Chương 24: Alchemy

Jianyi sat in his cultivation chamber and reflected on his situation. Eight of his twelve meridians were open. It had taken four attempts to get him there: the first, following the Imperial Gate Opening Technique, then two successful ones with the Martial Meridian Art, and then the disastrous last attempt that had almost cost him everything.

Thanks to the Ancestral Pathway Preservation Pill from Elder Chen Qingmei, he was now in the awkward situation that his spirit and the associated meridians were in better shape than his body. He had made dramatic improvements from the first days after the failed attempt, but there was no doubt in his mind that he was considerably weaker and lacked endurance compared to before. The damage to his lung had left its mark despite the restoration pill he had taken on top of the pill from Elder Chen.

Now, he was a week away from the start of the new term in the outer sect and therefore from the test that was supposed to happen then. His options were to continue as he had over the last few weeks—continue his recovery and hope that that would give him the best chances to pass the test—or make another attempt at opening his lung and neck meridians.

Assuming he succeeded—and failure would probably spell the end of his path as a cultivator—his cultivation talent would improve, but he would likely be in an even more weakened position. He had tried to get Minghao's guidance, but the retainer had just smiled at him and said that he could not help him with that decision; it was his to take. Jianyi took a deep breath and centered himself. This was not just about the test. This was about his life.

How did he want to shape his path to achieve his goals, first and foremost, defeating the demons, making them pay. He remembered the elder's words about times potentially getting "interesting," as he had called it. It was time to move forward. He would give himself one more day and then make his next attempt.

"Come in," Elder Sun said, and waved at Jianyi to enter a room he had not visited before. It was a workshop—not large enough for many to work in at once, yet spacious enough not to feel cramped despite the tables, shelves, and instruments filling it. Though hardly the room's most impressive feature, Jianyi's gaze fixed on a shelf lined with vials. Empty vials. Hundreds of them. What held his imagination was the amount of wealth associated with having every one of these filled with essences.

The central piece of the ensemble was a table that held half a dozen small black cauldrons, two on each accessible side of the table. Elder Sun stood close by that table and casually held what must have been ten or more cards in the hand he wasn't using to wave at Jianyi.

"What do you remember about crafting?" Jianyi had not had a comprehensive lesson on the topic, but based on the bits and pieces he had heard, he tried to come up with a coherent answer.

"There are formations and alchemy. Alchemy is based on essences and creates potions and pills." The elder cocked his head.

"Sort of. There are retaining crafts and destructive ones. That describes what happens with the cards involved in the process. The former are usually formations; the latter is called alchemy, but that is a very broadly used term. Simply said, in alchemy, you have two major steps. The first is where cultivators with our affinities shine. Wood-strengthened Fire, coupled with precise qi control, lets us extract essences from cards better than anyone else.

"The second step is then using those ingredients to create pills and potions—or infuse items that other crafters like blacksmiths create. I personally focus on the first step mostly. It is profitable and funds my cultivation and therefore allows me to focus on what I am best at, which is fighting demons." A slightly vicious smile emerged on the elder's face.

"As with everything else in cultivation, you need to find your own path; I can only show you options. Now let me demonstrate the most important activity in all of alchemy—maybe cultivation as a whole." He held up a card.

"This is a common Water card. The rarer the card, the more complex the essence extraction becomes. The main point about this is that, while you destroy the card, you need to capture the affinity-bound qi inside.

"The faster you are, the more of the qi you can capture. Let me show you." The elder made the card float above a cauldron, then somehow caused a white-hot flame to bloom on one corner. Support the creativity of authors by visiting Royal Road for this novel and more. The jade resisted for a moment before melting, dripping blue liquid into the cauldron until, within half a minute, the card was gone.

With a practiced movement, the elder tipped the cauldron, and the liquid flowed into a bulbous vial, which he stoppered quickly.

"See? Simple." He held up the vial.

"A common water essence."

"Teacher, you didn't use a card to produce the flame that consumed the water card. How did that work?"

"Mhh, good observation, Jianyi. There were a couple of things not quite what they looked like. The flame was no true flame. It was a direct combination of my wood and fire qi that reacted with the qi in the card, and the liquid was no liquid but qi given form. And that hopefully shows you why qi control is so important. How many strands of qi did I use there?"

"Two? One for Wood and one for Fire?"

"Not quite, my young friend, not quite. The Wood and the Fire qi merge in my dantian, so that is actually just one. The second one held up the card in the air…" Jianyi wanted to slap himself for that simple oversight.

"…the third was actually asserting control over the qi that emerged from the consumed card and guiding it into the cauldron with sufficient pressure to appear as a liquid. Without that, it would just evaporate into the air." That sounded challenging indeed, especially keeping in mind how long it had taken Jianyi to learn how to control two strands and his suspicion that the complexity would grow exponentially.

"And that was just a common card. For an uncommon, you would want to burn it from two sides, as you otherwise lose too much in the process. In general, the logic is rarity plus two strands. That means for a rare card, you ideally have five strands in parallel.

"Now, there are other ways—using a card holder or external fire sources—but each reduces the process's effectiveness and the essence's yield and quality." Jianyi nodded slowly. This demonstration had made the value of qi control and the Fire-and-Wood dual affinity very clear.

"My young student, we have a few cards to go through. You will stopper the vials when I have filled them. We begin." A while later, they were done, and the Elder had just dismissed him, but Jianyi hesitated.

"Anything else on your mind?" Jianyi had thought about his Core Card for a while now and thought he had started to grasp the enormity of its capability to let him utilize all elements of Wuxing. There was one word on the card that he had not understood at all, though.

"Teacher, what does it mean for cards to evolve?" Elder Sun looked at him silently, squinting his eyes. After a moment, he forcefully exhaled the breath he must have held.

"Cards do not evolve. They just are. If you read about something like that, it must have been in a fairy tale. Remember what we discussed on your first day here… It's best not to talk about fairy tales. Correct?" Jianyi grimaced, clearly having mentioned something unique to his Celestial Core Card.

"Of course, teacher, I am sorry."

"That's quite all right, my young friend. If there was such a thing as an evolving card, I would imagine it would be linked to either the realm of the cultivator, or some other conditions—but it would be pure speculation." Another mystery to solve, but for now, Jianyi had to focus on something else.

Jianyi double-checked everything. Then he checked it again. The pills stood by his side. He had disrobed. He had done two dozen trial runs at reduced speed. There was no reason to delay further. And still… perhaps one more trial run? No! One failed attempt—no matter how painful—was no reason to lose faith. He had successfully done this before, and he would now. One last deep breath, and he began. He marveled at how smoothly the qi passed through his pathways.

Compared to his last attempt, where every minute movement had caused indescribable pain, now there was nothing. He kept his focus as the qi accelerated faster and faster. The targets were in sight. Impact. Pain. But manageable. Comparable to his first attempt. He would certainly have bruises—and bruises on the lung and neck were not comfortable—but nothing debilitating. He hesitated a moment before checking whether he had been successful—but then followed through.

The meridian in his lung looked good; the impurities had been completely removed from the gate. That meant at least partial success. He looked at the one in the neck—and it was clean as well. Relief flooded through him, and he quickly grabbed one of the yellow pills and made his way to his bathroom before some of the worst side effects of the procedure fully hit him. He sat beneath the shower, struggling to take deep breaths but grateful. Ten out of twelve meridians opened. As many as his father had managed.

He could stop now. Jianyi was pretty sure that he had now reached the number of meridians that Elder Sun had assumed he would open, if not more. He could become a powerful cultivator with ten meridians open. Would he be as powerful as he could be? No. That answered it then, he thought as he lay down in bed: he would go all the way.

The next morning, Elder Sun sat in the courtyard, drinking tea in the sunlight, as Jianyi entered. He felt tired and weak but happy about his progress.

"Did you succeed, Jianyi?"

"Yes, teacher, I did. Ten meridians open." The elder nodded.

"Congratulations. That is a great achievement. I told you before—even some of our greatest cultivators never opened twelve—so I'd say every door is open to you now. Should we move towards opening your dantians?" Jianyi perked up. So far, the elder and Minghao had never talked about that process at all.

"That would mean I can add cards to them, right?"

"That is correct."

"That sounds great. What does it take?" The elder raised a finger.

"Careful, my friend. Going through the procedure has the side effect of hardening your pathways and meridians. It means that further openings are close to impossible." Jianyi was taken aback for a moment, then bowed to the elder.

"Thank you for that information, teacher. I have decided to go through with one final attempt to hopefully open all twelve meridians."

"Mhh. I expected as much, but I wanted to present the option anyway. Now," he clapped his hands, "you are just a few days away from intake day. Are you well prepared?" Jianyi swallowed hard.

"I don't know, teacher. I am still weak physically, but my meridians seem to be in better shape than after my first use of the Martial Meridian Art. I can only hope that it is enough."

"I am sure it will be, my young friend. I am sure it will." He wasn't fully reassured by those words, yet he didn't regret his choices. Even if the worst happened and he failed the test, it wouldn't mean that he would give up on his goals—he would just have to find other ways to make them happen.