain the cobbles instead.

"You can turn back around." He said.

"Who has a secret cleaning technique?" The kicker demanded. But despite his skepticism, the stain was gone.

"Who the fuck cares we're saved." Groaned the kickee.

"You'll have to forgive me." Booker said. "I don't answer questions." He turned and left them, walking away from a sort of stunned, silent gratitude.

Well shit. He thought.

Instructor Greenmoon looks like a real piece of work. A stickler for details, not terribly grateful for good work, and willing to literally fucking torture anyone who makes a minor mistake.

But I'm an alchemist apprentice without a master. If I go too long, the Sect will take notice and take away my alchemy privileges. Then I'd be stuck buying at double price through the dealers. I'm surprised that hasn't already happened.

An apprentice needs a master.