The invisible surge of power flooded through Kaelen’s blood like a warm, roaring river.
Every sensation sharpened to a razor point. Each pop of the pine charcoal in the brazier echoed like a war drum, while the rising heat waves drifted upward at a glacial crawl.
Seven hundred and twenty-five baseline hours of peak concentration, compressed into his active multiplier window.
Kaelen moved his hands. To the onlookers in the yard, his fingers blurred into a fluid, effortless dance.
He picked up the bowl of ground Silver-Leaf Root and tossed it into the simmering water. He added the washed Dragon-Tooth Grass with a single flick of his wrist.
The herbal slurry hissed as it met the bubbling liquid.
Kaelen placed his palm against the rough clay lid, sending a precise pulse of spiritual heat into the core of the pot.
Under the influence of his one hundred and forty-five times multiplier, the messy herbal extracts refined instantly. Impurities parted like oil from water, sinking into the bottom dregs.
Two minutes passed.
Inside the sealed clay vessel, the purified herbal essences condensed into ten flawless, swirling pearls of emerald medicine.
Three minutes passed.
Ten pristine Cloud-Veined Supreme Pills took form, their surfaces as smooth as polished jade, glowing with zero Pill-Poison.
Ten Supreme Pills, Kaelen observed in his inner vision. Now comes the most important step.
Remembering his ninety-five percent cap rule, Kaelen hooked his thumb under the wooden lid handle.
At exactly four minutes, he tilted the lid upward by half an inch.
A hiss of scalding white steam shot upward toward the eaves. A breath of cold mountain wind swept into the vessel, chilling the outer crust of the medicine.
The sudden drop in temperature locked five percent of harmless mineral sediment into the pill skins. Three luminous golden spirit rings snapped into place around eight of the pills, shimmering like spun gold.
At the exact same instant, Kaelen’s left sleeve brushed across the rim of the pot.
His fingers moved with the speed of a striking viper. He palmed the two remaining pills that had escaped the cold air, slipping both untouched Cloud-Veined Supreme Pills deep into his inner pocket.
He lifted the earthen lid completely and set it on the flagstones.
“Done,” Kaelen announced, stepping back from the brazier with an easy yawn.
Evelyn Vance scoffed, lifting her silk sleeve to block the rising herbal steam. “Done? Four minutes of boiling weeds? Husband, do you see how he mocks us?”
Master Cole sneered, pulling a bronze inspection dish and a crystal magnifying lens from his robes.
“A proper batch of Tier 1 Blood-Staunching Pills requires at least forty minutes of steady simmering,” Master Cole lectured, stepping toward the furnace. “A four-minute boil yields nothing but bitter green sludge and scorched leaf pulp.”
Master Cole leaned over the steaming pot with an arrogant smirk.
He peered into the clay interior.
The sneer on his face froze. His thin goatee twitched.
His jaw dropped so low that his lower lip trembled against his collar. The crystal magnifying lens slipped from his numb fingers, bouncing off the wooden rim of the brazier.
“What... what is this?” Master Cole stammered, his voice climbing into a terrified squeak.
“Master Cole?” Evelyn asked, her icy smile faltering. “Is the sludge toxic?”
“It is... it cannot be...” Master Cole choked out.
The guild master reached into the cooling pot with trembling silver tongs. He lifted the first pill into the morning sunlight.
The pill was the size of a red plum seed, gleaming with a deep, radiant crimson hue. Encircling its glossy outer surface were three distinct, unbroken golden rings.
The faint, sweet aroma of pure winter honey and alpine pine filled the entire courtyard.
Master Cole’s knees wobbled. He stared at the glowing pill as if he were holding a fragment of the sun.
“Three spirit rings,” Master Cole gasped, his face draining of all color. “Ringed-Grade! Ninety-five percent purity!”
He frantically dipped his tongs back into the pot, pulling out the remaining seven pills and lining them up on the bronze inspection dish.
Every single one was identical. Eight crimson spheres, each bearing three perfect golden spirit rings.
“Eight three-ringed pills...” Master Cole whispered, clutching his chest with both hands. “In a cracked earthen pot! Without a pill furnace! In four minutes!”
Master Cole looked up at Kaelen, his eyes bulging in sheer terror.
“Ninety-five percent purity is the absolute limit of a Tier 2 Guild Master!” Master Cole shrieked, completely forgetting his composure. “Even the Grand Elder of the Provincial Guild cannot guarantee three rings on an open brazier!”
Derrick Vance stepped forward, his heavy boots crunching on the gravel.
The Baron looked down at the bronze dish. His stern, authoritarian eyes widened with immense awe and burning greed.
He picked up one of the pills, feeling the smooth, pulsing warmth vibrating against his skin.
“Three rings,” Derrick breathed, his deep voice trembling with shock. “True Ringed-Grade medicine. Five percent Pill-Poison at most.”
Derrick turned to face Kaelen, his expression completely transformed. For the first time in eighteen years, the patriarch looked at his third son with profound awe and respect.
“How did you do this?” Derrick demanded, his voice thick with wonder.
Beside him, Evelyn Vance looked as if she had swallowed a live scorpion. Her face had turned an ashen, sickly white.
Her fingers dug into her jade fan until the delicate ivory ribs snapped with a sharp crack. Her eyes darted from the gleaming pills to Kaelen, filled with venomous hatred and bitter humiliation.
That fan looked expensive, Kaelen thought, stifling another yawn behind his sleeve. Good thing I vented the lid early. If Master Cole saw the two Cloud-Veined pills in my pocket, his heart would stop right on my clean gravel.
“A fluke!” Garrick shouted, his voice shrill and frantic. “Father, it is a trick! He bought these from the Ghost Market and swapped them into the pot! He must be searched!”
“Silence, fool!” Derrick roared, turning on Garrick with terrifying fury.
The Baron’s Rank 9 aura flared outward, slamming Garrick backward two steps until the second son stumbled against an armored guard.
“We stood five paces away and watched him wash the herbs with our own eyes!” Derrick barked. “No one swapped anything!”
Derrick swept his dark crimson sleeves back and looked at the assembled clan guards.
“The Third Herb Shed has fulfilled the courtyard assessment with peerless distinction,” Derrick declared in a booming voice that echoed across the pine ridge. “Its charter is reaffirmed for the next ten years. Its monthly herb allowance is doubled immediately.”
Evelyn swayed on her feet, forced to bow her head in silent, grinding rage.
Behind the porch railing, Barnaby Holt fell to his knees with tears streaming down his weathered cheeks. He clutched Mina against his chest, both of them weeping with overwhelming relief.
Kaelen rubbed the back of his neck and let out a noisy yawn.
“If the assessment is finished, Father,” Kaelen said in a weary drawl, “I need to take a nap. Refining that batch drained my spleen meridian terribly.”
Without waiting for Derrick’s permission, Kaelen turned his back on the stunned clan leadership. He walked up the porch steps, pushed open the wooden door, and stepped inside the shed.
Sera closed the heavy oak door behind him, dropping the iron security bar into place.
Outside, Derrick’s booming voice dismissed the guards, while Evelyn and Garrick retreated down the mountain path in bitter silence.
Inside the quiet bedroom, Kaelen let his tired posture drop.
His eyes were bright and alert.
He glanced at his internal tally. Forty-five minutes remained on his active multiplier window.
One hundred and forty-five baseline hours available for each remaining burst minute, Kaelen thought. I have no intention of wasting thirty seconds of it on sleep.
He walked over to the hearth and lifted the loose floor slate. He pulled out the black ironwood lockbox, popping the brass latch open.
Inside rested eighty-seven gleaming Low-Grade Spirit Stones.
Beside them lay the two Cloud-Veined Supreme Pills he had palmed from the pot.
Kaelen sat down cross-legged on the clean wool rug. He picked up both Supreme Pills and tossed them into his mouth, swallowing them in a single gulp.
The pure, zero-poison medicine dissolved instantly, releasing two thousand units of refined Qi into his central meridian like liquid sunlight.
Next, Kaelen plunged both hands into the ironwood lockbox.
His fingers closed around thirty Low-Grade Spirit Stones. Each stone held one hundred units of raw spiritual energy, totaling three thousand units of pure Qi.
Circulate, Kaelen commanded.
Under his one hundred and forty-five times multiplier, the absorption process was instantaneous.
Crack. Crack. Crack.
Thirty Low-Grade Spirit Stones shattered into fine gray dust between his fingers. A raging torrent of three thousand units of spiritual energy poured through his palms, joining the massive surge from the two Supreme Pills.
Five thousand total units of pure Qi hammered against the sixth pulse gate in his upper back.
A sharp detonation echoed inside Kaelen’s spine.
The sixth gate shattered into fragments of light. His meridians expanded, their walls solidifying into polished, crystalline conduits of power.
Mortal Pulse Rank 6 achieved.
Kaelen exhaled a thin stream of white spiritual vapor. His physical strength had doubled, his senses expanding by thirty yards in every direction.
He dusted the stone powder from his trousers. Exactly fifty-seven Low-Grade Spirit Stones remained in the lockbox.
He glanced at his internal timer. Ten minutes remained on his active burst window.
“Ten minutes of peak comprehension,” Kaelen murmured.
He reached into the back of the lockbox and pulled out the crumpled pages of Garrick’s stolen warehouse notes.
The papers were covered in dense columns of jumbled merchant codes, warehouse bin numbers, and encrypted account tallies.
Kaelen spread the papers across his knees.
With his mental speed accelerated by one hundred and forty-five times, the jumbled numbers untangled like loose silk threads.
Four hundred and thirty-five baseline hours of analytical deduction unfolded in his mind over three minutes.
The fake bin numbers aligned with dates. The iron ore weights corresponded to cart axle loads. The merchant signatures mapped directly to the western border trails.
Within three minutes, the entire cipher lay completely bare.
Second Brother really thought swapping bin numbers with axle weights was clever, Kaelen mused, dipping a brush in ink. Three minutes and four hundred thirty-five baseline hours of comprehension turn his life’s work into a children’s puzzle.
Kaelen picked up a brush and a scrap of coarse brown paper. He rapidly sketched a clean, detailed map of Ashford Town’s western district.
At the edge of the town wall, he drew a small circle around an abandoned brick kiln.
Beside the circle, he wrote three lines of clear notes:
False brick wall in subterranean cellar. Twelve crates of Vance high-grade iron ore stored beneath kiln floor. Exchange scheduled with Iron-Hound quartermaster.
Right as he set the brush down, the golden light in his mind faded.
After the three-minute deciphering, he spent the last seven minutes copying the decoded entries and checking their sums. The active burst window expired.
Inside his dantian, the bronze slate chimed with pristine, tranquil stillness, resetting its counter to the very beginning.
[The Fallow Slate] [Current Abstinence: 00 Hours, 00 Minutes] [Current State: True Fallow State] [Current Multiplier: 1x (Stage 1: Mortal Tally)] [Next Milestone: 01 Hour (2x Ready)]
Zero hours. One times multiplier.
A complete reset. The vessel was entirely empty, ready to begin stacking fresh hours of peace.
Kaelen stretched his arms, feeling the deep, smooth hum of his new Rank 6 pulse gate.
A soft knock sounded at the back window.
The wooden shutter pushed open. Deacon Vane slipped into the room like a shadow, disguised in the rough brown cloak of a traveling turnip peddler.
Beside him stood Sera Thorne, her spear shaft gripped loosely in her hand.
“Young Master Kaelen,” Deacon Vane whispered obsequiously, bowing his head. “I came the moment the guards cleared the ridge. The news of your eight Ringed-Grade pills has already shaken the lower market!”
Kaelen picked up the freshly drawn map from his knee and tossed it across the table.
Deacon Vane caught the paper, his sharp eyes scanning the neat black ink. His mouth fell open in astonishment.
“The old brick kiln...” Deacon Vane whispered, his fingers trembling with excitement. “Garrick’s secret transfer depot! The serial numbers, the dates, the guard rotations... everything is laid bare!”
Sera looked at the map, a cold, predatory smile touching her lips.
“Garrick thinks his secret is safe in the dirt,” Sera said quietly. “He has no idea we hold the key to his throat.”
Kaelen leaned back against his wool pillow and pulled his straw hat down over his eyes.
“You have five days before the Barony Tournament,” Kaelen said in a calm, sleepy voice. “Take the map. Coordinate with the Ghost Market scouts, gather the proof, and seize the ore crates.”
He adjusted his blanket, letting out a soft, contented sigh.
“When the tournament arrives, I want Garrick Vance completely bankrupt and facing an execution warrant,” Kaelen added, his voice drifting into a relaxed murmur. “Now close the shutter. I need to get back to my nap.”