Sen spent several weeks trying to weaken the pills he was making. While he found that he could consistently reduce their potency, he couldn’t reliably reduce the amount. Some of it was simply the unpredictability of how the ingredients interacted with each other. He could never fully replicate any method because the conditions inside the cauldron were simply too chaotic from one session to the next, even if he was making the exact same kind of pill. It went deeper than that, though. Sometimes, the limitations he put on tampering with the process would reduce the potency by more than half. Other times, the potency was only marginally lower, even when limiting himself in the same ways. Sen came to believe that there was simply more at work than he could see, some deeper level to the process that he could inadvertently touch but not directly control.
And he tried to see it. Attempt after attempt, he tried to peer into the depths of those alchemical mysteries. Every once in a while, he thought he’d catch the tiniest flash of what was happening, but he eventually had to accept that he was at the limits of his perception. Maybe, after he advanced his cultivation again a few more times, he might have a chance. It seemed wholly unlikely that he’d unravel those mysteries in time to be useful. He didn’t even bother asking for advice about it. He could see that Fu Ruolan was thoroughly invested in his success. If she had seen those deeper pieces of the process, she would have told him about them to bolster his odds of success. If he was going to make the pills weaker, he’d have to rely on a measure of blind luck to achieve that end. He hated it, but that was the reality in front of him. Denying it wouldn’t do him any good, especially now that he was back on a clock.
Fu Ruolan hadn’t given him a deadline. His body had done it for her. The fix she had used to stabilize him was starting to fail. He’d asked some pointed questions about it after they’d established a more amicable relationship and gotten some less-than-comforting answers. It was a one-time kind of fix, which at least made sense to him. The effects were so unnatural, effectively pinning him and his cultivation in place, that he assumed that there would be all kinds of limitations on it. He’d been right. A second attempt would, at best, damage his cultivation. At worst, it would leave him with a shattered body and broken mind. Its intended purpose was to buy a cultivator time to find a fix to a lethal problem. He’d gotten more than a year.
Now, he was noticing little things. Tiredness where he wouldn’t have felt it before. Lingering aches in his joints. Problems that no cultivator who spent most of their time in an alchemy lab should ever be feeling. Worse, the symptoms he’d been experiencing before would come back much faster than they’d developed the first time. It was another of the lovely limitations on the temporary fix. Sen’s rough estimate based on what Fu Ruolan had told him was that he might have a month left. When he drew that conclusion, his instinct was to keep it to himself. There was nothing anyone could do to help him at this point. Telling Falling Leaf and Fu Ruolan would just make them worry and hover, which would be distracting. Of course, it would be bad for him if they found out after the fact, and he knew that they would figure it out. He didn’t know how they’d figure it out, they just would.
Shaking his head, he went looking for them. He found Fu Ruolan first. She was practicing with a three-section staff. He’d never worked with one of those before, so Sen paid close attention to what he was seeing. The three-section staff was a terribly versatile weapon from what Sen could see. While he’d never want to try it himself, he could see that it would be useful for blocking, striking, and potentially even trapping someone’s limbs. He supposed that you could choke someone with it if they let you get too close. He’d have to be very cautious if he ever came into conflict with someone who specialized in the weapon the way Fu Ruolan did. He’d have to practice against her when he had fewer desperately pressing matters. She turned her attention to him after she finished what looked like a form. Sen inclined his head in respect.
“Your friend is a frighteningly quick study, and I’m rusty,” noted Fu Ruolan. “I’m only keeping ahead of her because I’m stronger and faster. You tell yourself it doesn’t really matter but neglect a weapon for a mere fifty years and it’s like starting over.”
“Fifty years?” asked Sen, trying to wrap his head around ignoring something for that long.
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“It only sounds like a long time because you’re so young. When you get to be my age, decades go by like that,” said Fu Ruolan, snapping her fingers for emphasis.
“I’ll take your word for it. I’m not surprised that Falling Leaf is a quick study. She picked up a lot of unarmed combat just from watching me train. I’m pretty good because I practiced so long and so hard that it’s basically second nature for me. She’s a natural at it. A born fighter.”
Fu Ruolan shook her head. “Close, but not quite. She’s a natural predator. There is a difference.”
Sen pursed his lips as he thought that over. He’d only ever seen Falling Leaf being violent when it was a life-or-death situation. Of course, that didn’t mean she wasn’t violent back on the mountain when he wasn’t around. She was a panther back then, and she had to be hunting and eating something. It was easy for him to overlook that now that she looked human. But he suspected that Fu Ruolan had the right of it. Those instincts probably weren’t buried very deep. Maybe they weren’t buried at all, and she’d just made a point of shielding him from it.
“I guess that’s true.”
“Don’t look so depressed. It’s not a bad thing.”
“Are you saying it’s a good thing?”
“No. I’m saying that it’s a thing. A thing you should keep in mind. She doesn’t care what I think. I’m not sure she cares what anyone thinks, except you. She cares a lot about what you think of her.”
Sen tried to pierce through the vagueness and get at the meat of whatever point Fu Ruolan was trying to make. Twist and turn the words, though, he couldn’t seem to find anything to latch on to.
“I’ve never been good at this kind of wordplay. I don’t understand what you’re trying to tell me.”
The nascent soul cultivator shook her head in disappointment. “What I’m trying to tell you is that she can tell that you want her to be more human. That you disapprove of her acting like her panther self. So, she tries to be more human for you.”
“What?! That’s not what I want.”
“Really?”
“Yes, really! I want her to be able to navigate around humans. Maybe find enough common ground that she can find humans other than me that she considers tolerable. That’s it.”
“I promise you, that’s not how it looks to her. I’ve seen you two interact. It just looks like disapproval whenever she strays too far from what you see as the human normal. I mean, honestly, did you think she got that furniture for her benefit? She slept in caves for most of her life. Caves! Not a lot of cushions in caves.”
“Damn it,” muttered Sen. “Okay. I’ll fix it. Somehow.”
“If it matters to you, your reasoning was sound. She will need to know how to move in human society. Or as you put it, navigate around other humans, but that doesn’t necessarily mean becoming more like them. There is a difference,” said Fu Ruolan, echoing her earlier sentiment.
Sen wanted to berate himself for not making note of that difference on his own, but that would just be something to make him feel better. He’d have to think about a better way to get that information across to her. As important as that was, though, he really did have more pressing concerns to deal with in the immediate future.
“I’ll work on it,” said Sen, “but that’s not what I came here to talk to you about.”
“Another breakthrough with the pill refining?”
“No. Your fix for my situation is wearing off. I don’t know exactly how much time I have left, but I can’t keep experimenting. I need to work through the rest of the primer and then make the pill I need. I’ll try not to overpower it too much, but it’s not going to matter if I don’t make it soon.”
Fu Ruolan’s lips tightened and her expression looked grim. “If you’ve noticed symptoms, you’ve probably got less time than you think. You were in extraordinarily bad shape when I found you. Those symptoms will bounce back fast. A week or two, maybe three if your pain tolerance is very, very high, and then there’s nothing anyone can do. Work quickly.”
“I will,” said Sen.
“You should tell Falling Leaf before you seal yourself in your alchemy lab.”
Sen gave Fu Ruolan a slightly pitying look.
“There’s no need. She’s standing over there,” he said, pointing to a particularly dark patch of shadow.
Fu Ruolan gave the shadow a penetrating look until Falling Leaf stepped out of it.
“How long were you there?” demanded the nascent soul cultivator, only to be ignored. “How long was she there?”
Sen shrugged. “Who knows? Falling Leaf?”
The panther girl’s green eyes hadn’t left Sen’s face since she stepped into the light.
“Why are you still here?” she demanded. “You heard the madwoman. Work quickly!”
Sen gave Falling Leaf a very proper bow and then strode toward the galehouse. He heard the two women talking as he moved away.
“I’m not really mad, you know?” said Fu Ruolan.
“Of course, you are. You’re training him. Only the mad do that,” said Falling Leaf.