On his way to the back to the inn Gabe heard several excited conversations about the Coming Channeler tests. He paused for a moment to listen to one while pretending he was busy digging through his Space pouch. "Yeah I've heard the news!" A young and beautiful looking Channeler said to a man holding her hand. They were both Champion Realm Channelers, though the woman was a level ahead. "It's all the merchants could talk about today. Apparently The Golden-Chaos family is low on acolytes." She said mockingly. The man shrugged. "But the prizes are pretty good. And their taking anybody from Apprentice to master." Gabe smiled, Channeler tests were competitions held by Family houses and sometimes Leagues. They would search for the most talented Channelers and then hand pick the cream of the crop for Acolytes. Acolytes were non Family Servants of the House. They would receive the house's protection, living means, a yearly salary, and training just like a member of the House. But they would have to agree to a Spirit contract stating they would forever be loyal to the family or League and that they would not Ascend into the Sun for a thousand years after they reached their peak. This allowed Families to have powerhouse Deity Realm channelers that hadn't ascended working for them at all times. For a poor talented Channeler this was a good deal. As the training and access to high purity Treasure lands they would receive would probably shave off a thousand years of their Cultivation anyways. And the protection of a powerful house was nothing to scorn.

Still many felt this was just another way for the powerful families to serve themselves, as acolytes were sworn to obedience to all members of the Family they worked for. And could never take a leading roll. They were used mostly as enforcers and always took the front line when the Families went to war with each other. Gabe wasn't interested in becoming a servant to anyone, and if he wanted protection he would go back to his own family. The moment he showed them that he could hold Ten Soul beasts they would welcome him back like a long lost Brother. The Hellvine family believed deeply in power, and it was no doubt Gabriel was on his way to becoming the most powerful Channeler of his generation. With ten Soul-Beasts and his increased strength he could defeat at least a dozen of anyone his realm and level or likely at least one opponent a full realm above him. But the prizes interested him in this match. The Families always offered good prizes to entice as many people as they could to try out. The more contenders the better chances they had of getting powerful Channelers to show. Gabe would definitely contend if he could, though his Channeler's mark might be a problem. But he would take the prize and leave. No life binding contracts for him. He wasn't interested in being a part of any family or organization, not anymore.

Arriving at the inn, Gabe greeted the respectful mundane and went up the dark stairway to his room. He opened the door to a stockpile of cheep artifacts and potted herbs by the window. Colin was sitting on the only bed meditating. Gabe went to wake him and tell him about the competition but stopped himself, he really needed to stop doing that to his friend. He’d wait until Colin woke on his own. Gabe busied himself with training his arts for the next few hours. “So your back, did you make a fortune this time?” Colin said after he came out of his cultivation to see Gabe still going at it. Gabe turned from his practice to look at the still siting Colin. “I spent way more than I earned this time getting you that thing you wanted.” Colin rose his brows. “you mean you actually bought it, I thought we were still short by three whole silvers.” Gabe smiled, a mugger kindly gave me almost exactly what I needed after I left Mr burnlocks shop. And Mr burnlock had already given me every penny he had with him. Here it is.’ Gabe took out the life bead he had in his pocket. It was the size of a thumbnail, and glowed with a faint white aura. He gave it to Colin carefully, since it cost him every penny they had made since they got here and smiled. Colin laughed, “I cant rap my mind around it, where I come form these beads literally rain from the sky every mounth or so, but on the chaos continent they cost twenty silver coins each… thank you Gabe I know that was more your money than it was mine.” Gabe shook his head. “if you don’t make breakthroughs, you wont get any stronger. and what good is a weak slave.” Colin clenched his teeth at that remark, and tried not to retort at the sting of being called a slave. No matter how true it was, he would never get used to his reality.

Gabe also mentioned his plan to enter the competition , but Colin had very little to say on the subject, he offered to fight in the Competition if Gabe wanted him to but his cultivation was nearing a new stage, and with so little life energy around him he would need to stay focused for the next few weeks to actually make it into the next stage, otherwise he could lock up his cultivation in a half finished state. Gabe thanked him for the offer but knew it wasn’t a good idea. The life element was rare in the city, and he'd get noticed at the matches as well, which was attention they didn’t need. Once he became strong then they could show themselves, but now was not the time to attract the gaze of the city.

In the days that followed Gabe allowed himself to be distracted slightly from his training. he saw the Alchemist Ball he’d acquired as a sign. He knew absolutely nothing about it, but he had wanted to try his hand at the art of alchemy ever since he acquired the Beast trait to Channel His Perfect spirit energy into external objects. This trait was seen as the key to becoming a powerful alchemist. their were plenty of other various traits that could help and increase talent in the field, but This one was absolutely necessary for the masters to have, and not all were fortunate enough to gain it. To have it and not at least dabble in the art would feel like a waste of grate potential. The first thing Gabe did was sell a few more artifacts from his stock and use the money to buy a Thick book on the subject of alchemy and a very cheep Treasure pot. Treasure pots were a fairly common treasure that helped mix materials placed inside them. This one wasn't very big, only about the size of a lamp. It was taller then it was wide and was made from a black iron ore. The book was for beginners and immediately Gabe understood that he wasn't even that. It listed plants and Small beasts he'd never even heard of. And explained mixing processes in measurements he didn't know. He suddenly felt His grand idea was a flop. He was smart enough to realize that without a master to teach him all of this would take years to figure out. and he didn't have the money or time to pay for a teacher. He sat down in the rooms only chair beside the bed and took a breather. Perhaps it was best, he really didn't need anything else on his plate right now. He was already busy all day. He promised himself though that he would learn the art one day And become a very wealthy man. He knew the money he was earning now was nilch when compared with a quality alchemist’s pay. master alchemists were the pride and joy of any family, even though unskilled ones were a dime a dozen in any common city they still made a nice sum on low grade pills and potions. "You need poison kid." An old familiar voice sounded in Gabe's head. Sisfar had been very quiet recently. Ever since he'd seen Gabe explode his soul beasts to make room for new ones, he had started acting less cruel. His usually big mouth had closed, and Gabe didn't have to force him to shut up anymore, it was a welcome change. "What?" Gabe asked looking at the pot and book he had paid good money for. "You need the element of poison, almost every famous alchemist on primeway in history had the poison element." Sisfar stated calmly. "I don't know why you haven't gotten that element already, but if you get it you'll be able to handle chemicals better and have a better understanding of the art." Gabe nodded, he'd heard of some famous Poison Alchemists. But he hesitated to aquire the element because it had a bad rep. Poison Channelers were hated by society. their methods and abilities were the cruelest known element.

Poison Channelers were known to kill underhandedly. By assassination or trickery, sometimes using a poison that would kill so slowly it took months of Pain and puking blood to die. Or using a poison that didn't kill, it just permanently Crippled the opponent and paralyzed them for life. Some were known for mixing certain Beast blood into their death potions and changing Men into beasts... though that one was more myth then fact. The hellvine family was the only family that openly sought poison Channelers, all the other families did so in secret. "If you would like, I can teach you what I know about the craft." Sisfar said with a smiling voice. Gabe almost swallowed his tongue from the shock and distaste of that statement. "You know alchemy?" He asked. Sisfar grunted. "I know the basics. I once killed a master Alchemist who was working on a poison that would actually work on demons. The Sorry Jack ass was pretty close too. I took all his research and spent a hundred years trying to recreate his experiments, after all something like that needed to be in the right hands." He let out a sinister chuckle, most demons were immune to poison. It being the fundamental element of all of their kind. If he'd gotten hold of a poison that could kill demons he thought he could have ruled over them like a king. Sisfar pushed away his memories of the past, all that was gone now that he'd been stupid enough to think he could hide in this bottle. "I didn't even get close though, surprisingly enough Alchemy is not something you learn over night." Gabe grinned from ear to ear. "Sisfar! How Come you didn't tell me you could actually be useful." All the bottle answered was a grunt. "What else do you know that could help me?" Gabe asked. Taking control over the soul beast and making him tell the truth. "Not much." He answered sounding a bit strained. "I've been in this bottle a long time. Everything I knew before wouldn't even be relevant today. And we demons don't usually take the time to learn Skills. To many cities to burn and all." demons fought and lived like animals and beasts, they paid little attention to arts and skill.

Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original.

The next few days Gabe tried to take instruction from Sisfar, but found it hard to even pay attention to the nasty voice of the devil. But after buying a weak venom frog from the market and bonding it in his soul room he allowed Sisfar to guide him on the basics of alchemy. Gabe discovered that picking up the measurements and language wasn't the hard part with a teacher to explain. The hard part was actually mixing things in the Treasure pot. Standing at the short table in his room Sisfar instructed him on a list of herbs he should put into the container, in precise order. First Bunt root in two parts, then Smelling nectar in one part, then three different Beast bloods One after the other in perfect amounts. Gabe was thankful all of this stuff was cheep. Finally he had to stir the mixture with a pacific tool that allowed Spirit energy to flow from his hands into the concoction. "This is just a low grade healing agent." Sisfar explained. "To make anything worth money you need to burn out the impurities, and that will take more then a mixing pot. Or you can sift out some of the impurities with your poison Channeling, but it won't be as potent as an Alchemist furnace or Treasure flame would make it." Gabe channeled perfect Spirit energy into the pot while at the same time using his poison Channeling to sift out the impurities and bring them into the top where he could scoop them out slowly. This took an hour to finish and when it was done Sisfar had him throw it out. He'd need to start again. With better focus on what he was doing. “you almost had it on your first try.” Sisfar said. “that rune really must have turned you into a genius at everything.”

Gabe's metal strength was better then most as he'd spent half his life fighting an overwhelming fear and honing his focus to control his soul beast, but Alchemy pushed him to his limits. Colin watched with rapt interest as he tried to learn the art, putting off his move training so he would have the time. Gabe spent hours every day mixing and channeling, learning and memorizing. He even found himself slacking on his Cultivation sometimes, though he justified it with the knowledge that the Giant's tear around his neck was still cultivating for him since alchemy took more precision then power and didn’t use all the energy he could cultivate with his soul beasts. Two months passed like this, and it went much quicker then he realized, he was starting to make low quality Salves and pills now, which Sisfar said was just a tenth of the time it had taken him to learn. These wouldn't really help anyone but that was mostly because of the quality of materials he had on hand. Sisfar only knew a few basic recipes with cheep stuff, most of his knowledge was advanced recipes, recipes he’d stolen from renowned masters of the era before he was a ship in a bottle. and most Alchemist books in Gabe’s price range didn't give recipes just theory. As recipes were alchemists bread and butter and were only passed down to their personal students. Even the common well known recipes were kept for High quality and expensive books no poor boy could afford. and Creating recipes was out of the question, it required a lot of knowledge about the art, and about what you were mixing. How things mix, what reacts with what, the effects Spirit energy of any grade makes to the recipe. On top of that the impurities would need to be drawn out and the Cooling down time could take hours or days. Then their were metals. Metals always had an effect on Alchemy, and each one could produce different results in the same mixture. Gold was often the purest and most powerful to use which was why it was common money, but their were treasure metals to consider too. Gabe absorbed all this information as quickly as he could, his mind was racing with formulas, math, possible outcomes from the equations he did. and he decided to ignore most of it. His curiosity was getting to him. And his risk taking bone was itching to use the knowledge he had, he thought he might be able to actually make something with the Red plants he'd found. Since it was likely they were the most high grade herbs he could get his hands on right now, and he was itching to make something worth money. Sisfar was very opposed to it he made it clear that some plants and materials would become toxic or deadly when mixed incorrectly. Especially powerful ones. Not to mention the likely backlash of a failed mix with powerful materials, it could explode, or spread toxic fumes as its mixing. but Gabe thought that the power of it might be the saving grace, as even if he messed up as long as it was powerful enough the effect of the plant would still activate just not to it's full potential. In this way he could see what this plant could be used for or find out if it was useless. And he didn’t worry about a backlash as the red plant seamed to be placid and not at all volatile.

But even he had to admit it was a bit reckless since he couldn’t sense anything about the plants real nature, still he took out one of the red plants from his pouch and put it in the pot. What was the point of life without a little bit of danger? The top of it stuck out of the pot but he ignored it, the only reason he was using the whole plant was because no matter how hard he tried he couldn’t cut it or even pick off one of it’s leaves. This thing was tough. The more he considered it the more he saw just how Chancy doing this really was… and if Colin knew what he was doing he would try to stop him, but instead the man watched with a big grin on his face while sitting on the bed, blissfully unaware that the red plant could possibly explode and kill them both in the next ten minutes. Gabe pored a mid grade Beast blood into the pot with the plant, it was the blue blood of a Death Crow a very placid ingredient that didn’t mix bad or good with anything. Gabe put the thoughts of death by alchemy aside, He had to take this chance, something in him yearned to risk it, almost like fortune was rooting for him. He knew that whatever this plant was it was powerful, and He had a gut feeling that it could help him somehow. he felt like the heavens were watching and he decided he would try his best to surprise them. He sprinkled in Three flecks of copper fairy dust, it was more then he could afford, he had to sell almost his entire stock pile just to buy those three flecks, but he wasn't about to take this chance with weak materials. He refused to be cheep with his life at stake and his future waiting. Finally he took the Alchemist Ball out of his pouch and used his shrinking knife to cut off flakes. On a sudden impulse he laid down the knife and dropped the whole ball in there with a plop. "Easy come, easy go." He said quietly to the expensive material. "If you stir that pot we might all be going." Sisfar said to him sounding deeply worried. If Sisfar valued anything, it was his life. He knew from his observations that he couldn't stop this kid from doing what he got in his head to do, if he said anything about it he'd be forced into silence. But he prayed that the red plant wasn't some kind of poisonous, or deadly component.

Gabe started stirring the mixture, he was a Risk Taker. It's just who he was. And it was hard to argue against his mad decisions when you looked at the results. At least He thought so anyway. He poured perfect Spirit energy into to the mixture through the spoon, and focused with all his might at using his poison Channeling to cleanse out the impurities of the stewing mixture. Perfect Spirit energy often made the pot hot, and the blue blood he was stirring started to boil. The plant, which he could sense no impurities from stayed untouched for a while, and then when he was thinking of giving up it began to dissolve and sink into the Spirit energy powered concoction, this was the effect of the pot and only took about half an hour with most herbs, but took over thirty hours for this red mystery. The longest Gabe had spent Focusing his energy on a mixture was twelve hours, and that was a very particular Pill that helped focus your mind for a short period of time. Gabe was using that pill right now on his thirty third hour of stirring. He'd decided to channel as much perfect Spirit energy as he could into the mix. All materials had a limit to how much perfect spirit energy they could hold, and some recipes required that limit. Others however would be ruined if the limit was reached. This plant proved once again that it was no ordinary material by how much energy it was absorbing. Gabe was throwing the energy of Ten Soul beasts at it. Most mixes he'd made couldn't hold more then one hour's worth.

Finally forty nine hours later he felt his spirit energy flow stop. The purple liquid had boiled down in the bowl into a light purple powder. Gabe felt his fatigue hit him hard as his mind started to come back from the Trance like meditation he had gone into while stirring for so long, he hadn’t reached the limit of the plant, but instead his own limit for channeling had been reached. He looked up to see Colin in a Meditation pose, and tried to stop his arms from shaking. "All that work for maybe... Two pills worth of powder." He said looking at the remains of his experiment, it wasn’t much but at least he wasn’t dead. "Feel like you've accomplished something?" Sisfar asked. Gabe didn't answer, he set his tired hands to work gently poring the powder from the pot onto white pill paper. Pill paper was flavorless, thin paper made to roll into pills. There were other more expensive ways to make pills like different colored pill shells, some with extravagant taste. Or pill trays that allowed you to poor powder or paste into a pill sized hole and bake it into a solid pill itself. But Gabe had already spent too much money on this venture, he really didn't care if it looked like crap. If he wanted to sell it he would have made something he could guarantee, trying to sell Dangerous pills was a Crime that would get you hunted by more than just one family. He made exactly two pills, and his first thoughts were maybe one for Colin and one for him. But he wasn't THAT crazy!! His tired brain just needed some rest. He put the pills in his pouch and laid on the floor to rest his bloodshot eyes, two seconds later He was fast asleep.