Within the ancient jade box lay a pill the colour of deep emerald, the size of an eye, resting in quiet stillness. The tantalizing, otherworldly fragrance that had swept through the hall drifted from it alone.
Upon the Dou Qi continent, the first step toward becoming a true Dou Warrior was to condense a Qi Cyclone within one's body. Yet this condensation carried no small measure of risk. Should it fail, a ninth-stage Dou Qi would fall all the way back to the eighth. There were those unlucky enough to attempt it a dozen times or more before meeting with success—and by then, the finest years for cultivation had already been squandered, leaving their futures in ruin.
Ju Qi San, the Qi-Gathering Powder, worked precisely to change that. Its single effect was a simple, marvellous one: it allowed a cultivator at ninth-stage Dou Qi to condense their Qi Cyclone with absolute, guaranteed success.
Such a quality made countless young aspirants, desperate to become Dou Warriors at the earliest possible moment, covet it day and night without ever obtaining it.
And to speak of Ju Qi San was inevitably to speak of the ones who created it: the alchemists.
In the world of Dou Qi, there existed an occupation that stood above even the Dou Warriors themselves. People called them alchemists.
Alchemists, as their name implied, could refine all manner of miraculous pills and medicines that broke through the limits of power. Any alchemist at all would be courted without regard for cost by every faction and force that could manage it. Their status was exalted in the extreme.
That alchemists enjoyed such treatment had everything to do with how rare they were—and how useful. To become one, one had to satisfy conditions harsh beyond belief.
First, one's innate attribute had to be that of fire. Second, woven within that fire body there had to be a thread of wood qi, to serve as a catalyst in the refining of medicine.
One must understand: upon the Dou Qi continent, the attribute of a body was decided by its soul, and a single soul was forever fixed to a single attribute. It was impossible for foreign attributes to mingle within it. This meant that a body born with two separate attributes of differing strengths was, for all practical purposes, impossible.
Of course, nothing in this world was absolute. Out of hundreds of millions, there would always be the rare stunted, warped soul. And it was precisely these owners of unorthodox souls who held the potential to become alchemists.
Yet merely possessing a soul of fire and wood was still not enough to be called a true alchemist, for one more essential condition could not be dispensed with. That was the perceptive power of the soul—the power of shaping the mundane flesh into something greater.
The forging of medicinal pills demanded three conditions above all: ingredients, a source of fire, and the perceptive power of the soul.
Ingredients were naturally the heaven-and-earth treasures gathered from across the land. An alchemist was no god; without quality materials they would find it as hard as a clever housewife left with no rice to cook. Good ingredients were of the highest importance.
The source of fire meant the flame used in refining. Ordinary fire was never enough. One had to use a Dou Qi flame, catalysed and summoned by the fire-attribute Dou Qi within the body. Of course, the world was threaded through with strange, heaven-born fires, and some alchemists of formidable power would seize these for their own use. Refining with such fires not only lifted the odds of success by a wide margin, but the pills they produced were richer and stronger in effect than any born of ordinary Dou Qi flames.
Because alchemy was a long, drawn-out labour, and long refining was a brutal drain on Dou Qi, every alchemist worthy of the name was in truth also a formidable fire-attributed Dou Warrior.
The final condition was the perceptive power of the soul. In the process of refining, the weighing of the fire was everything. At times a single degree too hot and the whole batch of pills would collapse to ash, undoing all prior work. Hence mastering the fire was the first lesson an alchemist had to learn—and to master the fire, one required an extraordinarily keen perceptive power of the soul. Losing that, no matter how perfectly one fulfilled the first two conditions, was nothing but wasted effort.
Under such grinding requirements, those with the right to call themselves alchemists were as rare as phoenix feathers and unicorn horns. And with so few alchemists, the miraculous pills they produced became rarer still. What is scarce is precious—and so it was that alchemists had been raised to a status lofty, even grotesque.
…
In the great hall, as the three elders gasped in astonishment, the eyes of the gathered youths and maidens flew wide open, their scorching gazes fixed unblinkingly upon the jade box in Ge Ye's hands.
Xiao Mei, seated beside her father, drew the tip of her small pink tongue across her red lips, staring at the box without so much as a blink.
"Heh. This was personally refined by Gu He, the Honorary Elder of our sect. Surely you have all heard of that old man's renown?" Watching the three elders so lose their composure, Ge Ye could not help a note of smug satisfaction, and he smiled.
"This medicine is actually the work of the Dan King Gu He himself?" At these words, the three elders were thoroughly shaken.
Dan King Gu He wielded an influence that stretched across the Jia Ma Empire. His alchemical arts were mysterious and beyond measure, and countless experts yearned to curry his favour without ever finding a path to him. Not only was Gu He's skill in alchemy miraculous—his own strength had long since climbed into the ranks of the Dou Kings, placing him among the ten greatest experts of the Jia Ma Empire.
For a figure of such standing, the Ju Qi San that passed through his hands was worth many times over its ordinary value.
The three elders beamed at the Ju Qi San within the box. If the family could secure this pill, they might well forge another young Dou Warrior for themselves.
Just as the three elders were privately scheming over how to lay hands on the pill for their own grandsons, the boy's low, fury-suppressed voice rang out abruptly across the hall.
"Elder Ge Ye, you had best take your pill back. Today's business—we shall not agree to it!"
The hall fell instantly silent. Every gaze snapped toward the corner where Xiao Yan had lifted his clear, handsome face.
"Xiao Yan, this is no place for you to speak! Hold your tongue!" One of the elders, his face turning grim, barked in fury.
"Xiao Yan, stand down," said another, the oldest of the three, in a flat tone. "I know you are suffering. But here, we will decide what is to be done."
"Three elders—if those breaking off the engagement today were your own sons or grandsons, would you still say such things?" Xiao Yan rose slowly to his feet, a sneer curling at the corner of his mouth. The elders' contempt for him was plain to see, so he saw no reason to cower before them.
"You—" The three elders faltered. The short-tempered Third Elder, in particular, glared, his Dou Qi beginning to gather about his body.
"Three elders, what Xiao Yan-gege said is not wrong. He is the one involved here. It would be best if you did not meddle." The girl's light, clear voice drifted placidly through the hall.
At her soft words, the elders' arrogance instantly deflated. They exchanged helpless glances and, one by one, nodded and withdrew.
Watching the three elders wilt, Xiao Yan turned back and gave the smiling Xiao Xun'er a long, searching look. *You little minx—just what is it about you that makes the three elders so afraid?*
He pushed the question down and strode forward. First he bowed respectfully to Xiao Zhan, then turned to face Nalan Yanran. Drawing a long breath, he asked in a level voice: "Lady Nalan, I wish to ask: for the repudiation of our engagement today—has the old master Nalan himself given his consent?"
Earlier, when Xiao Yan had stepped forth to interrupt, Nalan Yanran had felt a sliver of displeasure. Now his question made her delicate brows knit even tighter. *This one seemed decent enough at first glance. Why must he cling so stubbornly? Does he not see the distance between us?*
Blame him though she did, she never once considered what her public repudiation had done to Xiao Yan and his father—what embarrassment, what fury it had sunk them into.
She rose and gazed at the boy who ought to have become her husband, her voice flat and sweet: "Grandfather has not consented. But this is my business, and none of his concern."
"Since the old master has said nothing, then forgive me, but my father will not grant your request either. The engagement was set in person by the two old masters of our families. So long as they have not dissolved it, no one dares break it—to do so would be to desecrate the dead who are our elders. I daresay no one in our clan would commit such an unfilial deed." Xiao Yan tilted his head, staring at the three elders with a cold smile.
Crushed beneath so heavy a cap, the three elders fell silent at once. In the iron discipline of a family clan, such a charge was more than enough to strip them of their elder seats.
"You—" Caught short by Xiao Yan's tirade, Nalan Yanran was left without words of rebuttal, and her small face flushed with rage. She stamped her foot hard, drew a breath, and let the pampered temper of a lady of a great house surge to the surface. Fixing the boy before her with a disgusted glare, she cut straight to the point: "What exactly will it take for you to dissolve the engagement? Not satisfied with the compensation? Fine. I can have my teacher give you three more Ju Qi San, and—if you wish—I can have you enter the Yun Lan Sect to study its profound Dou Qi techniques. Is that enough?"
At the tempting conditions rolling off the girl's tongue, the three elders felt their breath quicken. The youths and maidens of the hall gulped audibly. Enter the Yun Lan Sect to train? Heavens—that was what countless people dreamt of their whole lives.
After she finished, Nalan Yanran lifted her pale, graceful chin, awaiting Xiao Yan's answer with the pride of a princess. In her reckoning, such conditions were enough to drive any youth wild.