Over the following months, my life fell into a familiar rhythm.

At first, I spent several hours a day practicing with my crescent moon spade, slowly raising my affinity for the weapon. However, after my affinity broke through to peak nine-star, it stalled out and refused to grow any further. This could have been because advancing to low eight-star took significantly longer, or it could have been that increasing the star level of this affinity came with extra requirements, but from my experiments with my alchemy affinity, both of these seemed unlikely.

No, I was pretty certain that ‘latent talent’ was just a scam.

I had purchased 4 credits worth of latent talent, and each time I had increased my affinity, 1 credit had been deducted. In terms of the old System, I had effectively spent 400 billion credits on a peak nine-star affinity. Of course, the main reason that I had only invested 4 credits into this talent to start with was because I had suspected this might happen. But, suspecting something and actually experiencing it are two very different concepts.

Was ‘latent talent’ just a way to drain my comprehension boosts? This seemed unlikely. While I might not always be happy with the System’s prices, they were, generally, fair. There had to be advantages to this new setup that I didn’t know about.

This ‘scam’ almost felt more like yet another way for the Earthly Dao to push me to advance—like it didn’t want me wasting time playing around with nine-star affinities. After all, if I had just purchased a three-star affinity directly, this wouldn’t have been a problem.

I would follow the Earthly Dao’s wishes, eventually, but first, I needed to learn more and establish a firmer foothold on this continent. So, after my moon spade affinity maxed out, instead of making any purchases to help it grow further, I just switched my focus to understanding all of the new complexities that this place had introduced to the art of alchemy.

During this time, my standing in the Hall of the Herb King steadily improved. This brought several Pill Lords to my door, all of whom were looking to accept me as their personal disciple. However, while having a nominal master might have allowed me to avoid a bit of scrutiny, nothing they offered me held much appeal, so I turned them all down. Once I joined the Palace of the Herb Sovereign, I would gain access to everything they could provide me and more.

With this thought in mind, I spent nearly all my time locked away in my workshop as I performed hundreds of experiments on the Hall’s training herbs. First, I looked into how far I could push them by just filling in the gaps in their medicinal energy. Then, I did a deep dive into infusing them with intent.

Intent was… odd. It didn’t have any clear structure, and there were no obvious rules for how it worked. After some practice, I was able to identify signs that told me intent had been infused into a pill, but even in energy vision, there was nothing to indicate exactly what a given intent was. Pills with offensive intents looked exactly the same as pills with defensive intents.

As for ensuring that I infused my pills with the intent I wanted, this all came down to what I focused on during the infusion process.

Infusing a pill with broad ideas such as ‘attack’ or ‘defense’ had been nearly impossible. Even if I spent time focusing my mind beforehand, the moment I began the infusion process, my thoughts were tugged in multiple different directions, leading to a pill that contained little more than the general idea of using a crescent moon spade.

Instead, I found it much more effective to concentrate on one of the martial skills that I had learned. Focusing on Moon Strike added an offensive intent to pills that would tear up the insides of anyone who consumed them. In contrast, by focusing on Moon Block, I was able to add a defensive intent that created a weak shield around the user’s body.

After learning this, I purchased copies of all the moon spade skills I could, but their effects were rather disappointing. A couple allowed me to infuse enhancement intents that would help a person move faster, but for the most part, there were just minor variations of the offensive and defensive intents that I had already mastered.

The problem was that the crescent moon spade was a weapon, so the techniques that used moon spade qi were all focused on combat. Even the alchemy-focused techniques treated medicinal energy and pill toxins as enemies that needed to be defeated. Weapons were simply not suitable for creating something like ‘healing intent.’

So, I switched to infusing pills with my alchemy affinity. Without any techniques specifically designed for use with pill qi, focusing my intent was next to impossible, but I was able to imbue pills with a broad ‘pill intent’ that boosted the effects of my pills by between 25 and 50 percent.

No matter what intent I used, however, my analysis ability always showed infused pills as being ‘Tainted.’ And, the one time I tried to sell an infused pill to the Hall of the Herb King, the attendant destroyed it after only a single glance. The Hall could detect that the pill had been altered, but they couldn’t tell exactly what I had done to it, so the default assumption was that it was harmful in some way. Not only did I lose my pill, but I also received a stern reprimand and a warning to never try selling such pills again.

This result was disappointing, but I didn’t let it keep me from my experiments. This continent was a big place. The Hall of the Herb King might not want my enhanced pills, but I was certain that someone out there would.

After nine months of study and research, the end of the year rolled around, and the entire city was surrounded by a massive festival. The Saint’s rule that forbade cultivators from openly walking the city’s streets was still in effect, so instead of the end-of-year festival being held inside the city, it was held in the surrounding countryside.

Getting to this festival required me to travel through a maze of alleyways, and when I finally found my way to the city’s wall, I was stopped by a guardsman.

He handed me a white sash. “This marks you as a Martial Disciple. Wear it around your waist at all times. As long as it is clearly visible, if someone of a higher Rank attacks you, guards will step in to protect you. However, do not cause trouble. If you start something with a Lord, the guards won’t bother stopping him from kicking your teeth out. Understood?”

I gave a martial salute and bowed my head. “Yes.”

Once my sash was firmly tied about my waist, the guard ushered me outside.

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My vision was filled with nothing but seas and mountains of people. In every direction, hordes of cultivators were packed tightly around raised platforms where combatants fought each other with deadly, sharp weapons.

These fights on these stages were small parts of the most important tournament in the empire—the most important tournament in the entire domain. They were part of the Heaven’s Ascension Tournament, where sects competed to raise their standings and gain access to greater resources and wealthier lands. Sects could and did fight each other outside of this tournament, but the Heaven’s Ascension Tournament was the only official way for a sect to improve its rating.

As I walked through the crowd, aside from the colorful sashes that everyone was wearing, I couldn’t help but notice that everyone I saw was a full-blooded human. There was no one with strangely colored skin, and there was no one covered in fur. Everyone looked like they would have been right at home on the Nine Rivers Continent.

This was something that I had also noticed in the Hall of the Herb King. Where the Hall in Proud Eagle City was filled with urgans, the green- and bark-skinned ‘half-breeds,’ this city contained nothing but basic humans. It was a bit strange.

After hours of squeezing my way through the crowd, I was finally able to make it to the edge of the festival, where a large stadium had been set up for the Hall’s alchemy competition. It wouldn’t be fair to say that no one was present when I arrived, but the people who were there were just standing along the top of the bleachers to get a better view of the fights on the nearby platforms.

Like in Proud Eagle, the first two days of the Hall’s competition were reserved for the Masters and Grandmasters, so not many people bothered to come watch.

As I had expected, nothing about the alchemists in these first two rounds was particularly noteworthy. With the Hall of the Herb King sending away its best three Disciples and best three Masters each year, those who remained by the time they were Grandmasters were mediocre at best. Still, by watching the early rounds of the competition, I was at least able to familiarize myself with the new rules brought about by the complexities of having alchemists divided up between nine distinct types of weapons.

Instead of having a table laid out with a semi-random assortment of herbs, each alchemist was given a slip of paper and told to secretly record the Rank of the herbs that they wished to use. Then, once all the slips were gathered up, each alchemist was given a bag of standard training herbs for their chosen Rank. From there, each alchemist had three chances to concoct a pill, and whoever’s pill was the most valuable would be declared the winner.

This competition was far simpler than what had taken place in Proud Eagle. These alchemists only needed to know how to concoct a basic Attunement Pill for each Rank. They didn’t need to know any valuable, esoteric recipes, and they didn’t need to try and discover new recipes based only on the herbs presented to them.

Was this just because of the complexities involved in sourcing equally valuable herbs from nine different elements? A more likely explanation was that the alchemists in this domain simply weren’t as skilled as those in the Nine Rivers Domain. With as much focus as the people here placed on learning martial arts, this wouldn’t even be that surprising.

Whatever the reason, this presented a problem. With only a peak nine-star moon spade affinity, there was no way that I was going to be able to concoct a Rank 3 pill. Even a Rank 2 pill would be difficult. My soul power helped, but jumping several Ranks was just far too difficult without a powerful affinity to back me up.

While part of me wanted to take a risk and see what I could accomplish with my limited affinity, it wasn’t necessary. By this point, I had a decent idea what a nine-star weapon affinity was like, and I was fairly confident in my ability to fake a seven- or eight-star one. So, I went ahead and skipped all the fuss.

Connecting to an avatar in my inner world, I made my purchase. “System, give me a permanent peak four-star moon spade affinity.”

Purchase confirmed. Cost 2 credits. 1,310 credits remaining.

After taking a second to let this upgraded affinity settle in, I returned to the Hall of the Herb King and purchased a few basic sets of ingredients for Rank 2 and 3 pills. I only had a few hours to work with, but that was more than enough.

At noon the next day, the stadium was packed, and a team of judges walked onto the stage. All of them were full-blooded humans, with no exotic hair or skin colors in sight. Once these judges were all in position, however, a loud rustling came from the stadium’s entrance.

The final being to enter the stadium was not a giant, walking tree. No, it was a massive tangle of vines that rolled itself onto the stage. The way this creature moved was almost comedic, but the being’s Peak King cultivation base was more than enough to keep me from laughing.

Once in position, the tangle of vines constricted and transformed into the shape of a tall column. Then, it let out a wave of wood qi, introduced itself as the local Hall Master, and started the competition.

Standing behind my workbench, surrounded by the best Disciple Alchemists that the Hall of the Herb King had to offer, I could barely contain myself. It wasn’t until I was handed a slip of paper that I was able to pull myself back to the present and focus.

I lifted my brush and drew three parallel, horizontal lines. I would use Rank 3 herbs.

This was more than a bit much for a seventeen-year-old Disciple Alchemist, especially one in the Heroes Domain. But by making a statement here, I could prevent people from questioning the ‘rapid growth’ that I planned to experience after joining the Palace of the Herb Sovereign.

When the attendant saw what I had written, I could feel her skepticism, but she didn’t say anything. She just walked to the table where several storage bags were laid out and brought me the ingredients I had requested.

An attendant handing a Disciple Alchemist a bag of Rank 3 herbs caused the stadium’s spectators to burst into confused whispers, but I blocked them out. I only needed to concern myself with my herbs and my furnace.

Based on previous experience, I was certain there was a way to combine the herbs in my bag to form a Perfect three-patterned pill. This was not my goal, however. Making a Perfect pill would require me to tap into the Soft Moon Fire, and with how rare spirit fires seemed to be on this continent, I had no desire for anyone to know that I possessed such a treasure.

Instead, I looked for a set of herbs that could form a solid, high-quality, two-patterned pill.

After concocting only a single pill, I placed it into a jade bottle and placed the bottle on my workbench. Then, I sat down on a cultivation mat. I still had two more opportunities to improve upon my results, but I was happy with the pill that I had already made. If any of my competitors could make something better, then they deserved the win.

With dozens of Disciples doing everything in their power to create the best pills possible, the competition went on for several more hours, but after glancing at a few of the furnaces, I lost interest.

Finally, the urgamal at the center of the stage raised itself into a column of vines and spoke with a wave of wood qi.

“Congratulations to all the Disciples here today. A sunny future awaits you all.” The urgamal paused for a polite round of applause. “However, this is a competition. As such, we must declare a victor, and three of our competitors have excelled far beyond what anyone could have hoped.

Off to my right, a young man was raised up on a podium of roots. “In third place, with a High-Purity Rank 2 Ji Attunement Pill, Lo Jung! Where others attempted to improve the value of their pills by forcing patterns onto them, Lo Jung focused on the basics. His Rank 2 might be unpatterned, but its efficacy was impeccable.”

Behind me, a young woman let out a gasp as she was raised up on a second root platform. “In second place, with a High-Purity One-Pattern Rank 2 Fist Attunement Pill is Zoeng FungJing. Where others tried to add patterns to their Rank 2 pills and failed, Zoeng FungJing created an exceptional pill that proves she is already the equal of any of our Hall’s Masters.”

Finally, a platform appeared beneath my feet and raised me to tower over my surroundings. “In first place, with a High-Purity Two-Pattern Rank 3 Moon Spade Attunement Pill, is Su Fang. There is little I can say about such a feat other than that I wish you luck in the challenges ahead.”