Sunrise Alchemist, Ch 11: Negotiations (Patreon)

It didn’t take him long to reach the Alchemists’ Guild. The building was a large alabaster palace with high arches and a vast floor plan. The entry gave way onto a large room with polished marble floor tiles and golden highlights.

At the sides of the room, there were dozens of counters where well-dressed attendants met with customers and answered questions. Within moments of entering, he overheard conversations that directed guests to appraisers, to meet with honored alchemists, and to wait while their orders were brought forward.

The guild had settled on a one-size-fits-all approach to welcoming customers. It made the scene chaotic, but there was a smoothness to it. It also meant that no matter what you’d come here for, you would hear about pills being sold, the hottest items, and so on.

The crowd’s conversation was free advertising.

He picked out a counter at random that had fewer people than most, and before long he was at the front. As soon as he showed Seresa’s invitation and a sample of Woodbalm Paste to the attendant, things moved quickly.

It wasn’t long before he was in a small and well-appointed office. The paste and invitation sat on the top of a walnut desk, and behind it, a middle-aged man with bright red hair and orange eyes was seated. He looked like he was half Fire Sylph and half human, which was a rare combination.

The appraiser was frowning with irritation as he looked between Verse and the Woodbalm Paste on the table.

“An Imperial Knight is planning to become an alchemist?” he asked dubiously. There was an emphasis on the words “Imperial Knight” that showed which one he was against.

“Is there something in the guild’s regulations against that?” Verse asked with a raised eyebrow. “There is more than one knight who’s made a name for himself in alchemy or another craft. The real question is if my healing salve there qualifies.”

Normally, being a knight got him a certain level of respect. He hadn’t expected this appraiser would have something against the order. The attitude was surprising.

“Alchemy is a complex craft that doesn’t allow for divided attention.” The appraiser said with a glower. It seemed like he wasn’t going to do his job at first, but when it was clear Verse wasn’t going to leave, he grumbled and picked up the salve.

He turned it this way and that as he began to analyze it. He was still muttering to himself, but this time it was about the salve. “Green color...high wood affinity, translucency is good, spiritual energy is dense and consistent.”

Then he took a small silver knife and a slip of talisman paper from a drawer. He scraped some of the salve out and rubbed it on the talisman paper. Immediately, the paper began to glow with a light green energy, followed by the paste drying up and crumbling away.

“Confirmed as a low-grade healing salve,” he muttered as he swirled the knife through the green dust left behind, which was so thin that it was disintegrating into the air. “And almost no impurities....”

His eyes were wide as he glanced up at Verse, but then he shook his head and pulled out another slip of paper. His dourness returned as he repeated the same procedure, and this time the paper gave off a light yellow aura with a rich hue.

“Upper edge of low quality at least. Worth selling.” He snorted as he closed the jade box and shoved it back across the table toward Verse.

He didn’t seem very happy about it, but he reached into another drawer and pulled out a blank scroll. A moment later, the scroll was filled out with information about the salve and a guild seal was stamped at the bottom. He shoved that across the desk too.

“Approved. It’s 50 spirit stones. Is that all you wanted?” His tone was a little more respectful than before, but not much. He clearly wanted Verse to go away.

Even after seeing the paste and approving it, he wanted nothing to do with Verse. That was strange, and it raised a suspicion in his mind about the guild, one that he didn’t have enough information to follow up on yet.

Seresa had warned him to be careful of the alchemy sects stealing recipes and that the guild wasn’t much different, but this seemed to be more than that. It was like the appraiser was guilty and trying to avoid him. It made him want to keep an eye on him to see what was going on.

“One more thing,” he said calmly, without betraying his thoughts. “I need to register an alchemy heritage. I didn’t come here just for approval to sell this paste. It’s a new recipe that belongs to the heritage, and it is completely unique.”

The appraiser was putting his testing kit away as Verse spoke, but now he froze. A slight tremor ran through his hands. This time, it was from excitement.

“A new heritage?” His interest became clear when he looked back at Verse and his eyes glowed with subtle flames as he tried to see through him. It was the result of some Fire-based cultivation technique, probably one that augmented his sight and helped him in his job. “What type?”

“A complete and ancient one that has been lost for a long time,” Verse replied. “It’s from the Jade Scripture Sect and it has a high requirement for jade essence, a rare elemental affinity that was bestowed when I found it and inherited the matching cultivation technique. It’s the one that I’ve been using since I began cultivating. The heritage recipes can’t be used without it.”

“When you began cultivating...but that must have been years ago, and you’re just now coming to the guild?” The appraiser almost shouted the words. “Why didn’t you come here at Qi Gathering, when we could have started analyzing it!”

“You seem to misunderstand something,” Verse replied, his temper flaring. The air around him began to burn like a sun’s halo as his aura flooded the room, pressing the appraiser back down into his seat. “It is not your heritage to analyze. It is mine, and it cannot be passed on to anyone else without jade essence. It’s not possible to copy it. The supply of jade essence that I found with the heritage was all used up when I received it. I’ve only come here to register it and negotiate a contract for selling the products to the guild.”

His words froze the appraiser’s attitude in its tracks. The man’s face went through half a dozen shades of red before it finally settled on pale, and his hands trembled from a mix of desire and anger as he glared back at Verse.

“Wait here,” he growled eventually as he stood up. “A heritage is beyond my ability to negotiate. I need to see the branch manager about this. He’ll record the heritage and create a support contract with you.”

He seemed to remember his manners at that moment, since he rang a bell to summon an assistant, who brought in some tea and cakes. Then he was gone. Verse sat down on the padded couch to one side of the room and sampled the tea cakes as he waited, but his thoughts were busy.

The appraiser was much too hostile, and his interest in the heritage and the recipe were clear. There was definitely something odd here.

Before long, the appraiser returned with another official. This one was a young woman with sharp grey eyes and a sharper appearance. Everything about her suggested she was strict and efficient, and her hair was pulled back into a neat bun, but underneath that there was the elegant beauty of a young lady with rosy skin and bright blue eyes. She probably wasn’t too much older than Verse.

The appraiser’s subdued attitude and the fact that she was a woman, however, said this was not the branch manager. Verse nodded at her as she walked in.

As soon as she saw him, she didn’t waste any time. She nodded back and began to speak. Her words were calm and composed, a sharp contrast from the appraiser.

“Guild Appraiser Heten here tells me you have a heritage to record with the guild and that you are seeking to register as a guild alchemist,” she said. “The branch manager is occupied with a meeting, so I will handle it. My name is Vesana. I’m the deputy branch manager. Please, follow me. Heten, bring the materials along.”

Her words were quick and efficient. As soon as she was finished speaking, she began to walk out of the room without any delay. She perhaps was trying to put Verse on the back foot, but it actually made him smile as he stood up to follow her.

This type of efficiency was exactly what he was after. Her cultivation was only at the early Aligned realm, and it was no trouble for him to catch up. Before she could take two steps, he was walking silently beside her as Heten followed along with the paste and Seresa’s invitation, which had been on the desk.

“Good,” she said as she glanced at Verse with approval. It seemed she liked people who could keep up. “Tell me about your heritage as we walk. It will take a few minutes to reach my office and there’s no reason to waste time. Once I hear about your potential recipes, I can decide how to proceed. You’re lucky that I was free this afternoon and saw Heten passing by. The branch manager has a bias against heritage alchemists, so you’ll probably end up with a better deal from me.”

Her words hinted at a conflict between her and the branch manager, and Heten’s attitude suggested she wasn’t someone the appraiser dared to stand up to. If he read between the lines, it seemed like she’d actually intercepted Heten to stop him from finding the branch manager.

Verse had to stop himself from shaking his head at that. The guild was obviously full of politics and he’d barged in like an elephant. He had no idea which side was better, but if Hetan didn’t like her, it was a mark in her favor.

Given that, he decided to just be straightforward.

“I’ve recorded all the basic information here,” he said as he held out the jade slip he’d prepared. “It’s only missing the recipes.”

The slip had the descriptions of all 22 pills, some basic information he’d concocted about the Jade Scripture alchemy heritage, and related matters.

“Efficient.” A trace of a smile flashed across Vesana’s lips as she took the slip. She paused in the hall as she sent her spiritual sense into it. A few moments later, she froze in place as a shiver went through her body. Her face turned pale, but she tried to hide it by turning away to the wall. After a moment, she let out a long breath and color returned to her cheeks.

“Let’s talk in my office,” she said as she turned back to the appraiser following them. “Hetan, hand me those. You can go back to your duties.”

“But the heritage...” Hetan began to protest.

“Is not your business,” she said sharply as she took the paste and the invitation plate from him. “Now go.”

Hetan looked like he wanted to protest, but a look from Vesana sent him away. Anger radiated from him as he stomped down the hall with his fists clenched. She watched him go with pursed lips.

“Let’s go,” she said to Verse as soon as Heten was out of earshot. “Now we need to hurry even more, because he will try to find the branch manager as soon as possible. He’s been in his pocket for years. Fortunately, I wasn’t lying about him in a meeting, so we should have a little bit of time, but you don’t know what you’ve gotten yourself into. Follow me unless you want to end up as a mindless soul slave by tomorrow.”

With that, Vesana disappeared down the hall, holding the slip he’d given her tightly in her hand. Verse had to push his speed to keep up with her. Before long, they arrived at another office, one that was larger and far more secluded than Hetan’s, but they only paused there for her to grab a few things from a drawer before she waved him to follow again.

This time, she led him out of the guild building completely and headed into the depths of the Alchemists’ Quarter. Verse kept pace easily with her, but each time he started to ask her what was going on, a quick shake of her head told him it wasn’t time yet.

After a few minutes of winding through various side streets, they came onto a back entrance of the White Cloud Auction House. Vesana flashed a badge at a guard, who let them in with a nod of his head.

They continued down into the basement of the auction house and past several rooms warded with dense spiritual inscriptions. She opened the door to the fifth one with the badge she was holding and waved him inside.

It was a fashionable and well-appointed meeting room, clearly some type of high-level and protected space for negotiations. She waved him to a couch at the side of the room and began to silently make a pot of tea at the center table, taking the time to gather her thoughts.

When steam was rising from the pot with the rich scent of green leaves and orange blossoms, as well as a dense spiritual energy that spoke to the quality, she sat down across from him and poured the tea. By then, she’d regained most of her composure.

“I apologize for pulling you away so abruptly,” she said as she offered him a cup with both hands. “I can tell that you aren’t aware of what’s happening in the guild.”

“What is going on?” Verse asked as he accepted the cup. The rich scent of the tea filled his nose as a gentle steam rose from the surface. “This wasn’t what I expected when I came to register a heritage.”

He was keeping his calm, but at the same time he was holding back his temper. It wasn’t aimed at her, but rather at whatever was going on in the guild. The mention of soul slaves didn’t leave him in a good mood. Whatever Vesana was running from, he wanted to know what it was.

“I can explain.” She looked down at her tea as if gathering her thoughts, and then she let out a short sigh before she continued. “I am trying to help you. I wish I could have helped the last heritage alchemists who came here, but I didn’t realize what was going on until a couple of months ago, when the last one disappeared.”

“Someone is targeting heritage alchemists?” Verse asked with a raised eyebrow.

“That’s the short version of it,” Vesana agreed with a nod. “The longer version is that it’s the branch manager, Renzer, and the Crimson Shade Sect behind him. You might not know this, but four other people have registered heritages within the past six months here...all of them from respectable but lesser-known alchemy clans.” She paused as she looked down at her tea and then at Verse.

“It’s not unusual for heritages to be recorded at this branch. Boreas is a main hub for alchemists and many promising youths from local families come here as the first stop on their path. All four of those cultivators, however, went missing within a week of registering their heritage.” Vesana let out a slow breath. “I’ve been suspicious ever since I started putting it together a few weeks ago. Since then, I started keeping an eye on things, waiting for another heritage alchemist to show up.

“Heten is a pawn who was running to tell Renzer he’d found another one...and he’s also clearly an idiot!” Her words were sharp. “You’re an Imperial Knight! I don’t know what he was thinking. As if the other alchemists weren’t bad enough...but their status was nothing like yours.”

Her words were a mix of concern for the heritage alchemists and the guild, but it sounded like she was more worried about the guild than the alchemists. Apparently, she took her responsibilities as the deputy branch manager seriously. Her words a moment later confirmed it.

“Renzer is going to ruin the guild’s reputation,” she said as she glared into her tea. “I didn’t even know you were a knight when I saw Heten sneaking around like a weasel. I only knew that he looked too happy for everything to be normal and I suspected that he’d found someone with a heritage again, so I stopped him.” She looked up at Verse, her eyes flashing.

“I can’t let this keep happening. The guild has raised me since I was child. This is the type of thing that will destroy it!”

Verse had experienced too much to get worked up about the guild’s problems, but the information she’d given him made him look into the distance, even as he let the scent of the tea fill his lungs. There was a strong vein of Wood energy in it that he appreciated, and a nearly silent sniff from below his ear told him that Leaf liked it too.

It was a lot of information to process at once, but it didn’t take long to consider the main issues at hand. The main thing he focused on was that for all her desire to protect the guild, Vesana had decided to help him before she knew he was a knight. She had been planning to rescue the next heritage alchemist who came by.

That made him think well of her.

She was clearly against whatever kidnapping the branch manager was doing as a general principle, and she also wanted to make sure it didn’t affect the guild. It was alright for her to want two things.

“Won’t Renzer know that you interfered and led me out of the guild?” he asked. “It wasn’t subtle.”

“He will,” Vesana agreed, “but he can’t do much to me. I have my own backing in the guild or I wouldn’t be a deputy branch manager at my age. He also can’t announce what he’s really doing. The guild won’t stand for it. The one who’s really at risk here is you. I don’t know how easily he will give up, not if he’s already been so obvious.”

Verse breathed in the tea mist, letting it float through his senses as he closed his eyes for a moment. The tea had no scent of poison or anything laced into it, something he’d checked several times already, and Vesana had already had some herself, so he took a drink.

The energy in it was almost as strong as wine and it rushed through his body like a raging river, but one that brought relaxation in its wake. She’d chosen a good one.

It was also one of the most expensive teas he’d ever had, which gave him some insight into her status. He tilted the cup in his fingers as he couldn’t help but let out a wry laugh, which made Vesana look at him curiously.

He’d come to Boreas hoping for a simple training period to practice alchemy, but it seemed that he was being drawn into something more complex. He should have known it wouldn’t be so easy.
Whether it was as a dragon or a knight, it was hard for him to stay out of trouble. If he didn’t go looking for it, it came looking for him.

“Tell me more about this soul slave thing,” he said as his attention sharpened, “and about the Crimson Shade Sect that the branch manager is involved with. What’s going on here?”

*****

The next couple of hours were a long conversation with Vesana as she poured out a mix of frustration at the guild for not giving her more authority, which would have allowed her to fix this problem on her own, as well as her anger at Renzer, and a youthful hope for the future.

As she spoke, her emotions were obvious in her quick, passionate gestures. Her blue eyes flashed with fury whenever she mentioned Renzer. Even before the latest events, she’d apparently hated him quite a lot.

The most entertaining thing in her story was that her strict persona had gone completely out the window, making it obvious that it was just a managerial stance she’d taken to uphold her authority at the guild. Here in the safety of the auction house, her youthfulness was on full display.

As it turned out, the room they were in was a private meeting room that she’d booked on her own authority starting two years ago, which was when she’d arrived in Boreas. Unlike most of the alchemists here, she was not a local.
The guild had sent her from the capital as a training experience, since she was young and Boreas was an important hub in the middle provinces. Since her cultivation was only at the Aligned realm, the spiritual energy here was sufficient for her needs and the guild supported her with other resources.

As for her status, that was the most interesting part of it. It turned out that she was a core descendant of the guild itself, which made it seem as if it were really a large clan more than a guild. Her parents were powerful members of the guild and oversaw a branch in a city not far from the capital.

Apparently, nearly all of the guild’s key operations were overseen by a small subset of core members. When he heard that, her anger about Renzer damaging the guild’s reputation made more sense.

“It’s common for core descendants to be sent out for training,” she said as she explained. “It’s considered a tempering period. We often end up as appraisers or deputy branch managers, but Boreas is a special location. I was lucky to get this assignment. That’s why I don’t want Renzer to ruin it.”

“So, you decided to stop him yourself?” Verse asked. Her innocence made him shake his head. “Someone who’s at the Primal Spirit level, a full realm above you? And who has the backing of what’s basically an evil alchemist sect that specializes in poisons and doesn’t care who it kills?”

She’d already filled him in on the necessary details.

The Crimson Shade Sect was one of the mid-ranked alchemy sects and famous for their poisons, spiritual attacks, and ghost-controlling abilities. One of their signature techniques was a blood-red mist that literally ripped the life out of their enemies and turned them into soulless, walking zombies.

As for the soul slaves she’d mentioned, that was apparently another technique the sect had. They had a specific blend of poisons that could strip away someone’s free will and turn them into a high-thinking but completely obedient slave.

Apparently, unless they were told to do something, they would only know how to eat, sleep, and sit there staring at a wall, but as soon as they got an instruction, their full intelligence would go into trying to complete the task.

A large part of their alchemy business was fulfilled by that type of slave, and they were apparently trying it with the heritage alchemists as a way of recruiting new labor.
From rumors, the sect also had the ability to free someone from those poisons with the right antidote and restore most of their free will, but they would never be quite the same afterward.

This was the group the girl had decided to oppose, thinking that the Alchemists’ Guild would be enough backing. He had to admire her spirit, but her common sense was a bit lacking, even if she was a core descendant of the guild.

It made him reconsider whether or not to stay in Boreas. If things here were this twisted, perhaps doing alchemy in a mountain cave would be better after all.

“I can make sure you get a rich amount of support from the guild,” Vesana insisted when she noticed his attention was drifting. “Please, just help me fix things here. The guild needs you. I need you. You’re an Imperial Knight. You can’t overlook this type of corruption, right?”
He knew that one of the main reasons she was asking was because she wanted a good report to send back to the guild headquarters. If the branch here was corrupted while she was the deputy manager, it wouldn’t look good for her. At the same time, it was also an honest request.

One that he had a hard time refusing. He frowned as he looked down at the tea cup on the table, which she had continued to refill.

“I’m going to need a stronger drink,” he said with a sigh. It was basically an agreement to help, and as soon as he spoke, Vesana’s smile lit up the room.

“I’ll help fix your heritage then, so it doesn’t cause you any trouble!” she said brightly. Before Verse could ask what she meant, she jumped up from her couch and went to the side of the room, where she pulled a crystal bottle and two cut crystal glasses from a gold-plated tray. Then she walked back and set them on the table.

“I don’t know if what you gave me was true,” she continued triumphantly, “or if you were inflating it to make it look tempting, but you definitely can’t show that heritage to the guild. It’s impossible and no one will believe it. You wouldn’t be the first person to claim a heritage that never lives up to its promise, and the guild has gotten wary about them over the years. I’ve seen inflated heritages before, but never anything that makes the sort of claims yours did.”

“What do you mean now?” Verse asked with a sigh. This girl was an emotional rollercoaster and he was already wishing he was back in his peaceful courtyard. This time, he really didn’t know what she was talking about.
“You really don’t know?” Vesana gave him a piercing look as if she could see through his games, but his lack of reaction made her frown. She distracted herself by uncapping the bottle and pouring a rich sapphire wine into the two crystal glasses.

The scent that filled the room was a dozen times stronger than the tea. Sapphire light rippled through the glasses and made them glow, and a mist of nearly liquid spiritual energy evaporated into the air from the surface. It shone like a deep and sparkling sea.

“This wine is from the coast,” she said as she pushed one of the glasses toward him. “It’s refined from Bright Ocean Tempest Fruits, a Rank 5 Storm-aligned herb, and aged for more than two hundred years before it’s bottled. Each of those herbs contains the power of an ocean storm. If you eat them directly, they can make even a Primal Spirit cultivator explode on the spot.

“The long refining process ensures that the violent energy of the herbs is worn away, but the energy and the taste is left behind. There’s not much of it in Boreas. I brought this bottle with me from the capital. Please, try it. It should be beneficial to your cultivation.”

Her gestures in serving the wine were graceful and refined, with an unconscious innocence. Her background was perhaps more impressive than he’d given her credit for. The wine was proof enough of that. There was a lot of money in alchemy, and she’d grown up with it.

At the same time, it didn’t change that she was young and idealistic.

He was on the fence about helping her. Lord Jao would have wanted him to, and destroying injustice was part of the ideal of the Imperial Knights, but he was trying to keep his head down when it came to making more enemies.

He was fine with reporting this issue to the Azurewind Guard or the higher echelon of the Alchemists’ Guild and letting it sort itself out. That would probably solve the problem, even if it didn’t help Vesana get a good review.

As far as the legal issue went, what one alchemy sect got up to in stealing alchemists from other sects could be seen as an internal matter for the guild, not the knights. It was the slavery part that was problematic.

That was definitely the domain of the Imperial Knights.

That lit an old fire in his blood, one from his past life as a tech mage from Terra. He’d never had any freedom in that life. All he’d been able to do was stay with the fleet and serve.

That was why he was tempted to help her, even if it was a bad idea. But that didn’t mean he planned to chop his way through a sect that had hundreds of Aligned-realm cultivators and probably a few Primal Spirit or Inspired ones.

He would rather mix up some antidotes and try to free the alchemists, or something else that was a lot more efficient. He’d just need to think of a way to do it without causing himself too much trouble.

And ideally without getting much attention. He wanted to stay in Boreas for a while and if one of the alchemy sects wanted to kill him, that would complicate things.

The thoughts ran through his mind as he picked up the glass and held it up to the light, admiring the sapphire energy that was contained inside. It was barely two centimeters of wine, but the center of it was twisting like a vortex inside the glass. At the same time, the surface of the liquid barely rippled.

It was deceptive in its strength.

“You should grab that whole bottle,” the shrine suggested. It was barely listening to the conversation, since there wasn’t much about it that interested him, but the wine had gotten his attention. “It’s a strong source of spiritual energy. That bottle might be enough to get you through to the Aligned realm by itself.”

Verse dismissed the idea as he looked across the surface of the wine at Vesana, debating his next words.

“What do you mean about the heritage being false and how can you help?” he asked instead.

Depending on what she said, it would tilt his decision one way or the other.

“You really don’t know?” Vesana asked with a frown as she glanced at her own glass that was still on the table, and then to his. She was probably waiting for him to toast her. “Alright, I’ll just take your word for that. It’s simple. What you gave me can’t exist, or at least if it does, it’s beyond any other heritage recorded in the entire empire.

“You gave me a description for pills that can reach Rank 9!” She paused as she stared at him. “Not just that, but your slip says you have an entire set of pill recipes for every single rank!” Her tone was incredulous. “How is that even possible? The empire only has a handful of pill recipes for Rank 7 total, combined from all of the greatest libraries! The guild itself only has two! No one has a single recipe for Rank 8 or 9, because cultivators at those ranks don’t even exist! Thus, you have to be making it up!”

“I see,” Verse said as a wave of tension flowed out of his shoulders. Her words were unexpected, but they actually made him relax. “I probably should have thought of that.”

He’d known the empire had cultivators up to the Divine Essence realm, which corresponded to Rank 7, but he’d forgotten to ask about ones higher than that. The shrine’s recipes had made him think those realms existed here and he just hadn’t heard about them.

Apparently, they didn’t.

No wonder she thought it was a fake heritage! He almost laughed out loud at himself, but ended up just shaking his head.

“So you were faking it!” Vesana scowled at him, her mood shifting like mercury to a heated disapproval. “I knew it!”

“Actually, I wasn’t,” Verse said calmly as he looked across the table at her. “You can believe that or not, but you’re right that if I had been familiar with the empire’s cultivators, I would have left off those descriptions. Rank 7 would have been enough.”

“No way!” she said as she slapped her hand on the table, making the wine shake. “That’s still impossible! There is no heritage that has that sort of pill. Anything that did would be from the Immortal Realm.”

“The Immortal Realm?” A trace of puzzlement flashed across Verse’s features. “You mean the Outer Heavens?”

That was what the Elder Races had called them, all the stars and worlds that existed through the vast universe. That was where they’d all gone, except for the demons, when they left to fight the Inferno Stars in the Serene Subtle Heavens. That was a very distant region.

“The what?” Now it was Vesana’s turn to stare at him in confusion. “What’s that?”

“The realms that exist in the stars,” Verse said slowly as he studied her reaction. “You know that there are other worlds, dimensions, and so on out there? The universe is vast and ever-expanding. It is the only eternal thing that I have ever seen.”

“Wait, you’ve seen it?” Vesana stared at Verse again, her attention fixed on his lips. It seemed like he’d pulled her completely away from the topic at hand now. Her youthful excitement and emotions were on full display as she almost leapt out of her seat toward him, but she managed to only lean forward eagerly instead.

“Who are you? There’s no way that....” She trailed off into silence, just staring at him.

“No way that what?” Verse asked with a laugh. She was reminding him of the more exciting parts of life, of joy and eagerness. He had a habit of being too much in his own thoughts, but that would be difficult with someone like her around.

“No way that you’re just a knight,” she finished quickly. “But really, you’re serious? If it were anyone else, I’d say they were a madman, but there’s something about you that’s different. It’s in your aura, your eyes...there’s something ancient and distant there, like you’ve seen those places. It makes me believe you.”

She was probably seeing the traces left by Dusk to Dawn in his aura, the solar cycle that came from the Crimson Sunset and Endless Dawn. It left a timeless mark on him. But it was also possible that she was seeing something else, like the passage through the River of Fate.

Either way, her insight was pretty good, and at that moment, he decided that he’d had enough of hiding some things. He still wasn’t planning on telling her the whole truth.

“I have been to the Outer Heavens,” he agreed. “But it will take me a long time to go back. It’s not easy. And Rank 7 is not the end. There are at least 9 ranks. What I gave you is a small heritage, but it’s very accurate. The Jade Scripture Sect was extremely powerful and based much of its alchemy on the study of the heavens. The cultivation method from them is also what left its mark on my aura.”

That was more or less true, but it was designed to send her in the wrong direction, and he’d left out the part about his bloodline. Even for a girl who seemed trustworthy, there were some things she didn’t need to know.

“Your slip said it was a cultivation-based heritage,” she said as she reached forward and grabbed his wrist. “But is that really true? Can anyone else learn those recipes? If they truly go so high...the empire’s alchemy is only a shadow by comparison.”

Then she paused and her hand tightened on his wrist.

“No, that’s not the most important thing,” she said suddenly, interrupting herself. “You absolutely cannot tell anyone else this. You would be dead and mindless in a day, or at best in a state where being a soul slave would be a paradise. It depends on whether or not people think they could get the heritage to work for them.”

“Are you also thinking of that?” Verse asked calmly as he looked across the table at her. “You may as well tell me now.”

“No...yes...no, definitely not!” Vesana said quickly, shaking her head at him. Her hand was still on his wrist as she looked into his eyes. Hers were bright with absolute attention. “I’d be a fool to say I’m not interested, but I’m not willing to go that far. What I want is to see alchemy rise to be the greatest craft under heaven. If you can help me get there, I’ll be your student, not your enemy!”

“I’m not taking students,” Verse said with a laugh as he raised the glass in a toast to her. “But I could use a friend.”