Mei left to begin preparing for the Flower Blossoming on her own, so I decided to spend some time familiarizing myself with the local alchemy workshops, since I was already in the Water District.

The Blue Wind Workshops looked almost identical to a standard Blue Wind Pavilion location. It was an eight-story pagoda with blue roofs and red walls, in keeping with the brand’s theme. The only feature that set it apart was that, due to its location in the Water District, the eaves had been painted black.

The first floor of the building was not what I had been expecting from a workshop building. It resembled a standard shop floor with counters filled with various merchandise on display.

As soon as I entered, an attendant approached me. “How may I help you today, sir?”

I held up my silver Pavilion badge. “I’m here to register.”

“Of course, sir. This way, please.”

She began leading me to the right, around the edge of the shop floor. “What are you registering as?”

“Grandmaster Alchemist.”

Her eyes widened slightly. “With a silver badge? So, you wish to register your advancement as well?”

“Yes.”

She guided me over to a corner of the shop that was isolated from view. “Do you only want to register your credentials, or would you like to purchase our promotional package?”

“Promotional package?”

She smiled. “As you are both new to the city and new to being a Grandmaster Alchemist, we are willing to help promote your skills and encourage more people to seek out your services. As you know, special orders can be extremely profitable, and they are vital for earning high levels of contribution within the Pavilion. We wish to assist our members in being selected for such tasks as much as possible.”

I thought about this offer as we continued walking around the edge of the store. “What does this involve?”

“It is better if you don’t know for now, as it will improve the effectiveness of our promotion. I can only warn you that this may put you at odds with a few locals of limited power and ability. However, I can assure you that this is all to improve our results and give you a satisfactory experience.”

After what happened in my last life, I didn’t like the idea of offending anyone in an unfamiliar location, and it sounded like this was guaranteed to do just that. Still, if it was a standard service of the Pavilion, then nothing too bad should happen, right? I might as well give it a try.

“Alright, I’ll take the promotional package.”

“Excellent. This way, sir.”

She led me to a counter in the middle of the floor that was visible from nearly everywhere in the Pavilion and spoke to the woman who was stationed there. “A new Master Alchemist wishes to register.”

“Name?” The attendant’s voice was brusque and clipped.

“Su Fang, but I am here to register as a Grandmaster Alchemist.”

The attendant narrowed her eyes and slammed her index finger onto the counter. “Badge.”

When I showed her my silver Pavilion badge, she snorted in disdain. Then, she tore the badge from my hand and gave it a close inspection to check if it was real. “Fine. I will register you as a Master Alchemist.”

I glanced at the attendant who had been guiding me. She looked scared.

I turned back to the woman behind the counter and spoke in a calm, soothing voice. “I am here to both register for work in the city and to have my qualifications upgraded to Grandmaster.”

She spat to the side. “A yellow-haired brat who doesn’t know how high the sky is.”

The commotion caused by the attendant drew the attention of many customers. Several well-dressed older men walked over when they witnessed the scene.

“Sister Rui, what’s got you so upset today?” asked one of the men.

“Aiya, this brat is a frog in a well from some backwater that isn’t even authorized to rate Master Alchemists. Look, he's only got a silver badge with no stars, and he’s trying to claim he’s a Grandmaster Alchemist when I can still smell his mother’s milk on him.”

“Sister Rui, no need to get so worked up over a brat. Just send him away,” said one of the other men before turning toward the entrance. “Guards! Come, take this trash away. When did the Pavilion allow such filth inside?”

I again looked at the attendant who had guided me here, but she maintained a nervous posture. I sighed heavily and turned to the counter. “Sister Rui, I am—”

“How dare you say her name?” shouted a man who hadn’t spoken yet. “You’re courting death!”

I glanced at him, then back to Rui. “Miss. I am a member of the Pavilion, and I wish to register as a Grandmaster Alchemist. Please, go ahead and register me.”

“You will need to be tested.” She took out several ingredients from behind the desk and threw them at me. “Make two pills with those, and you will be registered, Grandmaster.”

I looked at my guide. “Where are the workshops?”

“This… this way, sir.”

As we walked away, I heard one of the men laughing. “A whelp who won’t cry until he’s seen the coffin! I can’t wait to see what excuse he comes up with for destroying those herbs.”

After we disappeared into the stairwell, my guide turned to me. “Great job! You were excellent out there.”

I could only rub my forehead in exhaustion and concern. “Is this really a good idea?”

“Don’t worry about it. Those guys are just creeps who hang around bothering us. They’re sent here by their clans to scout for new talents in the city. If you slap their faces, they’ll lean on their connections to send someone after you, but that’s what we want. Once their connections hear you’re a Grandmaster Alchemist, they won’t bother you over that lot out there. Instead, they’ll be looking to you for pills.”

“Is it so easy to manipulate them?”

“Eh, it’s not so much about manipulating people. At least, it’s not about manipulating the big shots. They all know what we are doing. As for that lot? Most of them have already left to gather a crowd to watch your inevitable failure. So, you should have a good audience when you hand in the pills. Now, it’s just on you. How good of an idea this is all depends on how good of an alchemist you are.”

I looked at the ingredients Rui had thrown at me. I didn’t recognize most of them, which was a surprise. “What pills am I supposed to make?”

“That’s on you to figure out. This is the standard test for a gold badge. We give you two sets of herbs mixed together, and you have to know or figure out what they make.” She paused for a second before continuing. “I’m not sure about those herbs myself, though. They are… a bit unusual. They were specially chosen by a senior alchemist who showed up last week. So, your test might be more difficult than usual.”

A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

I was given a workshop on the fourth floor, which was reserved for Grandmasters, and once inside, I began examining the herbs. Since I was unfamiliar with most of them, I would have to develop two entirely new pills from scratch. The only saving grace was that I knew this bundle of herbs could be divided into exactly two sets of ingredients.

I only recognized three of the herbs. While I didn’t know a recipe that combined them, I did know they were water, wood, and earth herbs with healing properties. Examining the rest, I found fire and metal herbs that also had medicinal energy that seemed to have healing properties. So, I grouped these five together and set them to the side.

The medicinal energy in the remaining herbs was completely new to me, but there were four of one type and three of the other, so I separated them into two more piles.

In the end, I was left with a single stalk of what looked to be nothing more than a large green onion. Its medicinal energy was strange, and it didn’t seem to fit in any of the existing three piles, so I placed it off to the side.

With no better plan in mind, I started by making a pill with the herbs in the ‘healing’ pile. There were five herbs, forming a cycle of the five basic elements. I wasn’t sure what kind of pill I was making, so I wasn’t confident about where to start. However, since it was a healing pill, wood was likely supposed to be the final element, so I started with the fire herb.

I used a standard enhancement technique to improve its quality with my wood qi. Then, I slowly combined each herb in sequence. I decided not to push these pills to Perfect quality, but other than that, I made the highest quality pills that I was capable of. There were no surprises in the concoction process, and a small pill dropped to the bottom of my furnace when everything was complete.

I had no idea what I had made, so I couldn’t judge its efficacy, but it was a High-Purity pill, whatever it was.

Putting the pill into a jade bottle, I turned my attention to the other set of ingredients.

These were strange. I had never seen the type of medicinal energy they contained before, but I had seen qi that was similar. The illusionist at the Dragon Gate Festival used two types of qi, which I had since learned were dark and light qi. The energy in these herbs was similar enough that I had to assume they contained dark and light medicinal energy.

In my travels with Mei, I had learned a little more about working with the secondary elements. They didn’t form a chain. Instead, there were two pairs, dark with light and wind with lightning. Dark qi could either negate or bolster light qi, based on how it was used. Therefore, I needed to combine these ingredients in such a way as to bolster the energy instead of negating it.

Where to start, though?

There was one extra dark herb, which seemed to be a clue. There was likely an optimal sequence, but I didn’t know how to determine such a thing, so I chose what looked like the best place to start and began concocting.

Without either a dark or light affinity, cleaning these herbs was extremely difficult. I first relied on my mastery of my fire seed to break down the toxins surrounding the herbs’ medicinal energy. Then, after this was done, I focused all my will and intent on the herbs and shoved. With how strong my soul had gotten over the years, even without an affinity, I was able to create a few small gaps in the energy that let me access the larger pockets of trapped toxins.

This process did a lot of damage to the herbs’ efficacy, but it was the only method available to me.

Next, I began looking at how to mix the herbs together. Without the right affinities, this was bound to be complicated, but even if I had them, I didn’t know how to mix these herbs in a constructive way instead of a destructive way.

The first pill had used a basic five-element sequence. I hadn’t known that specific pill, but I had known the sequence and the goal. The ingredients provided me with clues for how to work with them. For this second pill, the number of ingredients told me that I needed to end with a dark-based pill. Did the ingredients also tell me how to mix them together?

I looked at the strange green onion and had an idea.

I cleansed its energy and siphoned a small portion of it away. Then, I injected this ‘onion’ energy into one of the herbs containing dark energy. Almost instantly, the dark energy seemed compelled to mix with the light energy from a nearby herb, so I moved the two together and allowed it to happen.

Once these two energies were fully mixed, I injected another portion of the onion’s energy into this combined energy and pushed it to mix with a different dark energy herb.

I continued this process, injecting onion power into the mixed energy and switching between light and dark herbs, until I ran out of ingredients. At that moment, I pushed with my willpower to compress the energies and form a pill.

When I heard the tink of a pill dropping to the bottom of my furnace, I sighed in exhaustion. I didn’t know what I had made–I didn’t even know if it was even a proper pill–but I had made something.

With two pills in hand, I walked out of the workshop where my guide was waiting for me.

“How did you do?”

I let out a wry chuckle. “I have no idea.”

“If you don’t know if it’s bad, then it should be pretty good,” she said, smiling at me. “By the way, when we get down there, make sure to demand a formal appraisal by a certified alchemist.”

The shop floor was packed when I walked out of the stairwell.

“That’s him!” someone shouted. “That’s the fool who doesn’t know the difference between heaven and earth!”

The people at the center of the gathering laughed at this remark, but I noticed that very few found it funny. Instead, most of the people here were giving me an appraising look. They knew what was going on, and they hadn’t come to mock me. They were here to see the quality of the Pavilion’s new alchemist.

“Open up, open up,” shouted a man in the center, “Let the fool through. I want to hear his excuses!”

People in the crowd instantly made way for me. This pleased the man who had shouted immensely, but looking at those who moved, I couldn’t help but feel the quick movement was in deference to me, not to the shouter.

“Alright, hand it over,” mocked Rui from behind her counter. “Or what, were you not even able to make a single pill?”

“I want a formal appraisal from a qualified alchemist,” I said, following my guide’s instructions.

She sneered at me. “Oh? Think you can sneak out of here before we can check your results? No such luck. Alchemist Li, would you please assist us in our appraisal?”

She turned to the side and gave a bow of respect. As she did, her façade of mockery instantly vanished, as if it had never existed. The pompous young men around me didn’t seem to notice, but I saw a look of fear and agitation flash across the attendant’s face. She was playing her part in the bit, but this alchemist wasn’t someone she wanted to offend by doing so.

An ancient man with gray hair and a long beard stepped out of the crowd. He was dressed in simple, light blue robes that lacked any form of embroidery. “Young man, please allow me to examine your pills.”

Alchemist Li was impeccably polite, without the slightest hint of mockery in his tone. He understood the situation, and he was willing to let it play out, but he was not willing to take part in it. This didn’t make any difference for the marks in the crowd, however. They acted as if Li had been mocking me all the same.

Emulating the attendant, I gave him a deep bow of my own. “Alchemist Li, please, offer me your guidance.”

He opened the first bottle and examined it carefully with a slight frown. I heard a snort of amusement from him when he placed it back in the bottle. “A wood-aligned High-Purity Phoenix Restoration Pill. A rare sight indeed. Your ability to create such a thing shows that your basic alchemy skills are rather impressive. However, attempting to make it displays your lack of knowledge. The pill–technically–has 117% efficacy, which is quite amazing. But since you chose to make it wood-aligned, it will still be far less effective than a normal Phoenix Restoration Pill of only moderate efficacy. You should have made it fire-aligned.”

I nodded in acceptance of his judgment. I didn’t know if the Twin Mountains Sect had intentionally limited my exposure to Rank 3 herbs, but since I also hadn’t seen these while working under the Pavilion, my lack of knowledge was likely due more to the poverty of the Wastes.

Alchemist Li proceeded to open the second bottle. He took a long time examining it. His face was a mixture of shock and bafflement, which only made the nearby observers burst into laughter.

“You have no idea what this is, do you?” he asked me.

“No, sir. I have never seen these herbs before, and I was unsure of how to use them.”

“This is a Shadowed Soul Pill. It makes one completely undetectable for up to an hour, depending on its efficacy. This pill, I’m sorry to say, is wrong. It is indeed a High-Purity Shadowed Soul Pill, but the ingredients were combined in the wrong order, so I can only rate it at 57% efficacy. Still, the mere fact you were able to create it without knowing the recipe and while not following the proper sequence is worthy of praise.”

The onlookers were confused about his comments. Did I succeed or fail? They weren’t sure. They wanted to mock me, but they didn’t know if it was appropriate.

Li stroked his long beard for several moments in thought. “Rui JunPing,” he said, turning to the girl at the counter. “Register him as a three-star gold member.”

Rui’s eyes widened in true shock that went beyond the act that she had been performing mere moments ago. “Yes, sir. Right away.”

Li looked at me with a grandfatherly smile. “You need to study more. You have enormous potential, but you need a firmer foundation. The three-star gold badge is the highest honor that we bestow on Grandmaster Alchemists, and it should open many doors that will allow you to experience the richness of the Grandmaster level as you prepare to advance further.”

I gave Alchemist Li a deep bow. “Thank you for your advice, Elder. I will do my best to follow it.”

I didn’t pay any more attention to the rubes surrounding me. They had done their part to stir up publicity, and I wouldn’t hold anything they said against them.

I looked at the attendant behind the counter. “What do I do now?”

“Grandmaster, sir,” she stammered. “I will register you immediately, and a new badge will be provided. When you are ready, please visit the Alchemy Office and provide them with samples of your work. They will contact you with any special requests we receive.”

“Thank you.”

Then, I turned away and walked out of the Pavilion, ready to meet back up with Mei. I expected someone to try and stop me for a private conversation, but instead, everyone nervously darted out of my path.