Dawn broke over the Third Herb Shed with the crisp scent of dried mint.
Kaelen Vance lay stretched out in his hemp hammock beneath the cedar eaves.
The morning sun slanted through the wooden lattice, warming his face.
He flexed his right hand slowly.
The heavy numbness from yesterday’s tournament finals was gone.
Warmth circulated through his meridians, untying the knot in his shoulder.
Forty-five times baseline force punches through a bandit lord nicely, Kaelen thought. Waking up with a numb arm, however, is terrible for turning pages.
In his sea of consciousness, the translucent slate glowed with quiet light.
[The Fallow Slate] [Current Stacking Time: 12h 00m] [Active Multiplier: 13x]
Twelve hours had accumulated since he stepped off the arena sands.
Twelve sweet hours of uninterrupted rest.
Kaelen propped up Book 3 of The Bandit King’s Secret Bride.
He took a slow sip of cold jasmine tea from the earthen bowl on the crate.
If I tilt my straw hat lower, the sun warms my toes without glaring across the text, he noted inwardly. This is true cultivation.
A sharp scuffling sound broke the quiet.
“Hush! Away with you, winged pest!”
Old Barnaby stood at the edge of the porch, brandishing a rusty garden shovel.
A tiny brown sparrow sat on the eaves, its beak open to chirp.
Barnaby lunged forward, sweeping the shovel through the air.
“Begone, feathered mongrel!” Barnaby hissed. “Do you dare chirp while the young master establishes celestial stillness?”
The startled bird bolted into the sky.
Barnaby lowered the shovel, tiptoeing across the porch planks with exaggerated care.
Reaching the copper wind chime, Barnaby clamped his hand around the tubes.
He tied a woolen rag around them, muffling the chime completely.
Kaelen peered beneath his straw hat.
“Old Barnaby,” Kaelen murmured mildly. “What are you doing to the wind chime?”
Barnaby froze.
He turned around slowly, pressing a calloused finger to his lips.
“Quiet, boy!” Barnaby whispered, scurrying toward the hammock. “Sound creates ripples in worldly Qi!”
Kaelen turned a page of Book 3.
“I was drinking tea, Old Barnaby. Not sealing an immortal soul.”
“Do not play the fool with me any longer,” Barnaby said, leaning over the hammock.
Then came three miracles in a single week.
First, Kaelen handed him zero-poison Cloud-Veined Supreme Pills that knit bones in five breaths.
Second, Kaelen caved in Cassian’s steel breastplate with one punch.
Third, he caved in Rank 9 Hound-Lord Briggs’s chest with one bare fist.
To Barnaby’s mind, Kaelen’s laziness was not sloth.
It was a profound breathing art that required absolute stillness to condense power.
Barnaby had entered Phase Two Nagging.
He no longer nagged Kaelen to work.
He nagged Kaelen to be lazy with militant precision.
“Your meridians endured forty-five times the mortal limit!” Barnaby whispered urgently. “You need divine stillness to settle that marrow!”
“I am lying in a hammock, Old Barnaby,” Kaelen said mildly. “It is difficult to be more still than this without being dead.”
“You are turning pages too quickly!” Barnaby snapped in a frantic whisper. “The rustle of paper disturbs the ambient flow!”
He used to yell at me for sleeping, Kaelen thought. Now he yells at me for turning pages too loudly.
Barnaby stepped toward the window screen, his gaze darting across the empty courtyard.
“We must plan your next five-minute release,” Barnaby murmured. “We have four separate fires threatening this shed.”
Barnaby ticked his fingers off his single hand.
“Crisis one! Madam Evelyn and Magistrate Vane-Locke are locked inside the manor parlor! Are you going to burst in and break their knees?”
“That sounds like running,” Kaelen said, sipping his tea. “Running raises my pulse. It is bad for my liver.”
“Crisis two!” Barnaby hissed. “The Vance iron mines! Briggs’s surviving lieutenants are trying to seize the smelting furnaces!”
“Coal is cheap,” Kaelen replied smoothly. “And fighting in a mine gets soot on my clean robes.”
“Crisis three!” Barnaby pressed. “Your father! Derrick has been pacing the ancestral hall all night, demanding an audit!”
“Let him pace,” Kaelen said. “Pacing builds calf muscles.”
“And crisis four!” Barnaby rasped. “Mina’s frost condition! She needs another course of Marrow-Warming Pills before the first frost falls!”
Kaelen glanced through the open shed door.
Mina was sitting by the warm brazier, quietly cutting sweet dried plums onto a porcelain plate.
Her cheeks were rosy and full of color.
“Mina has enough warmth in her pulse to last three full weeks,” Kaelen said calmly. “There is no rush.”
Barnaby threw his head back in despair.
“Then what are you doing?” Barnaby groaned. “Why are you lying there like a beached carp?”
“I am accumulating,” Kaelen said.
“Accumulating what?”
“Tranquility,” Kaelen said, turning another page. “The world is very noisy, Old Barnaby. It requires stillness to balance out the noise.”
Barnaby stared at him, shaking his head.
Light footsteps sounded from the gravel path behind the shed.
Sera Thorne stepped onto the porch.
She wore a clean gray tunic, her spear strapped diagonally across her back.
Her injured left shoulder was completely healed.
Beside the hammock crate rested a heavy chest of lacquered black ironwood—the championship prize from yesterday’s tournament, holding a head-sized chunk of Tier 3 Star-Iron ore.
“Young Master,” Sera said, bowing her head slightly.
Barnaby rushed forward, waving his shovel.
“Quiet, girl! The young master is drawing down the stars!”
Sera looked at the old alchemist with a flat stare.
“He is reading about a bandit kidnapping a countess, Elder Barnaby. I can see the title from here.”
“That is a cover disguise!” Barnaby snapped back.
Kaelen set the pamphlet face down on his chest.
“Good morning, Sera,” Kaelen said. “How does the shoulder feel?”
“Completely restored,” Sera answered. “My strike force is sharper than before the match.”
Kaelen lifted the lacquered chest of Tier 3 Star-Iron ore and handed it to Sera.
“Its spiritual weight will draw any cultivator nearby,” Sera noted, taking the box.
Forging Tier 3 Star-Iron required high-grade Earth-Fire and a master smith.
“Not yet,” Kaelen said. “Lock it in the cellar behind the ironwood vault door.”
Sera nodded. “Until we find a smith?”
“Until we find a smith who can reforge Storm-Pike properly,” Kaelen said. “Lock the door and keep the brass key on your belt.”
Sera bowed again with quiet loyalty.
“Understood, Young Master. I will guard the cellar.”
“And Sera,” Kaelen added, shifting his pillow.
“Yes?”
“Tell Old Barnaby to wake me in five days.”
Barnaby dropped his shovel with a loud clatter.
“Five days?” Barnaby gasped, clutching his chest. “Five entire days of doing nothing? That is one hundred and twenty hours!”
One hundred and twenty hours on top of twelve, Kaelen calculated comfortably. That pushes the slate past one hundred and thirty times multiplier.
“Five days,” Kaelen repeated firmly. “No summons. No meetings. No alarms unless the roof catches fire. If the roof catches fire, throw water on it before you wake me.”
“The Patriarch will tear this shed down!” Barnaby wailed in a harsh whisper.
“Then use that shovel,” Kaelen said, closing his eyes.
Sera picked up the ironwood chest effortlessly.
A faint smirk touched her lips as she looked at Barnaby.
“You heard the Young Master, Elder Barnaby,” Sera murmured. “Your shovel duty begins now.”
She carried the Star-Iron down the stone steps leading to the underground cellar.
Barnaby picked up his shovel, his jaw setting into a hard line.
“Fine,” Barnaby growled under his breath. “If five days of sleep produces another punch that shatters a mountain, I will guard this porch against heaven itself.”
The afternoon passed in slow, golden silence.
The sun warmed the dried herbs hanging from the rafters.
Kaelen read through the middle scenes of Book 3, enjoying the melodramatic misunderstandings.
By the third hour after noon, heavy boots crunched along the gravel path.
Two men in silk-trimmed blue robes strode through the outer gate.
They were senior stewards from Baron Derrick’s private household.
The lead steward, a portly man named Hobb, carried a scroll wrapped in yellow silk.
Behind him, a young clerk carried an ink stone and an abacus.
“Third Young Master Kaelen!” Hobb called out. “By order of Baron Derrick Vance, you are summoned to the Great Hall!”
Inside the hammock, Kaelen did not open his eyes.
He simply pulled his straw hat down over his nose.
On the porch, a figure moved with startling speed.
Old Barnaby leaped off the wooden deck, landing directly in front of the two stewards.
The iron shovel swung through the air, stopping two inches from Steward Hobb’s nose.
“Silence, you screeching crow!” Barnaby roared in a furious stage-whisper.
Steward Hobb stumbled backward, his face turning red with outrage.
“Elder Barnaby!” Hobb sputtered. “Have you lost your mind? I am the Baron’s chief household steward! How dare you wave a manure shovel in my face?”
“You are a loud donkey disturbing the great work!” Barnaby hissed, leveling the flat steel blade at the man’s throat. “The Third Young Master has entered deep, secluded comprehension! His spirit is harmonizing with the primordial breath of heaven and earth!”
The younger clerk blinked, peeking past Barnaby’s shoulder toward the porch.
“He looks like he is sleeping in a hammock, Elder,” the clerk whispered timidly.
“That is the Fallow Void State, you blind worm!” Barnaby snarled, slapping the gravel at the clerk’s feet with the shovel.
Gravel sprayed against the clerk’s silk boots, making him yelp in shock.
“One loud word, and his profound soul-breath will shatter!” Barnaby continued, his bloodshot eyes bulging. “If a master’s comprehension backfires, the explosive Qi will level this entire shed and blow the skin off your bones!”
Steward Hobb swallowed hard, remembering Hound-Lord Briggs’s shattered chest cavity.
“B-but the Baron...” Hobb stammered, his pompous confidence evaporating. “The Baron demands his presence today!”
“Tell the Baron that if he wants an exploded courtyard, he can come knock himself!” Barnaby growled, taking a threatening step forward. “The Young Master will not be disturbed for five days!”
“Five days?” Hobb squeaked.
“Five days! If I see your blue robes near this fence before the fifth morning, I will plant you like a turnip! Now get out!”
Barnaby lunged forward with a ferocious sweep of the shovel.
Steward Hobb and the clerk turned on their heels, shrieking in panic as they scrambled toward the outer gate.
Their silk slippers slipped on loose gravel, nearly sending both men sprawling into the ditch.
They did not look back until they were far down the mountain path.
Barnaby lowered the shovel, leaning on the wooden handle with a satisfied grunt.
“Pompous parasites,” the old man muttered, spitting into the weeds. “Trying to interrupt a breakthrough with paperwork.”
Inside the hammock, Kaelen smiled faintly beneath his straw hat.
Having an unhinged alchemist as a gatekeeper is remarkably convenient, Kaelen thought pleasantly. I should have let him believe I was a hidden master weeks ago.
The afternoon shadows lengthened across the stone flags.
The air cooled as twilight began to brush the tops of the pine trees.
In Kaelen’s mind, the slate chimed with a gentle ring.
[The Fallow Slate] [Current Stacking Time: 18h 00m] [Active Multiplier: 19x]
Eighteen hours clean.
Nineteen times baseline efficiency ready to deploy at a moment’s notice.
Kaelen felt the gentle hum of pure Qi circulating through his flesh, untainted by Pill-Poison or strain.
He stretched his limbs, yawned, and let Book 3 rest against his chest.
A sudden gust of autumn wind swept down from the western hills, swirling through the courtyard.
It rustled the dried lavender overhead, sending a shower of purple specks dancing through the air.
The wind caught the loose papers resting on the porch table.
A loose, dog-eared page from the back of Book 3 slipped from the wooden surface, carried aloft by the breeze.
It drifted over the railing and landed softly on the gravel path.
Barnaby, who had been pacing near the gate with his shovel, noticed the white paper immediately.
He scowled, his eyebrows drawing together in irritation.
“Littering the sacred grounds,” Barnaby grumbled under his breath, stomping over to the fallen page. “A master of the Dao should have more discipline with his reading scraps.”
He reached down with his left hand, scooping the paper out of the dirt.
He was about to crumple it up and shove it into his pocket when his eyes caught the bold black ink at the top of the sheet.
The rain poured over the ruined watchtower, washing the mud from his black cloak.
Lord Brandon lowered his steel mask, revealing the silver scar along his jawline.
‘You think I came here to conquer your father’s fortress, Valeria?’ the bandit king whispered, his voice trembling in the cold dark. ‘Look at this blade. Look at the dragon engraving on the pommel.’
The princess dropped her lantern. The flame flickered out in the wet grass.
‘The silver dagger,’ she gasped, her hands shaking against her silk bodice. ‘Ten years ago... on the frozen river... it was you?’
Brandon stepped into the storm, trapping her against the stone wall.
‘It was always me, my fierce bird,’ he murmured. ‘And tonight, neither the imperial army nor your father’s decree will keep you from my side.’
Barnaby froze in place.
His one good hand gripped the edges of the paper until his knuckles turned yellow.
His mouth fell open, his lower lip quivering slightly.
“The bandit king was the boy from the frozen river?” Barnaby whispered, his bloodshot eyes widening.
He stared at the ink as if deciphering an ancient celestial tablet.
“She thought he was a barbarian invader for three hundred pages,” Barnaby muttered, his breath catching in his throat. “She hated him! She poisoned his wine in the second pamphlet!”
His hand shook as he hastily flipped the page over to read what happened next.
The back of the sheet was completely blank.
The scene was cut off right as the bandit king leaned toward the princess.
Barnaby looked at the empty white paper, then jerked his head toward the porch.
His eyes locked onto the hemp hammock where Kaelen lay sleeping beneath his straw hat.
The rest of Book 3 was tucked securely beneath the boy’s elbow.
Barnaby clutched the single torn page against his chest, his heart hammering against his ribs like a war drum.
“What did she say to him?” Barnaby whispered into the empty courtyard, his face pale with sudden suspense. “Did she stab him or did she kiss him?”
He took one step toward the hammock, his shovel trembling in his grasp.
Then he stopped, remembering his own sacred rule of silence.
Barnaby looked at the paper.
He looked at the sleeping boy.
A silent, desperate groan escaped his lips as he realized he had four more days to wait.