Elder Bai, however, seemed to require no explanation. His smile was wide, almost predatory. “Indeed, Young Jin An! An unparalleled display of composure and… unconventional technique. You have surpassed all expectations.” He clapped again, the sound echoing unnaturally in the suddenly silent valley. “Come, come! We mustn’t linger. I have a feeling the esteemed Peak Lord Zhi will be most keen to meet you. Perhaps a brief display of your remarkable compounding aptitude?”
Jin An’s protests died in his throat. He opened his mouth, but only a dry, raspy sound emerged. Elder Bai, interpreting his stammering as humble acceptance, clapped him on the shoulder, a touch that felt unnervingly firm. Ling Meiying watched his forced march out of the valley, her dark irises narrowing as if measuring the gears of an intricate clockwork mechanism. Jin An averted his face, sweat stinging the corners of his eyes.
The Hall of Ten Thousand Cauldrons, a cavernous chamber hollowed from the heart of Jadefall Peak, reeked of sulfur, scorched mugwort, and zinc. Rows of iridescent bronze vats, some broad enough to drown a bull, sat under floating spirit-lamps. Cultivators in jade robes milled about, their murmurs forming a continuous drone. At the center, a dais held a single, massive black vat etched with ancient runes.
Elder Bai led Jin An straight to this dais, drawing every gaze. Jin An rubbed his sweating palms along his coarse linen breeches as hundreds of pupils tracked his shambling stride. His vision blurred at the edges. *Just breathe, just breathe,* he chanted internally, a mantra he’d relied on for centuries to calm the tempest of his own mind. It usually worked, but the sheer volume of unfamiliar faces, their expressions ranging from curiosity to outright disdain, made his chest tighten.
“Esteemed sect brothers,” Elder Bai declared, cutting through the murmur, “allow me to introduce Young Jin An, a newly discovered talent! He has consented to a brief trial of herbal mastery.” Elder Bai signaled toward a robed figure beside the black vat. The youth possessed an aquiline nose and crossed arms. “Senior Apprentice Fan Ren will provide our benchmark.”
Fan Ren offered Jin An a curt nod, his gaze dismissive. “A pleasure, I suppose. Though I confess, I prefer my opponents to have some… history in the sect.” He turned to Elder Bai. “Elder, the challenge you proposed?”
“Ah, yes!” Elder Bai chuckled, rubbing his hands together. “A straightforward test of identification and nullification. Before you are four vials, each holding a lethal venom: the Whispering Chill, Shadow Serpent secretion, Scorch-Wind Bile, and Glimmer-Rot. Identify each, select the appropriate reagents, and brew their remedies. Speed and purity decide the victor.”
Jin An’s mind, despite his mounting panic, automatically began to analyze the names. Whispering Chill, likely an ice-elemental toxin affecting the spiritual meridians. Venom of the Shadow Serpent, a neurotoxin. Scorch-Wind Bile, probably an inflammatory agent. Glimmer-Rot… ah, a rare decay poison, attacking the very essence of cultivation. In his past life, Zun-Yi could have brewed the counter-draughts blindfolded. Yet Jin An, trapped in this clumsy nineteen-year-old vessel, found his vocal cords seized tight.
He stared at the four vials, their contents swirling with ominous colors. His hands trembled. He pictured speaking, offering explanations, grinding roots while thirty initiates took notes. The burden of social performance suffocated him. His vision began to tunnel. His chest ached. He just wanted it all to be *gone*.
Reaching only to banish the entire spectacle from sight, Jin An snatched all four phials. With jerky pulls, he dislodged the wax stoppers and dumped every measure into an empty mortar on the stage. The disparate tinctures swirled together—a brief flare of viridian, jet, carmine, and sulfurous yellow—collapsing into a thick, ash-colored paste. A wisp of bitter fumes curled from the rim.
A gasp rippled through the hall. Fan Ren’s hawk-like nose twitched. His expression morphed from dismissive boredom to utter disbelief, then to outright disdain. “What sort of farmhand butchery is that?” Fan Ren sneered, his aquiline nose wrinkling. “Pouring disparate venoms into one mortar? You have cured nothing; you have merely made a volatile mess. Elder Bai, this is hardly an exhibition of talent.”
Elder Bai stroked his beard, his eyes narrowing with quiet mirth. “Proceed with your own brewing, Fan Ren.”
Eager to display his technique, Fan Ren arranged his personal phials. He measured crushed cinnabar, dragon-bone root, and clear lake-water, feeding embers beneath four distinct brass cups. Fragrances of ginger and dried lotus rose through the flue. Within moments, four pristine broths simmered evenly.
“Behold!” Fan Ren lifted a cup shimmering with sapphire liquid. “The flawless counter to Whispering Chill. Pure, stable, and correctly refined. Unlike that refuse.” He waved dismissively at Jin An’s ash-colored paste. Several initiates nodded, murmuring praise for the senior student.
A puff of charcoal haze curled upward from Jin An’s mortar, drifting across the stage toward Fan Ren’s bench. The moment the faint vapor grazed the blue draught, the sapphire liquid curdled into chalky curds. A geyser of frost shot from the lip, freezing Fan Ren’s silk sleeve stiff. The remaining three vessels detonated in simultaneous plumes of crimson and greasy black, driving pungent smoke straight into Fan Ren’s nose.
Fan Ren gagged, hands clawing at his throat. His knees buckled, his skull cracking against the black vat with a sharp gong before he hit the flagstones. Frostbite crusting his ears mingled with blotches of vermilion hives across his neck.
Silence gripped the cavern. Jin An, who had simply wished to avoid standing before so many strangers, stared at the unconscious apprentice and then at his own mortar. He shuffled his boots, dreading the conversation that was sure to follow.
Elder Bai suppressed a grin, stepping briskly to Jin An’s side. “Incredible! To synthesize an inverse catalyst so reactive that it breaks down opposing remedies on contact! A brilliant, unorthodox method!” He struck Jin An’s back with a hearty slap that drove the breath from the young man’s lungs. “Centuries have passed since I witnessed such instinctive grasp of reactions.”
He lowered his voice conspiratorially, though it was still loud enough to carry through the hushed hall. “Tell me, Young Jin An, have you heard of the Centennial Starfall Tournament? It’s the grandest event in the Luminous Empire, held only once every hundred years. The prize is a celestial treasure of antiquity… the Sunstone of Renewal.”
The syllables struck Jin An’s ears like iron bells. The Sunstone. The exact relic required to unweave his ancient catastrophe and purge Ling Meiying’s withered meridians before she perished again. His fabricated shell of dull wit dropped away. His knuckles bleached white inside his sleeves. He would endure every crowd, every examination, every excruciating greeting if it delivered that amber core into his grip.
“Indeed,” Elder Bai murmured, his smile broadening, “the sacred relic of renewal.”