I spent the next several weeks locked away in my alchemy lab.

A few new clients came to discuss terms with me, but most seemed to be waiting for the results of my first discussions. Those representatives had yet to contact me again after our meetings, but that wasn’t too unusual. Even modest forces moved at slow timescales, and the elder councils that needed to approve any major decisions could spend weeks in discussion over even the simplest of matters.

I knew that no one would be thrilled by the prospect of handing me copies of all their techniques, but at the same time, they knew that lending me as many manuals as possible would get them countless free pills. This clash of priorities was probably the biggest cause of the delays.

This didn’t bother me. I had plenty of work to keep me busy, and after my recent purchases, I had many new avenues to study and explore.

I wanted to focus on learning how to improve shoddy herbs, but lacking sample pills for the secondary elements would hamper my business prospects, so I resolved to take care of that first.

So, I started by working through each of the new recipes that I had bought from the Pavilion.

The recipes included various types of pills, such as a wind and thunder Flashbang Pill and a temporary appearance-altering pill that combined light, dark, water, and wood herbs. Sadly, though, these recipes did not include the Shadowed Soul Pill that I had made during the registration exam.

One strange recipe created something that I could barely even call a pill. It combined light and fire herbs to create a light source. When squeezed, the ‘pill’ would emit enough light to illuminate a decently sized room. I wasn’t sure how bright the light would be, or how long it would last, but this seemed like an almost criminal waste of Rank 3 herbs. While it was possible that there were valid uses for such a thing, I had to believe that it was more a case of an alchemist stumbling upon a useless recipe and selling it to anyone willing to pay for it.

Still, whether the pills were useful or not, having these recipes and practicing with them gave me valuable insights into how the medicinal energy of these new herbs worked and how their effects could change when mixed with different ingredients. So, I made at least one pill for each recipe.

I wasn’t happy with how most of them turned out. The medicinal energies for the secondary elements just didn’t mix properly. Part of this was a result of not having the affinities to properly manipulate them, but another problem was that the secondary affinity pairs were resistant to being combined. This was where the catalyst that I had used in the exam came into play. That ‘onion’ had assisted in creating proper mixes, and without it, I was struggling.

Such a catalyst might have been necessary, but it wasn’t listed in the recipes, and my gut told me there should be a way to make these pills without it. I just needed understanding and practice.

As the weeks came and went, I made significant progress, but when it was time for me to leave my workshop, I still wasn’t happy. There was still more that I needed to do. It would just take time.

I took the best pills that I had been able to produce and handed them over to the Alchemy Office for use as samples. However, the number of these new samples was limited. Most of the pills I had made hadn’t met my quality standards, and I wasn’t willing to sell subpar products.

After this, I left the Pavilion and headed to the Metal District. I still needed to spend more time researching alchemy, but that would have to wait. It was time for me to learn formations.

The ‘classroom’ I was taken to was a large open courtyard with a ground of packed dirt. Twenty small plinths were arranged in a four-by-five grid, and a slightly larger plinth was placed on a stage at the front. On top of each plinth was a large slab of granite that had been neatly cut into a block with smooth sides and perfect edges.

I was the eleventh person to arrive, so I had a chance to check out my fellow classmates as I waited.

Without exception, they were all earth qi cultivators, which made sense. They were also all Martial Disciples, and while their cultivation bases varied in quality, they were all relatively good–though far from being perfect. They were all using Peak Yellow cultivation techniques, but small deficiencies in their qi filters kept them from reaching the perfect qi purity they should have had.

As the start of the class approached, more students filtered in, and they were all roughly similar to the students who had been here when I entered. The only exceptions were the two young men who entered last. Instead of cultivating earth qi, they cultivated metal qi.

When the metal cultivators reached their plinths, they moved the granite slabs off to the side and replaced them with thick metal sheets from their storage bags.

After all the students had entered and prepared, a middle-aged man wearing a rich brown hanfu walked in and stepped onto the stage. “Welcome, everyone. My name is Hu JianGuo. I am an outer elder and Master Formation Specialist from the Hu Clan’s Earth City branch. Today, I will teach you the basics of formations.”

Saying this, he propped up the granite block on his plinth and placed it so that its largest face was visible to us. Then, he held his hand over the top right of the block and channeled his qi.

I tried to watch exactly what was happening, but I didn’t have the best vantage point. All I could see were small bits of stone dropping away from wherever he placed his hand.

When his hand was removed, two palm-sized inscriptions were visible. The inscription on the left was somewhat complicated, but the one on the right was a deceptively simple-looking spiral. A thin channel ran from the inscription on the left, through the spiral, and off the top of the block, into empty air.

Both inscriptions existed in three dimensions. The one on the left had channels that ran into and out of the stone block, creating an intricate knot, and the spiral on the right deepened until it exited out through the back of the block.

“These are the two most basic foundational inscriptions for you to learn. This one”–the instructor tapped the complex inscription on the left–“is a version of a qi filter that you would find in a Low-Yellow cultivation manual, while this one”–he tapped the spiral–“is an inscription to create a qi vortex, similar to what a Martial Disciple uses to cultivates. This is the most basic way of pulling in qi to empower a formation.”

The instructor channeled his qi into the spiral, causing it to circle through the inscription.

As his qi circulated, additional qi from the environment gathered around the stone block was pulled in through the inscribed filter, passed through the channel that pierced the center of the spiral, and exited out the other side, finally dispersing back into the environment.

When the instructor stopped sending his qi into the spiral, the flow of qi into the filter ceased.

“This is the simplest formation you can make. It requires active qi input and doesn’t do anything with the energy it gathers. This will be your starting point for today.”

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The instructor nodded at a younger man who then began handing out sheets of paper.

“These are copies of the two inscriptions I used. You should all have access to better qi filters from your cultivation techniques, but start with this one. Filters need to be adapted to work properly with formations, and it’s best to start with the simplest designs possible. As you work, my assistant and I will walk around to assist you. Feel free to come up and inspect the formation that I created more closely.”

With that, he stepped down from the podium and gestured for us to begin. However, instead of beginning immediately, I watched as other students raced to begin their work.

Several of them appeared to be quite skilled already, which made me wonder why they were in the class. Was it to catch the attention of the teacher?

At any rate, whatever their motives were, they provided me with exceptional examples of what could go wrong if a formation was made too hastily and had errors. The simplest of these failures was the walls of the formation collapsing, rendering the entire thing inoperable, but one young man had a build-up of qi that resulted in a minor explosion.

I considered my situation. How should I create a formation? From what I could tell, earth qi was being used because stone provided a solid base for the inscriptions, and earth qi was good for carving stone. This should mean that the Cold Mountain Fire would serve as an acceptable alternative. However, openly using the fire seed here was a terrible idea. I would need to wait until I had a bit more privacy before doing something like that.

I didn’t have earth qi, but I did have access to wood qi. Earth qi was good at manipulating earth, but earth was weak to wood, so wood qi should be even better for carving these inscriptions.

I fixed the filter inscription that we had been provided in my mind and began my work. I wasn’t familiar with this particular filter, so I didn’t hit all the angles correctly, but my qi control was enough to create a close facsimile of what it was supposed to be. After the filter was complete, I moved on and swiftly completed the spiral and channel. My wood qi made short work of the granite, and I was quickly finished.

I was about to inject qi into the spiral to test my creation, but I had a sudden thought. The qi type in the spiral shouldn’t matter. No matter what I used, the formation should condense all the energy in the environment, and the filter then would handle separating out the earth qi. If I used wood qi in the spiral, though, it might begin degrading the granite. It would be better to use fire qi, which might help strengthen the stone as it passed through.

I began channeling, and the spiral seemed to function correctly. Qi gathered around the block and began passing through the filter. Only a moment later, though, the entire thing collapsed. The stone couldn’t bear the strain of the qi passing through it.

I frowned. Even if I had made a mistake, it shouldn’t have collapsed so easily.

I looked around to see if the examples provided by others could shed light on what had gone wrong, but there wasn’t much to see. The most interesting were the two metal qi cultivators. They had solved the problem of having the wrong type of qi by changing the medium that they were using, but carving inscriptions into metal appeared to be far more difficult than carving stone. Should I try using metal as a base and carving it with fire qi? That would allow me to start with a stronger material, at least.

As I stood, pondering my situation, the teacher’s assistant approached me and looked at my failed formation.

“What did you do!?” He picked up some of the crumbled remains of my formation and looked at them dismissively. “Wood qi? You tried to use wood qi to create a formation? What are you, an idiot?”

The man’s voice cut through the courtyard, and several of the students stopped their work to watch him berate me.

The instructor also noticed this commotion, and when he did, his eyes widened in terror.

The assistant didn’t notice this, however, and continued his diatribe. “If you don’t have the proper qi to create formations, then why did you even come here? You’re just wasting everyone’s time. Go learn herbalism like a good little flower boy.”

The instructor rushed over and pushed his assistant away. He looked at me with a pained expression. “I’m sorry–”

Before he could say more, the assistant interrupted him. “No need to be sorry for this fool. We can just throw him out. I'll alert the guards.”

The instructor’s eyes nearly popped out of their sockets, and he slapped the younger man. “Quiet!”

Then, he turned and gave me a deep bow. “Alchemist Su, I’m extremely sorry. My nephew is insensible.”

“Alchemist?” The younger man let out a barking laugh. “Uncle, he’s no alchemist. He’s a flower boy.”

The instructor turned around and slapped the young man again, knocking him to the floor.

“Uncle! What are you doing?”

“Shut up! Get out of here. Stop bothering Grandmaster Su!”

“Uncle! But he’s—”

“Leave! Now!

”

The instructor looked back at me with a pleading expression. The younger man slowly stood with a contrite expression, but when his uncle turned away from him, he shot me a venomous glare.

“Alchemist Su, I truly apologize. Please, let me help you with your formation.”

I chuckled internally. By this point, I was no longer willing to accept the explanations of these old foxes.

Most likely, this instructor knew exactly what kind of person his nephew was. He had probably even encouraged the young man to act this way. He had set this whole thing up so that he could get closer to me by showing me he was ‘on my side.’

Still, I was here to learn formations, and if he was willing to teach, then I was willing to learn. “Thank you, Teacher Hu, I am not sure why my attempt collapsed like it did. Could you please enlighten me?”

The instructor picked up some of the remains and rolled them between his fingers. “You used wood qi to carve it? You must have quite the talent to be so skilled in the use of two different elements.”

He examined the crumbled stones for several more seconds before rendering his verdict. “I don’t know how well your formation was constructed, but even if it had been perfect, it wouldn’t have mattered. It was destined to collapse the moment you began.”

I looked at him with interest.

“Wood qi is great for cutting apart the stone, but there’s a reason that there are no wood cultivators here. When you apply wood qi to stone, it denatures the walls of the channels you carve. Look closely at this stone.” He held up a small pebble from my broken formation. “On the right, you can see what natural granite should look like, but on the left, you can see where your wood qi broke down its structure. Even if your qi control were to be beyond anything I’ve ever seen before, I know of no way that you could carve with wood qi without damaging the surrounding stone.”

I looked at what he was holding. This made sense, and I should have realized the problem earlier.

Suddenly, I had an idea. “What if I carve the inscription with wood qi and then go back over it with fire qi? The fire should stabilize the stone, right?”

The instructor shook his head. “I’ve seen experiments for doing that before, but it doesn’t work. Think of it like this. Using wood qi is like taking a sword and bending the blade 90 degrees, doing incredible damage to the metal. Going back over it with fire qi is like bending the blade back to its original position. It looks like a proper blade again, but the bending back and forth introduced fatal flaws into its structure.”

I considered what he said. There should be a way to solve this issue, but this wasn’t the right place to look for it.

“What about using a different material?” I gestured to the metal cultivators. “If I inscribe a formation into wood, that should work, right?”

Again, the instructor shook his head. “Wood is an organic material. It’s not suitable for holding formations. Good stone has a very uniform crystal pattern. Well-treated metal is nearly as good. Wood, though, has a far more complex structure, which can cause problems with formations.”

He tapped the plinth a couple of times before continuing. “Not to say that it couldn’t be done, mind you. I’ve heard of such things before, and my clan has been conducting experiments with wooden formations for years, but it has to be used in specialized settings for unique purposes, not in standard formations.”

“Thank you, Teacher Hu. I will consider what you’ve said.”

It looked like, if I wanted to create formations, then I would have to use my fire seed, but that would have to wait until later.

“Of course, Alchemist Su.”

The class continued, and I spent my time focused on learning from the examples of others instead of practicing myself. I wanted to analyze the strengths and weaknesses of everyone’s approach so that I could better adapt them to my own pursuits. I relied on my purchased enhanced comprehension to assist me with this.

After the allotted hour ended, the instructor dismissed us for the week and said his goodbyes. As I was beginning to leave, though, he called me over. “Alchemist Su, if you are interested in learning more about formations, the Hu Clan would be happy to share its knowledge with you.”

“Thank you, Teacher Hu, I am indeed interested. Should we discuss the arrangements now?”

He shook his head. “Unfortunately, this is not within my purview. The elders have heard of the unique offer that you have made through the Pavilion, but they have some concerns. They would like to send a representative to discuss them with you.”

“Of course, I welcome any discussion with the Hu Clan.”

“Excellent! I will inform them immediately. Good day, Alchemist Su.”