Booker awoke slowly, feeling something foul in the back of his mouth. He leaned over and coughed up black tar across the floorboards.

Oh god…

The book flipped open, revealing a page on pill toxicity. As his head swum with a nauseating dizziness, Booker took it in. His fast was actually an excellent way to remove pill toxicity, as consuming only spiritual food would keep any new toxins from entering the body, allowing a chance for your wounded system to recover. It was like soldiers fighting at the frontlines – a moment of relief between waves was a heaven-sent intermission.

So basically, this fast is going to let me purge things lodged in my system…

And the purging isn’t going to be fun.

Scowling, Booker wiped his lips and staggered over to the basin to wash out his mouth. Snips balanced on the basin’s edge, eating a moth bite by slow bite. Booker watched with a nature-documentary fascination as the legs twitched throughout, the tiny creature somehow still alive with half its head missing.

“Is it gonna be that kinda day?” Booker asked to nobody in particular.

A boom of thunder on the horizon answered him, a gust of wind rattling the shutters of his window.

“Okay, okay…”

He dressed and shaved himself with the precision of days spent in the exact same routine. Being ‘Rain’ was getting easier, even as Rain’s life got more complicated. Anyone who would notice the shift in his mannerisms had already noticed, but apparently they chalked it up to a new direction in life or some lucky secret break. Such things were not unknown.

The only real worry is Rain’s sister coming back.

She knew Rain as more than a cipher – she knew him from the day he was born.

Not only would she be hard to fool, I don’t particularly want to be in the position of lying to her. Nor is telling her the truth the best idea. So honestly…

I’d like to get out of here before she comes back from the frontlines.

Rain’s sister, Song, had been a star of the Sect. Not quite on par with Wild Swan’s clear genius and dominance from a young age, she had instead progressed her cultivation slowly, but showed such talent for fighting that she could topple opponents of a higher stage.

In fact, Rain standing up after three blows from a cultivator was now frequently added to her accomplishments – the blood of the Valley tribe was so strong, even a crippled member of their family couldn’t be brought down.

Booker smiled gently. Rain would be proud of the life I’m living.

And me? Myself? I’m proud as fuck. I’ve done so much shit…

I guess I’ve just broken myself out of…

Of whatever makes you stumble or stop before telling a lie, or throwing yourself into dangerous situations. It’s not entirely a good thing to be missing.

But now that I don’t have it, it’s incredible what I can do.

And in the end, with all the gifts I’ve been given – the book, a second life, another world – damn straight I’m going to make good with them. Anything less would be a failure.

He brushed his teeth with a stick of antiseptic wood, using a knife to shave away the portion he’d used yesterday and reveal fresh green wood underneath, sticky with antibacterial sap. It tasted like mint but far more bitter, and left his tongue oddly numb. That last bit he’d actually started to enjoy. It left him feeling minty fresh, like he’d just chewed a piece of ice.

There was a knock on the door. Snips shot off the basin and buzzed around to land on his shoulder.

Booker raised an eyebrow, but opened the door without expecting any great harm.

Standing on the other side was an alchemist’s apprentice. One of the three from Greenmoon’s procession at the market. Instantly, Booker read the situation. This is a recruitment call. Time to fight kicking and screaming to avoid Greenmoon.

“Hey little Junior Brother, while your master is away Instructor Greenmoon will be graciously educating you as an alchemist. And he’s sent me here to be your minder, so don’t make me say anything twice and we’ll get along.” The bald disciple dipped his head in a rough nod, as much of a bow was due to a cripple.

Damn, Master Ping went away? There goes my first and best shield against this recruitment effort. I wonder how long he’ll be gone for…

But it also sounds like he hasn’t formally disowned me. That means… maybe there’s hope yet.

What he said was, “Junior Brother greets Elder Brother. Can I make you some tea?” As he stepped aside and allowed the disciple into his apartment.

“No thanks. We’ve got to be going soon.” The disciple shook his head. “Master Greenmoon keeps a tight schedule and I’m already off-course getting you.”

“Do we just skip breakfast?” Booker asked, already feeling apprehensive.

“No of course not. But we don’t eat slop from the communal pot. We cook our own.” The disciple held up a finger. “First lesson: Attending to Master Greenmoon is a full time job. Forget the rhythms of the Sect. We run at our own pace.”

“I understand.” Booker said neutrally. “Consider me an empty jar, ready to receive wisdom.”

The disciple raised an eyebrow, as if faintly sensing sarcasm, but said, “Alright, well, come on.”

Inwardly, Booker thought, It’s best to make the worst impression I can without being whipped. No bungling an order, but do everything slightly subpar, rub everyone a little wrong – don’t be a failure, be a trying-too-hard. Make it funny to run me through all this, watch me try as hard as possible, and then refuse to give me the job.

They walked through courtyards, through the stately shaded walkways of the Sect, and to a smaller compound that branched off across a small garden walkway into a pagoda. There, opening the door, Booker stepped into total chaos.

It was a large room, and well-furnished, but it could barely contain the people inside it.

Two disciples were arguing over a pot of congee, while a third desperately rearranged furniture, moving at a whirlwind pace to gather peaches and pears fallen from a bowl, gathering them up in his arms while he scrambled about on his knees.

Every single person in the room was shouting and none of them seemed to be having the same argument:

“– you shit eating motherfucker he doesn’t want it sweet he wants it savory –”

“– you’re overcooking the duck and your fucking mother is a whore so shut up –”

“– would you idiots stop and look at the state of this place he is going to kill us –”

The disciple leading booker sighed, looked back to him, and said, “It isn’t always like this.” Then he stepped forward and shouted, “HEY YOU, MOTHERFUCKERS!”

The other three disciplines snapped their heads around on a swivel. “You, stop killing that duck. You, throw out that sauce and start a new one, FAST, before the duck goes cold. You, why the fuck did you knock over the fruit to begin with.”

“Sorry.”

“Sorry!”

“I didn’t–”

A threatening glare cut off the last one, and he amended it to,

“Sorry.”

Instantly the room was remanded into diligent silence, rushing to complete their tasks with a hurried pace. The disciples sniffed, waving to Booker. “See? They just need a little direction.”

Right – they’ve been trained to rely on someone shouting orders, and they fall apart without that pressure. Not exactly something I’d advertise.

“Of course.” Booker said.

“Grab that pan.” The instruction came, and Booker followed, grabbing a cast-iron pan over a hot stove. “Stir, and don’t stop.”

Booker followed suit. Beside him, sweating over a pan, the bruised apprentice he’d rescued two days ago was floundering at an egg crepe. Scooping the rapidly-forming egg to one side, he gestured to a nearby chopping board. “Make yourself useful, chop some mushrooms.”

“One side.”

“Add more wine to that.”

“Why is this taking so long?”

“Move over.”

Booker was shouldered from one task to the next, a concert of chaos unfolding around him as they jockeyed and argued. Everything he lay hands on, he sabotaged just a little, chopping the mushrooms unevenly and overpouring wine until he was stopped.

It looked like a trainwreck, but it delivered a finished product that was second to none. A beautifully pale egg-and-scallion crepe wrapped around bean sprouts and mushrooms, alongside a perfectly cut breast of duck, an oblong diamond of flesh grading from a sizzling brown outside to a deep pink interior, all drizzled in a savory sauce.

Not that Booker hadn’t tried. His hands had been slapped away from miscutting the duck, oversalting the sauce, burning the omelet, and everything else he could think of.

“Alright, make yourself something.” Taking the plate, the head apprentice carried it upstairs – unlike Rain’s apartment, this one was two-storied and significantly larger.

The apprentices relaxed, slouching into chairs and taking a moment to breathe.

Suspicious glares settled on Booker.

“You, why in hell does the master want a cripple about?” The shortest of the apprentices demanded. He was small but broad-shouldered, and the shaved hairstyle mandated for novices did him no favors, revealing a broad and uneven skull that made him look like a gargoyle.

Gargoyle is a good enough name.

“I heard you’re supposed to be an alchemy genius or something.” The one Booker had saved from a beating the other day was small and slight. Yet to receive the added height of his teenage growth spurt, he looked like a child in oversized robes.

Sprout works.

“Well, the newest apprentice cooks for the rest, so…” The second-oldest of the apprentices was a cultivator, allowed to grow his hair out, and was trying to imitate Instructor Greenmoon’s hairstyle. Unfortunately, strands of black had escaped his bun, and the overall effect was a mess.

Little Greenmoon.

“What should I make?” Booker asked, looking at the mess on the stove. “I see we have plenty of scallions. Scallion pancakes?”

A favorite dish of Rain’s. Savory, crisp and flaky with a doughy-soft inside and an onion-y sharpness cutting through the rich indulgence of the oil-fried batter.

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Rain would not appreciate what Booker was about to do to his childhood favorite.

Pouring together water and flour for a simple dough, Booker purposefully undercounted the water, leading to a clumpy and dry dough that barely stuck together. For the scallions, he cut up way too many to add into the dough as he flattened it out into a wide disk, sprinkled the surface with scallion, then rolled it up and cut down through the rolls to make spiral cross-sections. He cut them a little too thick, and tossed them into the pan with not enough oil.

Then he burned them.

“Would you– Get out of the way!” Little Greenmoon swatted him on the shoulder and pushed him away from the smoking pan, rescuing the pancakes as best he could.

“A thousand apologies, Elder Brother.” Booker stammered out, sounding absolutely apologetic.

That should get the apprentices squarely against me. He thought, perfectly satisfied with the overcooked, burnt disks of soggy-on-the-inside dough that got tipped onto a plate.

Grumbles filled the table as everyone dug in.

“Did your old master not teach you to cook?” Gargoyle asked with his mouth full of pancake.

Booker shook his head. “Master Ping never had me cook for him.” And I didn’t realize how grateful I should be. Not that cooking is the worst part of being an apprentice.

“Ahh, easy assignment.” Little Greenmoon shook his head and glared at Booker. “That’s all over! Get your head on straight! These pancakes are garbage.” He waved a fork.

“Er, Brother Rain, you should be careful. If you made this mistake in front of Greenmoon, things could end badly for you.” Sprout said. “And the pancakes aren’t that bad.”

Well, I’m glad I saved you, at least.

The eldest apprentice came back from upstairs, and said, “Rain! The master wishes to speak with you.” He glanced over Booker once, scanning the tying of his robes, the flour on his fingernails, and scowling. “Try to be respectful at least.”

Booker nodded and stepped onto the stairs, ascending to knock at a door made from lustrous black wood. Ornate panels were carved into it and set with pieces of ivory, depicting a stag being hunted through a forest.

“Come in.”

He opened the door and stepped inside, bowing low.

Instructor Greenmoon was a tall man, with a long white beard and ferociously hairy eyebrows, which made his green eyes stand out dramatically. He wore his robes in exquisite fashion and had a scholar’s cap perched atop his head, and his clothes were stitched with jewels and golden thread. Everywhere in the small room, Booker saw expensive instruments and tools of alchemy set on decorative shelves.

This is the house of a wealthy man, and he aims to impress.

“My, what beautiful instruments.” He said, aiming for a dull kind of obvious buttering up.

“Yes, things I’ve collected over a long career.” Greenmooned waved his hand, and a cerulean teapot hovered up into the air, pouring a stream of rich red tea into a cup. “Many treasures, many victories. Your master says you have a fine career ahead of you too, despite your…” His eyes settled on Booker’s tattoo, making him acutely conscious of the blue mark that sat on his cheek. “Disability.”

“My master is very kind to me.” Booker said. “I’ve tried to be diligent.”

“Have you?” Greenmoon raised an eyebrow. “He also said you were quite troublesome, ambitious, and headstrong. I was under the impression… Well, that he was looking for a new home for you.”

“I… have ambitions my master does not agree with.” Booker admitted. Honestly, the news stung.

“And what are those, boy? Your master is right to be cautious. Ambitions are like serpents, they often bite the hand that feeds them.”

“I wish to become a cultivator.” Booker didn’t know what his master had said, so it was best to be truthful and avoid stepping into traps.

“My.” Greenmoon sipped his tea slowly. Booker noticed that the breakfast his apprentices had sweated over was barely picked at. Most of it sat uneaten on the plate. “A dangerous ambition indeed. How is it that you would be the one to leap the dragon gate? So many cripples, all harboring the same dream, but I’ve never heard of a cripple turning around to become a great cultivator.”

“If I could become any kind of cultivator, that would be a step forward. So long as I am moving forward, I am satisfied.” Booker replied. “Surely, a great man such as you could cure a small condition like mine?” Ask directly – be off-putting, greedy, and direct. He’s a man who values elegance, asking directly is a surefire way to bore him.

“Hmm.” Greenmoon kept his opinions to himself, but sipped at his tea. Setting the cup aside, he leaned across the table, looking directly into Booker’s eyes. “I’ll be watching you. If you want this position, all you have to do is show me something spectacular. I’ve seen you perform a miracle once, but one miracle can be an accident. Show me something incredible and I’ll know you’re someone who can conjure miracles on demand.”

“That’s… a high bar.” Booker said, grimacing.

Greenmoon laughed and lifted a finger. “Ah, but I’m too old to bother with mediocrity.” He chuckled at his own joke, leaning back in his chair. “Head along then. Eat your breakfast, converse with the other apprentices… It will be time to work soon.”

Booker bowed once more and left. Downstairs, the apprentices were crunching through his charred scallion pancakes.

He took his plate and sat down, glancing warily at his companions. They were a strange lot. Gargoyle barely seemed to notice the pancakes were burnt as he crunched them down, and Booker didn’t gather that he had much going on between his ears. Little Greenmoon was eating delicately, dabbing at his lips with a silk cloth. Sprout wasn’t eating, just nervously fussing with his robes.

The silence in the room meant they were probably talking about him a second ago, Booker knew.

Their leader, a tall disciple that Booker named Beanpole, licked his fingers. “I hear your crippled master thinks you’re an alchemy genius. I want you to know, you’re already behind if you hope to impress around here.”

“I’m sorry?” Booker said, more a question than a statement, blinking and playing the incredulous idiot.

“He means don’t expect us to carry you.” Sprout waved his chopsticks. “Everyone on this team pulls their own weight.”

“Even him?” Booker pointed his own right at Gargoyle.

The boy surged from his seat, roaring, “The fuck!?”

Little Greenmoon’s face twisted. “You dare speak to your Brother Han that way?”

“Look at his hands.” Booker said quickly. “Those aren’t the hands of an alchemist. His knuckles are too broad, his fingers are too heavy.” Act like I think I know better than them. Surefire way for a newbie to piss off the old guard.

“They’ll feel fucking heavy on your nose.” The thuggish disciple quickly advanced, but Booker held his ground. They won’t beat me without Greenmoon’s say-so, meaning I only have to keep from outright offending him.

“Sorry, Elder Brother.” Booker said, backing away. “I didn’t mean to offend…”

“Hmmph.” As Gargoyle sat back down, scowling furiously, the tense mood was brought to a new high by the creak of a door opening at the top of the stairs, and the descending quiet footsteps of Greenmoon. As the instructor arrived, everyone did their best to tidy their appearance, and the apprentices bowed low to their master.

“So decorous. No need, no need…” Greenmoon said softly, waving for them to stand up. “I wouldn’t want you showing our new hopeful better manners today than you intend to show every day…”

“We aim to exceed, every day, master.” Little Greenmoon said dutifully, and Booker almost gagged on the pure suck-uppery on display.

“Well, as long as you’re showing a sincere good face to our young junior brother here.” Greenmoon chuckled. “Come along. It’s time we put everyone through their paces. Today will be a full day of instruction – you can forget about the market.”

And I can forget about my free time. Damn.

They all shuffled out, walking towards the alchemy lab with Booker glancing faux-nervously at the faces of his fellow disciples, and reading a dark expression. They all seemed like they were going under the knife for a major surgery; their brows were knit together, apprehensive, as if their future was on the line. It was nothing like the quiet instruction that Booker had enjoyed from his old master.

They had their own alchemy lab, Booker noted: Greenmoon apparently commanded his own space in a small private courtyard with a single furnace and several workbenches.

“Here.” Greenmoon unrolled a scroll of birch bark paper across the main workbench. “Is our recipe for today. Everyone, come forward and read carefully.” He said, stressing the final word.

They advanced together, and Booker glanced down at the scroll. It was instructions for making a Nine-Fermentations Purifying Pill, a medicine Booker was sure had been chosen for its obscure and unusual nature. It had been divided into four parts.

“Each of you will take one of the four stations, with Eastbird–” Greenmoon nodded to the lanky eldest apprentice. “Overseeing and making sure none of you stray. At my command, you will switch stations, so everyone has a chance to try all stages of the process.”

They all nodded.

“I’ll take the chopping and peeling of the two-legged root, and I’ll dice and grind the seafoam herb.” Gargoyle volunteered. Sprout and Little Greenmoon nodded, clearly wanting to give him the chance to redeem his reputation.

“I’ll handle the boiling of the barren peach leaves.”

“I’ll bottle it all for fermentation.”

“I, ah–” Booker glanced conspicuously down at the list. “I’ll… sieve the ground seafoam herb and mix it with flour?”

The instruction was significantly better than that. He needed to push the ground seafoam through a sieve and a cheesecloth to strain out the liquid, leaving only the flesh. Then, pushing it through the sieve a second time to ensure a fine texture, mix it with flour, feeling for the precise point the mash of flour and seafoam root took on a doughy, spongy consistency, then roll it into small balls.

He had to do all this in five minutes.

Time to destroy these stations.

He headed to the task with gusto as Greenmoon cried, “Begin!”

Rolling up his sleeves, Booker began preparing his station, waiting for the first bunch of seafoam paste to come down the line. Gargoyle was cutting and chopping with his tongue wedged between his lips, already sweating with the intensity of his concentration. “Could you be a bit faster?” Booker said, making the apprentice slip for a moment, his glare at Booker warning him to shut up as he painstakingly tried to recover the miscut portion.

I feel a bit bad. I’m really pissing them off…

As soon as he slammed down a clay bowl full of the ground-up paste, Booker proceeded to ruin it. He slapped the paste down into the sieve with no lining of cheesecloth, ensuring much of the fine pulp would be lost with the juices. Sieving it only once, leaving the mixture lumpy and uneven, he proceeded to splash in an overgenerous helping of flour, ruining the whole lot by overfilling it with binder.

He rolled it all into pasty white orbs, feeling satisfied with himself as Greenmoon cried “Switch!”

Booker rotated left while the rest rotated right, and then doubled back, nearly knocking into Sprout. He was now at the station for boiling the leaves, a delicate process of managing a small fire and keeping the water at a steady temperature for a precise amount of time, all while preparing the leaves by cutting out their stem and veins.

You know, this is fun.

Rather than delicately cut the veins out of the roots, Booker hacked down on them, destroying the entire supply and rendering the work twice as hard as it needed to be. He let his pot come to the edge of overboiling before he noticed.

Okay, but that’s enough. I don’t want to shame my master here. I might have already gone too far and cost him face.

Catching the pot at the edge of disaster, he doused the flame and hastily restarted it, barely managing to control the temperature in time. He fished the boiled leaves out of the pot with a wooden stick and donned heavy woolen gloves to pour the pot’s contents into a jar.

“Switch!”

At the next station, Booker acted like he had just gotten his feet under him after a bad, possibly nervous, start. He was aiming to look like he was trying hard to recover from his mistakes as he set to the new task, managing the fermentation. The peach-leaf tea he’d boiled had to be mixed in a precise ratio with sugar, and then reduced down by boiling it further. Once it was a thick, syrupy mixture, it was added to a jar packed with precise ratios of spices, salts, and the flour-and-seafoam-herb balls he’d made at his first station, preparing it to ferment.

He didn’t see anything here but measuring and mixing, although the instructions on how much sugar to mix with how much tea was somewhat unclear. He whisked the ingredients through a series of bowls, working fast to pack and prepare the jars. Working with the scales turned out to be the hardest part. Far from precise electronic measurements, the scale was just a few pieces of metal hanging free, their dangling weights making a small needle move across a plate.

He was just beginning to feel comfortably when he sensed Greenmoon’s eyes on his back.

Looks like I’ve caught his attention.

“You know, young man, it occurs to me that not everyone is eager to exchange one master for another. Perhaps they have some lingering sentimentality.” His voice put cold water down Booker’s spine. Dammit, he’s onto me.

“Let us put that sentimentality in context of what it is costing you.” Greenmoon said, and strode away, moving to the front of the room. “Everyone! I wish to add some stakes to our game!” Here it comes… Booker closed his eyes.

“A fantastic Sevenflame Paintbrush Flower! It goes to whoever puts forth the most impressive display!”

Booker put his head down and clenched his hands. He’d been totally outplayed… The Sevenflame Paintbrush Flower was an ingredient for the Seven-Times Purified Charcoal Pill. It was a curative that could, on its own, restore some small possibility of cultivating to someone with corrupted meridians. Unless they found further medicines, they’d never progress past the first stage, and there was only a small chance of reaching that stage at all….

But he was being offered a road out.

Fuck.

Without thinking twice, he diced and cut the two-legged root, separating the valueless rind from the pale pith with a razor’s edge accuracy. He diced the seafoam root incredibly finely, and mashed it down to paste with the pestle and mortar, achieving an already-smooth consistency even before the sieving.

“Switch!”

The five minutes had passed in a heartbeat. Booker wiped the sweat from his brow, turning back to see Greenmoon watching him with a faint smile. As he left his station, Greenmoon stepped in, dipping a finger into the fine-grained and smooth seafoam root paste.

Next he was back to his original station, sieving seafoam root paste. He barely needed to strain it out, but he did so anyway, separating off the liquid and patting it dry before mixing in the flour to absorb the last of the moisture. The mixing was the most delicate and difficult task in the rotation. It had to be done – if it was going to be done properly – by a precise sense of touch, feeling out just when the texture was right and the paste was mixed properly with the exact amount of flour to seafoam paste.

He swirled his fingers through the flour, carving out a bowl in the center, and then dropped the seafoam paste in the center. Every time he needed to add flour he simply spilled in some from the sides, absorbing some of the dry powder into the wet mixture.

By the end he had shaped the entire remaining stock of seafoam paste into small flour-dusted balls.

“Switch!”

He had done his worst work here, at the boiling station, by ruining the supply of barren peach leaves. Now he frantically dissected the hacked-apart pieces, cutting out the stringy and bitter-tasting veins. Often he was working with fragments smaller than the pinky of his fingernail, trying to separate pieces as thin as hair.

Booker sweated over the task, casually maintaining the temperature of the tea and straining out the leaves frequently, making a perfectly fragrant mixture.

He looked up and Greenmoon was smiling.

“Switch!” He called one last time. Booker mixed on to the finals station, assembling his finished product into a jar. As he capped it off with wax, Greenmoon called.

“I’ve seen enough!”