“Yang Shao,” the young cultivator muttered, introducing himself. He picked his gold coin up off the bar and held it out toward the scholar. “Here. I don’t like being in debt to people.”

“If you insist,” Xiahou Ren said, casually pocketing the gold coin. “You’ll probably want to see a money changer soon. Sure, silver and gold doesn’t mean much to people like us, but you don’t want to lose a gold coin every time you have to buy something.”

“You mean cultivators?”

Strangely, the customers at the bar quickly began to thin out as several people paid their bills and left the restaurant with their bowls still half-filled. Something about the conversation between the two men seemed to unsettle the other customers. Shao wondered if conversations between cultivators frequently turned violent in Zhoushan.

“Naturally. So, are you here to become a disciple of Shigong Temple?” Xiahou Ren asked.

“How did you know?”

“There’s only one reason for an unaligned cultivator to arrive in Zhoushan City this time of year. Tomorrow’s the big day, after all.”

Shao was about to ask what Xiahou Ren was talking about, but he was growing tired of constantly asking questions. Instead, he searched his memory and made a guess at what the scholar was talking about.

“The Rite of Initiation?” Shao asked. He intended to phrase his words as a statement, but his poorly-concealed uncertainty added an interrogative inflection to the final word.

“Precisely. There are about two hundred cultivators in the city right now, and they’re all waiting for the Rite to begin.”

“Sounds dangerous.”

“Oh, yes. I heard there’s a group running around that’s been attacking lone cultivators like you or me.”

The store owner placed two beef bowls and two sets of chopsticks on the bar in front of Shao and Ren. Even though Ren’s words worried Shao, the sight of the feast in front of his eyes put a smile on his face. Shao separated the chopsticks with his teeth and passed the first slice of beef to Zero.

“How do I know that I can trust you, Xiahou Ren? As far as I know, you might lead me into an ambush. Unless I see some concrete proof that this isn’t a trap, I won’t go with you anywhere.”

“You’re smarter than you look,” Xiahou Ren said with a smile that caused the hairs on Shao’s neck to stand up. “Here’s your concrete proof.”

This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings.

Ren reached into his pocket and deposited a small object wrapped in a wide leaf on the bar. Of all the myriad tools, weapons, and objects used in cultivation, this was one of the few that Shao recognized: a healing pill.

“That cost me three spirit stones. No one in their right mind would spend a healing pill just to take out a competitor. Take that as proof I’m really on your side.”

Shao measured his options and balked at the immense stroke of luck he was experiencing. If he swallowed that pill, he wouldn’t have to undergo the Rite of Initiation with a broken arm. That pill could be the difference between life and death for Shao. He had no idea just what level of tribulation he would be forced to undergo the next day. Sure, Shen Jian said that he was in no real danger from the Rite itself, but he could always be attacked by a gang of Lianqi.

“Can I really take this?” Shao said. He poked the pill gingerly, and he could feel the dull ache in his arm more acutely.

“Yes,” Xiahou Ren said, though it was clear he was concealing his disappointment at the prospect of losing such a valuable resource.

Shao grabbed the pill and popped it in his own mouth. He groaned as a warm sensation spread through his arm and face. The sensation in his arm was tinged with pain as the bones in his arm knitted back together. Luckily for Shao, the process only lasted a few seconds.

Just as the pain and burning warmth subsided, Shao moved his arm to test if any pain remained. His arm tore out of the cloth sleeve he was using as a cast, revealing his bare arm. He was wearing the same set of robes from when he fought the divine bull, and his sleeve was still missing from when it was torn off by Shen Jian.

Like last time, none of the earlier pain remained after Shao consumed the healing pill. He flexed his arm and tore the bamboo splint off his forearm to allow for his arm to move more freely.

“I’m in your debt,” Shao said as he bowed his neck to Xiahou Ren. “I will do my best to repay you.”

With a full stomach, Shao walked out of the restaurant back into the packed streets of Zhoushan. Now that he was out of that enclosed space, he rotated his recently-healed arm and felt immense satisfaction as his under-utilized joints popped quietly.

“Once we get back to base, I’ll introduce you to the others and we can go over our game plan for tomorrow,” Xiahou Ren said.

Shao was confused slightly by the foreign word Xiahou Ren inserted between “our” and “plan,” but he still understood the sentence without the word.

“If we’re going to be working together, then I should probably know how strong you are.” Shao’s instinctual sense of strength and his deductive reasoning were in disagreement over Xiahou Ren’s level of power. Immediately upon seeing the scholar, Shao could have sworn that Ren and he were about equivalent in strength, but his strategy of building up allies implied that he was much weaker.

“Seven-star, like you,” Ren responded with a nonchalant shrug.

Shao blinked in confusion. “My mentor told me I’m just a six-star.”

“Then you must have ascended a step without knowing it.”

Shao recalled the moment after he ate the divine bull’s heart and how he felt a surge of strength. That must have been the moment that he ascended to the seventh step of the first realm.

“How can you tell? My mentor’s a Jindan, and he had to measure my strength to know how strong I was.”

“I’m a disciple of the Path of the Endless Web, which focuses extensively on honing our enhanced senses and ki detection. When I look at you, I can tell that you’re a seven-star Lianqi and that you have a bloodline talent.”