It was an hour before dawn, and I was here standing outside of Wei Lin’s quarters, ready to ask him for a favor. I was a little hesitant to knock at this time, but I wanted to catch him before morning lessons started.

  I took a deep breath then carefully knocked on the door.

  There was silence for a few moments, then the sound of someone approaching.

  The door creaked open to reveal Wei Lin, shirtless and wearing a wide smile. His hair was disheveled in a way that suggested it hadn't been messed up by sleep.

  “You're back alre—” His expression faltered as he registered who was actually standing there. The smile shifted into something more awkward as he quickly grabbed a robe from behind the door. "Ke Yin! I wasn't expecting... that is...”

  “You were expecting someone else?” I teased, grinning at the sight of Wei Lin, master of the smooth transaction, looking flustered. “What have you been getting up to all night?”

  “I was just—” Wei Lin began to formulate what I’m sure would have been a logical explanation, when the sound of someone approaching from the corner of the hallway cut him off.

  It was Lin Mei, when she noticed me, her face reddened and she tried to make it seem like she was only walking by. “Oh! Ke Yin, I was just…I left some…herbs here earlier and was just coming to get them back.”

  I stared at the two of them.

  One was shirtless, the other looked red as a tomato and wasn’t able to make eye contact with me, and I realised what was going on.

  “You two are…?” I pointed at them, and waved my finger back and forth, mentally processing the new information.

  Lin Mei lost her composure first. She blushed a darker red before slapping Wei Lin on the shoulder with enough force to make him wince. “I can't believe you! We agreed to keep it quiet, and you couldn't even manage a few months without being obvious?”

  “He’s my best friend,” Wei Lin complained, massaging his sore shoulder. “He’d figure it out eventually anyway.”

  “Your best friend?” I repeated, experiencing a strange combination of joy and guilt.

  I hadn’t even realised that Wei Lin thought of me like that.

  And it turns out while I’ve been focused on cultivating, training, and planning ways to survive in this brutal world, my friends had been actually living life.

  “The path to the Dao is a lonely road,” cultivators are often quoted as saying.

  And now, at just the Qi Condensation realm, I was beginning to understand why.

  The pressure to continually improve and grow, the countless hours spent in isolation practicing, the burden of secrets that can’t be shared; it was easy to become disconnected from the basic human bonds that made life worthwhile.

  “I’m happy for you both,” I said, and I really did mean it. “But I have to ask, how did this happen?”

  “He kept coming to the gardens to purchase spirit herbs, but his technique for extracting the essence was just terrible.” Lin Mei blushed again. “An absolute waste. So, I offered to teach him…”

  “And I offered to teach her about resource allocation in return,” Wei Lin finished. “And one thing led to another…”

  “He means that I grew tired of his awful attempts to flirt using business metaphors and kissed him to stop talking,” Lin Mei explained. It was such a perfectly Wei Lin and Lin Mei dynamic: Wei Lin constantly trying to turn everything into a transaction, and Lin Mei cutting through the nonsense with practical action.

  “I should’ve picked up on it sooner,” I admitted, remembering when I had noticed Wei Lin spending more time at the herb gardens. I had assumed he was innocently trying to sell Lin Mei herbs, but for once the merchant had something other than money on his mind. “I’ve been lost in cultivation recently.”

  “Of course you were,” Lin Mei’s expression softened. “We all saw what happened at the arena.”

  She glanced at Wei Lin and her expression changed to one of concern.

  “To be honest, we’ve been worried about you. You don’t do anything but train and eat.”

  “Anyway, speaking of eating, what brings you to my humble abode so early in the day?” Wei Lin interrupted, seemingly eager to change the subject. “Typically, when you drop by unannounced, it’s because you need something... interesting.”

  Right. Business.

  Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

  I could learn more about their relationship and tease them about it some other time.

  “I need some elemental essences,” I said. “Pure ones. Earth, air, and water.”

  “Elemental essences?” Wei Lin’s expression went from embarrassed to perplexed. “But those are for...” He paused, frowning. “Those are resources used to cultivate at the Elemental Realm level. Why would someone at Qi Condensation need pure elemental essences?”

  “The World Tree Sutra is complicated,” I shrugged.

  “Things with you are complicated,” Wei Lin joked, running his hands through his hair. “Do you have any idea how much pure elemental essences cost? To get even the lowest-grade pure elemental essences for foundation-building, you’ll need at least 1,000 spirit stones. That’s….” he calculated quickly, “around a hundred times your monthly stipend as an Outer Disciple.”

  “Are there no other ways to get them?” I asked, not surprised at the high price. “I don’t care where they come from.”

  “Ke Yin,” Lin Mei said, her brows furrowed in concern. “If you’re thinking of using a less legal way of getting it, that’s not safe.”

  “It wouldn’t work, anyway,” Wei Lin cut in. “The black-market traders water down everything. Using impure elemental essences to build a foundation would be suicidal.” He rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “However...”

  I recognized that look.

  That was the same look he got when he worked out a particularly intricate trading route.

  “Let me put on a proper robe,” he said after a moment. “We need to make a few stops.”

  “At this hour?”

  “Best time for it, really. Less prying eyes.”

  He disappeared into his quarters and returned in a moment, fully clothed in his Outer Disciple robes.

  Lin Mei caught his arm before he could leave.

  “Be careful,” she whispered softly. “Both of you.”

  “Always am.” Wei Lin’s expression softened as he looked at her. “Don’t stay up for me; this could take a while.”

  “I know better than to wait up for you when you’re making ‘business calls,’” she teased lightly. Then she turned to me and her expression became serious. “Just watch his back, okay? He can be reckless sometimes.”

  I nodded in appreciation of her concern for both of us.

  I waited until Wei Lin had made himself presentable.

  As soon as he had, I couldn’t help but ask, “So... you and Lin Mei?”

  “I like her,” Wei Lin said with a smile. Then his expression turned serious. “She’s different, you know? Not like the others who only see me as a walking spirit stone purse. She really does care about teaching me, she even offered to do it for free.”

  “The horror,” I joked dryly. “Someone willing to help without expecting payment…”

  “Yes, completely against standard business practices,” Wei Lin laughed before turning serious again. “Listen, I know my family’s reputation. The Wei clan isn’t exactly well-known for prioritizing relationships over profit. But with her...”

  “You don’t need to explain,” I said quietly. “I understand.”

  Wei Lin took me away from the disciple quarters, leading me along a winding path that seemed to be designed to lose anyone that might want to follow us. We walked through three separate formation arrays that I knew were designed to detect spiritual energy, but since Wei Lin had obviously performed this route before, he knew exactly where to step in order to avoid triggering the formations.

  “The sect actively encourages this type of behavior,” Wei Lin explained as we continued walking. “Oh, they’ll punish you if you get caught, but they want disciples to learn how to navigate the underground networks. You can’t be a true cultivator without learning how to operate in the gray areas.”

  “Did your father teach you this?”

  “Among other things,” Wei Lin chuckled. “Resources run the cultivation world, and official channels can only provide so much. Someone needs to handle the remainder.”

  We ended up in a part of the outer edges of the sect that I had never seen before — a tangle of old storage buildings that appeared abandoned at first glance. Yet, I noticed tell-tale signs of usage — worn footpaths between buildings, recently lubricated hinges, and the occasional flash of concealment formations.

  “The thing about elemental essences,” Wei Lin continued as we walked, “is that they’re relatively common. You can find trace amounts of them almost anywhere. The issue lies in obtaining pure samples — ones that contain sufficient amounts of essence to use in cultivation.”

  He came to a stop in front of a particularly dilapidated structure.

  “Most disciples assume that they need to find natural sources of elemental essences: spirit veins, ancient springs, stuff like that. But there’s actually another method.”

  “Synthetic refinement?”

  “Exactly,” Wei Lin confirmed. “Technically, it isn’t allowed because of the risk involved in the refining process and the instability of the essences made like that. But if you know the right people…”

  He knocked on the door in a complex pattern.

  After a few seconds, the sounds of multiple locks disengaging echoed through the hallway.

  The door opened to reveal a young woman in servant garb.

  But the calculating look in her eyes suggested that she was far from a simple servant.

  “Young Master Wei,” she bowed slightly. “An early visit. And you’ve brought a guest?”

  “Someone interested in purchasing your master’s specialty items,” Wei Lin replied smoothly. “Is he here?”

  She evaluated me for a moment, then nodded. “Come with me. Remember the rules — no spiritual sense, no techniques, no recording devices of any type. If you break any of the rules...” She flashed her teeth in a smile that seemed to be just slightly too sharp. “Well, the sect will never be able to find enough parts to piece together what remains of your body.”

  That didn’t sound ominous at all…

  I kept my expression neutral as we followed her inside.

  The building’s shabby exterior was perfect camouflage for what existed within its walls.

  This place looked like a highly advanced alchemy laboratory.

  It had equipment I had never even known existed.

  There were multiple workers circulating among various stations, each hard at work.

  None of the workers wore sect robes or cultivation equipment, but I sensed suppressed energy emanating from a lot of them. Former disciples? Rogue cultivators? It was probably safer not to know.

  The woman led us to a rear room where an elderly gentleman sat behind a desk that was covered in jade tablets and spirit stones. He was completely ordinary; the type of guy you would pass by in the street without giving him a second glance.

  Which probably meant he was the most dangerous person in the room.

  23 chapters ahead!

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