Rejecting Emperor Lau’s offer of a marriage alliance in front of so many people had been a slap in the face to the Emperor, Lau CoiHung, and the Lau Clan as a whole. Had it been wrong for Emperor Lau to make her offer so publicly after I had already indicated that I wasn’t interested? Yes. Would Emperor Lau care about this little detail? I doubted it.

Whether I liked it or not, rejecting Lau CoiHung had meant accepting the enmity of the Lau Clan.

This was less than ideal, but it did come with an upside. After my public declaration that I had no interest in competing for any of the Palace’s young women, Mandakh’s attitude toward me flipped almost instantly. He stopped treating me as a rival of the same generation. Instead, he acted as if I were a member of the older generation who had entered the Temple’s competition through some technicality. This turned him into a surprisingly amiable fellow.

Considering that he was correct in his assessment, I saw this as a positive step forward in our relationship.

Our relationship was further improved upon when I developed a new Rank 6 pill from a combination of shadow, poison, rot, metal, fire, and wood herbs. Since this pill’s primary herbs were all wood-based, Mandakh was able to take the lead in concocting it, earning him his first enlightenment.

While I was happy for the young man, after seeing the effects of this pill, I couldn’t help but think that creating it had been a mistake. Dubbed the Fallow Fields Pill, when crushed and scattered over an area of several square kilometers, the energy of this pill would soak into the ground, killing the plant life and ensuring that nothing would be able to grow in the affected area for at least a dozen years.

Used against humans, this pill would be a weapon of mass starvation and famine. Used against urgamal, it would be a weapon of genocide.

The creation of this weapon might have been a mistake, and handing its recipe over to the Earthly Dao was possibly the worst thing that I had ever done, but it did serve as an important warning. The pill that I had developed was terrible, but I doubted it was unique. With poison-based herbs being so readily available, how many other alchemists had already developed something similar?

Alchemists probably weren’t the worst of it, either. How many formation specialists had designed ways of poisoning entire cities? How many gu keepers had ways of infecting people en masse?

Before bringing my clan to this continent, I needed to be prepared for such things.

That said, I wasn’t the only person who had been affected by this pill.

As the first person to successfully concoct a Fallow Fields Pill, Mandakh was provided with an enlightenment, but from what I could tell, this enlightenment only made him slightly more proficient with the use of rot and poison herbs. I was somewhat disappointed by this, as I was hoping that providing him with a Rank 6 enlightenment would help to assure our eventual victory over Jon, but Mandakh seemed content. Not only did his attitude toward me soften drastically, but he also became even more diligent in his studies.

So, overall, while I wasn’t entirely happy with the pill’s effects, I had no choice but to view this outcome as a net positive.

Roughly one year before the elders were set to decide on the makeup of our final team–six years before our inevitable confrontation with Jon–Emperor Chan took me on a trip outside of the Palace for the first time since I had begun developing new pill recipes. This was dangerous, since it would give the agents of rival Saints an opening to attack me, but that was a risk I had to take.

Chan had found a refiner who was open to making me a pill furnace, but only if I visited him in person. This requirement was rather suspicious, but I was relatively certain that it wasn’t my life this Martial Spirit was after. No, from the put-upon look that Chan gave me, I had a bad feeling that this was another Emperor Lau situation.

Still, I needed a new pill furnace, so I would endure.

The moment we stepped outside the Palace’s mountain, a portal opened up before us, and Chan ushered me through. This portal deposited us in the middle of an open field, where an elderly woman created a second portal, sending us to the next step on our journey.

As we passed through the fourth relay point, I was starting to get worried. Chan had only said that he had found a refiner capable of making a Rank 8 pill furnace. I had assumed that this meant we would be meeting with an Artifact Spirit. However, with so many Sovereigns involved in simply transporting us to our destination, there was no way we were dealing with a mere Spirit-level faction.

After stepping through a fifth and final portal, Chan and I appeared in a well-appointed sitting room with plush red carpets and expertly carved wooden furniture. Behind us, an open door led out onto a balcony that overlooked the landscape below. From this, I could see that we were high atop the peaks of some unknown mountain range.

Shortly after I completed my survey of our surroundings, the door opposite us opened, and a young woman walked inside carrying a tray with a teapot and a few small snacks. This girl was wearing simple, unadorned burgundy robes, and she moved with the quiet reserve of a trained maid. However, it was obvious that this woman was no servant. Everything from the subtle authority in her steps to the hidden condescension in her eyes spoke of a Young Miss who was accustomed to ordering people about.

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After setting down her tray on the room’s short table, the young woman gestured toward a couple of nearby chairs. “Please, take a seat. Uncle Yau will be with you shortly.”

When the young woman knelt down on a cushion next to the table and began preparing tea, I looked over at Emperor Chan, but he just shook his head, unwilling–or unable–to comment.

Sitting uneasily in the provided chairs, all we could do was watch as the young woman worked. The first pot of tea she brewed was not for drinking. She used it to rinse our cups, then discarded it in an ornamental bowl. Only after this task was complete did she begin work on the tea that we would be allowed to drink.

For several long minutes, the room was filled with nothing but the soft clink of porcelain. Then, just as she began to pour the tea from this second pot, the room’s door opened to reveal a plump middle-aged man with a thick black beard.

He grinned at us, strode forward with bold steps, and slammed his hands together in a martial salute. “Chan ZinMing! Good to see you again. It’s been far too long.”

Emperor Chan stood, saluted, and bowed deeply. “Greetings, Spirit Wong.”

The middle-aged man waved this away. “No need, no need. Just call me Old Yau.”

Chan only nodded, not willing to comply.

I stood, cupped my fists, and bowed only my head. “Greetings, Old Yau. I am Su Fang.”

Yau burst into hearty laughter and shook his head. “It’s true what they say, newborn calves aren’t afraid of tigers.” Yau studied me, and I noticed an unnatural glint in his eyes. “However, now that I hear it, I must say, Old Yau feels rather uncomfortable. Please, Little Fang, just call me… Uncle.”

A chagrined smile crossed my face as, like Emperor Chan, I forced myself to respond with a wordless nod.

Old Yau grabbed one of the teacups and plopped into a chair before motioning us to retake our seats. Then, he signaled for the young woman to join us. “So, Little Fang, ZinMing tells me you’re looking for a pill furnace. Do you have anything specific in mind? Rank 8 metals don’t come cheap, and a good furnace needs more than you might expect.”

After glancing at Emperor Chan, I reached into my inner world and pulled out the large metal plate that I had gotten from the Nine Rivers Sect’s Master of the Lightning Peak. Then, setting this to the side, I began pulling out some of the smaller ingots of metal that I had liberated from the vaults of the Zhuge, Li, and Jiu Clans.

As I placed the last of these next to the pot of tea, I gave Old Yau a knowing smile. “This should be enough to make a decent furnace, shouldn’t it?”

Old Yau didn’t even look at me. His eyes were firmly transfixed on one of the random ingots that I had pulled out. “Where…”

Tearing his gaze from this ingot, Old Yau stared deep into my eyes–deep into my soul. “Who are you?”

I silently shook my head, brushing away the man’s pressure.

After several long moments, Old Yau reached out and picked up the ingot that captivated him. “Let me talk to my father. He’ll make you a furnace, personally, but this

will be his payment, not your pills.”

Not giving me a chance to respond, Old Yau stuffed the ingot into his storage bag, along with several other metals that were destined to become part of my new furnace. Then, he stood and turned for the door, gesturing for Emperor Chan to follow. “Come with me, ZinMing. Let’s give Jyun and Little Fang some time to chat.”

Once the two older men were gone, Wong Jyun folded her hands in her lap and looked at me with a soft smile. “Alchemist Fang, you’re from the Nine Rivers Domain, right? I’ve never been there. Can you tell me about it?”

I coughed lightly and looked to the ground. “I… haven’t spent much time there myself, actually. From what I remember, the only difference between it and the Heroes Domain was that there were more non-humans around.”

“You mean the urgan, like Emperor ZinMing?”

I gave a slight nod. “Yes… And, there were others. People whose bodies were covered in fur. I can’t be sure, but–”

Wong Jyun’s eyes widened in excitement. “Beastkin? You mean it’s true? The Nine Rivers really lets beastkin roam around their cities? Did they attack you? How did you survive?”

“N… No.” I furrowed my brow and shook my head. “Nothing like that. They just… ran a shop.”

Wong Jyun jumped to her feet, poured me a fresh cup of tea, and sat down next to me. “What kind of shop was it?”

I breathed in the floral scent of the girl’s perfume, then let out a resigned sigh. Wong Jyun’s approach was slightly different, but in the end, she was the same as Lau CoiHung. I just had to hope that I could get out of this place without offending a Martial Ancestor.

Only a few hours later, I had already agreed to a preliminary trade deal with Wong Jyun. The Wong Clan would provide me with an assortment of raw metals in exchange for a variety of Ruler Tier pills. We had discussed a potential partnership where I would send people to the Wong Clan to learn refining while they sent people to me to learn alchemy. I didn’t have any plans to act on this partnership, but it was worth keeping in mind for the future.

Importantly, I was able to avoid any talk of a marriage contract.

When Chan and Old Yau finally returned, I breathed out a heavy sigh of relief, thankful that this ordeal was over.

Old Yau gave me a wide grin as he reached into his storage bag and pulled out what looked to be little more than a battered, old training furnace. “Little Fang, because of the generous payment that you provided, my father decided that he needed to add a few metals of his own to your furnace–just so that you don’t feel he cheated you. Please, understand, high-Rank materials aren’t easy to come by, and most of them need to be reserved for the clan, but he was able to add enough to bring your furnace up to the level of a basic Rank 9 artifact.”

Eyes wide, I turned on energy vision and studied the furnace carefully.

It was… strange. Initially, the furnace looked the same in energy vision as it did in normal vision–like a battered, old training furnace. However, as I looked deeper, I found layers of alloys that were composed of powerful metals.

“The gravest crime that a person can commit is possessing a treasure,” explained Old Yau. “So, my father has done his best to help you hide your crimes. Once you start making Rank 8 and 9 pills, the outer coating of this furnace will melt away, revealing its true appearance. Until then, however, no one should be able to detect that it is anything other than a simple, if unusually powerful furnace.”

What had that ingot been? To get an Ancestor to put in so much effort… I looked into the treasury of my inner world, where I still had several more copies of the small bar that I had taken from different timelines. If this new furnace was a treasure that people might kill me over, then what were these ingots?

Doing my best not to reveal my thoughts, I cupped my fists and gave the Martial Spirit a deep bow. “Thank you, Old Yau. Please, let your father know that I am grateful for his assistance.”

Old Yau waved this way, stood, and guided Wong Jyun out of the room. “Think nothing of it, and remember, call me Uncle. My father has high hopes for you, even if you don’t decide to join our clan.”