Six months after the Palace’s internal competition, an attendant came to my workshop and dropped off a summons, ordering me to attend a meeting that had been called by the tentative leader of the Palace’s young alchemists: Mandakh.

When I arrived, the Lords who had placed second, fifth, and sixth in the competition were already sitting around a U-shaped table. Shortly after I took my seat, the Lord who had placed third entered, soon followed by the Peak Grandmaster who had placed seventh.

The final person to appear was our ‘leader,’ Mandakh. He was wearing the same ugly green and red robe that he had worn to the competition, but his gold jewelry had been replaced with items of a more subdued, tarnished bronze. As he scanned the gathered alchemists, the woman who had placed second blushed, causing a slight smile to raise Mandakh’s bark-like chin.

After taking his seat at the head of the table, Mandakh steepled his hands as he first looked at the alchemists on the right, then at us who sat to his left.

“Thank you, everyone, for finding the time to meet with me. While we still have four and a half years before the exhibition match with the other two Palaces, if history is any guide, we are already at a significant disadvantage. If we wish to emerge victorious, we must begin making plans and working together, immediately.”

The Lord who had placed fifth in the competition looked warily at the sixth and seventh place finishers. “Why are they here? Shouldn’t this be a private meeting—between the five of us?”

Mandakh shook his head. “No. You may have placed higher than them six months ago, but will you still be better than them in a year? Will you still be better in four years? The elders have put me in charge of our team, and I intend to win. I will take the best team that I can to the exhibition match, and I care nothing about where anyone placed in the previous competition.”

The fifth-ranked Lord’s upper lip twitched in annoyance, but Mandakh didn’t seem to notice.

“In the final competition, 15 years from now, we will need to concoct a Rank 6 pill. For this upcoming exhibition match, however, we need only create a Rank 5 pill. This will be slightly easier to manage, but it still won’t be simple.” Mandakh looked between me and the other Grandmaster. “To make the best pill possible, everyone on our team will need to be at least a Peak Lord. Do not rush your cultivation any more than necessary, but if you are not able to reach this level, I cannot allow you to be a member of our team.”

“Lord?” asked the man who had placed fifth. “We’re talking about making a Rank 5 pill, and the rest of us are all going to be Kings. How much help could a Lord provide?”

Mandakh snorted with a touch of derision. “If all you care about is raw power, then a Martial King might indeed be more suitable. I, however, care about more than this. I need a team that has a viable mix of affinities—affinities that can be combined to create the best pill possible. If one of our members is a little weak, others can cover for them. But if we don’t have the right affinities, we are doomed to failure.” The rightful source is novèlfire.net

The fifth-place Lord’s cheek twitched as a wave of resentment rolled off him, but he didn’t say anything more.

Mandakh looked around the room. “For us to succeed, I need to know what I’m working with. What are your affinities? You don’t need to tell me everything—keep secrets if you must—but the more you tell me, the better our chances at victory. As for myself, I have five-star affinities in wood, water, and fire.”

Mandakh turned to the woman who had placed second.

She nodded immediately, clearly having been expecting this. “Fire, earth, metal, and spear.”

Mandakh turned to the man who had placed third.

He looked far more annoyed at having been put on the spot, but he still grunted out a reply. “Metal and guandao.”

Next, Mandakh looked at the fifth-place competitor, who reported affinities of lightning, metal, and bow. Then, it was my turn.

What should I say? If I told the truth, my place on the team would be guaranteed, but I didn’t want a place on this team.

I let out a soft sigh. “I have decent affinities for wood, fire, metal, and the crescent moon spade. I also have modest affinities in water and earth, which is what allowed me to make my nine-patterned Rank 1 pill.”

Mandakh accepted this answer without comment and moved on to the next person. Aside from Mandakh and me, each person had a handful of elemental affinities that primarily served to augment one of the weapon affinities.

Once everyone had finished, Mandakh bowed his head. “Thank you. I will consider which pills might work best for us. In the meantime, I would suggest that each of you talk to your mentors and request assistance in raising your elemental affinities. While your weapons may be the best fit for your individual talents, strong elemental affinities will be what allows us to work together as a team.”

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Mandakh’s idea for the upcoming exhibition match was pretty standard: the team would concoct a pill centered around wood-based herbs, with Mandakh controlling the core ingredients. These would then be supported by herbs of other elements that were controlled by his teammates.

While this strategy made sense, I couldn’t help but wonder if I could improve upon it. Why not take better advantage of this domain’s unique energies? Why not center the pill around herbs connected to one of the weapons? For that matter, why not make a pill that was infused with the power of a multitude of weapons?

The Palace had plenty of recipes that focused on herbs of a single weapon type, but there was no mention of any that combined herbs of multiple weapon types. Why not? The simple answer was that recipes for such pills didn’t exist. However, this didn’t mean that such recipes couldn’t exist, right?

With all of the Palace’s young alchemists scrambling to boost either their cultivation bases or their affinities, there was a glut in the Emporium’s herb supply. Sensing an opportunity, I stepped in and purchased all the herbs that were just sitting around, going to waste. These herbs, combined with those I had started to receive from my contracted herbalists, gave me everything I needed to get started with some real experiments into herbal tea.

For the upcoming exhibition match, our team needed to make a Rank 5 pill, and for the final competition between the Palaces, we needed to make a Rank 6 pill. Unfortunately, though, Rank 5 and 6 herbs were both scarce and expensive. While I did have a significant amount of wealth stashed away in my inner world, it was far from enough to purchase an endless supply of Rank 6 herbs. And, even if it were enough, Rank 6 herbs weren’t available in the quantities I needed.

So, instead, I focused on experimenting with Rank 1, 2, and 3 herbs that had analogous Rank 5 and 6 cultivars. My hope was that I could start with low-Rank herbs and later scale up to higher-Rank herbs.

At first, this task seemed hopeless. While I had been able to brew a tea-based equivalent of the Moon Spade Attunement Pill, whenever I used herbs of more than one type of weapon, the result was always incredibly lethal. The worst came from a combination of ji-, guandao-, and spear-based herbs.

Unnamed Tea

Primary Effect: Causes multiple forms of energy to erupt within the user’s body, slashing and piercing their internal organs. Effective on cultivators below Martial Grandmaster 3.

Secondary Effect: User’s qi will be transformed into an expanding cloud of energy that attacks anyone who comes in contact with it.

Potency: 56%. Toxicity 91%.

As a tea, this was horrible. It might be useful as a poison, but I already had plenty of ways to poison someone. I hardly needed another.

As a pill that someone was supposed to consume, it wouldn’t be any better. If I further refined the recipe, to where it was capable of making a high-patterned pill, it might be somewhat useful as a type of suicide bomb, but this seemed like a horrendous idea.

This thought, however, reminded me of basic Explosive Pills. Made from a combination of fire and metal herbs, Explosive Pills were not intended to be eaten. They were crushed and thrown at a target, creating a powerful blast of fire energy.

Why couldn’t I create something similar using weapon-based herbs? With everyone in this domain so focused on using weapons directly, this type of pill had been completely ignored.

Pulling out an assortment of herbs, I quickly concocted a low-quality pill, using energies connected to the various polearms. Then, once this pill was complete, I threw it against a wall at full force.

Upon impact, the pill collapsed in upon itself and released a wave of weak energy.

Sadly, this energy wave was almost entirely harmless, both because of the low quality of the pill and because the energy was entirely unfocused. I doubted if even a Martial Disciple would have been harmed by such a thing.

Still, while the result was far from ideal, it helped me understand what I needed to do.

Over the following year and a half, I mostly stayed in my workshop, brewing dozens of teas every day and recording the results.

Mandakh had wanted me to focus on raising my cultivation base and elemental affinities, but I had no desire to rush my cultivation, and it was nearly impossible for me to gain access to a location that was capable of raising my affinities. So, a year and a half after that first meeting, I had only advanced to Martial Grandmaster 7, and my affinities were the same as they had always been.

When Mandakh called a second meeting to check in on everyone’s progress, he just looked at me with disappointment and moved on to the next member of our group.

As far as I could tell, I was the only alchemist present who had actually focused on learning alchemy. Everyone else had either been off doing a Return in the hopes of gaining new insights or hanging out in some random sect in the hopes of boosting their affinities. While I could understand wanting to spend time in a different environment, what I didn’t understand was why they hadn’t used that time practicing alchemy. They had instead treated it more like a vacation.

Yet, somehow, despite all of this, I was the only one who was viewed as a disappointment.

Since I was the only one who hadn’t followed Mandakh’s ‘suggestions,’ this was understandable, but it still made me want to laugh. With this level of dedication to alchemy, it was no wonder this domain always came in last place.

During this meeting, Mandakh laid out our basic training regime for the next three years. Once a month, we were to gather in one of the upper workshops to practice group alchemy. Other than that, things would mostly remain the same, with us all doing whatever our mentors thought best.

When Mandakh was about to bring the meeting to a close, I took out three jade bottles, placed them on the table in front of me, and cleared my throat to grab everyone’s attention.

“I have developed a few new pill recipes. Right now, they are only Rank 3, but if any of you Pill Kings would be willing to assist me, I believe that I can enhance them to Rank 5.”

With Mandakh not willing to take anyone below Peak Lord to the exhibition match, avoiding a direct confrontation with Jon was easy enough. But if I cultivated slowly and didn’t participate in the match, how was I supposed to build my prestige in the Palace? I could have tried undermining Mandakh and turning the other alchemists against him, but this risked alienating the Palace’s elders.

If I, instead, positioned myself to be the source of the Palace’s best new recipes, then after Mandakh’s defeat, I would be well-positioned to step in and take over for the real competition. I just had to hope that he didn’t lose so badly that it tarnished my recipes by association.