The next time Booker opened his eyes, his immediate first thought was of the moonlight bridge.

What was that?

It attacked me, somehow. But why….

That morning, Booker rose and washed himself, dressed carefully, and took the time to sort out the small details of his appearance. It wasn’t every day he got to take the time and tend to the small things, so he whistled as he shaved and spent a little while meditating, sitting in contemplation at the edge of his bed.

Things have been rough this first month. But… I don’t regret coming here. I have lived so much in a few weeks….

It makes living on Earth feel like a dream…

Lifting his head, he sighed. Somewhere in the distance the morning bell rung out a brassy tone over rising dawn, the sun coming up yellow and orange in the far distance. Chill air swept the mountains and sank into the valleys below. It was snowing.

He could see his breath hanging in the air above him.

Stalactites of ice dripping from above the window…

The snow-coated slopes of the mountain, the glistening white powder atop the walls….

The cold wind scything through his flesh and bones….

Mantis Sect will only get colder with the coming days. But I’m not too worried. I’ve carved out a good place for myself. Perhaps too good, if I intend to escape. In retrospect… Nothing was really stopping me from creeping out and venturing into the wilderness that first day, after Master Ping let me be….

Nobody would have come after me.

What would my life have been like?

I don’t wonder at all what life would have been like, if I never came here in the first place, No, if I stayed on Earth, I could tell you how the rest of my life would have gone…

I’m grateful for this new life.

A chance to live my best life.

Mmm. If I’m going to live my life here, I should probably get more comfortable quarters at some point, get some clothes I like…

As everyone piled into the cafeteria, Booker joined the other cripples. As he slid in line next to Sister Mei, he asked, “Sister Mei, have you ever crossed a bridge made of moonlight?”

She turned back with a curious look. “What a strange question? But no, never.”

“Hmmm.” Booker wondered. Does that mean anything? The attack tried to erase itself from my mind… She might not remember…

But it’s entirely possible it was targeted specifically at me.

They collected their food and sat down. “How did your examination go?” Sister Mei asked.

“Ah, I passed.” Booker was happy to declare. “It was difficult. I think Instructor Eastlight might be the toughest teacher in the school…”

“You passed!?” Sister Mei asked. “I heard Eastlight got called in, and she failed everyone!”

“Ahh. That might be something of a rumor, I don’t think…” But Booker had to admit, it was plausible. “She seemed to like me, at least. I guess I might have been the only one.”

“That’s incredible!” She gasped out, shaking his shoulder. “Eastlight is impossible, how did you sweet talk her?”

I don’t think it’s a matter of talking. She just likes people who prove themselves against her tricks…

“Eastlight is a special kind of intense, sure.” Booker partially agreed. “But she’s not as bad as some of the others. She’s paying attention to how you do, not how much you suck up to her.”

“Brother Rain is so sure of himself. Oh, he says, she’s not as bad, and meanwhile she’s famous through the whole school for being a cruel tyrant. Haaa…” Mei rolled her eyes and sighed, settling her chin on her hand to pout.

Together they ate, and after cleaning up, Booker departed for the laboratory.

It was there that he found Greenmoon waiting, along with Wei Qi working to stoke the furnaces. He’d brought his multi-lensed device again.

“Ah, Rain.” Greenmoon rose from his chair, taking a small badge from his pocket. “Stand up straight. Take a moment to breath. And celebrate. Because today, you have climbed a step on the great path up the mountain.”

He pinned it to Booker’s robes. It was a small token of carved red timber, shined with gloss until it nearly reflected his face. It took the shape of a grasshopper, perched on a furnace.

Booker smiled.

“I remember when I passed the Grasshopper examination. Ah, it truly is a proud milestone.” Greenmoon praised. “And the merit you won in Instructor Eastlight’s eyes is not to be overlooked. She came away with a fond impression, and spoke a few words to me.”

“I truly appreciate such kindness.” Booker bowed his head.

“As well you should. Your star is rising in the Sect, my apprentice. Soon – sooner than you may be ready for – the eyes of the Elders will be upon you.” Greenmoon promised him. “You will shine. You have the right… Ah, it’s unfathomable, but clever eyes accustomed to watching over students learn to see it. I think we all give it it’s own name. I’ve always thought of it as ‘destiny’. The only thing that remains is to finish this refinement technique.”

“If the Instructor Greenmoon praises me so, I can only fight to live up to his faith. We should be on track to finish it today, and demonstrate it to the Elders tomorrow.” Booker said, glancing to Wei Qi. “We’ve had some breakthroughs in perfecting the technique.”

“Excellent, excellent.” Greenmoon moved back to his many-lensed device, a box on legs with a porthole to peer through. “Begin your process.”

Booker and Wei Qi glanced at each other, and nodded. There was no doubt that today they would have to produce a success.

“Let’s observe yesterday’s samples first.” Booker suggested.

Rushing to retrieve them and place them on a small stool where Greenmoon’s device could examine them closely, Wei Qi explained, “The reduction to ash is less substantial, actually leaving much of the material intact. While the smell is still repugnant, it is notably less acrid to the eyes and nose. We’re definitely making progress at a rapid rate…”

He glanced to Booker, queuing him up to deliver the conclusion.

“Instructor Greenmoon’s report was essential, allowing us to introduce the element of stone tools. I believe Wei Qi has also brought rendered fat and butter from sacred cows to introduce today, adding to our odds of success.” Booker dutifully spread praise in all directions. “Today, Wei Qi will try hammering to the rhythm of a hymn dedicated to ancient gods.”

Taking their tools, they began to draw the furnace-tempered tubes of bamboo salt, using the remnants of the fire in the furnace to start a blaze on a bed of pine wood. When it had burned down to ash, the both of them sitting against the wall sweating as they watched the flame billow, they placed the bamboo tubes down and began to break them apart to stone hammers. They followed the rhythm of an ancient prayer they both knew, an appeal to ancient gods of the valley to bring rain….

“Lift the tempo.” Greenmoon instructed, but a moment later he’d changed tracks entirely. “No, slow it down. Slower… Slower!”

They lifted their hammers at a snail’s pace, striking down only once in a dozen breaths…

“Too slow, too slow.”

Eleven…

“Faster!”

Ten.

“Yes. hold that tempo. The readings are right!” Greenmoon cackled. “We’ve locked on properly now. This is a fine refinement technique… the consecrated soil of ancient temples…”

Booker grimaced, but held the pace as they broke up the salt, grinding it down to sparkling fragments dusted over the bed of ash and embers. As they mixed the two together, Wei Qi began scooping up bucket-fulls and mixing in fat and butter to solidify into a waxy soap.

Soon the ingredients – an earth-aligned feldspar – had been encased in molten soap, and that soap transferred to bowls placed upside down on the floor. Rushing to and from the well with buckets, they cooled the bowls down as fast as they could.

When the formed soap was forced from the bowl in a perfect dome and chiseled open, their first three ingredients came out as piles of disintegrating ashy material. The fourth, however, split out of the ashen soap as an intact shard of glittering crystal.

Compared to before, the crystal simply seemed more lustrous, to catch the light with more gleam and glitter. Anyone who touched it could feel a faint heat that would never be extinguished.

Internally, Booker could only sigh. He’d made some attempts to escape this, but in the end, Greenmoon’s pressure was just too much for him to resist without a full-blown revolt against the Instructor. In the end, there’s worse things than winning acclaim within the Sect. It’s just that it will make it harder to leave the Mantis Sect behind.

Straightening up, Booker declared, “The refinement was successful.”

Greenmoon could only laugh with joy, a long maniacal laugh, not ending until he had descended to pluck the refined feldspar from Booker’s hand and examine it closely. “Yes! Yes… This is something the Elders cannot ignore. A genuine breakthrough! You don’t understand how precious this is. You are young, and don’t know the worth, but this will etch our names into history.”

And your name first, no doubt. Booker thought. “Does the Sect truly value refinement techniques so highly?” He asked.

“It’s a matter of economics. Refined ingredients are never without value – cultivation is a hungry path, and generations of young disciples eat Sects dry. Make no mistake, the generosity the Sect shows you is a constant burden to maintain, but we do it to make way for the next generation, a Sect’s lifeblood. In terms of trade between Sects, refined ingredients are valuable and always in demand. But our production of such things is bottlenecked by three factors: the training of our alchemists, the number of refinement techniques known, and the initial materials. So we are forced to rely on outsiders for much of our material…” Greenmoon chuckled happily, polishing the feldspar against his robe and examining it once again through a small lens. “This technique, which requires no cultivation, and is for an element we previous possessed no refinement techniques for… This will loosen the noose the northern merchant Sects have us in, by allowing us to refine more of our own materials.”

“Ah, when the Instructor explains, it’s very simple.” Wei Qi praised.

“Hmm. Listen to me. Economics will give you a new appreciation for alchemy. In this world, there is merit, an exact worth to all things. You can stack bricks and when they become a house, that house will hold greater merit than the bricks by themselves. Alchemy is like this… a way of creating great worth from humble things…”

Something tells me back on Earth, Greenmoon would have gotten along just fine for himself.

“Instructor Greenmoon looks at things from a higher level. We were considering how one person might enrich themselves, but he looks at how the benefit could grow when spread across the entire Sect…” Booker usually avoided dealing in flattery, but there was something he wanted: “In that case, would it be possible to train a few cripples in this refinement technique? Since they’re already unable to cultivate, wouldn’t it give the Sect a new way to make value out of what it already has?”

Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

“Hmm. Is that what you want? I can see if the other Instructors are willing – yes, it would be a better use of them than sweeping the floors.” Greenmoon stepped past them, taking a long look around the laboratory.

But whatever he was going to say next was interrupted as a frantic knock sounded on the door. Booker pulled it open to see a messenger from the city beyond, leaning down to plant his hands against his knees and pant with exhaustion.

“Sorry sir but I’m looking for a cripple, Brother Rain?” He asked.

“Me?” Booker asked.

“Yes! Sir, this is from the hospital in the Estuary District.” The messenger straightened up and drew out a small bamboo slip with the doctor’s name written on it. “They’re being flooded with patients. Something’s wrong – the old man said there’s a sickness in the city.”

“A sickness?” Greenmoon stepped towards the door, gesturing for Booker to make way. “Tell me, what’s the rate of infection? How fast does it spread?”

As they piled out into the hall, Wei Qi following, the messenger clarified: “People are coming down with a shaking fever and dying within hours. It’s gone from one patient, to thirteen, since morning.”

Greenmoon’s mouth pinched. “Damn. That clinic is an affront to the Sect – and your associations there noted – but this is a serious enough matter to warrant intervention.”

“Sir, may I go there at once? I know I’m supposed to stay in the Sect –” Booker began, but Greenmoon cut him off.

“Your punishment is a stipulation of the Enforcers. I have no ability to stay it now. I will be going on my own, as soon as I can assemble the other Instructors and officially move to lend aid. If you wish to rush there – be my guest –” he waved his hand dismissively, “just be ready for the consequences that befall you.”

Booker nodded, and began to run.

By the time he arrived at the hospital he was gasping for breath, but he pushed the door open and stepped into a disaster zone. There were simply too many people in the entranceway, a tight-packed crowd sitting in the chairs and holding perfumed rags to their face. The smell…

The smell was vile.

Stepping into the next room, Booker saw bodies laid out on every available surface. He literally had to step between them to reach the doctor. They were groaning dumbly, unconscious but still twitching and shaking unsteadily in their sleep.

The doctor was using a handsaw to open a corpse down the middle. Booker had to wince when he saw the insides – things were still fresh and bloody. “What– What happened here?” He asked, shaking the doctor’s shoulder gently.

“Hard to say. But it’s spreading through the lower city fast.” The doctor looked tired. “More and more keep being found…”

“What can I do?” Booker was already rolling up his sleeves, looking down with horrified fascination at the raw inside – “Why do we have him cut open?”

“Have to find out what’s going on inside. Which of the organs is being affected, where the infection could be halted in a living one. I had nothing I could do, erm, for the first to arrive, nothing except hope generic cures might suffice.” Without needing to be asked, Booker stepped forward and helped the doctor lift his glasses up the bridge of his nose – the man’s own hands were soaked in black-red blood.

“And then they started dying?”

“Three died before– before I realized it was so serious. It leaves them comatose, nearly completely, so there weren’t many symptoms– I mean, I didn’t realize how bad it was until they…” The doctor trailed off, a miserable look of regret on his face. But his hands never shook.

“Nobody can cure a disease without knowing it.” Booker said, cutting off what he immediately read as the start of the doctor taking on a useless guilt. “And with an unknown disease… Some death is inevitable. Come on, tell me what we can do.”

And yet…

It feels like a few days ago, we had the opposite conversation. Him telling me that death is a horror.

The doctor gazed down into the open red cavity of the chest, reaching down with pliers to break open the ribs. Booker winced but kept his eyes open. He didn’t dare to look away – there was a grim fascination to the process.

Finally, when things had been unraveled, the doctor said, “... Inflammation of the liver. Whatever did this to them was ingested, likely, ahhhh…. But that gives us no hint to the cure…”

“So what do we do?” Booker asked, driving the man towards focus.

“Start trying cures for ingested poisons. Something to empty the stomach, then test herbs to cleanse the poisons that have already been absorbed.” The doctor had definitely rallied from the near-daze he’d been in when Booker entered. His voice was calm and authoritative again. “You, your alchemy is better than mine, so begin making possible cures. I’ll tend to the sick….”

Booker shook his head. “I have some things I need to hold back. Let me handle the testing as well, I’ll just take the worst patients and try the first cures on them.”

“Alright, just move fast.” The doctor confirmed.

Together they moved out into the foyer, where there were already people who were so still they might be dead. Booker took the side room where he’d worked before and began to quickly take stock of the hospital’s limited supplies. Taking what he could, he chopped, mixed in water, and began to form rough untempered pills.

But at the same time…

The feeling in his chest was like someone had reached a cold hand in to seize his heart. He was avoiding panic simply by staying in motion and not listening to the growing whisper that wanted total chaos. There were people groaning and whimpering constantly in the background. There was no moment he could breathe without hearing their lives tick down.

The Sect will arrive… soon, I hope…

Yes, we just need to hold until the Sect arrives.

And I know we can, even with these pitiful medicine reserves, because this is an ingested sickness. I should be able to… I have to find a way to remove it with Dialyze.

As he was working on the next round of potential cures, the doctor shouted – “This one’s started to seize! Take him quickly!”

As Booker hustled into the surgery, he found an old, weather-beaten man with pockmarked skin shaking and thrashing against the table, his limbs jerking about like a doll on tangled strings. Together they hauled him through the foyer and into Booker’s space, laying him out. As soon as the doctor had departed Booker was closing the door and rolling up his sleeves.

This one… is too far gone to try anything experimental on. I might have been optimistic, thinking I’d have time to try the uncertain cures on the farthest gone – more likely I’ll have to triage the worst cases and try to get ahead enough that we can work on those who have more time, time I can use to narrow down the possibility and try cures…

Dialyze… will only work so many times.

He put his hands over the man’s chest and focused. Dialyze!

The magic spun into existence, a blade of free-flowing, fast spinning water. For a moment of hesitation Booker held it above the man’s chest and then– he slowly pushed it down.

The blade sunk through skin without cutting, leaving nothing but a faint rippling as the hairs on the skin were pulled at by the spiral current within the water. It was totally able to pass through flesh without doing any harm.

Booker held that pose for a moment, but there was no change in the man’s condition yet. Nor had anything changed about the disk of water. Trying to figure out how this part of the ability worked, Booker moved it up and down the man’s chest, watching as flecks of black began to fill the water, coming up from beneath the man’s skin with the rotation of the disk.

As he approached the liver, more and more blackness emerged into the water. The disk began to shake in his hands, requiring more focus to hold steady, until it was like there was a tight pressure constricting his skull as he continued to move the water downwards. Black flakes, dust, and liquid were all emerged in great unsteady glurgles, forming thick bubbles within the water that slowly dissolved.

But as he moved directly over the liver, a thick jet of black shot through the water, more and more emerging as the water dissolved it down to dust, and then to nothing.

There’s the source of the infection. It must be ingested, alright.

The man had ceased to thrash about, and his tensed muscles were beginning to sink back down beneath his sweat-coated skin. Dialyze at least worked fast, but Booker had already felt the beginnings of exhaustion creeping into his soul. He needed to get through the dying fast, so he could work on people who could be saved by lesser medicine.

“Is anyone else ready?” He called out to the doctor.

But it wasn’t until he’d already stabilized two more dying patients that the fourth finally arrived in stable condition. By then, Booker was dripping with sweat and starting to feel his pulse, too heavy, thrumming away in the confines of his skull, making his mind ache and spin.

The fourth patient was a woman, very clearly a prostitute by how she was dressed. Between treating the last patients Booker had managed to prepare the medicinal pastes and simmer them down into broths that could be more easily consumed. Now he tilted her head back and poured a shallow bowlful of bitter medicinal tincture down her throat.

It was the first cure – an antibiotic.

Despite the cause being ingested, it was still very possibly bacterial. Plenty of foul diseases spread in Mantis City simply because, far enough away from the river, many of the local wells were easily polluted with diseases. They became vectors by which entire communities perished.

And that has to be the most likely answer, yes? An entire community – these people are all poor, and all from the same district – becoming sick at once? You have to look for a high volume vector that could get this many people at once. The local well… That’s the most obvious culprit.

But even as Booker sat there, waiting, the woman didn’t improve. Instead she began to cough, to choke, her breath tightening and constricting in her chest until she was thrashing with the need to breathe, coughing up black-tined bile. When Booker couldn’t wait any longer – even in the hopes the medicine would begin to act – he pulled the poison out directly.

That was… number four…

Immediately he sagged back as the water crashed into the empty stone basin nearby, leaving undestroyed remnants of the pollution coating the basin like black slime. Total exhaustion was running through his system for a moment, carrying him towards the ground as colors intensified to white and shadows sank into blacks.

After a moment he managed to get back up, rolling onto his feet. The drain on his soul was only mild most of the time. It felt a little like being really, truly, bone-deep tired, and in a way it was a good feeling, making sleep feel more intensely refreshing. This was something else… past the point of healthy exercise and into self-destruction.

Can’t keep going like this…

But it's not a bacterial pathogen. I know that much now. And…

What does that leave?

“Brother Rain! We have another one in spasms!” The doctor yelled from the other room. The time between incidents was speeding up – they had been lucky so far that none of the seizures had struck while they were already trying to stabilize another patient.

But as Booker crossed into the foyer, he realized their luck had run out.

One of the patients in the chairs – the ones who had arrived here first – was shaking and slumped over, beginning to slide out of their chair towards the ground. On the floor where people were lying, one had been overcome by small, aggressive trembles, twitching violently in place.

“Doctor, we have two more!” Booker called out. “Help me get them in, and I’ll take the first one back.”

Together they struggled against bodies that could no longer cooperate, stumbling to step between the tight-packed patients on the floor. Already, Booker could see more than one who’d developed twitches and trembles.

As the door shut behind him, Booker agonized. If I save him now… Will I even be left standing? Will I be able to test the cures I’ve designed, and find the ultimate solution? Or… did I make a mistake even saving as many as I did… Should I have let them die to study the cure…

Grimacing, Booker bit back the urge to fall into doubt and recrimination. He was naturally analytical but… There was such a thing as using self-judgment to tear yourself apart.

This is a disaster. What matters is… I save as many as I can. My decisions towards that end…

They can come later.

He conjured the sparkling water of Dialyze between his hands, and began to drill through skin to extract the black bile within, dragging up thin threads of ash and dust that dissolved quickly while fragments of bubble-thick tar hung in the wash of water for seconds at a time.

When it was done…

Booker sagged down and sat against the wall, sweat dripping down his head. Exhaustion was keeping his eyes held shut by ten ton weights. He could only blink them open for a half-second at a time, dimly seeing through his own eyelashes. The floor felt cold and comforting under his sweat-soaked cheek as he slumped over…

But I can’t go to sleep. Not yet.

The doctor’s going to call any second. Two patients. I can try two cures…

If it’s not bacteria, it has to be a poison or allergy. One of them… should live…

His thoughts turned in circles, but he kept coming back to those thoughts until he heard the doctor’s voice in the distance. Pushing himself up, Booker wiped drool from his mouth and stumbled to help the doctor get two more bodies into the room.

With shaking hands, he took the bowls of medicinal tincture and poured them down the patients’ throats.

But by the time those medicines took effect, Booker had already slumped back down, his head against the wall, dreaming thin dreams and getting so little rest that he felt tired even in his sleep.

It wasn’t until the door swung open that Booker surfaced from sleep, cold sweat trickling out of his eyes as they blinked open.

Red robes. Alchemists from the Sect. Neatly-labeled medicine jars in heavy leather cases, being unloaded. Every face was concealed behind a perfumed wrap of bandages, a kind of improvised mask.

Booker struggled to stand, but one of the alchemists kneeled in front of him, holding a perfume-soaked cloth to his face. “Junior brother, you shouldn’t be here without protection.” They said.

Booker shook his head. “It’s not a plague. It’s a poison… Which… who lived?” He asked, looking up at the tables where he’d laid his two patients. The angle from the floor was too steep to see any details, but neither of them were moving obviously.

“The woman died. The man… his condition is bad but he’s no longer seizing.”

Grabbing the man’s shoulder, Booker helped himself stand, pushing past the alchemist to approach the man directing the operations – an alchemist in more lavish senior robes, who was observing the two patients and making notes in a small book.

“It’s an ingested allergen.” Booker blurted out, with no formalities.

Despite the clear violation of formality, the alchemist seemed inclined to listen. “Interesting. What specific allergen do you think could have spread so quickly?”

For a moment Booker didn’t think anything–

And then, slowly, a thought began to emerge. Because he couldn’t answer, but the book could. Somewhere in its pages was every herb or medicine known to this Sect. And one of those pages was familiar to Booker.

It was a poor district…

A lot of people seeking relief.

It was a district where Zheng Bai operated.

And the base ingredient of Blue Heaven Pills, whispering pine tar, was violently allergenic. Not on its own – and not combined with alchemical ash – but when combined with other common fillers, or even worse, with certain herbs that gave a kick of toxicity and potency…

When you were trying to get your batch of drugs out with improvised ingredients…

It could happen.

“Whispering pine tar.” He gasped out. “This– this is the work of a local drug baron. Zheng Bai…”

The man gave Booker a slow regarding look, then turned to his apprentices. “Treat for whispering pine tar. Blue salamander extract and false kirin grass should do.”

But when he looked back to Booker the sympathy was gone from his eyes. “As for the rest…”

“I’ll kindly forget you said anything.”