Chương 1: Rowan

"Did you think we wouldn't notice? The only reason you could rise up so quickly is because you used our demonic arts!"

"Preposterous!" An eight-year-old Rowan hid behind a pillar in the courtyard, watching as a dozen figures with sinister expressions taunted his father. They floated in the air, but everyone could hear them. His teeth clenched. He wanted to act, to tell his clan members not to listen to the slander, that his father was brave and honorable… but his father had made him promise to hide.

"How many members of your house did you kill? How many of their souls did you refine into pills? The answer must be countless." Father's face turned red.

"Enough! You didn't come here just to throw around accusations. What are you after?"

"Well, since you're asking so bluntly…" the leader purred.

"Hand over the Twice Cold Cauldron you stole from us, and perhaps we'll only shatter your cultivation." After that, there was nothing left to say. His father roared, an inferno splashing across the figures. The demons began attacking furiously, the sky filling with lances of blood and plumes of black smoke. Rowan closed his eyes tightly as the world shook around him. Rocks in the courtyard trembled and split, and the green grass yellowed, withered, and died.

The pressure of a dozen late-stage Qi Refiners using their spell arts was too much for a mortal child to bear. He squinted his eyes open, blood trickling out of his tear ducts, but he couldn't see anything. His vision dimmed.

"You must watch," his mother's voice rasped weakly from inside the house, spitting venom, "you must remember what they do to us." Rowan tried to watch. He tried to remember. He tried—"BANG!" Rowan shot up from his desk as the other students pointed at him and laughed. The instructor loomed over him, his dark eyes trained on the spot of drool on his cheek.

"Looks like the young master has decided to join us!" the man said nasally. Crap. He'd fallen asleep again, hadn't he? It wasn't his fault though. He'd even seen the revered sect elders drift off during one of Instructor Sutter's symposiums.

"Yes sir, have we started the lesson yet?" The gray-haired man raised his stick threateningly, causing Rowan to flinch back. Only then did the old man start raining down slaps.

"We have started, but we can begin the lesson again! I don't think anyone will have any complaints about staying half an hour extra." The students around him wore expressions of abject horror, shooting Rowan with venomous glares.

"Today, we are going over the steps you embark on your journey of personal growth. Cultivation! Rowan, can you tell us what the first realm is called?" Rowan grimaced. Did the instructor really think so little of him? His own father had been at the peak of Qi Refinement, after all.

"Qi Condensation, sir." The man harrumphed.

"And to even enter the Qi Condensation realm, you must have…?"

"Formed your Qi Sea?"

"Good." The man looked around the class like an eagle surveying the ground for prey.

"Raise your hand if you've already formed your Qi Sea." Rowan's ears went pink as hand after hand rose around him. He was the only one of the thirty students who hadn't formed his Qi Sea yet. Sutter shot him a look, as if to say, ' See? You're behind, so quit slacking off!' Except, Rowan knew he worked harder at cultivation than anyone. The countless sleepless nights spent practicing his qi control was the reason why he'd dozed off. The problem was twofold.

His clan hadn't given him an allowance or any resources before sending him off to study at the local sect and he had been born, unfortunately, with a deformed spirit root. Instructor Sutter prowled the desks.

"Does anybody know how many layers there are within Qi Condensation?" No one answered for a beat. Then a handsome young man at the very front of the class in pristine yellow robes with intricate silver embroidery raised his hand.

"Yes, Mister Decatour," the instructor said kindly. The young man stood up, looking around with a haughty expression. He possessed a scholarly air like he was already an esteemed cultivator.

"Seven. Once one stabilizes their Qi Sea, he must spend seven turns condensing the spirit energy and allowing it to strengthen, to thicken like the trunk of a mighty tree. And like a tree, a cultivator will be able to draw power from the bowels of the earth and- " There was a loud yawn. Then someone muttered, "Isn't condensation that stuff that drips out of your nose?" A smattering of laughter. Rowan bit his cheek to keep from smiling at Lee Lothesby, the hefty class clown.

He was already in hot water with the teacher. But he enjoyed every bit of Damion Decatour's sour expression. The class continued in a monotonous drone. Every minute or so, Rowan looked up to see a glare from Damion. He couldn't think of what he'd possibly done to make the boy angry. He hadn't even laughed out loud.

"By our next meeting, I expect all of you to have researched the scriptures available to Outer Disciples in the Lower Library. You will be making a big decision next week that will inform the rest of your cultivation journey. You are dismissed." Rowan stood and stretched. Lee sidled up to him.

"You don't seem very nervous for someone who hasn't formed their Qi Sea yet." His tone was pleasantly curious.

"Aren't you worried the class will leave you behind? It's already time to pick scriptures…"

"I'm really close. I almost did it during my last attempt." This novel's true home is a different platform. Support the author by finding it there. A lie, but a half-lie. He was close. Just not really close.

"Anyway," Rowan continued.

"I've saved up a few weeks worth of merits to buy a manual from the library. Even if I haven't formed my Qi Sea, I'll still be picking out a scripture with you." A flash of disappointment passed over Lee's face.

"My dad sent a large donation to the sect. Instead of having fun picking out scriptures with everyone, I'm going to be choosing mine from the Inner Sanctum." The Inner Sanctum was, as the name suggested, where they kept the scriptures for the Inner Disciples of the sect. They were far more powerful and profound than anything that could be purchased from the Library. Rowan tried to quash the spike of jealousy he felt.

There was, in fact, something better for him as well - one of the major inheritances from his father - but the Rank Four manual, which couldn't even be found in the Inner Sanctum, was in his uncle's possession.

"Hey, if you need taels, I can get my dad to sponsor you, as long you let our Lothesby Elders examine your rosary. We own the Auction House after all. We could get you a great price for it." Rowan let the loops of worn wooden beads slide from his wrist into his palm, passing the lotus cross over the back of his hand. He lifted it to his nose, smelling the incense seeped in the wood from years of prayer. The faintest amount of his mother's qi still sat within it.

"You don't have to say yes, you're still welcome at our New Year's feast." Rowan shook his head emphatically.

"There's nothing special about it. It's my mother's. You know what the survey process would do to it since it's not actually a qi artifact." Lee nodded gloomily.

"Yeah it would turn into sawdust in an instant."

"Sawdust is what clans are ground down to when they run out of talent." Damion had appeared beside Lee, sporting a sneer.

"I couldn't help but hear that you've run into financial trouble. Or perhaps you've never run out of financial trouble." Rowan said nothing, pulling his sleeve down to cover the rosary.

"We Decatours don't even have to make a contribution for a selection in the Inner Sanctum. But runts born from a dying litter like you? You could only expect to receive the barest trash from the Lower Library."

"Instructor Sutter says that even the lowest manuals of the sect are priceless treasures," defended Rowan. Damion gave him a wide smile.

"Is that your goal? To become the lowest of cultivators?" he goaded triumphantly.

"A hundred years ago, if you couldn't form a Qi Sea within three months, you were expelled from the sect. Pity they dropped the practice. Now they accept any talentless worm, so long as they were born with the proper name. Lucky you." He shrugged, saying one last thing before leaving.

"It could always be worse. You could just be a mortal."

"Don't bother with him," Lee muttered.

"He doesn't know what he's talking about." Rowan didn't believe his friend. If the manuals from the Lower Library were so good, the Lothesbys wouldn't have gone out of their way to ensure that Lee would have access to the Inner Sanctum. But what choice did Rowan have? The chores for non-cultivators inside the sect didn't give many merits, and after his father's death, he'd scarcely left the outer walls of his estate except to travel to the sect.

The tasks that involved harvesting spirit herbs in the mountain, or slaying beasts, paid far more, but who in their right mind would do them without any training? If his father was still alive, even if his personal manual wasn't right for Rowan, he would have no trouble paying for access to the Inner Sanctum. His father had accumulated a swell of merits for his heroic deeds, but Rowan's many relatives had borrowed them all, promising to repay the favor at the first possible convenience.

If his mother would awaken, she could petition House Helsing for funds, or perhaps even collect on these debts as his father's wife, but still she slept. In some ways, it was a miracle at all that he'd been allowed into the Righteous Mountain Sect. Rowan said his goodbyes to Lee and made his way to the Mission Hall. His heart thumped loudly in his chest as he looked at the jobs. A manual from the Inner Sanctum was a far-fetched dream, but maybe he could exchange for a rank-two manual instead of a rank-one?

Five Hours of Laundry - 2 merits Two Hours of Kitchen Assistance - 1 merit Three Hours of Document Transcription - 3 merits Four Hours of Local Area Patrol - 5 merits The signups for Local Area Patrol were booked for the next month. Everyone liked hanging around in the mostly safe Righteous Mountain City, and showing off to the mortals on the street who were in quiet awe of cultivators. The harder tasks were a significant jump in the number of merits they provided.

Strangling Vine Extermination - 25 merits per Vine Heart Qi-Condensation Beast Core - 30 merits+ (pursuant to quality) Bleakwing Eggs - 50 merits each Vileclaw Probisci - 50 merits each Eight-spotted Sand Cat Pelts - 75 merits each (skinned) Qi-Refining Beast Core - up to 300 merits Slay the Mountain Hydra - 500 merits (contact Elder Schell for more information) Oftentimes, groups of Outer Disciples tackled the harder tasks together and split the merits amongst themselves.

Rowan looked down the familiar list, startling when he saw a new addition tacked on at the end in colored paper. Limited Time Offer! Wandering Bulbs - 50 merits each (limit 12)"That task posting just came in today," said Senior Sister Verrine from behind the counter, resting in a woven hammock. Due to her cultivation, she looked like an exquisitely beautiful sixteen-year-old girl, but from the mature air she gave off, Rowan guessed she was actually a few years older.

"A guest elder of ours desperately needs some Wandering Bulb spirit herbs to refine a particular pill. It's not a dangerous plant." She sipped her jade pipe. Fragrant bone-white mist billowed from her nostrils. Her teal robes were askew, displaying a snowy white shoulder, and her half-closed eyes glimmered in the haze of the room.

"But as you can infer from its name, they can walk around and hide, making them hard to find." At 50 merits a bulb, all he needed were two or three of the spirit herbs and he could definitely get a rank-two manual from the Lower Library! However, his fingers refused the job posting. They trembled at his side.

"Can it be found on the mountain, Senior Sister?" he asked, tentatively.

"Oh, heavens no. All the footsteps and shouting have caused them to run away. You'll have to go into the Wilds." The Wilds. Righteous Mountain City had been carved out of that dangerous forest. Its tree line hugged the peaceful rocky sand that ran up the coast along the entirety of the Kyrr Peninsula. The Wilds were where beasts lived. All sorts of monsters. Some even whispered of creatures who had broken through beyond the Qi Refining stage.

Not to mention, it was also where demonic cultivators practiced their black arts, away from the eyes of the Alliance of Earthly Harmony. An image flashed behind Rowan's eyes. A dozen demonic cultivators surrounding his father, attacking him until he'd fallen from the sky. He let out a breath and swiped the task from the board before he could think better of it. He would grow strong and get revenge for his father. He had to, because he remembered.

"There's a group heading for the Wilds right now. If you run, you can join them," mentioned Verrine.

"Are they also going bulb hunting?" Rowan asked, scarcely believing his luck.

"I hope not. With the sort of weaponry they had, they would slash them to pieces." Verrine took a deep puff in horror.

"Bulbs need to be crushed, not cut!"

"What are they going to do?" he pressed.

"I haven't the faintest idea!" proclaimed the woman.

"Good luck!"

"Thank you, Senior Sister!" he said, bowing. She gave him a smile, but she didn't respond, choosing to puff on her pipe again.