We walked down the streets towards the Blue Orchid. As Mo Lin had sold me the rest of the ladys’ alchemical supplies, it felt appropriate to see if she had an appropriate cultivation technique as well. When we arrived we went inside, seeing a girl of thirteen or fourteen in a simple stained cotton robe behind the counter. “How can I help you, sir?” the girl asked. She seemed to be in the middle of Level One.

  “I was coming to look for a cultivation technique for these ladies.” I said, motioning to the two of them. “The mom has a Fire and Wood root and the daughter has an Earth and Wood root. I was thinking they should have a cultivation technique of at least an average quality, though High is better.”

  “I’m Qin Five,” said Five, introducing herself.

  “Mo Zin.” the girl said, thinking about the possible techniques they could use and that they would have in stock. “Wood and Fire is an interesting combination. Wood techniques are mostly centered around improved pill quality, as most ingredients are at least partially Wood type. Fire, on the other hand, are usually centered around improved fire control, learning to control the flame so accurately that you can refine pills with extremely tight temperature tolerances. Qi Gathering pills are about the most difficult pills that a normal alchemist can make, as they have between a five and ten degree range. I know I can’t make them yet. A Fire alchemist, however, can work with one half of a degree limits at level one, and even smaller ones at higher levels, letting them create pills using certain rare formulas that others can’t use. They also tend to have slightly higher quality due to being able to remove more impurities.”

  Five set a bottle of Qi Gathering pills on the front counter. “If you want to learn, I can teach you.” she said, opening the bottle and pouring one Qi gathering pill onto the counter. After the contest they had been given porcelain bottles which contained all of the pills that they made during the contest. Jiang had all of the ones they had made over the last two days, along with all of the unused medicinal ingredients and her cauldron in her storage bag, and Five had her cauldron and enough wood for two sets of pills in hers. I wasn’t certain if I wanted to sell them the pills they had made so far, however.

  “You made these?” asked Mo Zin, picking it up to examine it. “Average quality. You looking to sell? I can offer a quarter of a stone for it. As for training, though, my aunt can do that better than you can.”

  Just then the door opened again. “Are you trying to steal my apprentice, now, Mr. Li?” asked Mo Lin.

  “No,” I said. “She just said that she couldn’t make qi gathering pills and Five offered to teach her.”

  Mo nodded. “She just needs to practice her Taiji Refinement Art more.” Mo Lin said, going behind the counter. “Though Five might be able to give you some pointers on that as well.”

  “She’s younger than me, though.” said Zin.

  “But she’s a registered alchemist already, mostly thanks to your aunt selling us a copy of the Taiji Refinement art and Five almost mastering it.” I said.

  “She knows the Taiji Refinement Art?” asked Zin incredulously.

  Five sat her cauldron on the counter and started doing the thirteen hand signs needed for the formation. When she was done a green taiji symbol about half a meter across appeared around her cauldron, drawing the ambient qi into it.

  “Your ninth hand sign should look like this.” said Mo Lin, showing her the proper sign. “You had it like this.” She did it slightly wrong. “While your mental discipline is good enough to make it work, the more exact your hand movements the better your mind will recall the correct spell fragment and the more easily it can merge the various fragments.” Five nodded, realizing that the advise was good and resolving to practice her hand signs after we were done here.

  “So,” I said, bringing us back on topic. “You were telling us about the possible techniques. You covered what Fire and Wood specialize in, but not Earth.”

  “Oh, that’s growing the herbs.” said Zin. “I thought that would be obvious. An alchemist that has an Earth root can insure that the soil is always perfect for the plants that grow in it, and that includes spirit plants. This lets them grow faster and healthier, though not necessarily stronger. Some plants need hardship to get stronger. If you adjust the soil to be too perfect they might even be weaker than the ones grown by mortals. Actually accelerating the growth is a Wood root thing, but you can make them grow larger and healthier. Of course, this works on both spirit crops and normal crops, so you can just use it to grow spirit plants where there isn’t spirit soil if you have enough qi to convert the soil into spirit soil. The reason we don’t do that here is because the city already produces enough spirit compost and common spirit rice isn’t expensive enough to hire an alchemist to convert more land. If they need to convert land, they can just use more spirit animal dung.”

  I nodded. “Most of the animals are weak bloods, so I’m not sure how easily they can do that, but it makes sense.”

  Five sighed. “You mean that I have to go back to farming?”

  “Only if you want to grow enough spirit plants to cover all of your needs. If not, buying them is good enough.”

  Five nodded. “In that case, I suppose you want me to buy an Earth/Wood technique. What do you recommend?”

  Zin thought for a few seconds. “Spirit Farmer Technique, maybe? It is a combined water, earth, and wood technique that will teach you to grow the best medicinal herbs you can. With that technique, you’ll never have a shortage of plant based alchemical ingredients.”

  Five thought for a moment. “I suppose I don’t mind working with plants.” she said, then looked at me. “What do you think?”

  “I think you need to decide this on your own. I can just give you advise.” I looked at Mo Lin. “Is it a good technique?”

  Mo Lin shrugged. “Better than whatever occupational manual they are using now, but not as good as some of the high end ones that big families have.”

  “So not really comparable to something like the Ji family’s Sacred Herbs Alchemy Path?”

  “Not even comparable to my own family’s True Qi Refinement Path, and it has both Alchemy and Artifact branches. To start with, the Spirit Farmer Technique only goes up to level three. Also, its maximum quality is High. But right now they are probably using some occupational book’s technique that only gets you to peak level one and is limited to Average quality. Am I right?”

  “Actually, we were using Low quality books. But yes, it is a massive improvement.” said Jiang. “So, what about my cultivation technique?”

  Mo Lin shook her head. “I don’t have one that combines wood and fire. I do have pure Fire and pure Wood techniques, though, so you could use one as a primary, and study the other as a secondary means to expend your skills.”

  Jiang nodded. “Can I learn the Wood techniques from Five’s book if I choose the pure Fire path?”

  Lin nodded. “Most of them. Some require specific things from the technique, but most are generic wood elemental farming techniques.”

  “You also might be able to duel cultivate two full techniques.” I said. “The original techniques I used to cultivate were fragmented, with me getting breakthrough and advancement techniques separately, and using whatever I happened to have. Eventually I found a low grade Fire and a petty grade Metal technique and figured out how to synchronize the two so that they didn’t fully conflict. But I studied in a scholar sect to understand the principles behind various techniques. I’m not sure how hard it would be for you to do something similar. My guess is that the Fire cultivation will try to feed on your Wood cultivation, growing stronger by weakening another type.”

  Mo Lin nodded. “I have heard of that happening. In that case, a person with Wood and Water roots tried to cultivate both and any Water cultivation they would do would weaken over time as their Wood cultivation grew stronger. Eventually they became a pure Wood path cultivator.”

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  I nodded. “A similar thing happened to me. I really like metal as an element, but my metal cultivation is significantly weaker than my Fire even when I put just as much work into both. I suspect that they are conflicting and my Fire is overcoming it to erase it.” Even when I was using the 107 shards technique I made to do an idealized form of metal cultivation, the changes seem to fade slightly once I switched to the 107 stars technique, a fire type. A conflict between the two, whether it was for mental or physical reasons, was the best explanation for why it would weaken. “I might have to switch to a combined technique like Human Slag if I want to keep both.”

  Jiang nodded. “So, I should choose the Fire technique and only study the Wood supplementary techniques?”

  Mo Lin shrugged. “Possibly. Though, if you were an artifact crafter I would have a solution for you. One of my cousins uses a Fire technique that feeds on absorbed Wood qi as a secondary to the family method, and it made his material refinement far better. I’m not sure it would work with pills, though, as it could result in you destroying the pills effects.”

  Jiang nodded. “Well, most artifact materials are Metal attributed or not attributed. Most of the materials I work with will be Wood attributed, so I’m sure that won’t work in my case.” She thought for a few seconds. “I’ll take a look at the Fire technique, then.”

  A minute later she settled on a copy of Refiner’s Fire, a text which worked with all materials to refine them into other, more useful materials, concentrating their effects. While it also covered refining materials for forging, there were several chapter pertaining to refining alchemical materials too. Alchemical refinement had much more exact temperature requirements, and thus relied more heavily on specifically targeting impurities with your fire qi in order to remove them. After all, if the good parts weren’t heated up and only the bad parts were, the two could be separated more easily. This reminded me of the process of freeze drying, where the conditions were altered to specifically target the water in food and not alter the chemistry. To freeze dry something the entire product was brought to negative temperatures and the air was pumped out to create a vacuum. This created a situation in which you could remove all water from something by simply slightly heating it, as all of the heat would be absorbed by the evaporating water.

  What made Refiner’s Fire a cultivation manual was that many of the effects also worked on living tissue to make it a superior version of what it used to be. It explained that weakness, flaws, and toxins could all be seen as impurities which could be baked out with fire qi. My own Human Slag technique had a similar teaching, so it seemed like it could work for her. The fact that this method taught you how to better target impurities might even mean that it worked better than Human Slag, and that was also a level three technique.

  At High quality both techniques would cost one thousand stones each. That was more than I had spent on them so far just for two books. While I wanted to cheap out on the books, maybe buying one that they both could use, I knew that would weaken their overall cultivation. Spending so much on them would effect my plan for releasing them in a socially acceptable way, but I knew that I had to do it.

  I purchased both books in High quality jades, and managed to talk Mo Lin into giving me a bit of a discount, for buying both, but the cost still came out to one thousand eight hundred stones. The one compromise I did make to save some money was that I would let them both use the memory jades for the next two weeks, but they would need to memorize and return them by the end of that time so that I could take them home with me. As they were at level one, they would only be able to read it at a low grade level, but that was all they would need until they broke through to level two, at which point I could return and allow them to read it again.

  I wanted to take the Jade to Earth with me so that I could make copies, but once I did that I could just give them the book or a copy of it upon returning. I also wanted to learn the Refiner’s Fire technique, and thought that Maria would want to read the Spirit Farmer Technique. I was getting a lot of gifts for Maria in this journey, and planned on getting many spirit seeds before returning, but one of the major weaknesses on Earth right now was a lack of spirit materials for alchemy, so I wanted to do what I could to remedy that. While I wanted to get more things for Dave and especially Liza, nothing I saw seemed like a proper gift. We were about to go to Crystal Summit, however, and it was a much bigger city, with one point three million people instead of the two hundred and ten thousand or so in High River, so the chance of finding something of high quality there was much higher.

  After telling them that they would need to memorize the books so that they could return them before I left for home, I let them take the jades and return home. Two hours later I left the office of a man specializing in contract law. While he mostly worked with business purchases and the loans that were often necessary when transferring ownership, he had done enough slave contracts and debt buyouts to understand what I wanted and draft the documents quickly.

  I made my way to Ji Cha’s bookstore and went inside. There were a few mortals in the skill books section, discussing whether they should purchase the cookbook or the tailoring book. Apparently they only had one hundred taels of money to spend and the books cost eighty each. There was also a family looking at the occupational books. There was a man at late level one, a mortal woman, and a ten year old boy, and they were trying to get him to pick an occupational book. Apparently, they must have recently discovered that he had a spirit root and were trying to find a book for him to learn from. While these books did have a cultivation technique in them that could take you to the peak of level one, with descriptions of level two and three in case you managed to mesh well with the technique and could take it further, the techniques they contained were very poor quality and would leave you with serious flaws in your cultivation.

  One of the weaknesses in this world’s method of guided body refinement was that you often overlooked bodily systems, like the immune system, relying on the automatic improvements from upgrading your body during breakthrough to fix the flaws. I suspected that the flaws also existed in Earth’s methods, as I could find many of them inside of myself, but the cultivation seed methods, especially the generic mind seed, helped to repair most of the flaws. There was a generic body seed in the book as well, listed in the chapter for the third level, which I had only somewhat been able to read previously. That difficulty in reading, combined with the fact that the chapter said that the effects wouldn’t be noticeable for at least two or three seeds meant that I hadn’t yet tried to use it. If, as I suspected, those first few uses weren’t noticed because they were fixing flaws, I would have to remember to use it the next time I meditated, as it would be worth it. The better your refinement at previous levels, the easier it was to advance. My recent rebirth had been extremely stressful on my body, but caused next to no stress to my brain and nervous system outside of direct damage and mental exhaustion. I suspected that my body cultivation had flaws which caused this difference.

  I briefly considered letting the boy and father read one of the cultivation books I had purchased, as they were higher quality than it looked like the family could afford, but it seemed rude to do so inside of a bookstore. Each occupational book cost ten stones for an average quality, the best version available due to the overall poor quality of the texts. If those stones were used to purchase body or mind tempering pills their cultivation would greatly benefit, but without a technique, even a poor technique like in the occupational books, one wouldn’t know how to properly use the pills. Perhaps if I had met them outside I would have let them read a book, but now it wasn’t appropriate.

  On the shelf beside them, however, was a technique I wanted, the Dancing Dragon Technique. The father looked frightened when I approached, as I was so much stronger than him, and the three of them bowed, but I just nodded and floated slightly to grab the book off of the top shelf. “Would you like me to help you to get a book down?” I asked, trying to lighten the mood.

  “No, my lord.” The father said, bowing more deeply.

  I landed, fearing that my flight was scaring him. “Oh, you don’t need to call me that. I’m just an independent cultivator that came here to buy a book that I had my eye on and can now afford.” The father looked confused at this situation, like he couldn’t believe that I was treating him as an equal.

  “But, you are initial third level, and I am merely late first. You are so much stronger than me.”

  “Oh, I’m sure some people care about that, but I’m not the kind to care about levels. You look like good people, so I’ll treat you with respect as long as you don’t do anything evil.” The father looked a bit nervous but nodded. “So, it looks like you are picking out a first cultivation technique for your son. You are what, ten years old?” The boy nodded. “I just took my servants to get a better technique earlier today, and one of them was only ten. She and her mom are alchemists. The Alchemist Path isn’t bad, but they needed to supplement with a better pill refinement technique and a book on herbs, plus a lot of practice, to get their certification.”

  They looked confused, but the father spoke up. “Yesterday was his tenth birthday, so I had him tested. He has an Earth root, as well as a Water root like me.”

  “Congratulations on turning ten.” I said. “Five has an Earth and Wood root. Maybe I can introduce the two of you.” The family looked a bit nervous. They didn’t think I was going to try and make them my servants, did they? “So, what do you do for a living?”

  “I usually hunt wild beasts outside the city, sir.” he said. “It’s tough work, but it pays the bills.”

  I nodded. “I did that two days ago so I could get demon cores for their pill refinement practice. Unfortunately one of my men were injured and we had to rush back, as I was out of anti-toxin pills. Make sure you have plenty of medical supplies when you go out. It’s a bit expensive, but when you get injured you’ll be glad you have them.”

  The father nodded, relaxing a bit. “Yes, sir. I’ll get a pill kit for myself when I can afford it, but the team has a medic that carries one and even knows a few healing techniques for light wounds.”

  I nodded. “I really should look into those. I don’t have a wood root, but I know many people that do, so it could save us a good bit of money.” I then had an idea. “You know what? Let me give you a birthday gift. You seemed to really like the way I was floating, and I recently got a similar level one movement technique from a Buddhist monk friend of mine. It isn’t a Buddhist technique, but it is common in their temples, and lets you run on water or jump on falling leaves. It’s called the ‘Weightless Steps Technique’.”

  “I’ve heard of it.” said the father. “Some of the monks at the temple in town use it, but I couldn’t afford to buy a copy. I saw one of them run up a waterfall with it, though, so it is a good technique.”

  I nodded and went over to Ji Cha. “Hello, Cha.” I said, and he greeted me as well. “I have a request.” I sat the Dancing Dragon Technique book on the counter and pulled out the jade slip for the Weightless Steps Technique. “Can you make these people a copy of this jade? I would make it myself, but I’ve never done it before and don’t have any jade slips on me. In exchange, you can make a few to sell here, too.”

  He picked up the jade and viewed it. “Low grade level one technique. Interesting movement technique, but situational at best. Sure, I can make you a copy. I might have a few low level cultivators that are interested, though it won’t sell for much. Are you sure you only want one copy?”

  I thought for a second. “Actually, can I get three? I also want to give one to Five and her mom to share, and another to the White Tigers.”

  Ji Cha nodded and went to the back of the store to make the copies. “Do you really know the White Tigers?” the father asked.

  “Sure.” I said. “I knew the sect master and a high elder before they started it. In fact, I even arranged for my servants to stay with them, since I can’t bring them with me when I return home and the sect already has two families living with them.”

  The father nodded. “To be honest, I was thinking of trying to join them. I hear they treat mortals well, and even train them.”

  I nodded. “That’s true. Their methods let mortals get stronger and eventually break through to level one by using the powers of spirit beasts. Essentially, you can take some of the beast’s power without demonic methods, letting mortals enter level one without roots and letting cultivators advance faster. Now, I’m not going to promise you can cultivate after that, but advancing will make you stronger and healthier and double the number of years you have left.” Several people from the mortal books section were standing there listening to me, and the mother looked interested as well. I was still downplaying the effects so that people didn’t start to suspect that I was a demonic cultivator or a fraud, but I still might have went overboard.

  “I went to look at the spirit beasts they were selling once, and heard the man there saying something similar about the effects of having a spirit pet,” said the father. “Do they give every sect member a pet or something similar?”

  “At level two, yes. But even the mortals get to eat spirit beast meat and eggs and milk products like cheese. All of those contain a bit of the beast’s cultivation, so if the beast’s stronger than you in a specific way, you can absorb some of that strength by eating properly prepared dishes of those things. It was pretty common in ancient times, but not that common in modern times.”