The novitiate lectures were held on the first floor. Above were the outer-sect lectures, and above them were the inner-sect.

Presently, the novitiate’s hall was packed full. There were no less than 2000 novitiates present. With the sheer amount, it was inevitable that some would be from the crowd that he had scammed the day before. Song Yi did his best to conceal his face as he found a seat near the back.

The lesson was being taught by a female outer-sect disciple, who stood at a lectern in the front. After a while, Song Yi had tuned her out. The lecturer was going on and on about methods of collecting Qi, as well as some basic information about essences. Given that none of it was new to him, his mind had wandered elsewhere. It was brought back though when she asked a question of the crowd.

“How many of you have passed the first gate, the Gate of Man?”

Only a few dozen disciples raised their hands. Song Yi didn’t raise his hand, as he didn’t want to draw attention to himself, but he was surprised at how many hadn’t. The lecturer continued.

“Not bad. Those of you who have passed within only these few months can be considered talented. As for the rest of you, don’t be hasty. I myself took a year and a half before I faced my tribulation, and that’s not abnormal. Attempting to force your way through the gate early will only increase your chances of failure.”

Song Yi’s eye twitched. “Hey, geezer, did you hear that?”

The monarch didn’t respond.

“She just said that most people take over a year before passing the Gate!”

“What point are you trying to make?”

“You let me do that less than a week from the time I joined the sect?”

“I didn’t LET you do anything, you entered it because you were ready. That’s all.”

“If I’d died, you would’ve to!”

“But you didn’t die! And look, now you’re one step closer to my being able to leave.”

Song Yi scowled. Wasn’t this old man a bit too unreliable?

While he’d been bickering, the lecturer had continued.

“We have something special today,” she was saying. “You all will be allowed to see a medicinal pill that is unique to our sect.”

As she said this, two men walked up to the front. One was a novitiate. The other was a middle-aged man wearing a robe that had inverted colours — mostly white, with a blue half-moon on the back.

Song Yi had never seen this kind of robe since joining the sect, but he had heard of alchemists. They mostly occupied the space of the thirteenth land mass.

“Inner Sect Disciple Hu here has offered to share one of the pills he himself created.”

The alchemist took a pill bottle out of his robe. Held within was a pure white pill.

“This pill works two-fold,” the alchemist said. “First, it aids in reaching the meditative state required to pass through the Gate of Man. Second, it replenishes Vital Qi, allowing one to face the tribulation with ease.”

A mutter ran through the crowd as many of the novitiates thirsted for the pill. After all, the Gate of Man was daunting — a matter of life and death, yet unavoidable if one wished to continue on the path of cultivation.

Song Yi didn’t care much for the pill. After all, it didn’t matter to him. However, Wang Anzhou’s reaction was different.

“Brat, you can’t allow them to use that pill.”

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

“What? Why not?”

“It’s defective! Just listen to me!”

Song Yi cursed.

“Old man, you better help me escape if this goes wrong.”

“It won’t go wrong! Now do it!”

By now, the novitiate at the front was holding the pill in his hand, ready to swallow it.

“Stop!” Song Yi shouted.

Every head in the room whipped around to see who it was that would interrupt at this time.

“Sit down!” the outer-sect disciple lecturer snapped. “If you want your own pill, you’ll have to buy one. Don’t interrupt during this time!”

Song Yi was walking down the aisle towards the front, and as he did, the crowd caught sight of his face.

“It’s him! That’s the guy that scammed us yesterday!”

“So he’s that Song Yi that everyone’s been talking about?”

Hearing them muttering between themselves, Song Yi realized that his shenanigans may have been more impactful than he anticipated.

Them, he didn’t care about. But on the other hand, he was still afraid to look around the room for fear of seeing Su Bai. Still, he pushed all that out of his mind. There were more important matters at the moment.

The lecturer also noticed the crowd’s reaction to this novitiate’s appearance. Clearly, she thought, he was just a wastrel looking for trouble.

“I don’t care what you do outside this hall. But in here, you want to usurp our authority and scam us?” she said.

“That pill is defective,” was Song Yi’s only reply.

The alchemist scoffed. He wasn’t going to get involved at first, but if he was going to be questioned like this, he didn’t have much choice.

“And a brand new novitiate like yourself presumes to know more about alchemy than me because?”

Song Yi glowered. This was the kind of person that annoyed him the most.

“Hey,” he said in his mind to the monarch, “You told me to come down here, when are you going to help out?”

“Alright, say what I say.”

Song Yi did so. “Look at the coating on that pill. It’s bumpy and rough.”

“And? Stop stalling!” the alchemist cut in.

“If it weren’t for your rude interruption, perhaps all of us would’ve saved some time and the exposition of your half-baked ineptitude would’ve come sooner!”

“I’m not saying that!” Song Yi snapped at the monarch.

“Say it!”

“No!”

Song Yi felt a burning sensation in his forehead, the herald of the crown mark's appearance.

“Fine! Fine!”

He didn’t want to offend this inner-sect disciple alchemist, but he was far more afraid of the ancient discarnate emperor in his head.

He said it.

Immediately, the robes of Song Yi, the lecturer, and any others near the alchemist began to flap around uncontrollably.

Song Yi felt his knees buckle as the furious Qi of the alchemist permeated the air.

“Very well,” the man’s voice was cold as death. “Go on then.”

At this point, Song Yi didn’t dare to stray a word from what the monarch told him to say.

“The ingredients used in this pill are simple. Bluegrass, winterfern leaves, distilled spirit-lake water as well as the salamander stomach lining.”

When Song Yi said the word “salamander,” more than a few faces in the crowd darkened.

The alchemist, though, was shocked for a moment. He hadn’t expected this novitiate to know this much. But, he thought with a smirk, it still wasn’t enough.

“As expected of a nobody, you’re missing three ingre-”

“You’ve added irontree root for stability, crushed rainbowflower petals for more vitality, and direbee honey to make the concocting process easier. While these sins are forgivable, given your lack in the craft, they will dilute the effectiveness of the pill somewhat.”

After this, the alchemist began to feel nervous. It was at the point where even the crowd realized something was wrong.

“If it’s only going to dilute the effectiveness, then what are you making a scene for?” the man hung on to his last line of hope.

“I’m glad you asked,” Song Yi smiled. The killing intent from before had disappeared by now, and he was enjoying the feeling he got from schooling a senior, even if it wasn’t with his own words.

“The problem is your balance of the ingredients! Even with the irontree root and direbee honey, your amateurish handling of the balance caused combustion. The salamander stomach lining is there to mitigate this combustion, but because you put in too much crushed rainbowflower petal, it got out of control and boiled the distilled spirit lake water.”

By now, the crowd was completely incapable of following Song Yi’s words, but they could see the alchemists face. One word was written all over it: Shame.

And Song Yi was still talking.

“If that pill were to be consumed by a novitiate who had yet to pass through the Gate of Man, the Vital Qi contained within would erode their Qi passageways and create a leakage that could prove fatal without immediate treatment from an alchemist far more qualified than yourself, the man who would’ve placed him in this predicament!”