Chapter 24: Progress
Cha Ming fell through the sky, unable to find his footing as thousands upon thousands of books eagerly nipped at him. Their sharp, wicked teeth tore pieces out of spiritual flesh as he in turn snatched and tore at their pages. The knowledge he gained amassed in a massive book chained to his leg that pulled him down even further.
What am I at, twenty-five percent? Cha Ming thought. Is this all I’m good for? It was no wonder this pill was considered the most difficult and impressive to craft for the alchemy trial. Boon of Iridescence, the most powerful of the iridescence-granting pills, was a hundred times more complicated than its precursors. The fierceness of it left Cha Ming’s soul raw and bloody. The knowledge was vengeful and wouldn’t let just anyone gather it.
Cha Ming gave up any hope of succeeding. Instead, he focused on trying to retain information. Normally, when one failed at learning a recipe, the knowledge would be lost and scattered. He reached into the book and tore out runes and concepts, forcing them into his spiritual sea where his framework of runes and alchemy waited. Most of it dissipated, but some bits stayed. Then the pages flew back and finished the job, devouring the rest of his soul copy and sending it back into the library.
Cha Ming woke with a start. He looked around and was relieved to see no one in his semi-private study room had been bothered. Two Phoenix Clan juniors were in their own trances, with books or jades similar to his own. Like him, they were also studying for the competition. Success or failure, their performance would decide their futures.
He yawned as he picked up the thick book he’d been studying. It was filled to the brim with runes that glowed with an iridescent hue. The cover featured five colors that blended in the middle, converging into a single pill. Boon of Iridescence was a complicated pill. It was expensive to make and would grant the highest chance of completing a burning.
The librarian reverently accepted the book and added it to a stack for immediate return to its high-profile shelf. Thank you for your assistance these past few weeks, Cha Ming sent. He gave her a light bow.
At least you’re not a troublemaker like those two old fools, the librarian said. Try to control them next time they come around.
I’ll do my best, Cha Ming replied. He didn’t tell the librarian she was unlikely to see him again. After all, only two weeks remained before the competition. He had no time to waste, whether it be on friends or news or messages or anything else unrelated to runic alchemy.
You’ve been oddly quiet this entire time, Cha Ming said to Sun Wukong as they exited the library and entered Shimmerwing City’s eight floor. Are their souls too powerful for you to evade?
Nah, Sun Wukong said. I just don’t like librarians. Did you know they know I’m there even if they can’t sense me? They’ve got eyes on the back of their heads!
Cha Ming took the stairs down toward his residence on the fifth floor. As he walked, he enjoyed the many pieces of fire art that were all the rage these days. Most took the form of lanterns that caught firelight and projected them into different forms. Phoenixes were most common, followed closely by dogs of all things. To ward away cats, they said. A black-and-white cat had been a menace of late.
Who knew there was such depth to fire? Cha Ming thought as he walked. His knowledge of fire had grown alongside his competence in alchemy. He’d long since learned simple concepts like Heating, alongside more powerful concepts like Scalding, Scorching, and Incineration. Energy-based concepts aside, he’d gained the much sought-after Concepts of Sparks, Splitting Flames, Gathered Candlelight, and Spreading Fire. His only regret was that he could not merge any of these with his other four particulate concepts.
Still, he had an inkling. Cha Ming suspected the final concept had to do with the colors of flame. Iridescence, as it were, though he’d only grasped the barest hint of it. Since his inspiration on the Five Fire Mountain Range, he’d busied himself collecting other colored flame concepts like the Concept of Blue Flame, Green Flame, Brown Flame, and Gold Flame. In passing, he’d gained other concepts like the Concept of Melting and the Concept of Evaporation. Each one he gained made his fires more potent and his alchemy more efficient.
The moment Cha Ming arrived at the fifth floor, a black-and-white blur charged at him, causing Cha Ming to tense for a moment—only to realize it was just Huxian, and not some rakshasa assassin.
“Hey there!” Huxian said. “Done at the library?”
“For the immediate future,” Cha Ming said. “I hate to ask, but did you find what I needed?”
“Obviously,” Huxian said. “I’m a very capable assistant. Besides, I have all this free time.”
“Still on vacation?” Cha Ming asked.
“Yeah,” Huxian said. He pulled his ears back. “Lei Jiang and Silverwing said I should go back and help them. Things aren’t looking good in the demon lands.”
“Why don’t you?” Cha Ming asked.
“Maybe I just don’t like fighting,” Huxian said. “I’m a trickster, Cha Ming, not a warrior. Do I look like the kind of guy that wants to wade in blood and guts all day?”
“I can relate,” Cha Ming said. “Then again, I still have far too much blood on my hands.” Seeing Huxian look away, he laughed lightly. “Don’t let them bully you, Huxian. You’re useful here. You’ve saved me loads of time, and you found Bifang. You discovered one of the inkborn, and you were there to bail Miyue and Gua out of jail a few times.”
“They merged their shops while you were studying,” Huxian said.
“That’s great news,” Cha Ming said. “They won’t be waging war anymore, I take it?”
“They signed a nonaggression treaty,” Huxian said. “Supposedly to keep an eye on the newest addition to the family.”
“And what’s Bifang up to these days?” Cha Ming asked.
Huxian ears perked back up, then lowered again as he looked away guiltily. “She started a rotisserie in the same building. It’s famous since her flames are so rare.”
“I can’t say I expected any different,” Cha Ming said. “I know you say demons are unpredictable, but I’m not seeing it. Didn’t you say you found her when she was roasting and selling food skewers on the street?”
Huxian shrugged and handed Cha Ming a storage ring. Cha Ming peeked inside the ring and saw a few more herbs and fruits than he’d expected.
“Do I want to ask?” Cha Ming said.
Iridescent Torch had a secret garden we didn’t know about, Huxian sent. So did her disciples.
You do know that you could get yourself killed doing this, right? Cha Ming asked.
Fine, give them back, Huxian said, holding out his hand.
No, I’ll keep them, Cha Ming said. Serves them right.
“Well, I’d better get back,” Huxian said. “We opened up another dining area. We’ll probably be very busy.” Then he cleared his throat. “Not that I’m personally very busy.”
“Right…” Cha Ming said. The fox zipped off, and Cha Ming shook his head. Huxian wasn’t fooling anyone, but he’d keep playing along if that was what he wanted.
Cha Ming didn’t immediately start crafting pills in the Clear Sky World. Instead, he sat and meditated on the mountaintop, consolidating the sea of knowledge he’d recently absorbed. He sorted it into separate compartments and reorganized what he referred to as a “web of knowledge.” Elder Ling’s runic puzzle lines were the base, and his alchemical knowledge filled the gaps. The web shifted and realigned as he fit in the knowledge he’d recently gained and pushed out outdated guesses.
Reorganization complete, Cha Ming took out a golden pill. It was half red and half blue and was covered by an intricate Grandmist seal. It wasn’t a runic pill but a version of the pill he’d soon be optimizing—Mind Like Ice, Soul Like Fire. It was a peak-grade-enlightenment pill that was supposedly very compatible with standard iridescence-granting ingredients. His task for the next two weeks was to change and improve it.
Cha Ming swallowed the pill and focused on the knowledge he
sought: the Concept of Red Flame. It transformed into a mist that surged into his mind and soul. He summoned his angelic wings, his Crown of the Starry Sky, and his Sage’s Sight.
Four bright fires lit up inside his mind. One green, one blue, one gold, and one a light brown. Only the red flame remained. A small red spark floated there, uncertain of how it fit in. Cha Ming coaxed it. He felt at the flame with his angelic wings, which provided him a certain affinity toward the five elements, in addition to good luck. Channeling starlight to guide the way, he mapped out the best path for its incorporation and growth.
I should use the green flame to grow it, he thought, grabbing a bit of the Concept of Green Flame. The red spark ate at the flames and began to grow. Cha Ming then placed a golden flame next to the red one. Not too close, but not far away either. The red flame flickered angrily at its presence. It wanted the gold flame gone. Cha Ming encouraged the flame, which increased the rate at which it grew.
Soon, the red flame was a small fire the size of the others, and it stood independently from the four yet was also connected. The moment he let go of it, it snapped into place. The Concept of Red Flame seared itself into his soul. Then, to his surprise, a wind blew. Lightning crackled. A white spark and a black spark appeared and grew into the Concept of White Flame and the Concept of Black Flame. Then, resonating with his existing Grandmist flame, creating an even higher order concept. It was a heavy concept—the Concept of Gray Flame, which took the form of a tiny candle that was stronger than any other fire.
Then he waited, tense and impatient. He hoped with all his heart that another flame would surface. He knew it was linked to the five elements, even if he didn’t know how or why. Since it was a flame of the heart, he poured his emotions into each of the fires. They sputtered and sparked but ultimately rejected his feelings.
“Next time,” Cha Ming muttered. He stopped channeling starlight and dismissed his Sage’s Sight. He’d failed at discovering the elusive iridescent flame yet again.
Disappointed, but far too busy to waste time, Cha Ming summoned another pill. It was a Mind Like Ice, Soul Like Fire pill, just like the previous one. He summoned four other pills, its least-, lesser-, middle-, and late-grade versions. They were not normal pills, however—they were runic ones. They also shone with increasingly dense iridescence. The late-grade pill’s iridescence was even encroaching on the Grandmist seal, threatening to take it over. All that remained was to take what he’d learned from this one and optimize the peak version of the pill. Perhaps then he would succeed where others had failed.
One step at a time, Cha Ming thought. He knew from experience that he wouldn’t succeed on the first attempt. He’d need to take a trial-and-error approach, taking incremental steps toward a final runic pill before he could even think of working in hints of iridescence into the original one. He’d done it before, so he could do it again.
Cha Ming summoned the Clear Sky Cauldron and poured in all three dozen ingredients at once. He began processing them, as was his habit. He had much practice in multiple refinements now, which meant that unless an ingredient was particularly troublesome, he could refine ten or so ingredients at once. Using alignment runes was as simple as breathing, and his control over Grandmist flames was second nature. It took him two hours to refine them all.
After completing this first step, Cha Ming proceeded to the next stage of the experimental process: determining the initial runes. Due to having made four lesser versions of this pill before, he had some ideas on where to begin. He started with the Mind Like Ice components; they were typically more stable. He worked them into sigils one by one, using the Clear Sky Cauldron’s runic functions. The soul-bound treasure made it ridiculously easy to manipulate alchemical ingredients.
He handled the ingredients one at a time, shifting between all the various runes that could possibly work. As he did so, he used his intuition to determine which ones were most likely to succeed. It took Cha Ming many hours to finish, but the results were rewarding.
The runic components were now separated into three groups. The first would form the Mind Like Ice portion of the pill, the second the Soul Like Fire portion, and the third was a golden binding that would bring them all together. Combining them would be the trickiest and most destructive step and involved a lot of fine-tuning. Only after all three components were merged could he finally proceed to sealing the pill.
Cha Ming began to merge runes together. He mostly succeeded, but sometimes he failed. In this case, he simply brought more raw ingredients into the cauldron and made another attempt. He did so until he obtained a stable form and could proceed to the next step of the merging process.
Sometimes, Cha Ming threw away merged runes after a successful merging. Sometimes, he repeated failed attempts. The process was a careful balance of alchemical and runic knowledge. Every rune he used elevated the raw ingredients into something greater.
Days passed inside the Clear Sky World before Cha Ming managed to form a stable Mind Like Ice substrate. It was an elegant runic puzzle that looked much like a glacier carved out in elaborate detail. It had key connection points that the linking agent would use to connect everything together. This version of Mind Like Ice was far more powerful than in the original recipe called for. That was the point of runic alchemy—to augment and make greater.
He moved on to the Soul Like Fire runes, and predictably, his failures mounted. The unstable ingredients were unforgiving of mistakes. Every time the runes disintegrated, he needed to start from scratch, sometimes because of something simple like a flaw he’d introduced in the very beginning.
Cha Ming didn’t let his many failures deter him. He completed Soul Like Fire a few days later, then proceeded to work on the golden binding agent. The substance was sticky and amorphous, and it took a lot of effort to coax it in a runic form. Even then, it resembled a string more than anything else.
This is it, Cha Ming thought. Attempt number one. He activated the Crown of the Starry Sky and used his Sage’s Sight to gently guide the runic glacier, the runic flame, and the spiderweb of golden binding instructions. They began to click together, and as they did, they merged, forming runes with varying degrees of red, blue, and gold. The process was far from automatic, and he was forced to react quickly, using gray flames to heat, meld, cool, and cut as he facilitated the many reactions taking place.
He only managed to merge the three components to twenty percent before he failed, and the resulting mixture began to react violently within the cauldron. Cha Ming sighed and summoned his Grandmist flames at maximum intensity. They burned the components, absorbing their energy and condensing them into a gray crystal that Cha Ming stored in the Clear Sky World. They were a failure, yes, but he could still put them to some small use. They would serve as an energy source that he could use to power his Grandmist flame.
“How did it go?” Sun Wukong asked as Cha Ming banished the cauldron. They were both on the mountain peak, and the Monkey King was once again tending to his peach orchard and removing weeds.
“A failure,” Cha Ming said. “Twenty percent merger. Overall, much better than expected. I only wasted materials for about ten pills too.”
“I’ve seen worse,” Sun Wukong said.
“I’m not complaining,” Cha Ming said. “That’s how research goes. I think I’d have better odds if I could build a better framework, but unfortunately, I’m not made of time.”
Sun Wukong shrugged. “I think you’ve got a pretty strong base. I wonder what connections this Elder Ling has with Emperor Fuxi?”
“Fuxi?” Cha Ming asked. He frowned, but when he focused on the runes in his spiritual sea, he did see the similarity. “Maybe. Either way, I couldn’t ask for better help.” The runic framework deep in his soul was already absorbing and analyzing the knowledge he’d gained, shifting the matrix by forming connections with his alchemical knowledge.
“I’m less worried about the original pill, and more about upgrading it,” Cha Ming continued. “Peak-grade iride
scence materials are mostly impossible to obtain, so I’ll have to work with late-grade ones for the most part.”
“Tricky,” Sun Wukong agreed, scratching his thick red beard. “Stronger components tend to dominate lesser ones. Maybe you could splice them onto stronger components and use a life flame to grow them?”
“Teacher!” Cha Ming said, stunned.
“What?” Sun Wukong said
“That was actual advice,” Cha Ming said. “I could swear you’re trying to help me instead of kicking me when I’m down.”
Sun Wukong snorted and got back to working in the dirt. “You were already on it. It doesn’t count.”
“No, I think it does,” Cha Ming said. “I think I’m getting to you. Do you have any other bits of wisdom you’d like to share on this momentous occasion?”
“Sure, sure,” Sun Wukong said. “But I warn you, I’m a terrible teacher, and my methods involve a lot of brute force. You might not recover for days.” He summoned his staff and patted it like a club.
“On second thought, I think I’ll be fine on my own,” Cha Ming said. In truth, the Monkey King was right. He’d already been onto that same idea. Still, he’d grown to love their back-and-forth banter, as it kept him sane while he cultivated and studied. He wondered what life and cultivation would be like without the Monkey King when he eventually found him a new body to inhabit.
“Ow!” Cha Ming said, feeling a jolt of pain on the side of his head. He picked up a small green pebble. “What the hell is this?”
“Peach,” Sun Wukong said, pointing up to one of the ten-foot-tall trees. “The trees grow them at this point, but they’re duds. It’ll be a few years before they grow fruits that’ll drink in heaven-and-earth qi and grow.”
“Don’t make me send you to your own dimension again,” Cha Ming said with a scowl.
“You won’t,” Sun Wukong said. “You’d be bored out of your mind within a week.” Cha Ming’s scowl deepened because he knew deep down that the monkey was right.
Claddings of Light : Book 12 of Painting the Mists Page 38
