Luli had burnt the toast. It was not her fault really. The fire array in the kitchen was being powered by a spirit stone but it had to be controlled by the cook’s own will. It was only her second day cultivating.

I had burst through the door early that morning. My interview with Fan had not taken long. At my cultivation sleep was still a necessary waste of time. By the time I had woken up, it was late afternoon. My leg was still bleeding. The ninja must have coated his knives in some kind of bleeding agent. Only the increased blood generation that came with my energy-focusing cultivation had prevented me from bleeding out. I had, however, successfully ruined my bed. The mattress was soaked through with blood.

I crunched down on the blackened toast Luli had made. She winced when she heard the sound. I didn’t mind I was too busy trying to prepare a technique to stop the bleeding in my leg.

I pinched the freshly plucked flower between my fingers. It was one of the few plants that grew in Asani in abundance. It was also one of the only readily available sources of wood qi.

This was more difficult than my trick with the flare had been, but the same principle applied. I drew the essence of the flower in through my meridians. The vibrant petals quickly crumbled into grey dust.

Isolating the wood qi was easy. It was more difficult to strain the pure life qi from the wood, but I had practised that thousands of times. The life qi did a full circulation of my body before I brought it back to my fingertips. I massed a flood of metal qi just behind it and then slapped my hand over my leg wound.

The Qi came out viscous. My leg was wrapped in a silvery goo with a tiny speck of vibrant green peeking through. The green speck was positioned over my cut and in an undirected almost brutish fashion, the life qi got to work healing the injury. The speck of green did not grow but pulled in the metal qi around it to sustain itself. It took every ounce of qi I had expelled but after a minute, the only thing left was a scar. It was the crudest form of healing technique, but it had saved me from more than one battlefield injury.

Luli had been watching, spellbound, her face getting closer and closer to my leg. Once the show was over, she blurted out, “When can I learn to do that?”

I pushed her head away from my leg with a finger and replied, “Not anytime soon. It took me years to master Qi cannibalization like that. You have not even been able to pull in a quarter of a bar of iron yet.”

Luli pouted and whined, “It just takes so long to pull in a speck of metal qi. It’s minutes before I manage to pull in a single mote. Then minutes more. The pain also makes it like water torture.”

I nodded and offered some comfort, “That’s a good start. With practice, it will become easier. Reliable extraction is a good sign.”

She had optimistically collected a pile of iron in the kitchen. One bar, that she had been working on, was set aside. I moved my hand above the rest and closed my eyes. I felt like showing off to my disciple, so I pulled in every ounce of iron at once. A stream of metal Qi was sucked up by my meridians. The pain was mixed with the pleasure of being once again filled with Qi.

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I opened my eyes to see that Luli was indeed impressed. When she looked up her eyes widened in shock and she exclaimed, “Your eyes are brighter!”

I chuckled and explained, “That is one other disadvantage of my cultivation method. Anybody who knows to look at my eyes can tell how much qi I have in reserve. I am pretty much topped off now.

Luli opened her mouth to speak but was interrupted by a thud followed by a metallic swishing sound and a scream.

“What was that?” asked a freighted Luli.

I sighed, “Someone was stupid enough to try and bash the door down. That will have used up a lot of the juice left in these arrays. I will have to top them off after I deal with these idiots.”

I strode outside with Luli following at my heels. The fragile-looking front door did not have so much as a dent in its wood. Its assailant was not in as good shape. There were two Sun Gate Sect disciples in the street outside. One was spitting up blood and had a diagonal slash across his chest. The other was franticly applying an alchemical paste across his chest.

I propped myself up against my doorway with my arms crossed and whistled, “Nasty cut he gave himself there. He must have knocked a bit too hard. The defences usually just return a little bit more than what they warded off.”

The uninjured disciple glared at me and spat back, “Is this how Marshal Sun Wei responds to invitations?”

I raised my eyebrow and calmly replied, “Son, you and your friend just tried to break my door down. I know that it's polite to go back and forth speaking in euphemisms but just tell me what you want before I kill you. Also, calm down. He will live if that paste is from Bai Shu’s shop, it will do the job.”

The disciple spat on the ground before saying, “The imperial assessor requests your presence at the portal world. His needs are not pressing however and if you have time-sensitive work to do, he can wait.”

I pulled out a small piece of rolling paper from a pocket and using a small pencil I kept on my person wrote:

Dear brother of mine in the hallowed employ of our almighty Emperor

I am investigating a massacre at the moment and cannot assist you at present. You will have to play with the water world by yourself for a while longer.

p.s.

There is a deposit of Chalk-bone in the old quarry. It’s the driving force behind the investigation. As far as I know, apart from me, the only ones who know about its existence are the killers. Claim it for the Emperor or something and see if anyone disputes the imperial claim.

p.p.s

These Sect Disciples you sent tried to break my door down. Get some real messengers next time.

I folded the paper up and used a small portion of qi to imprint a sealing array to the note. It would guarantee authorship and let anyone, who knew to look if it had been opened. It was standard practice in the army.

I handed the note to the disciple not groaning in pain and said, “That array will give you another dose of the same if you try and read the message. Bring that to the assessor.”

The disciple held the note as if it were a viper. The seal would do nothing to him of course, but these fools wouldn’t know the difference.

The pair left moving as quickly as they could. Luli stuck her tongue out at them and queried, “What now? Are we going to carry on the investigation?”

I gave her a sideways glance, “No, I am going to carry on the investigation. You are going to Old Chen’s and asking him if you can bang on some metal with a hammer for a while. It will help you understand the essence of the material.”

That was not entirely a lie, but I needed Luli stashed somewhere safe. The defences on my home were too old to withstand a real attack and if someone was sending assassins after me then Luli was also in danger. Old Chen would keep her safe for the time being. He would probably have her bashing metal in his shop all night. He always was a fan of building character through work.

In the meantime, I had to go and find the Brilliant Mountain gang. Hopefully, they were in a talkative mood.