Sunrise Alchemist, Ch 15: Changing Winds (Patreon)

It didn’t take too long to finish cleaning up the courtyard. As he considered what to do about the sect, he searched through the assassins’ equipment and their spatial rings. He took everything that was interesting and tossed the rest into a pile to be burned.

There were two dozen vials of poison, as well as some of the grey disks, bones, and a dozen or so of the dark blades the assassins had used, which varied in length from daggers to short swords.

Most of it was useless to him, but the poisons could be studied. Some of them had unique spiritual signatures that spoke of Wood, Flame, Darkness, and other daos.

Strange energies radiated from the vials, which were made from different materials to contain the contents. Jade was present, but so was moonstone, silver, glass, obsidian, granite, carved wood, and more.

Most of them were at the Aligned realm in strength, suggesting they were the equivalent of Rank 3 poisons, but several were stronger, radiating a threatening presence. Those had to be Rank 4 and intended to kill Primal Spirit cultivators.

They’d come prepared.

If they’d had the chance, they might have been more dangerous, especially if they’d caught him by surprise and had a chance to use their strengths. They hadn’t been weak, just specialized, and they’d made a mistake in crossing his wards.

They’d underestimated him.

After he sorted everything, he piled the extra weapons into a separate storage ring, one that he’d used to store bandit equipment in the past, and then he stored the poisons away in a separate one for study in the future.

Poisons were a branch of alchemy, so those could be interesting to research.

Some of them were targeted at blood and spirits, which felt more like curses than standard poisons, while others were heavy with the scent of decay and corruption even as they combined an element like Flame or Water to strengthen them.

If he had to name those, it would be something like a Poison of Corrupted Flame or Venom of Petrified Bone.

There was even a vial that held something similar to the corpse poison from those Sky Rending Ghosts. That one made him frown, but he kept it anyway. It would be good to test out some of his recipes or to study to find a good antidote.

As for the rest of the bone and crystal items that contained fragments of trapped spirits or curses, he tossed them on top of the two corpses with the rest of the items he didn’t want.

Each of them had a tattoo of a red ghost on their chests, which seemed to be a symbol of the sect. It held a strange aura about it that made him not want to touch it. If his guess was right, it was a brand to show their loyalty and also a type of spiritual protection from some of the techniques they’d used.

With it, those ghosts probably would have avoided them.

Besides the poisons, there were half a dozen daggers and short blades and a couple of stand-alone defensive and evasive artifacts. One of those was a palm-sized ruby shield with ornate inscriptions on the surface that seemed clear of any traps.

Based on the traces of energy on it, it had been used recently, probably when the first assassin survived his attack. He studied it to make sure it was safe and then he bathed it in flames for good measure before he stuck it in his spatial ring.

That one might be useful in the future.

There were also four single-use talismans: two that looked like strips of white parchment and two that were yellow with a red inscription on them. The first type seemed to be targeted at warding off ghosts, while the second type was a brutal form of healing talisman, one that would give you strength to push through but damage your lifespan.

He put those away as well, although he had no intention of using the healing ones.

The other equipment from the assassins were limited, since most of what they had brought was for this single mission, boiling down to just a handful of spirit stones, which they were probably only carrying to recover their energy.

When he was done sorting everything, he incinerated the corpses and the debris pile in a wash of silver sunrise flames, letting his dao purge the presence of anything dark so that it wouldn’t disturb the courtyard.

Flares of dark green, black, and other colors of smoke let out screeches and howls as they burned in the flames, but the noise didn’t last for long. He sent another wave of flame across the pile just to make sure it was done.

He had no intention of leaving the bodies to decay into poison or to reveal anything that had happened here. As it turned out, his caution was well chosen.

As the corpses of the assassins turned to ash, half a dozen flares of red and black energy ripped away from their bodies and tried to escape, heading for the sky to the south. They were tiny, quick darts of energy, probably from spells that had been embedded in their bones.

A moment later, the spells struck the wards and disintegrated in a series of dull explosions.

At the same time, a dull explosion of red mist came from the assassins’ bodies, filling the area with more of the blood-tinged smoke, but before it could do any harm, it burned away.

He shook his head as he intensified the flames again, making sure the bodies were fully consumed, but he wasn’t surprised.

Cultivators from dark sects like this one always had some surprise in store, even if you killed them. Those spells might have even been planted in them by the sect without their knowledge, and who knew what spirits or beasts had been tortured to make the artifacts they used. Destroying it all was the best option.

Once he was finished, he summoned a wind to carry the tiny bit of ash that was left into a spare spatial bag to dispose of outside the house. It would have been a sort of poetic justice to feed them to the herbs they’d almost destroyed, but he didn’t feel like scattering their ashes across his courtyard. They didn’t deserve the honor.

Those herbs were going into his pills eventually.

By the time he was done, he’d made a few decisions about the near future.

The biggest one was that he wasn’t leaving Boreas. He’d come here to study alchemy and he planned to stick to it. It would be a shame to abandon the house and courtyard he’d worked on. If things got too hot, he could leave, but until then he planned to stay and see what happened.

His reasons were mixed.

Part of it was because he wanted to help Vesana and free the alchemists, and another part was that he didn’t want to let a sect push him around. He was still angry about the Ebon Seal Sect and others that had targeted Whitestone.

It was beneath his dignity as a dragon and as an Imperial Knight to run off at the first sign of a threat.

The foundation for all of those reasons, of course, was that he felt confident in protecting himself. There were some details to iron out, but it was something he could work on.

“The question is what to do about the sect,” he said aloud as he scratched Leaf’s head and headed toward the front door. He’d taken a little while to clean up, but there should still be enough time to catch a late dinner.

“If I announce that someone tried to assassinate an Imperial Knight, it will get attention,” he added, “but that might not be the best solution. Perhaps I’ll let the sect wonder what happened.”

Either way, they’d probably send someone else after him soon, once they realized these two had failed.

When he arrived, the restaurant was its usual pleasant burble of conversation and fragrant scents. He ignored the open dining room as he headed to one of the private rooms at the back, which the owner had reserved for him ever since he started coming here on a regular basis.

Before long, the table was filled with spicy noodles, chilled wine, barbequed wild meats arranged around sauces, and glazed vegetables layered with spiritual herbs. A loaf of freshly baked bread at the center released a tantalizing aroma.

Leaf had a separate plate, one filled with steamed buns that were usually only served at breakfast. The elemental leapt off his shoulder and curled around it greedily as soon as the waiter disappeared, his eyes gleaming.

Verse chuckled, but then he turned his attention to his own food. As he was eating, he considered the next step.

His personal strength was critical to surviving here, which meant he needed to focus on breaking through to the Aligned realm as soon as possible, but he would have done that anyway.

“There should be enough time,” he said aloud, speaking mostly to himself. As long as he stayed inside the city, he doubted the sect would try again too soon.

Their Aligned-realm assassins had failed, so they would either have to send more in a second batch or switch tactics. Switching tactics seemed more likely. To an extent, that meant he could predict their arrival and prepare for it.

The Crimson Shade Sect was far from the only sect in the area, and they were clearly up to something secret, so he doubted they wanted to draw that much attention to themselves. Now that their assassins had failed, they would try again, but it would probably be outside of the city.

The signature of an Aligned-realm ambush could be hidden here, since there were a lot of cultivators at that rank inside the city, but it was harder to hide a Primal Spirit cultivator’s signature, especially one who was fighting.

As long as he stayed here long enough to break through, he should have a bit of time.

When he did leave, whether it was for a mission or to collect herbs, he would have to be on guard. The next time they tried, it would be with something more dangerous, probably a Primal Spirit cultivator.

Either way, they were invested now, so they weren’t likely to stop. He would have to be careful, but it was a manageable risk.

If he was wrong, then he would deal with it.

Before long, the dishes on the table were demolished and he left behind a large tip as he headed back to his house. It was getting late, but he wasn’t tired. The fight and the meal had only helped to clear his mind.

Glancing across the empty dishes made him chuckle for a moment as a thought occurred to him. At some point, once they realized attacking in the city was too difficult, the sect might try a quieter method to kill him, like poisoning the food here.

It was difficult to poison an alchemist, and more difficult to poison a dragon, but he’d still have to take a look at those vials the assassins had left him and figure out the best antidote.

It wasn’t too soon to start working on the Cleansing Rain Pill either. It was a general antidote and the recipe was straightforward.

He would start on it as soon as he had a bit more practice with the Woodbalm Paste and his new understanding of Wood.

On the way home, down the dark street that was lit by a few spiritual lanterns, he whistled a simple melody, one that left a haunting tune in the night. It rose and fell like a promise on the wind.

To anyone watching, it was a daring provocation.

***

Back in his courtyard, he considered sending a message to Vesana about the assassins, but then he shook his head. She could meet him at the auction house, but it wouldn’t change anything.

More importantly, if she knew the sect was acting against him, her behavior might change. It would be disruptive if she gave away news about the attack before the sect and Renzer figured it out for themselves.

He didn’t want it to seem like they had too close of a connection.

That would put her in more danger and mess with their plans. She was already on guard and the fewer variables, the better.

Her status was high, so it was unlikely that the sect would harm her. If they did, her family and the guild heads would undoubtedly find out about it and probably wipe the sect off the map. That was the danger of offending strong organizations, and the Alchemists’ Guild was one of the strongest.

She would be safe enough.

He spent a few minutes browsing through some options for sale with his guard badge and then he tucked away a few small items, including a vial of antidote pills. They were odds and ends that might be important in the future.

When he was finished with that, he began laying out the Wind-aligned items. He had originally intended to practice alchemy tonight, but he’d changed his mind. Pills were a supplement and could be powerful, but personal strength was the best foundation.

It would be better if he studied the Dao of Wind.

With each dao he comprehended, there were advantages to his alchemy and his control with certain ingredients, so it wouldn’t be a waste of time even if he did it first.

He looked at the Wind-aligned elemental stones and the Silver Wind Stone in front of him. After a moment of consideration, he also set out the bottle of Bright Storm Wine. It held a more specialized dao than pure Wind, but no one could deny that a storm was made out of wind.

He didn’t plan to use it directly for his meditation, but a few drops of it might be useful.

With that, he settled down into a meditation pose and began to think of wind. Immediately, thoughts came to him of flying through the clouds on dragon wings. They were swiftly followed by the memory of streamlined starships in the darkness and then by the jade-tinted clouds of the Heavengold Imperial World.

He had many experiences with Wind to draw upon as he sank deeper into meditation.

He’d long ago familiarized himself with basic techniques that called on Wind, starting from his first days in Whitestone. The Six Transformations of the Eagle technique had given him Wind Blade, his first ranged attack, and later Eagle’s Cry and Eagle’s Claw.

He’d never mastered the technique, since it had been replaced by stronger ones, but it was still a part of him. Now, it was useful again as the memory of its principles filled his mind.

Around him, a subtle white breeze began to spin as energy condensed from the air and hovered around his body. It curled around his hands where he’d thrown wind blades, and then around all of his limbs.

As an Essence Condensation cultivator, he could fly through the air. That too was part of Wind.

Wind was movement, the flowing presence of pressure, tilt and shift with wings spread wide.

His eyes were closed, but his hand was unerring as he reached out and picked up two of the Wind-aligned spirit stones. He held one in each hand as he began to absorb their energy, letting the truth of the elemental attunement merge with his study of Wind.

Time flowed away on the breeze.

Three days later, the spirit stones in front of him had been reduced to shimmering dust and the spiral white winds around his body were five times the size they’d been before. He reached out again. This time he picked up the bottle of Bright Storm Wine in one hand and the Silver Wind Stone in the other.

With a casual gesture, he swallowed a mouthful of wine straight from the bottle and then he set it down again, turning his attention to the wind stone. He took it out of the jade case and held quickly held it between his hands,

Violent arcs of white Wind energy slashed outward from the stone the instant it was freed. They were like blades as they slammed into the winds around him and disrupted their energy before they struck his body like hammers.

Despite the ferocity, the strikes didn’t manage to break through his skin.

All around him, leaves and grasses were assaulted by the unleashed storm. They were pressed flat against the ground in some areas and yanked upwards in others, their roots trembling as they tried to hold on. At any moment, it looked like half the courtyard would be overturned by a tempest and all of his work lost.

Just then, however, Leaf faded into view at Verse’s side. He let out a grumbling hiss as he stood up and stretched, yawning wide to show tiny leaf-shaped fangs as sharp as daggers. His shoulders rippled in a shrug and a wave of green energy swept across the courtyard.

Suddenly, the grass sprang upright again, the shaking roots stabilized in the ground, and the tempest from the wind stone ceased ten feet away from Verse. The white arcs of energy lashed against a green barrier that contained them in a sphere, preventing them from going any further.

Leaf grumbled again as he lay back down on the ground. He looked at Verse curiously and then curled up in a ball, draping his tail over his face as he closed his eyes.

“Dragons...” he hissed with amusement as he got comfortable again. His voice was like moss growing over rocks, slowly merging into the background without disrupting anything. “Messy.”

Verse heard the words, but his attention was far away, filled with the force of Wind as he listened to the howling gale around him, and beyond that to the high winds of the upper air that carried across the plains here. They were the same ones that traveled from mountain peak to mountain peak, and from the sea waves to shore.

The blades from the wind stone continued to strike him, but he ignored the assault as he focused on the flow of energy. He didn’t absorb the power inside the stone immediately. Instead, he studied it, using it as an example for his own manipulation of Wind.

He would absorb it eventually, but for now it was too useful.

The white winds around him began to spin again, their force clashing with the waves coming from the wind stone. He began to copy it with return strikes, the energy merging and breaking away again.

He wasn’t sure how long this meditation would take, but it would be longer than the few days he’d spent on Wood. Time fell away as the winds howled through the courtyard.

***

At the Alchemists’ Guild, a demanding pulse of spiritual energy drew Renzer’s attention to the communication plate in his desk. His mood was cheerful as he pulled it out and removed the talisman sealing it.

“You have good news?” he asked expectantly as soon as he activated the plate. He was looking forward to getting rid of the Imperial Knight. The knight hadn’t done anything yet, but his presence alone was enough to put Renzer on edge.

“No, they failed.” The voice that came from the plate was dry and raspy, like it had no moisture in it. It sounded more like a corpse than anything living.

“What...?” Renzer froze as he held the plate. Then he gripped it in both hands, his arms shaking as anger flooded through him, and he shouted into the plate. “What do you mean they failed?!”

His dreams of an easy retirement to the capital were crashing around his ears as he realized what it meant to try and assassinate an Imperial Knight and then to fail at it.

“How could they fail?!” he continued, still shouting as panic filled him, an emotion that he controlled by turning it into even more anger. “He’s just one man and he’s not even at the Aligned realm yet! He’s going to find out it was us now! You can’t leave an Imperial Knight like that alive!”

“Two Crimson Shadows were sent,” the voice replied emotionlessly, ignoring his tirade. “They were at the Aligned realm, one early and one middle. Together, they should have been enough to kill even a Primal Spirit cultivator with the weapons they had available. Something must have gone wrong. Their soul medallions shattered within a minute of each other.”

Soul medallions were a way some sects tracked their cultivators. A fragment of their soul was trapped in a formation that was carved into a disk, which was then placed in a hall with a larger formation that sent up an alert if anything changed.

Depending on the sect and the inscriptions used, soul medallions could be harmless or a way to control the life and death of their disciples. Anything from a soul imprint to a soul prison was possible.

As for the Crimson Shade Sect’s version, he doubted it was harmless. They needed a way to control their assassins.

“What are you going to do now?” Renzer snarled as he looked at the plate. “He’s going to know it was you! You have to send more people and do it right this time!”

“Be careful, alchemist,” the voice rasped. Despite the warning, there was no change in inflection. “Just because you are useful doesn’t mean you can make demands. Your future rests in my hands. Another team will be sent, and this one will be more cautious. They will look for a better opportunity.”

“If he’s not dead soon, things could get difficult,” Renzer muttered as he stared at the plate. “I can’t keep sending you alchemists to be slaves if he’s watching me! What are you making that needs them anyway? Maybe I can find you another solution.”

He’d never discovered what the sect was using the alchemists for, but he wanted to know. It didn’t make sense if they were trying to create a pill. The heritage alchemists were mostly untrained, new to the field, and they all came from different backgrounds. Even with his experience, he wasn’t familiar with a single pill that they could be working on.

“If there were another solution, we would have found it already,” the voice replied. “You will keep sending alchemists or the next set of assassins will visit you instead. They won’t kill you, but they will make sure you never have a day without crippling pain again. The only reason I allow you this much leeway is that it would be difficult to replace you. Your future is in my hands.”

The threat hung in the air as the plate in Renzer’s hand fell silent. He hurled it against the wall, where it made a dull thud against the rich wood lining the room. Then he shoved himself away from the desk as he began to pace, muttering angrily.

“How could they have failed?” he asked himself, his mind burning with rage. His aura filled the room with an oppressive sense of burning woods and smoke, like a fireplace with a blocked chimney. If anyone else had been around, it would have been hard for them to breathe. “Are Imperial Knights really that impressive?”

For all the legends around them and the rare status they held in the empire, he didn’t know much about them. The laws surrounding them were common knowledge, but they were rare enough that it almost never came up.

They barely fit within the empire’s daily life.

At the same time, they held a unique position. On their own authority and with the slightest shred of evidence, they could command the legions, call on local guards, and act as judge, jury, and executioner.

“Who gave them that much power?!” he swore as he paced, still thinking aloud. “Maybe he doesn’t know about the connection to the guild and me.... It would be even better if he didn’t recognize the assassins or their sect at all. Even if he does, it should just look like the sect attacked him. What does that have to do with me?”

The idea was reassuring, and he repeated it to himself as he continued to pace, trying to find a sense of equilibrium again.

“If I don’t want him to connect the assassins to the guild....I’ll have to treat him well,” he decided. “If he likes it here, he won’t think I’ve done anything to him.”

He didn’t want the knight looking for evidence here, so all he could do was make sure that the guild looked friendly and innocent, so that the knight didn’t have any suspicions. He frowned as he pulled out his guild badge and opened a communication line to Heten. His next words were a violent growl, interrupting whatever the man was doing.

“Give that knight top class treatment,” he ordered. “Don’t let him take any losses in the guild. We’re going to be good friends with him from now on.”

Without waiting for Heten to answer, he stuffed the badge away as he returned to pacing. His mind was a little calmer now as began planning how to make the knight like the guild, but only a little.

Even as he made that plan, however, he was still thinking of a way to kill the knight. Treating him well was one thing, and it cost him nothing personally, but it didn’t solve the root of the problem.

If the knight discovered the connection between him and the sect, and the way he’d been using the guild for his own gain, all he had to do was announce it to the empire. Then everything would come crashing down.

His promising future would fall with it.

If only there were a way to break the sect’s connection to him. Or to frame them and make it look like he was innocent.

Faces flickered through Renzer’s mind as he considered who he could set up to take his place if anyone found evidence against him. Vesana was one of them, but he quickly dismissed her. She hadn’t been here long enough for anyone to believe her ties with the sect ran that deep.

His own history with the sect was also a problem. He needed a way to cover that up.

In fact, maybe framing someone else wasn’t the right answer after all.

An idea occurred to him as he continued to pace, one that the sect had accidentally given him.

“You’ll never have a day without crippling pain again.” The words floated in his head, making him hesitate. But then he steeled his will as he stopped beside his desk.

He slumped down in the chair, considering the idea. Then a series of vials began to appear on the desk in front of him.

All of them were poisons.

The only question was how to mix them together.

He needed the right effect, one that would make him look like a long-suffering victim who had no choice but to cooperate with the sect for the trickle of antidote they gave him to keep the pain away.

His mood stabilized and his hands stopped shaking as he began to sort the vials. Other medicines joined them, a mix of pills and herbs, as well as stranger items. He needed to make sure that the poison he created was identifiable as one of the sect’s worst without having all of the same effects.

He was a talented alchemist, but if he wanted to pull this off the right way, it would take all of his skills. Making a counterfeit poison, one that would make him look sick to anyone who examined him and earn him sympathy, wasn’t going to be an easy thing, especially if he wanted to be able to reverse it easily.

He even needed to be able to fool the sect, so that they would wonder which of them had poisoned him. It had to be a strong and deadly poison, one that would even make them hesitate, so that they wouldn’t think about torturing him in any other way.

Once they saw him afflicted with it, they had to believe he would die.

A poison to sever all connections.

It wasn’t a perfect solution, but it was the best bet he had available to turn everything around.

Once he was ready, he would confess to that idiot deputy branch manager, giving her a carefully concocted story that would make her think the sect was the only evil one and he was a hapless victim.

If he did it right, she would pull in both that knight and the higher ups in the guild to support him, since attacking him would be the same as an attack on the guild itself. They might even try to save his life by spending high-ranking pills or other resources on him.

It wouldn’t even be about him at that point. It would be a matter of face. They would have to save him to protect the guild’s name.

And if the sect did try to tell the truth at that point, to say that he collaborated with them, who would believe them?

He was the victim!

As for that knight, the sect could deal with him like they’d planned. It wasn’t his business how they killed him. In fact, the less he knew about it, the better. Hopefully they would do it soon.

It didn’t take him long at all to shift his mind around or to forget that he was the one who originally asked the sect to deal with the knight.

The more he thought about the idea, the more he liked it and the more smoothly he sorted through the vials, considering different combinations of poison. He began to whistle as he worked, the sound blending into the aura of burning oaks that filled the room.

If he did this right, he could turn everything around.