The iron gate chains rattled below as Garrick’s riders formed a cordon around the lower pine ridge.
On the porch of the Third Herb Shed, Kaelen Vance closed his romance novel and moved from his chair to the hemp hammock. He pulled his wool blanket up to his ears as twilight settled over the valley.
A full squad of clan sentries camped outside the fence, Kaelen thought, adjusting his straw pillow. They can stand in the cold dew all night. Sleeping through an armed siege saves an incredible amount of energy.
The mountain air chilled as midnight came and went. The guards stamped their iron boots on the gravel trail, whispering curses into the fog.
Inside the quiet shed, Barnaby and Mina stayed tucked away in their cots, their breathing slow and steady. Sera kept watch from the dark rafters, her spear resting across her knees.
Night retreated before the cold gray dawn.
The first rays of sunlight broke over the eastern peaks, piercing the pine branches with sharp spears of amber light.
Inside his dantian, the bronze numbers of the Slate glowed with quiet strength.
[The Fallow Slate] [Current Abstinence: 143 Hours, 15 Minutes] [Current State: True Fallow State] [Current Multiplier: 144x (Stage 1: Mortal Tally)] [Next Milestone: 144 Hours (145x Ready)]
One hundred and forty-three hours and fifteen minutes.
Forty-five minutes left, Kaelen noted silently. Just forty-five minutes of quiet sitting, and my multiplier hits one hundred and forty-five times.
The courtyard gate creaked open with heavy, deliberate force.
Heavy boots marched across the gravel path.
Leading the procession was Baron Derrick Vance. The patriarch wore his dark crimson clan robes, embroidered with iron pine needles along the cuffs.
His heavy Mortal Pulse Rank 9 aura pressed down on the yard like a slab of wet granite. His face was stern, his mouth set in a grim, immovable line.
At his left walked First Madam Evelyn Vance.
She wore high-collared silk robes of pale lavender, adorned with silver plum blossoms. Her hair was coiled in intricate jade pins, and her lips were curved into a faint, frosty smile.
Behind her walked Second Half-Brother Garrick Vance. His eyes were bloodshot, his silk collar rumpled, and his hands twitched as if searching for missing ledgers.
Beside Garrick walked an older man with a haughty sneer and a blue robe marked with three bronze cauldrons.
It was Master Cole, the district guild alchemist hired by the main house to oversee the audit.
Behind them marched eight armored clan guards carrying heavy iron halberds, their steel breastplates gleaming in the dawn light.
Derrick Vance stopped in the center of the yard. His cold eyes swept across the peeling timber of the porch, the empty ditch, and the hemp hammock where Kaelen lay.
“Kaelen,” Derrick barked, his voice vibrating with patriarchal authority. “Stand.”
Kaelen stretched his arms with deliberate slowness. He yawned, rubbed his eyes, and swung his legs over the side of the hammock.
“Good morning, Father,” Kaelen said in a mild, unhurried voice. “You brought quite an audience for breakfast. Did the main kitchen run out of porridge?”
Garrick stepped forward, his face twitching with suppressed fury. “Shut your mouth, Kaelen! You know why we are here!”
“Silence, Garrick,” Derrick commanded without looking at his second son.
Evelyn Vance took half a step forward, her tone polite and venomous.
“Every grand estate must tend its garden, husband,” Evelyn said, looking at the cracked shingles of the shed with open disdain. “When a branch becomes rotted, it wastes water and soil that belongs to the blooming flowers. It must be pruned.”
She turned her sharp, venomous gaze toward Kaelen.
“The Third Herb Shed has drawn clan stipends for three years without producing a single batch of usable medicine,” Evelyn continued smoothly. “Today is the Clan Courtyard Assessment. If this courtyard cannot prove its worth, its charter will be revoked on the spot.”
Barnaby Holt emerged from the kitchen door, clutching his wooden ladle against his chest. His good hand trembled, though his back remained remarkably straight thanks to the Supreme Marrow-Warming Pills.
Mina stepped out behind him, clinging to the old man’s sleeve.
“Madam Evelyn,” Barnaby stammered, bowing low. “The notice said we had four days. Only three have passed!”
Master Cole sneered, stroking his thin goatee. “The district guild does not arrange its schedule around lazy cripples, old man. A true apothecary is always prepared.”
Evelyn smiled thinly. “The terms are simple. You will refine a batch of Tier 1 Blood-Staunching Pills here in the yard. If you cannot produce Ringed-Grade quality before noon, the courtyard is seized, and all residents will be reassigned to the western quarry barracks.”
Garrick grinned nastily, his eyes darting toward the shed doors as if eager to search the floorboards for his lost ledgers.
Barnaby’s face turned pale. “Our furnace is cracked! To ask for Ringed-Grade pills from a damaged earthen stove without notice is impossible!”
“Nothing is impossible for a diligent craftsman,” Derrick declared harshly. “Begin the refining, or forfeit your names now.”
Kaelen stood up from the hammock. He adjusted his woven straw hat, dusted off his hemp trousers, and walked over to the wooden bench.
Forty-two minutes left until the milestone, Kaelen thought, feeling the bronze numbers ticking in his dantian. They want a performance? I will give them the slowest, most agonizing performance of their lives.
“Very well,” Kaelen said with an easy shrug. “If the clan requires medicine, we shall make medicine. Old Barnaby, bring out the basin.”
Barnaby blinked in confusion. “The... the basin, Young Master?”
“Yes, the wooden washing basin,” Kaelen replied smoothly. “And three buckets of cold well water. One cannot refine spiritual herbs with dusty leaves. That would offend the mountain spirits.”
Master Cole scoffed loudly. “Mountain spirits? What peasant nonsense is this? An alchemist uses fire, not superstition!”
Kaelen ignored the guild master entirely. He sat down on a low wooden stool beside the washing trough and pulled a bundle of bruised Dragon-Tooth Grass toward him.
He picked up a single stalk. He dipped it into the wooden water basin with absolute delicacy.
He washed the stem. He washed the left leaf. He washed the right leaf.
Then he held the wet stalk up to the morning sunlight, inspecting each tiny green vein with scholarly contemplation.
Five minutes passed in dead silence.
Garrick’s eye twitched. “What are you doing? Drop the herbs into the pot!”
“Patience, Second Brother,” Kaelen said with a slow yawn, lecturing him without looking up. “Well water is four degrees too cold when drawn from the stones. If the water temperature isn’t warmed by my fingers before rinsing the Dragon-Tooth Grass, the thermal shock cramps the leaf veins and ruins the medicine core. Do you want the pills to taste like mud?”
Garrick gritted his teeth, his abacus-clicking fingers clenching into fists. “Father! He is stalling!”
Derrick frowned, looking at Master Cole. “Is this proper procedure?”
Master Cole coughed awkwardly into his fist. “Washing herbs is standard, my lord, but... but this is excessively meticulous. Ten seconds in clean water is more than sufficient.”
“Sufficient for a butcher, perhaps,” Kaelen remarked pleasantly, picking up a second stalk. “Not for someone who respects the delicate harmony of herbal Qi.”
He dipped the second stalk. He rinsed it for four full minutes.
Ten minutes passed. Then fifteen.
The morning breeze grew slightly warmer. The armored clan guards shifted their weight from foot to foot, their iron breastplates creaking under the strain of standing at attention.
Evelyn’s smooth smile began to fray at the edges. Her fingers tapped against her silk sash in irritation.
“Kaelen,” Evelyn said coldly. “We do not have all day to watch you splash water.”
“A rushed cauldron is an exploded cauldron, First Madam,” Kaelen answered smoothly. “As the ancient masters said, haste in the washbasin brings sorrow to the furnace.”
He finished washing the fifth stalk and set the wooden basket aside.
Next, Kaelen walked over to the stone brazier. He picked up an iron scoop and loaded three lumps of raw pine charcoal onto the live coals left in the cracked earthen belly of the stove.
Instead of striking a flint, he picked up a small goose-feather fan.
He fanned the charcoal with gentle, rhythmic strokes. One stroke every three seconds.
“The charcoal must awaken naturally,” Kaelen explained to the frowning guards. “If you force the heat with spiritual Qi too quickly, the wood sweats pitch. Pitch smoke coats the interior clay, creating a barrier that suffocates the secondary spiritual rings.”
Garrick looked like his skull was about to burst. “He is lecturing us on charcoal! The sun is climbing, and he has not even lit a spark!”
“Quiet, Garrick,” Derrick muttered, though his own brow was heavily furrowed. “Let him finish his preparation.”
Kaelen blew softly on the embers. A faint wisp of white smoke rose from the pine chunks.
He checked his internal clock.
Thirty-five minutes had passed since Derrick arrived. Ten minutes remained before the one hundred and forty-fourth hour.
Kaelen knelt beside the earthen stove, adjusting the iron grate by millimeter increments.
As he worked the mundane bellows, his mind focused inward, contemplating the strategy ahead.
If I unleash my full multiplier right now, I could forge ten Cloud-Veined Supreme Pills with my eyes closed, Kaelen thought. Zero Pill-Poison. Perfect cloud patterns. Master Cole would faint on the spot.
He immediately rejected the idea.
Revealing a hundred percent pure Supreme Pill under my real name would be absolute suicide, Kaelen reasoned cold-bloodedly.
If Kaelen Vance, the crippled third son of an outer border barony, suddenly produced Supreme Pills with zero poison, the news would travel beyond the province within three days. Imperial inquisitors would arrive. Ancient sect elders would descend from the clouds to dissect his meridians. Derrick and Evelyn would lock him in an iron cage to forge pills for the clan until his blood ran dry.
Master Ash can sell Supreme Pills in the shadow market, Kaelen concluded. Because Master Ash is an invisible ghost wearing a bamboo hat. But Kaelen Vance must never be a ghost.
Thus, he formulated his 95% Public Ringed-Cap Rule.
Ninety-five percent purity. Ringed-Grade. Exactly three spiritual rings per pill, with five percent harmless Pill-Poison sediment.
Three rings is the absolute peak of mortal genius, Kaelen thought. It is enough to stun Derrick, humiliate Evelyn, and silence Master Cole forever. It protects our courtyard charter and keeps Mina safe. Yet it stays within the realm of mortal talent, so no imperial sects will come hunting my head.
To achieve ninety-five percent instead of one hundred percent was simple: he would forge the pills to perfection, then vent the earthen lid three seconds early. A brief breath of mountain air would cool the crust, trapping five percent mineral dust into the outer ring.
It was an intentional flaw. A deliberate masterpiece of mediocrity.
Kaelen picked up a bundle of Silver-Leaf Root and tossed it into the stone mortar. He picked up the pestle and began grinding the roots with agonizing, rhythmic slowness.
Crunch. Pause. Crunch. Pause.
“Is he falling asleep?” Master Cole hissed in disgust. “He is grinding roots like an eighty-year-old widow!”
“Every strike must match the heartbeat of the earth,” Kaelen muttered, eyes half-closed. “Disrupting the tempo bruises the wood Qi.”
Evelyn’s face darkened with venomous impatience. “Husband, this is an insult. He is mocking the authority of the main house. Order the guards to clear the shed!”
Derrick opened his mouth to speak.
Right at that exact second, deep inside Kaelen’s dantian, a pristine bell tolled with majestic clarity.
[The Fallow Slate] [Current Abstinence: 144 Hours, 00 Minutes] [Current State: True Fallow State] [Current Multiplier: 145x (Stage 1: Mortal Tally)] [Milestone Reached: 144 Hours, 00 Minutes (145x READY)!]
One hundred and forty-four hours of absolute, unbroken stillness.
Six full days of pure fallow rest completed.
The multiplier locked into place: one hundred and forty-five times baseline capability.
Kaelen set the stone pestle down. The sweet scent of glowing charcoal filled the crisp morning air. The earthen furnace glowed with steady, radiant red heat.
Evelyn Vance took a step forward, her sneer sharp as a butcher’s cleaver.
“Look at that pot,” Evelyn mocked, gesturing toward the simmering clay vessel with her jade fan. “Forty-five minutes of foolish posturing, and what do you have? A pot of plain water and a mortar of half-crushed weeds! You have failed, Kaelen. Guards, seize the—”
Kaelen did not listen to her words.
Deep inside his spiritual consciousness, he reached out with his mind and touched the glowing bronze slate.
Cash out, Kaelen commanded.
A blinding flash of golden text erupted across his vision, accompanied by a sound like roaring thunder locked in an iron vault.
[FALLOW CASH-OUT: 144 HOURS CONSUMED -> 145x Multiplier Applied (5-Minute Burst = 725 Baseline Hours)!]