As I worked to advance my cultivation base, my new technique and the knowledge I had gained from my most recent enlightenment guided me on where to place my meridians. I believed that, if I followed its guidance precisely, then I would be able to rush through the Martial Master levels without needing to worry about any mental deviations. However, I didn’t. I took my time. I needed to explore the limits of this new technique.

After several months of examining the interactions between the cultivation technique and my qi flows, I decided to advance. I carefully constructed the wood and fire meridian pair that would pull energy from my chest and guide it down my right arm. When placing this pair of meridians, I primarily focused on following the instructions of my cultivation technique, but when I found that this placement perfectly matched my qi flows, I grew more confident in what I was doing.

After several days of hard work, I advanced Martial Master 2.

After this, I stopped cultivating for a month to allow my qi flows to settle down, but they didn’t. It might not have been apparent to anyone else, but I was able to see constant perturbations everywhere in my body. Also, the qi flows in my right arm had significantly shifted, especially the ones that flowed from my right fingers back to my torso.

I waited another two months, but it didn’t help. My qi remained in this state of constant agitation.

With no other idea for how to solve this problem, I constructed the second pair of arm meridians to pull energy away from my right arm and into my chest. This was trickier because none of the qi flows were where they were supposed to be, and nothing I saw matched what my cultivation technique told me to do. I trusted the technique, though, and built the pair where it told me to build them.

The moment the pair of meridians was complete, the qi in my body snapped into place, and the subtle tension that I had been feeling over the past few months completely vanished.

This was a new pitfall, I realized. The advice to let one’s body stabilize between every advancement was wrong. Both meridians in a given part of the body should be built at the same time. Likely, the practice of splitting meridians developed from people who were unable to maintain the necessary focus and energy for prolonged periods.

Deciding to give myself plenty of time to let my qi settle, I resolved to only advance every other year, but at each advancement, I would advance two levels by completing an entire limb. That would place me at Grandmaster by 28, which was far earlier than most could hope for. If everything worked out as well as I hoped, then in my next life, I might consider rushing up to Peak Master before the age of 20 to see if it was possible.

While my time in the Pavilion had been pleasant, I still felt annoyed by the fact that I had basically been trapped there since near the very beginning of this life. If I ever left, I would be at risk of being attacked by Master Zhong, one of his flunkies, or his Grandmaster uncle. As a Martial Master 3, I could finally look to resolve this little problem.

What I needed was a Grandmaster protector who was skilled in combat. While Grandmasters were rather rare in this part of the world, they could still be hired for protection details if the price was high enough. I just needed to be able to afford their price.

So, in a bid to make as much money as possible, I headed to the fifth floor of the Pavilion.

“YuLin, I need ingredients for Rank 3 Qi Gathering Pills. Can you send me a couple of sets? I’ll be in room 5.”

The receptionist gasped at me. “Rank 3? How? You can’t have advanced to Grandmaster…”

I smirked. “I just want to give it a try. Maybe it’ll be a waste, but I want to see what happens.”

“Alright.” She bit her lip, and there was a touch of worry in her voice, but I didn’t pay it any mind.

I left the busy reception area and went to the alchemy workshop to begin centering myself. Rank 3 pills took a lot of energy, so I needed to be as efficient as possible.

Once the ingredients were delivered, I studied them. Their quality was much higher than what I had been working with in the sect. Usually, I considered cheaper herbs better, as the high quality of these ingredients would do nothing but eat into my profits. This time, however, since I was mainly worried about conserving my qi, these herbs were ideal.

One by one, I placed the herbs into a pill furnace.

The idea of cleansing them with my qi was a complete nonstarter. The only way I would have anywhere close to enough energy to purify Rank 3 herbs was by letting my fire seed do all the heaving lifting. However, even with my System-purchased mastery over its flames, this would be difficult. Using an intense spirit fire next to and within medicinal energy was a good way to destroy it, so my mind and control needed to remain focused and precise at all times.

First, I used my affinities to pull away as many toxins as possible so that they could be eradicated by blasting them with high-intensity flames without worry. This left a gossamer-thin membrane around the medicinal energy.

Then, I used the most effective tool at my disposal to carefully remove that membrane. Fire or wood qi for metal or earth toxins, isolated earth or water energy from my fire seed for water or fire toxins. I had no access to any form of metal energy, so wood toxins were the most problematic, but a combination of fire and earth was able to take care of them easily enough.

As I worked, I was beginning to realize how lucky I was that the toxins were mainly from the five basic elements. If other types of energies had been more dominant, I might have been at a complete loss. This was all the more reason to branch out into new energy types, but I could only take things one step at a time.

It was strenuous work, but I was eventually able to cleanse everything to the standard I had reached in my previous life. That wasn’t good enough.

My qi vision wasn’t at a level where I could easily see through Rank 3 energies, but it was enough to roughly sense where traces of toxins existed within them. Carefully, oh so carefully, I began opening up the herbs to attack those hidden dangers. As I did, the structure of the brittle Rank 3 medicinal energy began to tear. After eliminating a speck of toxin, I tried to massage the medicinal energy back into shape, but I was only partially successful.

After I completely eradicated any sign of toxic energy, the herbs were in pretty rough shape, but they were still viable, so I used all of the skills at my disposal to increase their efficacy as far as I could.

When a small round pill finally dropped to the bottom of the furnace, I was completely spent. I had zero qi left in my body, and it would be at least a day before I was ready to concoct a second one. Still, as exhausted as I was, when I examined the pill, I couldn’t help but smile. It was a Perfect Rank 3 Qi Gathering Pill with around 74% efficacy.

74% efficacy was horrible, but being a Perfect pill was far more important than having a high efficacy.

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Two days after having requisitioned ingredients, I walked into WuJing’s office.

“Fang.” His fingers were fidgety, and a worried expression was on his face. “Did you buy Rank 3 herbs?”

I nodded calmly. “Yes.”

He grimaced. “Yeah… we have a small problem.”

“Oh? What’s going on?” I was a little surprised. Buying ingredients had never been a problem before.

“Procuring Rank 3 herbs is a bit difficult. We get a small supply from the Verdant Fields Sect, but most of them are shipped in from outside the Wastes. As with everything, buying them should not be a problem, but it opened up a way for people to attack you for using resources better reserved for others. Deputy Manager Liu has reported this to Secretary Jiang, along with certain other… ‘indiscretions,’ and he is asking for you to be punished.”

I couldn’t help but laugh.

I reached out, placed a pill bottle on WuJing’s desk, and spread my arms wide. “Take a look.”

WuJing and I arrived on the eighth floor, where a wonderful show was taking place. Deputy Manager Liu and two others were speaking to Secretary Jiang in loud voices.

“He needs to be driven out.” As he spoke, Liu slammed a fist onto the secretary’s desk. “Su Fang has been nothing but a disruption to normal order. Both Fan BingQing and Ye YiLiu have testified to the problems that he has caused. He is pulling attendants into his room for escapades in the middle of the day! This must be stopped!”

Secretary Jiang responded quietly, and I couldn’t hear him, but Liu’s face revealed his displeasure at whatever was said.

WuJing walked up to the group with a jovial smile on his face. “Ah, you’re talking about us. Excellent. What seems to be the problem?”

Liu’s face twitched in anger. “The problem is the menace you’ve recruited. He’s driving away talented alchemists, fooling around with the staff, and now he’s wasting precious ingredients. It’s time for Manager Cai to put an end to it!”

“I see, that sounds like an important problem.” As WuJing nodded his agreement, he handed a pill bottle to Secretary Jiang. “And you want Manager Cai to… what? Determine if my recommendation for his membership was in error? Expel him from the Pavilion?”

“Not just him,” growled Liu, “you brought him in. Without you, he wouldn’t have had a chance to cause such a ruckus in the first place. You need to take responsibility.”

WuJing looked affronted. “Without me, he wouldn’t have even been considered for membership. That’s what you’re saying, right? So, he is entirely my responsibility? I am responsible for everything he has done?”

“Yes.” Liu’s tone was sharp and clipped.

WuJing sighed and turned to Secretary Jiang. “I think you need to report all this to Manager Cai. She should decide how we proceed from here.”

During the exchange between WuJing and Liu, Jiang had been studying the pill that WuJing had passed to him.

Jiang looked up at WuJing, flustered. “Yes… yes. I… I do.”

He stood and headed toward the back office. Halfway there, he turned and studied me for a few moments. Then, he continued on his way.

Once he was gone, Liu snorted. “You think a petty bribe will help you? Have you forgotten everything about how the Pavilion works?”

I ignored him and spoke to WuJing. “Why is this guy so confident? He seems convinced that we’re done for?”

WuJing shook his head. “A lot of it has to do with the way things work here. The Pavilion cares about order and structure, and he is correct that your actions have been disruptive. You’ve interfered with the regular work of both SuYin and Mei, and you have caused what could be considered a great deal of turbulence in our alchemy operations.”

“Is it really that bad? Why hasn’t anyone told me it was a problem?” I was honestly somewhat alarmed by his characterization.

“Because I’ve been blocking it for you. You’ve interfered with two shop attendants, but as the floor manager, I have the authority to let it slide. You caused the loss of a Master Alchemist, but since you have effectively replaced him, I was able to smooth things over. However, while you have provided us with a large number of common Rank 2 pills, you haven’t completed any urgent commissions or special requests other than the one for the Su Clan, so in some respects, your contributions can be considered minimal.”

“I haven’t been informed of any commissions or requests…”

WuJing let out a soft growl. “No, you haven’t. No one has requested your services, and none of the urgent commissions have been directed toward you, so you haven’t completed any.”

This was their plan? Block me from completing ‘high contribution’ requests so that they could say I was worthless? What surprised me the most was that, from what Liu had said earlier, this didn’t seem to be directed at me. He was using me as an excuse to attack WuJing. His partnership with Master Zhong was likely just an alliance of convenience.

At the same time, Manager Liu seemed somewhat unaware of what I had done. If he knew about the quality of pills I sent the Su Clan, would he be so aggressive? If he knew that all the Rank 1 and 2 pills I had sold to the Pavilion were Perfect, would he really want to alienate me? Someone had to be blocking him from learning this information. Had someone set a trap for Liu? Had it been WuJing?

As WuJing and I spoke between ourselves, Manager Liu, Fan BingQing, and Ye YiLiu stared daggers at us, gloating internally at our fate.

Secretary Jiang opened the back door and gestured toward me and WuJing. “Come in. Manager Cai needs to talk with you.”

The other three began to walk forward as well, but Jiang stopped them. “Only them. You three can return to work. Manager Cai will handle things from here.”

Liu put on a big smile, cupped his hands in a salute, and gave a short bow. “Please thank Manager Cai for dealing with this problem.”

After that, he chuckled and walked away while WuJing and I entered the back office.

It was massive. Several tables were lined up together, and maps were stretched out across them. A dozen bookshelves containing an array of reference materials and records filled all corners of the space.

Behind a large desk on the far side of the room, a steel-haired woman was examining a small pill.

After WuJing and I were seated, she looked at me. “Do you have any more?”

I passed her another bottle, which she quickly opened.

“How many can you make?”

“Right now, one a day. That will improve as my cultivation level advances, but that will take time.”

She looked down at the pills and shook her head. “Remarkable. Jiang said you had a blessing for alchemy knowledge, but this… this is far more than basic knowledge. Perfect Rank 3 pills as a low-level Martial Master…”

After a moment of contemplation, she looked at me. “The higher-ups know about you. They must. We fall under the authority of the branch manager for the Rising Sun Empire. There can be no question that he knows about you, but this knowledge might extend all the way to the head of the Pavilion, one step short of the Sovereign himself.”

“What? How?”

“Karma.” Her voice was filled with annoyance.

“Your ability, if it’s a sign of your future potential... It’s too much. I’m only guessing, but they should have gotten a huge surge of energy when you joined the Pavilion. If you can do this…” She held up my pill. “If you can keep doing this as you advance… It will have a noticeable impact on the amount of karma they receive. They won’t know why, but they will know something has changed, and they will be looking for evidence of what.”

“So… what now? You report me? Let them decide what to do with me?” I was more curious than worried about what she would say. As long as I remained in the Wastes, those big shots couldn’t do anything to me directly. Besides, it seemed like I was only providing them benefits, so why would it be a problem?

“No.” Her voice was filled with conviction. “The Pavilion has strict rules for this kind of situation. It’s your choice. We are not willing to drive away talents needlessly, so it’s your choice. If I report this, I am confident that you will be subtly pressured to move to Rising Sun. The headquarters may want you, too, but Rising Sun is our direct superior, and their manager won’t want to lose you. The other choice is to ship out these pills without explanation. I will still record your contribution appropriately, and you will receive the requisite benefits, but no one will know exactly what’s going on unless they start digging, and the Pavilion’s rules should protect you from that. What do you want to do?”

I looked at WuJing for guidance, and he immediately shook his head. “Don’t report it. He needs to go south, nearer to Brilliant Sun.”

“WuJing, I know you want to use him yourself, but—”

I cut her off. “He’s right. I need to reach Martial King in the Brilliant Sun Empire. If I’m coerced into joining Rising Sun, it will prevent me from doing what I need to do.”

Manager Cai gave me a resigned look but nodded. “Very well. I might be able to help you. I assume you want to take Manager Chen with you?”

“Yes.”

“Give me time, and enough pills, and I can get both of you assigned to the Eight Flower Kingdom. It’s on the border with Brilliant Sun, and I have some connections that could help you.”

I gave her a martial salute. “Thank you, Manager Cai.”

She looked at me for a long time before speaking again. “I am old. My chances at advancement have long passed. I was posted here because higher-ups needed a firm hand to guide this branch, but they didn’t want someone who was worried about their personal advancement.”

I nodded and gave her a small smile. “I understand, Manager Cai. Thank you for your support.”

Debts and obligations. I tried to avoid them, but a person who walks along a river cannot avoid getting their shoes wet.