The return trip to my house is a bit slower than intended, but only by a few minutes as I pick up half a dozen silk scrolls, ink, and brushes and shove them into my pockets before journeying home.

My logic is simple: if I can figure out exactly what I’m going to do with the cultivation manuals, then one of the scrolls will be for me to practice writing while the others will be for me to actually copy down cultivation manuals. If I can’t, then I have five extra scrolls that I’ll figure something out for eventually.

Something’s changed about the qi surrounding the compound when I’ve returned. There is a lot more fire qi in the air than any of the other types. It isn’t enough that it should affect my absorption of everything else, but it is interesting nonetheless.

I walk into the cultivation room where I’d left Physician Bing and immediately ask him, “Hey Physician Bing, mind if I run an idea past you?”

He slowly turns to me and opens his eyes, “What is it?”

“So, I thought of a plan to make some money, but I’m not sure whether or not it’s a good idea. It seems great in my mind, but I want to start selling cultivation manuals to the Golden Sun Auction House and I didn’t know if there would be any problems with that. If I do, do you know anything I should pay attention to?”

Physician Bing thinks for a few minutes before saying, “There are several things I could tell you. Before that, what is so important that you need so much money?”

“I need to get stronger. Someone told me that cultivators will kill someone for face, so I looked into the crime rate in Qiang City and the Shi Empire and found out that the situation is really bad. That got me to look into the Gang family and I realized it was even worse than I thought.

So one thing lead to another, and I realized that, since the Gang family are related to King Lei, I would need to figure out how I could avoid getting into any predicaments with them while also setting myself up to avoid any problems with King Lei. The only way I can think to do that is to get stronger so the Gang family can’t off me without leaving enough evidence for the Qiang family to act on.”

Once more, Physician Bing grows quiet. This time, he spends a lot more time thinking as I stand in the doorway of the cultivation room, my pockets stuffed full of writing materials.

“Are you certain the Gang family is related to King Lei?” He asks.

“Yup. About a decade ago, the Gang family married one of the girls in their family off to King Lei. Since then, King Lei has been causing problems for anyone who targets them.”

The room grows quiet until Physician Bing pulls out a light-blue, rectangular jade with a bird and several runes carved onto it. He sends a strand of qi into it before turning his attention back to me and saying, “If that’s the case, then it would be good to acquire more power for yourself. Though I do not believe it is necessary with my protection, personal power is always preferable to someone else acting as your shield.”

I listen to, acknowledge, and agree with his words, but my mind is still stuck on the jade rectangle.

“What was with the blue jade thing?” I ask. “The runes on it were for communication, right?”

Physician Bing raises an eyebrow before nodding his head a few seconds later. “Yes, they were. I was informing my younger sister about what you told me.”

“You have a sister?” I ask, mildly surprised. I hadn’t heard anything about Physician Bing’s family.

“Yes,” he smiles. “She is a foolish and impulsive girl, but she has her good qualities to her. Her talent in cultivation, talisman crafting, and beast taming are second to none of anyone I’ve ever met. If she could fix her taste in people, you could even call her perfect.”

He scoffs as he finishes that statement and I feel like there are a lot of stories behind it, but I choose not to ask.

“She sounds like a good…” I realize that, even if she is his younger sister, that probably means she is close to a century old. “…person,” I finish dumbly.

Physician Bing chuckles and nods his head. “She is a good person, but one that created too many problems for herself and her family.”

I don’t really know what to respond with after he says that. Words flow through my mind, but nothing really clicks and I eventually say nothing as Physician Bing watches me with a curious expression.

Several long seconds pass in silence as I hear a buzzing sound in my ear before Physician Bing distracts me as he clears his throat.

“As far as selling manuals to the Golden Sun Auction House, so long as you make appropriate choices in the manuals you are selling, there should be no issues. They have a long history with a backing even I can’t begin to fathom. So long as you do not do anything that would go against their requirements, they will do business with you.”

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I nod my head in understanding as he continues.

“That being said, there are some things that I would like to ask before I can give you any advice. Foremost, what kind and how many manuals do you have access to?”

“A lot of kinds and a lot of manuals,” I say simply.

Physician Bing nods once and then says, “Very well. And are you able to see whether these manuals are still in use?”

I check. The answer is a no, but I can see when the manuals were written last so I at least have an indirect way of doing this even if I don’t have a guaranteed way of confirming it. I tell this to Physician Bing.

“Good. Are you able to see where the cultivation manuals originated from?” I immediately nod my head.

“Then my suggestion would be that you only sell them high-grade mortal manuals from the regions around the Shi Empire. Whatever you sell should be at least ten thousand years old without any new recordings of it within the last five thousand years.”

The numbers that he uses confuse me, so I ask, “What’s with the ten thousand and five thousand year timeline? It seems pretty arbitrary to only find manuals from that period.”

“It’s because the Shi Empire was founded close to five thousand years ago,” Physician Bing explains. “Therefore, anything that has been recorded within the last five thousand years could be claimed by them. While the Emperor would not even dare think to be able to control the Golden Sun Auction House, it is unlikely that they would be willing to offend the Empire just to sell a few manuals.

As for the ten thousand year point, it is because five thousand years before the Shi Empire was founded, there was a great war that was reported to have wracked the entire world. This war led to the complete destruction of numerous sects, clans, kingdoms, and other such powers. Therefore, anything that you can find that existed during this time period likely has no owner. The Golden Sun Auction House would happily auction these for you.”

“Okay, so I get the timeline, but why does it have to be from the regions surrounding the Shi Empire? I could easily find manuals that have nothing to do with the Shi Empire so there’s no way I will stir up trouble with them. Why should I take the extra risk of searching for things around the region?”

“Because the Golden Sun Auction House has a much longer history than the Shi Empire. To my knowledge, they exist long before the great war and it is highly likely that they’d have some knowledge of any cultivation manuals you could find; even if they were from ten or fifteen thousand years ago. It’s also entirely possible that they would be suspicious if you brought them something they couldn’t recognize.”

“Okay…” I nod my head dumbly while thinking about a business with such a long history. An Empire is one thing. Pretty sure China had a history of three thousand or more years. I think there’s something about dynasties that complicates this example, but the point still remains that countries can last a long time. But a business? How?

I pull my mind away from trying to figure out how that works and say, “So, basically, find recognizable things from the area without any known owners and sell them. Is there anything else I should be careful about?”

“Hmm…” Physician Bing thinks for a moment before asking, “You should be capable of finding spiritual methods as well as cultivation methods, correct?”

“Yeah,” I nod my head. Spiritual methods are just another way of describing things around soul cultivation. They aren’t always soul cultivation practices, but they can be.

“Then ensure that you never sell one.” Physician Bing states bluntly.

“Okay, I understand… but why?” I’m not about to turn away his advice, but I would like to be more informed.

“Because spiritual methods are exceedingly rare in the Shi Empire. If there are even a dozen of them outside of the four great sects, I will eat my shoes.”

The imagery is a little much for me and I have to try to hold in my chuckles as I imagine the physician eating shoes. Eventually, I calm down enough to ask, “Okay, I get that part, but what does that have to do with anything?”

“Spiritual methods are rare and valuable. Furthermore, very few powers have them. If you make one available, then not only will you be drawing the attention of the entire Empire to Qiang City, but you might even drag in some of the powers outside of the Shi Empire as well.”

“Long story short, sell valuable things but not so valuable that people notice me. Got it.”

Physician Bing looks as though he’s about to clarify something, but then he frowns, considers my words, and nods.

“That is an interesting way of describing it, but yes. It is better to avoid certain kinds of attention until you are stronger.”

I don’t really have anything else to ask about selling the manuals now, but there is one thing bothering me.

“Hey Physician Bing, how come more fire qi is starting to collect around here?”

Physician Bing raises an eyebrow, looks at the center of the room, and asks, “Surely, you’re joking?”

I turn my head to look where he was looking, but there’s nothing there. Even with the Dragon’s Third Eye, I can’t see anything other than a slightly larger amount of fire qi.

The thing is, he was pointedly looking at the center of the room and he seems to believe I know what’s going on.

Nothing comes to mind immediately, but then I remember when Physician Bing burst into the room earlier. It was right after I had projected the image of the sun in front of me.

“Wait… are you saying that me projecting the sun actually affected something around here?” I ask, surprised.

Physician Bing nods. “Yes… though I’m not entirely certain what the projection was, I can tell that it left a lasting mark on the laws surrounding us. Because it was related to the fire laws, it is drawing in greater amounts of fire qi.

Be glad that I had you put it away when I did. If you had left it going for much longer, not only would the entire continent have felt the profundity of the laws spilling out of this room, but it is also possible that you would have created a qi anomaly with powerful fire laws powering it. If that had happened, it is unlikely that the Shi Empire would have survived the wars waged over this territory.”

“Oh,” I say. “Uh… thanks for stopping me when you did, then.”

“There’s no reason to thank me,” Physician Bing replies. “After all, now I can enjoy the benefits of a Dao scar all to myself.”

“Ah—“ I say, nodding my head, though I don’t understand. “Kay! Well, I dunno what that is, but I think I’m going to go to that bathhouse again.”

I could probably spend some more time to figure out what the Dao scar is, but I’m pretty sure I already know. If the fire laws left a mark on the area, then Physician Bing can spend some time trying to understand it while absorbing the increased fire qi.

I can’t feel it, probably because I’m just not at Physician Bing’s level, but I can definitely appreciate what he’s trying to do because it’s what I was trying, and failing, to do all day.

Physician Bing lifts his hand slightly to give me what amounts to a lazy wave and I head out. The only thing I do before leaving my house once more is to deposit my writing supplies into my room.