Chapter 433 — What the Sect Doesn't Have

CHAPTER 433

What the Sect Doesn't Have

Clerk Du stamped the first form, looked at the second and stamped that too. Then he looked up with deep suspicion.

“Name,” Clerk Du said.

“Shi Feng,” Shi Feng said.

“I know your name. I'm asking the sweeper,” Clerk Du said.

Li Changyuan leaned on the registration counter at the Duanyang Tower with his broom in one hand and a pot of free tea in the other. He claimed he needed to register Shi Feng himself because young disciples filled in forms wrong. He had also come, Shi Feng suspected, because the tea was free.

“The sweeper's name is Li,” Li Changyuan said. “It's on the paper.”

“Which paper?” Clerk Du asked.

“The one you're about to bill,” Li Changyuan said.

Clerk Du sniffed and turned a page. There was a short silence while the brush moved.

“Candidate Shi Feng,” Clerk Du read. “Age twenty. Realm, ‘not stated at the candidate's request.’ Mark, 2. Entering the 2 Mark showcase as a guest master, and the Refiner 1 Mark exam as a candidate.” His brush paused. “Previous refined works?”

“One sword,” Shi Feng said. “Three exploded furnaces.”

“That goes in the form?” Clerk Du asked.

“It's what I've refined,” Shi Feng said.

Clerk Du wrote it down. He wrote slowly, carefully keeping his expression serious despite the ridiculous answer.

“Both stamps are in the right corner,” Clerk Du said at last, and pushed the papers across. “Fee received. Four hundred, in two halves, and a pot of tea. I want it recorded that I did not agree to the tea.”

“Noted,” Li Changyuan said, and drank some.

The furnace hall at dusk smelled of cold ash and old iron.

He Zhen sat on an upturned crate with a brush case on his knee. He was the elder who had found Shi Feng after the tournament, and he had the same tired look he'd worn that day.

“Three months,” He Zhen said. “Sit down.”

Shi Feng sat on the next crate.

“The showcase isn't like the 2 Mark trial,” He Zhen explained. “There are six masters on a terrace, and a crowd, and each of you refines a Nascent Soul-grade pill in public. The crowd counts the clouds. The Pavilion publishes the count.”

“What's the problem?” Shi Feng asked.

“Herbs,” He Zhen said.

He Zhen opened his case. Inside lay a list in Qian Mo's cramped hand, covered with small crosses.

“A showcase pill must be Nascent Soul-grade, and a Nascent Soul-grade pill needs Nascent Soul-grade herbs,” He Zhen said. “There are only a few in this whole region. The Valley grows some, but it keeps them for its own elders. Martial Palace has been buying them ahead for years. The Sky Pavilion sells at a price I won't say aloud.”

“The Valley pact gives us first call at eight in a hundred below market,” Shi Feng said.

“On Golden Core-grade herbs. Not these,” He Zhen said.

“What do we have?” Shi Feng asked.

He Zhen looked at the list.

“Qian Mo counted the cellar yesterday,” He Zhen said. “Four sacks. Lin Langtian ate most of one for his birthday, and the rest went into the pill you made for him.”

“I made one pill,” Shi Feng said.

“And it was a very expensive pill,” He Zhen replied, turning the sheet. “That is not the worst of it. The sect master says an Unknown core fills slowest of all. He has said it three times, and each time he sounded pleased.”

“I know,” Shi Feng said.

“You eat the failures, and that helps,” He Zhen said, tapping the page. “But they give you only what the herbs were worth. The waste we have isn't enough to fill your core, and even a clever housewife can't cook without rice. The pills you need must come from herbs the sect does not have yet.”

“Which herbs?” Shi Feng asked.

“Nine-Vein Dew Root, fresh, not the eighty-three-year-old rubbish the Tower fed you,” He Zhen read, rubbing his eyes. “Red Phoenix Vine. Silver-Frost Ginseng. Three more. Perhaps four thousand stones, if they exist at all.”

“Four thousand,” Shi Feng said.

“We could find four thousand,” He Zhen said. “We can't find the herbs. Nobody will sell them to us.”

Shi Feng thought for a while.

He thought of a rich sect with a long memory and a grandson in a sickbed. Such a sect had no good reason to stop buying.

“Martial Palace,” Shi Feng said.

“Probably,” He Zhen replied angrily. “Take the firewood from under the pot, as they say. They don't need to beat you in the hall. They only need to make sure there is nothing for you to refine.”

“It's a good plan,” Shi Feng said.

“It's a very good plan. I would admire it, if it weren't aimed at my sect,” He Zhen said.

He Zhen closed the case.

“Lin Langtian says he will take care of the herbs,” He Zhen said.

“Did he say how?” Shi Feng asked.

“He said it was a matter of sentiment,” He Zhen replied, rubbing his temple. “He took the ox and a cart three days ago. He hasn't come back.”

“Is that good?” Shi Feng asked.

“He never explains before he leaves,” He Zhen complained. “By the time he returns, somebody always owes somebody a bill. I only hope we aren't paying this time.”

Shi Feng looked at Qian Mo's list, at the small crosses marching down the page. Four sacks, and six herbs nobody would sell.

“Then I'll practise on what we have,” Shi Feng said. “And I'll find something to do with the three months.”

“Such as?” He Zhen asked.

“Teach someone,” Shi Feng said. “It saves time to have the sect's alchemists good at something.”

He Zhen looked at him for a long moment, and for the first time that evening he did not look tired.

“I know six students,” He Zhen said slowly, “who would be very surprised.”