Cold morning mist rolled through the northern pass, shrouding the pine woods in gray vapor.
In the Third Herb Shed, Kaelen did not stir from his hammock.
He pulled the woolen blanket higher over his shoulders and listened to the distant caw of crows circling the outer walls of Ashford.
Beside him on the crate lay the dog-eared third pamphlet of The Bandit King’s Secret Bride.
He turned the final page, reading how the bandit queen outsmarted the imperial inquisitor with a jug of poisoned plum wine.
Barnaby had peered over his shoulder three times that morning, desperate to know the ending.
Kaelen had simply closed the cover and placed his teacup on top of it.
Two days passed in quiet, unbroken rhythm.
Inside his dantian, the Fallow Slate tallied every passing breath without pause.
Sixty hours.
Seventy-two hours.
Eighty-four hours.
By the second afternoon, the counter reached ninety-six hours.
[The Fallow Slate]
[96 Hours Abstained -> Multiplier: 97x READY]
The multiplier climbed steadily toward triple digits, gaining power with every hour he refused to train.
Five miles north of the town gates, however, the world was far from restful.
Deacon Vane’s street informants slipped into the shed at noon, their boots caked in yellow clay.
They brought news from the rocky defile known as Dead Wolf Ravine.
Three hundred cutthroats from the Blood-Wolf gang had gathered along the dry creek beds.
They had pitched crude hide shelters under the pine canopy, keeping their campfires small to hide the smoke.
Every man carried a serrated blood-sabre or a hooked spear.
They were waiting for Magistrate Vane-Locke’s signal beacon before descending upon the town.
Three hundred bandits waiting in a muddy ditch for five days.
They must be freezing their kneecaps off while I lie on a goose-down pillow with three warm blankets.
Being evil sounds exhausting.
Kaelen yawned and reached for a dry tea napkin sitting on the wooden crate beside his hammock.
He dipped a thin piece of charcoal into the cold dregs of his teacup.
Sera Thorne walked over, holding an unrolled parchment map of the Ashford valley.
Her iron spear was slung across her back, held in place by a fresh leather harness.
Barnaby Holt stood beside her, pacing back and forth with his wooden ladle tucked under his arm.
“Three hundred blades,” Barnaby grunted, spitting onto the porch grass. “Vane-Locke has completely lost his mind. When Derrick realizes bandits are marching on the outer gate, the clan guard will panic.”
“Derrick Vance will hide behind his stone manor,” Sera said coldly. “He will sacrifice the lower wards and the herb sheds to preserve his iron reserves.”
“Which is why we are not asking for his help,” Kaelen said, drawing a series of neat charcoal marks across the napkin.
He drew three small circles and labeled them with numbers.
“What is that scribbling?” Barnaby asked, squinting down at the cloth.
“A schedule,” Kaelen replied. “Cultivation is simply arithmetic.”
He pointed the charcoal tip at the first circle.
“We are approaching one hundred hours of abstinence,” Kaelen explained. “I will let the tally run until roughly two hundred hours. That gives me a two-hundred-fold burst.”
“Two hundred times?” Barnaby blinked, scratching his ear. “What does that do?”
“It gives me a thousand compressed hours in five minutes,” Kaelen said smoothly. “Enough to push the clan fist art to Transcendent Dao Intent and break straight into Mortal Pulse Rank 9.”
He pointed to the second circle.
“After that, I will stack a full ten-day streak to reach the two-hundred-and-forty-hour vessel cap. That will yield a multiplier of two hundred and forty-one times to hit Rank 9 Peak.”
He tapped the final circle.
“That will be for Magistrate Vane-Locke and his Iron Bone cultivation.”
Barnaby stared at the napkin as if it were written in celestial script.
“You talk about breaking into the peak of Mortal Pulse like buying cabbages at the market,” Barnaby muttered.
Cultivation is not about screaming at the sky or punching iron trees until your knuckles bleed.
It is basic accounting.
If the interest rate is two hundred to one, you do not cash out for pocket change.
“Breaking into Rank 9 requires fuel,” Sera pointed out, leaning against the porch railing. “You need pure Qi. At Rank 9, sub-stage bottlenecks demand hundreds of Spirit Stones.”
“I am aware,” Kaelen said.
He reached into his robe and pulled out a flat cedar box.
He pushed the lid back.
Eighteen Cloud-Veined Supreme Pills rested inside, their silver-blue frost rings gleaming in the daylight.
Kaelen took out ten pills and transferred them into a coarse linen pouch.
Eight pills remained in the box.
He closed the cedar lid and slipped it back into his tunic.
He tossed the linen pouch toward Deacon Vane, who was hovering near the porch steps.
“Ten Supreme Pills,” Kaelen said. “The neighboring town lords from River-Gate and High-Pass have been sending couriers to the Ghost Market. Sell these to them directly.”
Vane’s hands shot out, snatching the pouch with practiced greed.
“Two hundred Low-Grade Spirit Stones,” Vane said immediately. “Twenty stones per pill. Those lords will empty their iron safes for medicine that carries zero poison.”
“Bring the stones back by twilight,” Kaelen ordered. “No IOUs.”
“On my mother’s grave,” Vane swore, clutching the pouch to his chest.
He scuttled toward the side gate and slipped out into the alley.
By sunset, Vane returned as promised.
He carried two heavy canvas sacks that clinked with hard, glassy weight.
Inside were two hundred pure Low-Grade Spirit Stones.
Kaelen had Sera carry the sacks down into the cellar pit beneath the hearthstones.
With the four hundred stones already stashed below, their total reserve rose to six hundred Low-Grade Spirit Stones.
A fortune large enough to buy half a city ward.
Sera walked back onto the porch, wiping dust from her palms.
She stood before Kaelen’s hammock, her posture stiff and formal.
“Young Master,” she began.
“I told you not to call me that,” Kaelen sighed. “It sounds like I need to write an essay.”
“We have thirty Ghost Market mercenaries hidden along the perimeter,” Sera continued, ignoring his complaint. “They are experienced caravan fighters, but their armor is rusted and their crossbows are loose.”
She looked directly into his eyes.
“If three hundred Blood-Wolf cutthroats assault this shed, ordinary iron swords will break. I need fifty Low-Grade Spirit Stones from the chest.”
Barnaby choked on his saliva. “Fifty stones? For hired thugs?”
“They are not thugs,” Sera replied sharply. “They are the wall standing between this hammock and three hundred blood-axes. With fifty stones, I can outfit them with military gear from the black-market foundry.”
Kaelen did not hesitate.
He pointed toward the kitchen trapdoor.
“Take the fifty stones,” he said.
Sera paused, surprise flickering across her lean face.
She had expected an argument, or at least a negotiation.
“Just like that?” she asked.
“A live guard costs fifty stones,” Kaelen murmured, adjusting his straw hat. “A dead guard costs nothing, but then I have to get out of my hammock to bury the bodies. Take the money.”
Sera nodded curtly, turned on her heel, and marched into the kitchen.
An hour later, she departed through the rear gate with a handcart and two trusted mercenaries.
By nightfall, she returned with her haul.
The handcart was loaded with heavy equipment from the Black-Crow Ghost Market’s private armory.
Thirty heavy round shields lined with fire-resistant river-drake hide and reinforced with bronze bands.
Spare blackened spring-steel bowstrings and magazines for their twenty heavy repeating arbalests, capable of firing ten bolts in five seconds.
Alongside the weapons lay ten iron crates of armor-piercing bolts, each tip blackened with paralytic spider venom.
Sera assembled the thirty mercenaries in the narrow alley behind the shed.
The men were rugged veterans, scar-faced and quiet.
She picked up one of the repeating arbalests, loaded a ten-bolt magazine with a crisp click, and fired three bolts into an oak post across the lane.
Thwip-thwip-thwip.
The black bolts sank four inches into the dense wood, shivering with deadly force.
When the mercenaries saw the bronze shields and the precision of the weapons, their eyes lit with grim satisfaction.
Sera stepped into the center of the alley, her Rank 8 aura flaring outward in a crisp, chilling wave.
The heavy iron tip of her spear hovered inches above the cobbles.
The mercenaries instinctively straightened their spines, recognizing the unmistakable pressure of an Eighth Pulse commander.
“Ten men on the roof tiles with crossbows,” Sera commanded, her voice cutting through the damp night air. “Ten men behind the bronze shields at the front barricade. Ten men rotating through the side alleys with fire-ash oil jars.”
She pointed to the corners of the compound.
“Nobody shoots until the bandits enter the crossfire zone. When you fire, you do not stop until the magazine is dry. If any man runs, my spear will find his spine before he reaches the main road.”
“Yes, Commander,” the men whispered in unison.
They dispersed with terrifying efficiency, vanishing into the shadows of the eaves and alley alcoves.
The Third Herb Shed was no longer just an apothecary shop.
It was a fortified fortress, bristling with venomous steel and heavy bronze.
Down in the cellar, five hundred and fifty Low-Grade Spirit Stones remained in the iron-banded chest.
Ample fuel for Kaelen’s upcoming breakthroughs.
The bells of the Ashford central watchtower tolled ten at night.
Inside Kaelen’s sea of consciousness, a soft golden chime rang out.
The Fallow Slate flared with brilliant warmth.
[The Fallow Slate]
[100 Hours Abstained -> Multiplier: 101x READY]
Kaelen rested on the low wooden bench inside the warm kitchen, sipping a cup of hot jujube tea.
One hundred hours.
The multiplier is over one hundred times now.
In a couple of days, five minutes of stretching will equal an entire month of secluded cultivation.
Derrick Vance spent thirty years grinding his bones, and I can match his lifespan’s effort while reading a romance serial.
Beside the hearth, Mina was humming a quiet frontier lullaby while stirring a pot of red bean porridge.
Her cheeks were rosy, and her movements were quick and fluid.
The frost in her marrow was completely pacified, serving as a cool reservoir of strength rather than a crippling disease.
Across the room, Barnaby Holt stood by the heavy maple chopping block.
The old man was slicing thick roots of wild licorice, his single hand moving with steady thumps.
Thump. Thump. Thump.
“Licorice roots,” Barnaby grunted, tossing a handful of woody chips into a ceramic jar. “Back when I was in the Red-River Guild, we used to soak these in morning dew from the high peaks. Now look at me, chopping them in a back-alley shack with one arm.”
The lantern flame flickered gently against the lime-washed walls as four more quiet hours drifted past midnight.
The aroma of simmering red beans and sliced roots filled the cozy kitchen.
Everything was peaceful.
Everything was on schedule.
Then, without warning, the rhythm broke.
Clatter.
The heavy iron cleaver slipped from Barnaby’s fingers, striking the chopping block and spinning onto the floor.
A choked, ragged gasp tore from the old man’s throat.
It sounded like a dying animal drowning in hot water.
Barnaby’s knees buckled.
He crashed onto the hard pine floor with a sickening thud, his single arm clutching wildly at his chest.
Mina dropped her wooden spoon with a cry of alarm. “Uncle Barnaby!”
Kaelen set his teacup down and stepped off the bench.
Barnaby lay curled on his side, his face purple and contorted in sheer agony.
Thick veins bulged along his neck like black cords.
He clawed frantically at his coarse hemp tunic, tearing the fabric open down to the waist.
Beneath the shredded linen, his chest was exposed.
A hideous, jagged scar ran five inches across his sternum, puckered and twisted from an ancient blade wound.
And now, that scar was not pale flesh.
It was glowing.
A blinding, incandescent crimson light pulsed from deep within his breastbone.
The air in the kitchen instantly became scorching hot, smelling of sulfur, molten rock, and burning marrow.
The scar flared brighter and brighter, veins of golden fire spreading outward across his ribs like cracks in an erupting volcano.
Barnaby arched his spine, his teeth grinding together so hard that blood seeped from his lips.
The ancient wound had awakened.