The tattered scroll settled back into its niche, leaving Zhuo Qianfeng with a fresh problem: he needed resources beyond the Nimbus Jade Academy's meager offerings—materials of such rarity that only the most audacious ventures could unearth them.
His gaze fell upon a crumpled flyer tacked to a notice board: the annual Grand Crucible Convergence. A tournament of herbal synthesis, its trophy a trove of exotic spirit flora dating back to the first dynasty. Perfect.
“Master Zhuo! You’re actually entering?” Lei Ban’s voice, a familiar thunderclap, echoed through the hall’s sparse common room. He leaned against a crumbling archway, arms crossed, one heel tapping stone. “Those old cauldron-tenders will laugh you out of the city! Your energy channels are… well, you know.”
Zhuo Qianfeng merely arched a brow. “Laughter is a temporary affliction. Poverty is more persistent.”
“But… but you’re a martial artist! A sword-master, not a cauldron-tender!” Lei Ban sputtered, gesturing wildly. “Leave the concoctions to the frail-limbed. Your path is one of steel and shattered expectations!”
“My path is one of efficiency,” Zhuo Qianfeng corrected, already halfway out the door. “And sometimes, efficiency wears an apron.”
He registered for the bouts with the same detached ease he gave every chore. The preliminary trials were a farce. Entrants, preening over ancestral methods, struggled to distill common Sunpetal blooms into basic vitality broth. Zhuo Qianfeng, using a simple hearth flame learned in his youth, produced a flawless extract that glowed like molten amber, baffling the judges and securing his place in the final. Elder Ruan, head of the True Jade Hall, watched from the platform with a sour grimace.
The night before the final, knuckles rapped against his spartan door. Lin Suyin stood outside, a small, silk-wrapped parcel held in two hands.
“Zhuo Qianfeng,” she began, her voice a gentle murmur. “I… I heard about your progress. It’s remarkable, truly. But the final round… it’s rumored to require a legendary ingredient. Something beyond the reach of most students.”
He waited, observing the subtle tremor in her hands. He knew her kind—driven by kindness, easily manipulated by those less scrupulous.
“I brought something from my clan's vault,” she said, extending the package. “The Lunar Blossom. It stabilizes volatile concoctions. Take it. It will give you an edge.”
Zhuo Qianfeng took the parcel. The silk was cool beneath his fingers. A faint, almost imperceptible scent wafted from within—a fragrance of deep earth and distant starlight, with an undertone of something else, something sharp and cold, like a blade hidden in velvet. He ran a thumb over the delicate wrapping. This was no ordinary bloom. His senses, honed over a millennium of confronting venom, caught the faint trace of a neurotoxin masked by sweet sap. It was a draught concocted to rot an apprentice's conduits from within, meant not to kill, but to cripple and humiliate.
He felt no anger, only a detached confirmation of human nature’s predictable malice. He glanced at Lin Suyin. Her eyes, wide and earnest, held no guile. She was a pawn, unknowingly delivering the killing blow. He offered a slight nod. “My thanks, Instructor Lin. I shall make good use of it.”
The Grand Crucible final filled the expansive Sky-Vault Atrium beneath a glass dome. Hundreds of students and elders packed the tiered viewing platforms, peering down at five workbenches. Four preening apothecaries stood flanked by ornate cauldrons, beside one Zhuo Qianfeng.
Elder Ruan stepped forward. “Contestants, brew the most potent spirit draught using the provided roots, augmented by your private stocks. Begin!” With a flick of his wrist, bundles of dry stems dropped onto each surface.
Zhuo Qianfeng set the Lunar Blossom onto the bench. Its petals, a deep violet, held a dull sheen. Whispers traveled along the benches: “A Lunar Blossom? Where did a charity student find such stock?”
Elder Ruan’s mouth twitched upward. His glance flickered toward Lin Suyin, seated among the faculty. He had seen the herb delivered, confident the toxic sap would ruin the boy's fledgling Qi and expose him before the academy.
Zhuo Qianfeng ignored the mutterings. He lit no brazier. Instead, he sat cross-legged before the flower and shut his eyes, extending a hairline thread of Qi from his index finger to graze the purple velvet.
The crowd murmured, confused. What was he doing? Was he meditating? Had he given up?
Lin Suyin leaned over the rail. “He is not even using an alembic…”
Elder Ruan chuckled. “The boy has no idea what he faces. He will faint before the hour turns.”
Zhuo Qianfeng sat upright. The chilled tang of toxin rose into the air, but he remained still. He drew the venom directly into his flesh. The brew encountered ancient willpower, routed along his clogged passages like mountain runoff carving through packed clay. It met his inner core, distilled under ancient pressure until the corruptive brew stripped away the calcified buildup lining his spiritual vessels.
A low thrum shook the floorboards. White light shone through the weave of Zhuo Qianfeng’s linen tunic. The violet flower shriveled to gray powder, its sap stripped clean. His dried spiritual pathways roared, breaking the clotted silt within his chest with the snap of dry pine.
Light burst across the arena flagstones, forcing spectators to throw their sleeves over their faces. Ozone scorched the air. When the glare died, Zhuo Qianfeng sat undisturbed amidst the drift of white ash. His circulation hummed with clear, pristine pressure, grounding a new foundation into the stone beneath his knees.
His eyes, now open, gleamed with a cold, calculating brilliance. He looked directly at Elder Ruan, whose face had gone ashen, a flicker of naked fear replacing his smug satisfaction. Zhuo Qianfeng’s gaze was a silent promise, a direct challenge. He knew.