Chương 73: The Alchemist's Register

The Ashen Dragon Sect did not permit independent alchemists to practice within its cities without permission. Wei Chen learned this within his first hour in Azure Spires, when a helpful clerk at the trade office explained that the registration he had just completed was merely the first of two steps. To buy and sell alchemical preparations legally, he also needed certification from the sect's Alchemist Register. Without it, he could possess ingredients but not produce finished goods for commerce.

Without it, a single vial of healing salve could be confiscated, and the seller fined or expelled from the city.

"The examination is held every third day," the clerk said, handing him a wooden token stamped with the date and location.

"Arrive early. Bring your own ingredients and equipment. The fee is non-refundable." Wei Chen thanked her. He had already found lodging in the Alchemist's Quarter and spent the evening walking the district's eastern lanes, purchasing the basic ingredients the examination would require: dried fireroot, spirit moss, clearwater salt, bone-binder powder. A licensed apothecary had warned him to follow the standard formula exactly. Examiners, she said, hated creativity. It was the same advice he would have given himself.

The next morning he followed the clerk's directions to the Register hall, a former temple whose central chamber had been converted into rows of stone workstations. Its central chamber had been converted into rows of stone workstations, each equipped with a small brazier, mortar and pestle, measuring tools, and a sealed water source. Light fell through high windows in thick golden columns.

At the front of the room, three examiners in gray-and-gold robes sat behind a long table, their expressions suggesting they had already seen every possible failure. Wei Chen counted thirty-two candidates. Most were young, between fifteen and twenty-five, with the nervous energy of people whose futures depended on a single morning. A few were older, failures returning for another attempt, or independent practitioners from smaller towns seeking legitimacy.

He chose a workstation near the back, where observation would be indirect. The written portion came first: one hundred questions on ingredient identification, dosage calculation, contraindications, storage methods, and sect regulations. Wei Chen answered with deliberate care.

The legacy could have supplied answers that went far beyond the examiners' expectations—purification techniques they had never heard of, interactions that modern alchemy considered theoretical, historical names for substances now called by different terms. He gave them none of that. He answered exactly what a well-trained novice should know. Correct, competent, uninspired. When a question asked for the standard treatment of minor meridian bruising, he wrote the standard formula.

When it asked which ingredient should never be combined with fireroot, he named the correct incompatible herb. When it asked for the sect's reporting requirements for restricted substances, he recited the regulation from the pamphlet he had read the night before. If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it. His score, he estimated, would place him in the middle third. High enough to pass. Low enough to be forgettable.

The practical portion began after a brief recess. Each candidate was required to produce a Clear-Mind Tonic, a basic preparation used to reduce mental fatigue and stabilize concentration. The formula was simple enough that a trained child could manage it, but the examination lay in the details: proportion, heat control, timing, purity. A perfect tonic would be clear as spring water and leave no aftertaste. A flawed one might be cloudy, bitter, or weakened.

Wei Chen had made the preparation within his first month in Misthollow. The legacy contained three superior variations, any of which would have embarrassed the examiners. He made the standard version. He measured the fireroot by eye but corrected with the scale, avoiding any suggestion of unusual precision. He heated the water to exactly the temperature specified in the manual.

He added the spirit moss at the prescribed moment, stirred the required number of times, and filtered the result through plain cloth instead of the qi-assisted methods he preferred. The finished tonic was adequate. Not exceptional. The color was slightly pale, the clarity acceptable, the taste mildly bitter in the way that standard preparations often were. He placed it on the examination tray and stepped back. The grading took less than an hour.

Candidates milled in the courtyard, some praying, some boasting, some staring at the stones as if willing the results to appear. Wei Chen stood apart, his face composed, his mind sorting through the information he had gathered about Azure Spires.

"Wei Chen." He looked up. One of the examiners stood in the doorway, holding a scroll.

"Passed, third grade," the man said, his voice carrying no particular warmth.

"You may collect your seal and register at the trade office." Wei Chen bowed and accepted the scroll. Around him, several candidates congratulated him with the strained politeness of rivals. Others turned away, disappointed in their own results. He did not celebrate. Third grade was the lowest passing rank, sufficient to sell common preparations, to buy ingredients without suspicion, to exist within the city's economy. It was exactly what he had aimed for.

And yet, as he left the examination hall, he felt the familiar pressure of being watched. Disciple Lian stood across the courtyard, half-hidden by a pillar, her pale gold robes almost blending with the temple stone. She did not approach. She did not need to. Her presence was message enough. She had observed his examination. She had seen him answer correctly but never brilliantly. She had seen him produce a tonic that was acceptable but unremarkable.

To most observers, he was simply another young alchemist of modest talent, lucky to have scraped through. But Lian was not most observers. Wei Chen met her eyes for a fraction of a heartbeat, then looked away as if he had merely glanced at a stranger. He walked toward the trade office, scroll in hand, his pace unhurried. Inside, he allowed himself the smallest exhale of concern. Careful mediocrity is itself a pattern, he thought. She sees it. She does not know what it means, but she sees it.

The problem with hiding too well was that the hiding became visible. A man who never stumbled, never showed off, never made the small errors of genuine modest talent—that man was performing. And a performance, once noticed, was a clue. He had bought himself time in Azure Spires. A legal identity, a right to trade, a place in the city's records. But he had also bought himself a shadow with sharp eyes and sect resources.

The registration clerk stamped his papers with the third-grade seal and handed him a small bronze plaque. Wei Chen tucked it into his pack beside the Desert Monks' charm and the jade slip from the corrupted cultivator's ring, now far behind him. Outside, the blue towers of Azure Spires shimmered in the afternoon heat. The city was beautiful, powerful, and saturated with the sect's attention. He would need to be more than careful here. He would need to be invisible.