Twin charcoal braziers roared to life beneath the kitchen hearth, spitting bright orange embers against the blackened stone flue.
Old Barnaby moved with frantic speed, pumping the oiled pigskin bellows until the stone walls radiated a shimmering wave of heat.
Kaelen Vance stepped up to the stove, tying his linen sleeves back with a length of hemp cord.
Behind his brow, the translucent tablet blazed like molten gold as the stored hours unlocked.
[The Fallow Slate] [Active Multiplier Window Initiated: 60 Minutes] [Current Multiplier: 121x] [All Practice, Refining, and Circulation Scaled to 121x Baseline Speed]
The sixty-minute burst window was ticking.
Every single minute inside this state delivered one hundred and twenty-one full baseline hours of alchemy and cultivation.
With a 121x multiplier, Kaelen thought, feeling a surge of crystalline clarity flood his mind, five minutes of core firing equals six hundred and five baseline hours. Time to earn my nap.
“Bring the prep trays, Old Barnaby,” Kaelen commanded.
Barnaby hauled the first load of sorted ingredients across the flagstones, sliding twenty pounds of cleaned winter roots and cloud-bark onto the counter.
“Normal decocting takes twelve hours for the roots alone!” Barnaby warned, panting as he shoved the wooden trays forward. “The medicinal sap will scorch if the flame is too fierce!”
Kaelen did not weigh the portions with brass scales.
Under the active burst state, his senses operated with mathematical perfection.
His hands moved in a blur, crushing the sorted roots, blending the powders, and pre-decocting the bruised botanicals in stages inside the heavy cast-iron pot.
Over twenty-five minutes of methodical preparation, the entire mountain of prepped spirit herbs was reduced into the vessel for the final five-minute condensation firing.
Kaelen slammed the heavy wooden lid down, clamping the iron handles with his bare hands.
He drove his Mortal Pulse Rank 7 Qi downward through the iron rim.
Ignite.
The twin braziers beneath the hearth flared into brilliant white fire.
The heat did not build slowly over hours as ordinary alchemy required.
Scaled to one hundred and twenty-one times speed, six hundred hours of thermodynamic condensation crashed into the stew-pot simultaneously.
Screeech.
A high-pitched, metallic groan echoed through the kitchen.
The cast-iron pot shuddered violently on the iron grate, its dark metal turning dull gray, then bright orange, and finally cherry-red.
Tiny spiderweb fractures sizzled along the outer rim, glowing like molten threads.
Barnaby stumbled backward, clapping his hand over his ears in sheer panic.
“The pot!” Barnaby shrieked over the roar of the fire. “Boy, the iron is screaming! The thermal pressure is too high! It is going to detonate and blow our heads off!”
“Keep pumping the bellows, Old Barnaby,” Kaelen said, his voice completely level.
Kaelen’s hands remained locked to the glowing handles.
His pure Qi acted as an invisible clamp, wrapping around the cherry-red metal to contain the violent medicinal vapors.
Inside the pot, ten sacks of pulverized herbs liquefied into emerald nectar in thirty seconds.
The vapor pressure pounded against the lid like a battering ram.
Kaelen narrowed his eyes, focusing his mind on the internal core of the broth.
Separate the dregs, he commanded silently. Condense the soul.
Under the transcendent compression of the 121x multiplier, the impurities separated instantly, vaporizing through the flue in a thin wisp of gray smoke.
Thirty distinct spheres of liquid light formed in the center of the pot.
They spun like tiny celestial planets, drawing the ambient fire Qi into their cores.
Crack. Sizzle.
The iron stew-pot groaned again, its bottom bulging downward by half an inch.
Deep stress fractures crawled across the base like red lightning.
“Kaelen!” Barnaby yelled, dancing on his toes. “The metal is softening! It will melt into liquid slag!”
“Seal,” Kaelen whispered.
He pulled his Qi inward with a sharp, decisive snap.
The white flames beneath the pot collapsed into cold gray ash in a single heartbeat.
Puff.
A thick cloud of fragrant white steam burst from beneath the wooden lid, smelling intensely of mountain winter and frosted pine.
The heavy aroma filled the kitchen, washing over Barnaby’s face.
The one-armed alchemist froze.
The unbearable heat had vanished completely, replaced by a refreshing, invigorating chill that made his old meridians tingle.
Kaelen lifted the wooden lid with a cloth.
Sitting in the bottom of the cooling iron pot were thirty perfect, pearl-sized pills.
Each pill was milky white and flawless.
Three delicate, swirling blue cloud veins ringed the surface of every single sphere.
Cloud-Veined Supreme Marrow-Warming Pills.
Thirty pills.
One hundred percent purity.
Zero Pill-Poison.
Barnaby dropped to his knees beside the hearth, staring into the pot with glassy, trembling eyes.
“Thirty...” Barnaby whispered, his hand shaking as he touched the edge of the rim. “Thirty supreme pills from a single firing... in five minutes.”
He reached in and lifted one pill, holding it up to the lantern light.
The pill felt warm and smooth, radiating rich, life-giving vitality.
“A royal alchemist would spend three years preparing for a batch like this,” Barnaby murmured, his voice cracking with emotion. “And you cooked them in a soup kettle.”
Barnaby pointed a shaking finger at the bottom of the stew-pot.
The cast-iron base was spiderwebbed with dozens of hairline fractures, the metal permanently warped and discolored.
“Look at this iron, boy,” Barnaby warned, his tone suddenly grim. “This kettle was never meant for spirit fire. It barely survived one hundred and twenty-one times speed.”
Barnaby tapped the bulging metal with his knuckle.
“You told me your Fallow Slate has a Stage 1 Vessel Cap of two hundred and forty hours,” Barnaby said. “At a two-hundred-and-forty-one times multiplier, this fractured stew-pot will liquefy in three seconds and melt through the floor.”
Kaelen inspected the damaged base, nodding slowly.
Old Barnaby is entirely correct, Kaelen thought. Cooking high-grade medicine in kitchen cookware is convenient, but having twenty pounds of molten cast iron explode into my lap would severely disrupt my afternoon rest.
“We will find a real cauldron,” Kaelen said mildly.
He glanced inward toward his sea of consciousness.
The translucent slate was glowing brightly, the golden burst timer ticking steadily down.
[The Fallow Slate] [Burst Window Remaining: 30 Minutes] [Active Multiplier: 121x]
Thirty minutes remained in his golden window.
Thirty precious minutes of 121x speed.
Refining the medicine took five minutes; cooling, sorting, packing, and the discussion used another twenty-five, Kaelen calculated comfortably. Letting the remaining thirty minutes go to waste would be an unforgivable crime against laziness.
He walked to the heavy ironwood lockbox resting beneath the floorboards.
He opened the lid and lifted out one hundred and twenty Low-Grade Spirit Stones.
The pale blue crystals hummed with dense, pure atmospheric Qi.
Next, he picked up two of the freshly refined Cloud-Veined Supreme Pills from the pot.
“Sera,” Kaelen called out.
Sera Thorne stepped into the kitchen doorway, her spear resting against her hip.
“Young Master?”
“Stand guard at the porch,” Kaelen instructed. “I have thirty minutes of circulation to complete. Do not let Old Barnaby drop any ladles.”
Sera nodded with a faint smirk. “Understood.”
Kaelen sat down cross-legged on the hemp floor mat.
He arranged the one hundred and twenty Low-Grade Spirit Stones in a neat circle around his knees.
The pale blue crystals hummed with vibrant resonance, casting azure reflections across the wooden rafters.
He placed the two supreme pills on his tongue, swallowing them down his throat.
Immediately, he placed both palms over the glowing stones.
Circulate.
He engaged the Vance Frost-Pine Breath Manual at maximum intensity.
Scaled to one hundred and twenty-one times speed, thirty burst minutes transformed into three thousand six hundred and thirty baseline cultivation hours.
Over five months of nonstop meditation compressed into half an hour.
Crack. Sizzle.
The two supreme pills dissolved in his stomach, releasing rivers of pure, soothing celestial warmth into his bloodstream.
Simultaneously, the pile of one hundred and twenty spirit stones between his hands began to crumble.
Twelve thousand units of pure atmospheric Qi surged through the palms of his hands.
Normally, flooding twelve thousand units of external Qi into a Mortal Pulse cultivator in thirty minutes would tear their meridians to shreds and burst their dantian like an overfilled bladder.
Under the absolute perfection of the 121x Fallow Slate multiplier, however, there was zero chaos.
The celestial warmth from the zero-poison supreme pills coated his meridian walls like liquid jade.
Every thread of raw spirit stone Qi was instantly purified, stripped of impurities, and hammered into dense, silky rings.
The seven opened meridians in his torso and arms expanded smoothly.
Their walls thickened, glowing with a soft, translucent luster.
His Rank 7 foundation, which had been slightly shaken by the forty-five times overload strike against Hound-Lord Briggs, completely stabilized.
The energy did not push him recklessly into Rank 8.
Instead, it packed his Rank 7 vessel until it was as solid and unyielding as polished diamond.
His bones felt dense.
His blood flowed with quiet, immense power.
His breathing settled into a deep, effortless rhythm that mirrored the turning of the seasons.
Inside his mind, the sixty-minute burst window finished its countdown and expired.
[The Fallow Slate] [60-Minute Burst Window Expired] [Current Stacking Time: 00h 00m] [Active Multiplier: 01x]
The golden glow faded back into quiet white light.
The baseline stillness of the Fallow Slate returned.
Kaelen opened his eyes and exhaled a long wisp of clear, fragrant mist.
Between his hands, the one hundred and twenty spirit stones had been reduced to piles of harmless gray dust.
His wealth had dropped from two hundred and thirty stones to one hundred and ten.
In exchange, his Rank 7 foundation was solidified beyond anything an ordinary mortal could achieve in three decades of harsh training.
He stood up smoothly, dusting the gray powder from his linen trousers.
Twelve thousand Qi absorbed without a single meridian cramp, Kaelen thought with deep satisfaction. First Brother spends ten hours a day swinging iron and coughing up Pill-Poison just to gain two inches. Laziness is truly the supreme path.
Light, hurried footsteps crunched outside the kitchen window.
Deacon Vane stepped through the door, carrying two padded wooden cases lined with red velvet.
“Young Master!” Deacon Vane whispered, his eyes darting toward the hearth. “The buyers are camping outside the Ghost Market gates! Sect elders from three towns are arguing over bidding numbers in the streets! Did Master Ash manage to produce any?”
Kaelen gestured toward the cooling ceramic trays on the counter.
Deacon Vane walked over and lifted the silk cloth covering the trays.
The appraiser’s jaw dropped.
His ivory fan slipped from his fingers, clattering onto the flagstones.
“Twenty-eight...” Deacon Vane choked, clutching his chest as if his heart might burst. “Full cloud veins... zero poison...”
“Thirty came out of the pot, and I swallowed two to settle my meridians,” Kaelen said calmly. “Take twenty-five for tomorrow’s auction. The remaining three go into our cellar vault, bringing our personal reserve from twenty-seven to thirty Supreme Pills.”
Deacon Vane carefully placed twenty-five pills into the velvet-lined cases, his fingers shaking so violently that he nearly dropped the latches.
“Twenty-five supreme pills,” Deacon Vane whispered, tears of pure mercantile ecstasy welling in his eyes. “The Barony will drown in spirit stones tomorrow! Magistrate Vane-Locke’s cheap pill stalls will be trampled into the mud!”
“Go make our profit,” Kaelen said mildly. “And remember to deduct your five percent brokerage fee before delivering the stones.”
Deacon Vane bowed so low his forehead brushed the floorboards.
“By my ancestors’ graves, Young Master, every stone will be counted to the half-grain!”
The broker clutched the two wooden cases to his chest and sprinted out into the twilight like a man carrying the imperial seal.
Kaelen turned back toward the hearth.
He looked at the battered cast-iron stew-pot, its warped, spiderwebbed base cooling slowly on the cold stones.
He turned his head toward Old Barnaby, who was still sweeping up herb leaves with his single arm.
“Old Barnaby,” Kaelen said.
Barnaby looked up from the flagstones. “Yes, boy?”
“Fetch the merchant catalogs from the Nine-Cauldron Guild,” Kaelen said, walking toward his hammock on the porch. “Start browsing for an Earth-Fire cauldron. The next time we cook, I want a vessel that will not melt.”
Barnaby scratched his chin with his single hand, eyeing the fractured pot.
“A genuine Earth-Fire bronze cauldron will cost hundreds of spirit stones, boy,” Barnaby muttered.
Kaelen settled into the mesh, pulling his straw hat over his brow.
“Then let the merchants fight over the auction tomorrow,” Kaelen said softly. “They will pay for every ounce of bronze.”