The green flare smoke drifted into the night sky, vanishing into the cold mist above the Black-Pine Mountains.
Kaelen Vance slipped through the side garden gates and returned to the quiet shadows of the Third Herb Shed.
He didn’t bother lighting a lamp.
He kicked off his linen slippers, dropped onto his cot, and closed his eyes.
A good night of sleep was sacred preparation for an even longer public nap.
By the time the morning sun crested the eastern ridge, the entire town of Ashford was buzzing like a disturbed hornet nest.
Gongs echoed through the streets, calling merchants, clan retainers, and curious peasants toward the center of the settlement.
Kaelen slept late into the morning until the distant town drums began their pre-noon roll.
He washed his face with cold well water, ate two warm scallion pancakes prepared by Mina, and sipped a bowl of roasted barley tea as noon approached.
Behind his eyelids, the pale gold characters of his tally shifted with pristine precision.
[The Fallow Slate] [Stage 1: Mortal Tally] [Current Stacking Time: 148h 00m] [Active Multiplier: 149x READY]
One hundred forty-eight hours, Kaelen thought, chewing his pancake slowly. The magistrate has gathered five hundred people to watch me bank an extra point of multiplier with every abstinent hour.
He walked out onto the porch.
Barnaby Holt was waiting by the wooden handcart, his face pale and his single hand gripping the haul-rope.
“Look at this cart,” Barnaby groaned, shaking his grey head in despair. “People will throw rotten turnips at us, Kaelen. They will think we are moving to a summer cottage.”
“A summer cottage has drafty windows,” Kaelen replied mildly. “Our cart has high-quality cedar.”
Loaded onto the cart were the essentials: a thick goose-down mattress, two feather pillows, a cedar folding screen, and a battered cast-iron stew-pot.
Mina had also packed two jars of honeyed walnuts and three clean linen towels.
Sera Thorne walked beside the cart with her iron spear resting across her shoulder.
“The square is completely surrounded by county constables,” Sera reported, glancing toward the road. “Magistrate Vane-Locke has spared no expense. He even set up a silk-canopied pavilion for the clan elders and foreign merchants.”
“Splendid,” Kaelen said. “A canopy means less wind on the stage. Let us go.”
***
Ashford Square was packed with more than five hundred townsfolk by the time the midday gong rang.
In the center of the cobblestone plaza stood a raised stone platform three feet above the ground.
A thick white chalk line divided the stage into two equal halves.
Local bookmakers were already doing brisk business near the town fountain.
The odds were posted on wooden placards: twenty to one in favor of Court Alchemist Morvath, and one hundred to one against the Vance House third son.
In the back of the crowd, Deacon Vane stood beside a tea stall, twirling two silver walnuts in his palm.
The appraiser caught Kaelen’s eye and offered a subtle, knowing wink from beneath his wide merchant brim.
On the southern side of the stage stood Court Alchemist Morvath.
The man was a walking skeleton wrapped in yellow silk robes.
Dark purple hollows circled his bloodshot eyes, and three long copper needles were driven directly into his collarbones to suppress fatigue.
Around him stood three iron racks filled with eighty distinct bundles of dried spirit herbs.
At the center of his circle sat a massive three-legged bronze cauldron, engraved with the roaring dragon crest of the Nine-Cauldron Guild.
Two young apprentices worked frantically behind him, stacking seasoned pine charcoal into neat pyramids.
Morvath paced around his cauldron like a caged animal, snapping at his apprentices whenever a piece of wood slipped.
On the northern side of the platform, the Vance clan had set up their station.
Or rather, Barnaby had pushed their small handcart onto the boards.
The crowd buzzed with confusion as Barnaby unloaded their equipment.
There were no polished copper cauldrons.
There were no rows of glowing spirit charcoal.
There was only a battered cast-iron stew-pot with a warped base, placed upon a cold iron tripod.
Next to the cold pot, Barnaby unfolded the four-panel cedar screen painted with autumn clouds and set the rolled feather mattress beside the tripod.
High up in the VIP pavilion, Magistrate Vane-Locke sat in a gilded armchair, flanked by Baron Derrick Vance and Cassian Vance.
Cassian’s chest was wrapped in white linen bandages to protect his cracked ribs.
When Cassian saw the bedding on the handcart, he broke into a harsh, mocking laugh.
“Look at him,” Cassian sneered, leaning over the carved railing. “The third boy has brought his bed to an alchemy duel because he knows the Third Herb Shed cannot match a disciple of the Nine-Cauldron Guild!”
Magistrate Vane-Locke chuckled softly, stroking his trimmed goatee with two rings on his fingers.
“Desperation takes many forms, Baron Derrick,” Vane-Locke said smoothly. “It appears your youngest son prefers sleeping in public over admitting his ignorance.”
Derrick Vance frowned, his jaw tightening as he glared down at the stage.
The memory of Kaelen’s silent, attentive posture during last night’s lecture flashed through his mind.
Does the boy have a hidden plan? Derrick wondered, his knuckles whitening on his armrest. Or is he truly this shameless?
At the edge of the stage, an elderly yamen magistrate struck a heavy bronze gong.
The metallic chime rolled across the plaza, silencing the chatter of the crowd.
“The Barony Alchemy Duel begins now!” the official bellowed. “You have seventy-two continuous hours to present the highest-purity Tier 1 Spirit-Marrow Pill before the final chime! Begin!”
The moment the gong faded, Morvath sprang into frantic motion.
“Fire!” Morvath shrieked, his voice hoarse from lack of sleep. “Ignite the belly! Fan the embers to cherry-red!”
He struck a flint talisman against the base of his bronze cauldron.
Sparks flared, catching the oily wood shavings below.
His apprentices pumped the double-chambered leather bellows with frantic rhythm.
Within seconds, roaring orange flames engulfed the bronze belly, sending a plume of sweet pine smoke billowing over the square.
Morvath grabbed a bundle of silver-veined bone roots and began stripping the bark with trembling, frenzied fingers.
“Twenty-four hours of calcination!” Morvath yelled at the sky, his eyes bulging with manic zeal. “I will burn out every trace of impurity! An eighty percent Ringed-Grade pill will be mine!”
The crowd cheered, captivated by the fiery spectacle.
Meanwhile, on the northern half of the platform, Kaelen did not touch his stew-pot.
He didn’t even pour water into it.
The cast-iron pot sat completely cold and empty under the bright midday sun.
Kaelen walked over to the tripod, took a small wooden sign from his sleeve, and hung it from the iron hook.
Carved into the wood in neat black ink was a single sentence: “Convalescing—Wake Only With 15 Minutes Remaining.”
Unrolling his feather mattress beside the unlit stew-pot behind the cedar screen, Kaelen kicked off his cloth shoes and stretched out on the soft down.
He pulled a light wool blanket up to his chin and drew a black silk eye-mask over his face, blocking out the noon glare.
Let Morvath sweat over his bronze monster, Kaelen thought with deep satisfaction, sinking his head into the goose feathers. Every hour he burns through his lungs with charcoal smoke is another hour I stack one hundred fifty times baseline. This is the hardest work I have done all month.
Within three minutes, a soft, rhythmic snore drifted out from behind the cedar screen.
The onlookers fell into stunned silence.
Someone in the third row dropped a half-eaten sesame bun into the dirt.
“Is he... asleep?” a blacksmith whispered, rubbing his eyes.
“He went to bed,” a cloth merchant said blankly. “He brought a blanket and went right to sleep.”
Across the chalk line, Morvath stopped chopping his bone roots.
His bloodshot eyes bulged so wide that tiny red veins ruptured across his sclera.
“What is that brat doing?” Morvath roared, pointing a trembling, ink-stained finger at the cedar screen. “Is he mocking me? Does he think the Nine-Cauldron Guild is a joke?”
Barnaby stepped to the front of their circle, his single arm crossed defensively over his chest.
“The Third Young Master is meditating on profound Dao harmonies!” Barnaby barked at the top of his lungs, though sweat dripped down his own neck. “Keep your voice down, or you will disturb his sacred focus!”
“He is snoring!” Morvath screamed, his voice cracking like dry bamboo. “I can hear him snoring through the screen!”
“That is the sound of his meridians harmonizing with the earth!” Barnaby countered shamelessly. “Get back to your furnace, needle-boy!”
Morvath let out a strangled shriek of fury, drove another copper needle into his forearm to dull the rage, and returned to pounding his herbs with a heavy pestle.
From the VIP stand, Magistrate Vane-Locke and Cassian Vance jeered openly as Sera Thorne and Barnaby took up guard posts around Kaelen’s cot.
The hours began to slide by.
The afternoon sun climbed high into the azure sky, beating down mercilessly on the open cobblestones.
Morvath was drenched in sweat.
His silk tunic clung to his ribs like wet paper, and soot covered his face from forehead to chin.
He stirred his bubbling cauldron with an iron rod, coughing through the acrid smoke while his apprentices collapsed from heat exhaustion.
Behind the painted cedar screen, the only sound was Kaelen turning over to adjust his pillow.
Around the sixth hour of the duel, Mina slipped past the guards with a clay pot of chilled plum juice.
She poured a cup, ducked behind the screen, and held it out.
Kaelen lifted his eye-mask by half an inch, took three slow sips of the sour-sweet juice, and sighed in pure contentment.
“Is Morvath still sweating?” Kaelen asked in a drowsy murmur.
“He is on his fifth bundle of roots,” Mina whispered with a giggle. “He shouted at a stray dog ten minutes ago.”
“Good,” Kaelen muttered, pulling the eye-mask back down. “Tell Barnaby to grease the cart wheels if they start squeaking. A nap requires tranquility.”
Dusk fell over Ashford.
Lanterns were lit around the perimeter of the plaza, casting long, wavering shadows across the timber boards.
Most of the casual spectators went home for supper, but a hardcore crowd of two hundred gamblers and martial artists remained, betting copper coins on whether the Vance third son would wake up before dawn.
Morvath was now visibly hallucinating.
He was muttering to his bronze cauldron, arguing with the dragon engravings on the lid while driving an eighth copper needle into his shoulder.
“The matrix is stabilizing,” Morvath croaked, his knees shaking under his robes. “I have purified the essence, and three days without sleep is nothing!”
Behind the screen, Kaelen’s dantian pulsed with warm, steady light.
[The Fallow Slate] [Stage 1: Mortal Tally] [Current Stacking Time: 159h 45m] [Active Multiplier: 160x READY]
Nearly one hundred sixty hours, Kaelen thought, feeling the immense ocean of potential Qi swelling quietly within his core. In another fifteen minutes, my tally will hit the one hundred sixty-one times threshold. Morvath has burned through twenty pounds of charcoal to produce half a bowl of grey slurry, while my resting efficiency is breaking every mortal limit.
The night grew deep and cold.
A chill mountain wind swept down from the ridges, whistling through the empty market stalls.
Sera Thorne stood at the edge of the northern platform, her hand resting on the shaft of her spear.
Her sharp eyes tracked every movement in the surrounding alleys.
Barnaby sat on an upturned wooden crate nearby, gnawing on a piece of salted beef while eyeing the drowsy magistrate guards.
A shadowy figure slipped through the cordon of yamen guards, moving with the silent, fluid grace of a trained scout.
The man wore the dark grey tunic of a Ghost Market runner.
He reached the base of the platform, looked up at Sera, and gave a sharp, low whistle like a nightjar.
Sera leaned down immediately, her brow furrowing.
“Report,” Sera whispered.
The runner kept his head low, speaking in rapid, breathless murmurs.
“Deacon Vane sent me directly,” the runner said, his voice trembling with urgency. “The mountain passes are moving.”
Sera’s fingers tightened on her spear shaft until the ash wood groaned.
“Who?” Sera asked.
“The Blood-Wolf gang,” the runner whispered, his eyes darting toward the dark rooftops. “A ruthless mountain gang secretly allied with Magistrate Vane-Locke—over eighty mounted bandits answering the three midnight signal flares from the Vance manor.”
Sera took a sharp breath, her heart missing a beat.
“Where are they heading?”
“They bypassed the main trade road,” the scout said in a grim whisper. “They are making camp along the western ridges above Ashford’s outer farming villages, waiting in ambush for Vane-Locke’s night signal to strike.”