“Do not kill him,” Kaelen said, setting his cup of mint water on the wooden railing.
Sera paused at the edge of the porch, her gray cloak blending into the thick mist.
“A dead courier leaves a blood trail,” Kaelen continued smoothly. “A missing courier brings fifty Iron-Hound thugs up the ridge before breakfast. That sounds like a great deal of noise.”
Sera tilted her head. “Then what do you propose, Young Master?”
Kaelen reached into his sleeve and pulled out a small, round black confectionery ball. It was a dried licorice sweet rolled in herbal dust, identical in shape and color to a medicinal pill.
“The runner carries a second porcelain bottle in his satchel for the morning relay,” Kaelen said. “Follow him into the creek hollow. Tap his temple, swap one pill from the runner’s bottle with this licorice ball, and let him walk away.”
Sera took the candy, her fingers brushing Kaelen’s palm. A faint smirk touched her lips.
“A silent exchange,” Sera murmured. “He will assume he miscounted his inventory.”
“Exactly,” Kaelen said. “Do not rush. Take your time, and mind your footing.”
Sera slipped off the porch steps and vanished into the night without another sound.
Kaelen leaned his head back against the timber post, closing his eyes to let the night breeze cool his brow. He did not follow her with his spiritual sense, keeping his mind calm and still.
Moving around in the dark mist is far too much cardio, Kaelen thought, drawing his coarse wool cloak up to his chin. Let Sera handle the night work. That is why she has an indenture contract.
The cold hours of the night slipped away.
Inside his dantian, the bronze slate marked the passage of time with silent precision.
By the time the first gray light of dawn crept across the eastern pines, the numbers in his mind shifted forward.
[The Fallow Slate] [Current Abstinence: 130 Hours, 00 Minutes] [Current State: True Fallow State] [Current Multiplier: 131x (Stage 1: Mortal Tally)] [Next Milestone: 131 Hours (132x Ready)]
One hundred and thirty hours of unbroken stillness. One hundred and thirty-one times cultivation output waiting in reserve.
One hundred and thirty hours, Kaelen thought, taking a deep breath of crisp morning air. The foundation is solid as bedrock. No cracks, no friction, no poison.
Light footsteps rustled the gravel path.
Sera walked up the porch steps, carrying a small twist of greaseproof paper in her leather glove.
“The courier never saw me,” Sera reported evenly. “He stopped to drink from the creek. One tap behind the ear, one swapped pill, and he woke up three minutes later thinking he tripped on a wet stone.”
She unfolded the paper, revealing a single black pill resting on the grease-stained surface.
The pellet was irregular and lumpy, covered in a brittle, crusty red coating. A harsh, acrid stench of burnt brimstone and copper drifted into the morning air.
Kaelen leaned away from the paper, keeping his spiritual sense strictly locked inside his chest.
I am not analyzing that garbage, Kaelen reminded himself firmly. If I activate my comprehension on an unknown formula, the slate will count it as martial effort. My streak is worth far more than Cassian’s filthy medicine.
He picked up a clean pair of iron tweezers from the tea tray and pushed the paper toward the kitchen door.
“Old Barnaby,” Kaelen called out. “Bring your testing needles.”
The kitchen door opened, and Barnaby Holt stepped out onto the porch.
The old man looked entirely rejuvenated. His shoulders were squared, his gray beard was neatly combed, and the deep rings under his single eye had vanished.
“Good morning, Young Master,” Barnaby said briskly, holding a small brass tray lined with silver needles and glass vials. “My shoulder did not ache once last night. It feels as strong as an ox.”
“Save your praise for the tea leaves,” Kaelen said, pointing with his chin toward the lumpy black pellet. “Look at this pebble. Tell me what Briggs is feeding my eldest brother.”
Barnaby set the brass tray on the wooden table and picked up the pill with a pair of horn tongs.
He brought it close to his eye, sniffing the pungent air around the crust. His expression darkened with instant disgust.
“Tier 1 medicine,” Barnaby muttered, his single eye narrowing with professional disdain. “The exterior is scorched. The heat control was wretched.”
Barnaby took a slender silver testing needle and scraped a small flake of the brittle red crust onto a clean porcelain dish.
He poured three drops of sharp plum vinegar over the flake.
The crimson scraping hissed violently. It bubbled into a foul, frothing brown sludge that gave off the sharp odor of rotten copper and sulfur.
Barnaby’s face went rigid with horror.
“Ancestors preserve us,” Barnaby whispered, dropping the silver needle with a loud clatter. “It is a Blood-Boil Pill.”
“We already know Cassian bought Blood-Boil Pills,” Sera noted, leaning against the porch rail. “The receipts said as much.”
“No, you do not understand,” Barnaby said, his voice trembling with genuine dread. “The receipts listed standard medicinal grade. This thing is not standard grade. It is a Crack-Grade trash batch!”
Barnaby pointed a shaking finger at the bubbling brown sludge.
“Look at the red crust!” Barnaby gasped. “That is dried drake-leech powder and raw brimstone! They use toxic stimulants to force the blood to expand violently through the pulse gates!”
“What is the purity?” Kaelen asked mildly, leaning back in his chair.
“Forty percent,” Barnaby declared grimly. “At most, forty percent usable medicinal Qi! And the rest is pure, unfiltered sediment!”
“Fifty percent Pill-Poison,” Sera said, her voice dropping into a deadly whisper. “Half of that pill is pure poison.”
“Fifty percent!” Barnaby echoed, wiping cold sweat from his forehead. “Standard sect pills carry twenty-five percent poison, which takes weeks of meditation to purge! Ringed-Grade pills only carry five percent! But a fifty percent poison load is classified as contraband across the entire province!”
Barnaby leaned over the table, staring at the repulsive black pellet as if it were a venomous viper.
“Blood-Boil Crack-Grade Pills provide an immediate rush of artificial strength,” Barnaby explained, his chest heaving. “It numbs fatigue and forces the meridians to dilate by force. That is how Cassian manages to grind eighteen hours a day without collapsing.”
“And the consequence?” Kaelen asked.
“The toxic sediment does not leave the body,” Barnaby said in a horrified hush. “It sticks to the interior walls of the pulse gates like hardened tar. Every time he swallows one, his meridians become more brittle.”
Barnaby picked up his brass abacus, his fingers flicking the wooden beads with frantic speed.
“One hundred and forty pills...” Barnaby muttered, his eye bulging in terror. “If he has been taking three pills every day for the past two months, his lower dantian must be caked in black rot. He is a walking meridian bomb!”
“Look,” Sera interrupted suddenly, her voice sharp as an arrow.
She reached into her scout belt and pulled out a compact brass spyglass. Catching the porch eaves with one hand, she swung lightly up onto the low shed roof, extended the brass tubes, and looked down toward Cassian’s training pavilion.
Kaelen did not stand up. He took a sip of clover tea and tilted his head toward the eaves. “What do you see up there?”
Crouched on the shed roof shingles, Sera held the spyglass steady against her eye, her jaw set tight.
“Cassian is standing in the center of his courtyard,” Sera narrated in a low, flat voice. “His broadsword is resting against a stone pillar. He looks completely exhausted. His knees are trembling, and his skin is pale gray.”
She adjusted the focus ring on the brass lens.
“He is reaching into his sash,” Sera continued. “He just pulled out the black porcelain bottle delivered by the runner.”
Barnaby held his breath, leaning over the porch railing. “How many is he taking?”
“He uncorked the bottle,” Sera said quietly. “He poured one pill into his palm. Now a second. Now a third.”
Barnaby let out a choked gasp. “Three at once? That is madness! That is enough poison to kill a warhorse!”
“He just swallowed all three,” Sera reported, her voice steady and clinical. “He washed them down with raw rice wine.”
Sera paused for several seconds, keeping her eye glued to the brass eyepiece.
“His face has turned bright crimson,” Sera said. “The black veins on his temples are swelling. He just grabbed his broadsword with both hands.”
Through the morning air, a dull, thunderous roar echoed up the mountainside.
Down in the pavilion, Cassian began swinging his six-foot iron broadsword with terrifying violence. The heavy steel blade cleaved through the air, creating screeching shockwaves that shattered the wooden practice dummies into kindling.
His movements were wild, erratic, and charged with unnatural frenzy. He moved like a berserk beast, his boots crushing flagstones into gravel.
“He looks unstoppable,” Mina whispered, peeking out from behind the doorframe.
“Wait,” Sera said, her voice dropping lower. “He just stopped.”
The crashing sword strokes ceased abruptly.
“What happened?” Barnaby asked anxiously.
“The sword fell from his hands,” Sera said, describing the scene with razor precision. “He staggered behind the marble pillar, out of sight of the guards. He just dropped to his hands and knees.”
Sera lowered the spyglass by a fraction of an inch, her brow furrowing with grim disgust.
“He is coughing violently,” Sera said. “He pulled a white linen towel from his belt. He just vomited three large mouthfuls of thick, black clotted blood into the cloth.”
Barnaby shook his head slowly, a look of profound sorrow crossing his weathered face. “The heart meridian is leaking. The poison tar has blocked his upper channels. His blood has nowhere to go.”
“He wrapped the towel tightly,” Sera added, raising the glass again. “He threw it into the courtyard brazier to burn the evidence. Now he is wiping his mouth and picking up the broadsword again.”
She collapsed the brass spyglass with a sharp click, dropped lightly from the shed roof back onto the porch boards, and turned toward Kaelen.
“He is pretending nothing happened,” Sera concluded. “He is back to swinging iron as if his body were invincible.”
The porch fell into heavy, contemplative silence.
Barnaby picked up the scrapings dish and carried it carefully toward the slop bucket, shaking his head with every step.
“Madam Evelyn thinks she has raised an invincible dragon,” Barnaby muttered sadly. “The Baron thinks Cassian’s eighteen-hour drills are the glorious future of the Vance house. In truth, the boy is killing himself to keep their approval.”
Mina looked down toward the valley, her small hands clutching her apron. “Will his meridians really explode?”
“If he suffers a heavy physical shock, yes,” Barnaby replied quietly. “A single blow to his chest during combat will shatter his clogged channels like dry porcelain.”
Kaelen took another slow sip of clover tea and opened Book 3.
Eighteen hours of daily grinding, Kaelen thought, turning to section eight of his romance novel. Cassian sneers at my hammock and calls me a parasite, yet he swallows fifty percent poison just to pretend he is a genius.
The sheer absurdity of it made Kaelen smile faintly.
The entire cultivation world worshiped sweat, blood, and endless suffering. They believed that anyone who rested was a coward, while anyone who destroyed their own body in the training yard was a hero.
In reality, Cassian’s boasted diligence was nothing more than a slow, painful suicide.
He thinks he is climbing the peak of martial glory, Kaelen reflected, adjusting his woven straw hat. All he has done is build a furnace full of toxic ash inside his chest. And when the time comes, a single tap will bring the whole thing crashing down.
He had complete leverage over his arrogant half-brother.
He possessed the signed receipts proving Cassian bought the illegal poison. He possessed the physical evidence of the pill itself. And he knew the exact structural weakness hidden beneath Cassian’s boastful Rank 8 aura.
The morning sun rose higher, casting warm amber light over the drying yard.
Kaelen propped his feet against the porch rail and let the gentle mountain breeze rustle the pages of his book.
Inside his chest, the hours continued to accumulate in pristine, uncontaminated purity.
By late afternoon, the bronze numbers in his mind shifted once more.
[The Fallow Slate] [Current Abstinence: 136 Hours, 00 Minutes] [Current State: True Fallow State] [Current Multiplier: 137x (Stage 1: Mortal Tally)] [Next Milestone: 137 Hours (138x Ready)]
One hundred and thirty-six hours of unbroken rest.
One hundred and thirty-seven times cultivation output resting quietly in his vessel.
Kaelen smiled in complete satisfaction. Another full day remained before the four-day assessment deadline expired, and his multiplier was already nearing the six-day threshold.
Suddenly, the sharp clatter of galloping hooves echoed from the lower mountain road.
Down at the outer perimeter of the Vance estate, heavy iron gates slammed open with a booming crash.
A squad of twenty armored clan guards rode through the dust, their spearheads gleaming in the setting sun. At the front of the column rode Second Half-Brother Garrick Vance.
Garrick’s round face was twisted in an expression of apoplectic fury. His fine silk robes were disheveled, and his knuckles were white as he clutched the reins of his black mare.
He had just arrived from the West Market warehouse.
His private iron safe had been opened. The duplicate ore ledgers and Cassian’s poison pill vouchers were gone, and one copy was missing from the seized romance shipment. The silver and the rest of the books were still there.
Garrick drew his silver-plated sabre and pointed the blade straight up the ridge toward the Third Herb Shed.
“Surround the mountain!” Garrick’s shrill voice carried across the valley. “No one enters! No one leaves! We audit the third courtyard at first light!”