The azure glow from the open crate filled the small canvas tent with cool, shimmering light.
Two hundred and fifty Low-Grade Spirit Stones lay stacked in neat rows, their polished facets humming with pure spiritual energy.
Outside the canvas walls, the noisy cheers of the town square were beginning to disperse as the crowd drifted toward the market taverns.
Lowering himself from the cot, Kaelen Vance sat cross-legged on the dirt floor beside the open crate, his back straight and his hands resting lightly on his knees.
He didn’t waste a single heartbeat as the golden countdown ticked past forty-four minutes and fifteen seconds behind his eyes.
Five minutes at one hundred sixty-one times baseline equals eight hundred and five hours of grinding, Kaelen thought, feeling the terrifying clarity of the multiplier humming through his meridians. Brother Cassian spent four years and broke his ribs to touch Rank Eight, while I have forty-four minutes left before lunch.
He reached into his silk pouch and pulled out two Cloud-Veined Supreme Pills.
He popped both emerald spheres into his mouth.
The pills dissolved on his tongue like sweet mountain snow, releasing a rush of liquid marrow-warming Qi with zero Pill-Poison.
At the same instant, Kaelen pressed both palms down onto the surface of the spirit stones.
“Consume,” Kaelen whispered.
The Vance Frost-Pine Breath Manual activated inside his chest.
Most cultivators took three full days to draw the energy from a single spirit stone, losing half the spiritual essence to natural leakage.
Under the crushing acceleration of a one-hundred-and-sixty-one times multiplier, Kaelen’s breathing became a ravenous spiritual whirlpool.
The two hundred and fifty spirit stones flared with blinding azure brilliance.
Stream after stream of raw, pure energy flowed up through the meridians of his wrists, racing along his arms and pouring directly into his dantian.
Twenty-five thousand points of unblemished Qi slammed into his core like a roaring tidal surge.
The seventh pulse gate was completely saturated in seconds.
The surging torrent roared upward, striking the eighth pulse gate along his mid-spine.
A dull, heavy ache echoed through his vertebrae as the sealed gate resisted the immense pressure.
Kaelen didn’t force it with brute violence.
Instead, he guided the two dissolved Supreme Pills into the bottleneck, soothing the spiritual friction with perfect, frictionless precision.
Crack.
The sound inside his sea of consciousness was as crisp as an icicle snapping on a winter morning.
The eighth pulse gate dissolved into a wide, open riverway.
Pure golden Qi rushed through the newly opened meridian, bathing his bone marrow in dense, diamond-clear light.
His physical senses sharpened instantly.
He could hear the whisper of dust motes settling onto the canvas roof.
He could feel the subtle pulse of earth-veins humming through the bedrock deep below Ashford Square.
Unlike Cassian, whose meridians were clogged with black Crack-Pill sludge, Kaelen’s foundation was clean, consolidated, and solid as mountain granite.
[The Fallow Slate] [Breakthrough Achieved: Mortal Pulse Rank 8 (Consolidated)] [Total Qi Burned: 25,000 Pure Qi] [Remaining Burst Window: 39 Minutes 15 Seconds]
Kaelen withdrew his hands from the crate.
The two hundred and fifty spirit stones were now hollow, chalky white husks of inert limestone.
With a soft flick of his sleeve, the brittle shells collapsed into a pile of fine white powder.
He had matched Cassian’s cultivation realm in five minutes flat.
Once he set up his brazier and unpacked his cold-storage herbs, thirty minutes of his one-hundred-and-sixty-one times burst window were still ticking down.
A true slacker never wastes a paid burst window, Kaelen thought, wiping a faint trace of mineral dust from his knuckles. Deacon Vane has been begging for high-end stock for two weeks. Let us fill his vault while the iron is hot.
Kaelen pulled out his warped cast-iron stew-pot and placed it over the small charcoal brazier.
He reached into the handcart and brought out a bundle of premium medicinal ingredients Barnaby had kept in cold storage.
Silver-leaf fern.
Century-old marrow root.
Frost-lotus petals.
He threw the ingredients into the pot in four distinct batches.
At one hundred sixty-one times speed, his fingers moved with supernatural fluidity.
He didn’t need to check the temperature with an iron rod.
His divine sense enveloped the liquid broth, guiding the herbal essence into twenty perfect spheres.
Ten Marrow-Warming Pills and ten Pulse-Opening Pills formed in rapid succession.
Using his remaining thirty minutes at one-hundred-and-sixty-one times efficiency, Kaelen refined four small batches of Cloud-Veined Supreme Pills for Deacon Vane’s vault: four, three, three, and three, thirteen pills in all. The varying yields reflected the small measures of cold-storage herbs, not a change in their purity. After the two pills he had just swallowed, his earlier thirty-pill reserve had lost three pills to Sera’s reconnaissance mission and these two to his own breakthrough, leaving twenty-five; the thirteen new pills brought it to thirty-eight.
Each pill was flawless, marked with glowing cloud patterns and radiating zero percent Pill-Poison.
Kaelen packed five pills into each of four white jade vials, melted candle wax over the corks, and slipped them into his lockbox.
With twenty newly refined Supreme Pills and the eighteen remaining in reserve, his total stock reached thirty-eight unblemished pills.
Barnaby peeked through the canvas curtain, holding a cup of cold tea.
The old man froze, staring at the four sealed jade vials and the mound of white powder on the floor.
“Kaelen,” Barnaby stammered, his eye twitching violently. “Did you... did you just absorb an entire crate of spirit stones and refine four batches of supreme medicine while I was outside taking a leak?”
“Do not shout, Barnaby,” Kaelen said mildly. “It gives me a headache.”
Right as he wiped the rim of the pot with a clean cloth, the golden runes in his vision flickered and dimmed.
[Burst Window Concluded] [Active Multiplier Reset: 0h (1x)] [The Fallow Slate: Ready to Stack]
The rush of heightened perception faded like evening mist.
Kaelen leaned back against his cot, stretched his legs, and let out a long, luxurious yawn.
“Back to baseline,” Kaelen murmured with immense satisfaction. “Now I can finally rest without my brain doing calculus.”
***
By late afternoon, the handcart was pushed back into the western hollow, and the Third Herb Shed returned to its peaceful routine.
Old Barnaby had spent two hours polishing the official provincial apothecary license, hanging the gilded scroll directly above the medicine counter.
Mina prepared a large iron pot of chicken and noodle soup, humming happily as she sliced fresh green onions.
They ate together on the porch while the sun dipped below the peaks.
Kaelen slurped his noodles slowly, savoring the rich bone broth.
“Town was talking about nothing else,” Barnaby said, grinning through a mouthful of noodles. “The merchant guilds are refusing to buy from the yamen stalls. Everyone wants Third Herb Shed medicine now.”
“That sounds like far too much work,” Kaelen noted. “We will raise the prices tomorrow so fewer people bother us.”
Sera laughed softly, leaning against the timber rail while sharpening her spear point with a smooth river stone.
After dinner, Mina cleared the bowls, and the mountain stillness settled over the hollow.
The Fallow Slate in Kaelen’s mind had already begun stacking anew in the cool night air.
[The Fallow Slate] [Stage 1: Mortal Tally] [Current Stacking Time: 4h 00m] [Active Multiplier: 5x READY]
Four hours of unbroken resting.
Kaelen sat on the porch steps with a bowl of roasted pumpkin seeds, watching the stars peek through the pine branches.
A sharp rustle in the western bamboo grove broke the silence.
A dark figure dashed across the clearing, moving with predatory speed.
It was Sera Thorne.
Under one arm, she carried a heavy wooden crate wrapped in oiled black canvas.
With her other hand, she was dragging a bound, gagged man by the collar of his leather tunic.
She hurled the prisoner onto the dirt in front of the porch with a dull thud.
The man groaned, writhing against his tight hemp ropes.
He was wearing the black travel uniform of Madam Evelyn Vance’s personal manor couriers.
“What did you catch, Sera?” Kaelen asked, cracking a pumpkin seed between his molars. “He looks too scrawny for stew.”
Sera planted the butt of her spear in the dirt, wiping a smear of road mud from her cheek.
“I caught him near the north wall slipping through the water-gate,” Sera said, her voice sharp as flint. “He used the shadow of the drainage sluice, but his boots were too heavy.”
Old Barnaby hurried out of the shed, holding an oil lantern high.
“A manor courier?” Barnaby barked, his eyes widening. “Why is Evelyn sending messengers into the hills at midnight?”
Sera drew her hunting knife and slashed the canvas wrapping from the wooden crate.
She pried the lid open with the flat of the blade.
The lantern light illuminated twelve heavy lacquer firework tubes packed tightly in dry straw.
Each tube was eight inches long, capped with polished brass firing plates and marked with intricate silver runes.
Barnaby’s face went completely bloodless.
“Military signal flares,” Barnaby whispered, his hand shaking as he picked up one of the tubes.
He turned it toward the lantern light, examining the colored bands painted around the brass base.
“Crimson, emerald green, and sulfur yellow,” Barnaby muttered, his voice trembling with horror. “These are Imperial border-grade night beacons. A single flare can be seen from twenty miles away.”
Kaelen leaned forward, resting his chin on his palm.
“Tell me what the colors mean, Barnaby,” Kaelen said in a level voice.
“The green flare she fired last night was the alert signal,” Barnaby explained, pointing to the markings. “It told the Blood-Wolf gang to leave their mountain dens and gather at the high ridge. These yellow flares are the coordination beacons.”
Barnaby looked up at Kaelen, his eyes filled with dread.
“These are Evelyn Vance’s midnight signal flares for guiding the Blood-Wolf gang and Magistrate Vane-Locke into Ashford,” Barnaby said. “She is leading them straight into our unguarded western villages to slaughter our tenant farmers and force Derrick into submission!”
The bound courier struggled on the ground, his muffled voice screaming curses through his hemp gag.
“Madam Evelyn will skin you alive!” the courier managed to spit out as his gag slipped. “The Blood-Wolf chieftains have eighty iron-armored riders! This pathetic shack will burn to ashes before sunrise!”
Sera didn’t hesitate.
She swung the flat of her hunting knife, striking the courier across his temple with a clean thud.
The man slumped into the dirt, knocked unconscious.
“We take this to Baron Derrick right now,” Sera said, her eyes flashing with anger. “This is high treason against the Vance House. With this evidence, Derrick will execute Evelyn before sunrise.”
Kaelen looked at the twelve gleaming lacquer tubes in the crate.
He shook his head slowly.
“Father will not execute Evelyn,” Kaelen said mildly. “He is terrified of her family in the capital. If we hand him the flares, he will hide them under an altar, lock the courier in a cellar, and pretend nothing happened to protect his pathetic face.”
Sera frowned, lowering her spear slightly.
“Then what do we do?” Sera demanded. “The Blood-Wolf bandits are already on the western ridge. If they don’t see the yellow signal flares, they will simply scout the perimeter and attack wherever the walls are thin.”
Evelyn wanted a coordinated assault to crush the Third Herb Shed while the town was distracted, Kaelen thought, a cold amusement spreading through his mind. It would be terribly rude to leave her guests wandering in the dark.
Kaelen stood up from the porch steps, dusting seed husks from his coarse linen robe.
He walked over to the open crate and picked up two of the sulfur-yellow flare tubes.
“Barnaby,” Kaelen said. “Can you open these tubes without detonating the primer?”
Barnaby blinked in confusion.
“I can unscrew the brass cap with a soft wrench,” Barnaby stammered. “The powder core is sealed in paraffin wax. With a pinch of copper shavings and cobalt salts from the drying shed, I can alter the burning hue.”
“Good,” Kaelen said, his voice quiet and firm. “Sera, swap half the tubes in this crate with Barnaby’s modified decoy flares so we can lure Vane-Locke’s bandits into a kill-zone.”
Sera’s eyes narrowed as she understood his intention.
“Where are we leading them?” Sera asked.
“Not just decoys,” Kaelen replied, turning his gaze toward the dark, jagged silhouettes of the western ridges. “The yellow flares were meant to guide the bandits through the flat sheep meadows where they can charge on horseback. If we launch the modified blue flares from the north ridge, they will follow the light straight into Iron-Wolf Ravine.”
Barnaby let out a sharp gasp.
“Iron-Wolf Ravine?” Barnaby whispered. “That gorge is only four yards wide! It is a dead-end granite slot with fifty-foot cliffs on both sides!”
“Exactly,” Kaelen said, a calm, ruthless smile touching his lips. “If eighty mounted bandits ride into a stone alley in the dark, they will not need a battlefield. They will only need a shovel.”