“Thank you,” Cha Ming replied.
“Would it kill you to clean up?” she asked, to which Cha Ming replied by manipulating his domain to wash away any filth from his skin, hair, and clothes. He still looked like hell, and his eyes were still bloodshot, but he looked less like a vagrant and more like a madman. Exactly the frame of mind he needed to be in.
She led him out the building without another word. Cha Ming heard the occasional taunt as they left the school, but nothing overly dramatic. Whenever a Phoenix clansman or clanswoman tried to stop him, he made eye contact, and they thought better of it.
Thank the heavens for universal body language, he thought. One wrong move, and he might just kill someone.
They walked over to the fourth floor where the competition was being held. It was one of the largest floors and elevated enough from the bottom to honor the competitors. There, at the center of it all, was a huge arena. Crowds were trying to push their way into the place, and many fought over sold-out tickets.
Yet even their frenzied buying didn’t stop them from parting the moment they felt his aura.
“Hey, it’s that human!” one shouted.
“Yeah, our human. Go!” a human man shouted.
He ignored them all. He heard their words, but the emotions swirling inside him left little room for petty insults or discrimination. Iridescent Tempest dragged him through the crowd and presented a letter from Iridescent Wonder at the registration desk. She then dragged him over to the arena.
“Good luck,” she said, pushing him into the well-lit competition area and proceeding to the stands.
“I don’t need luck,” Cha Ming whispered. It was true. He needed anger. He needed rage.
He walked slowly and deliberately toward the spot at the front that had been reserved for him. They wanted him front and center, both because of his daring and because of the commotion he’d caused. There were three other groups here. The alchemy competition would be held simultaneously with the pyromancy and blacksmithing competitions.
“You look terrible,” Iridescent Virtue said from the spot beside him.
“I don’t just look terrible. I feel terrible,” Cha Ming said. “It’s intentional.”
“That’s the spirit, Clear Sky,” Iridescent Smile taunted from his other side. “Accept your fate.”
“I’m not in the mood for your taunting right now,” Cha Ming said. “Don’t bother me, or you’ll end up no better than your sister, Iridescent Charm. By the way, how’s her face doing?”
“You!” she said.
“Quiet!” a loud voice cut in. A tall woman stood up, and when she did, the raucous crowd simmered down to a low murmur. “Greetings, everyone, welcome to the decennial fire arts competition. These hundreds of alchemists, blacksmiths, and fire artists have practiced for years for this event. The best of them will gain the right to enter the Iridescent Ancestor’s Trial by Ancestral Fire. I have been informed that a third of this city is in attendance. Let’s make this a competition unlike any other.
“As some of you may be unfamiliar with the rules, I will provide the basics. Fire artists will show off their control and manipulation, which will culminate in many rounds of sparring. Spiritual blacksmiths and alchemists will have seven days to craft a single pill or weapon. Points will be awarded on technique, success rate, potency, adaptability, complexity, and novelty. Only one product will be judged by our panel of elders.”
The ten-phoenix panel included Iridescent Charity and Iridescent Wonder, as well as the consistently frustrating Iridescent Torch.
Great. Just what I need.
“Don’t speak to each other. Don’t interfere with each other,” the announcer continued. “The runic circle on the ground will protect you from others and protect others from your. Still, it is best to take care—any explosions that might occur will be extra deadly.” She then looked to the First Feather, who was seated at a place of honor at the front of the stands. The woman nodded. “I declare this competition started.”
A counter began ticking down in Cha Ming’s mind as his runic circle came to life. All around him, Phoenix clansmen summoned their cauldrons. Most of them were demon weapons, but there were some who used normal pill cauldrons. There were also a few humans, but to his knowledge, they weren’t here to win. They were here to showcase their skills in front of the local experts in crafting.
Focus, Cha Ming thought. Feel the rage. He thought of Cao Wenluan and Mi Fei, his prisoner, and his temper flared. She’s not yours to take, Wenluan. I gave up on chasing her, yes, but only so she could be happy. The way he was treating her—the way her own flesh and blood was treating her—lit a fire inside him. He could not, would not, accept such a violation of her will.
It was these emotions he channeled into the Clear Sky Cauldron when he summoned it. It suffused its clear metal, filling it with the aura he aimed to imbue in his product. The announcer began speculating about his runic cauldron and asking the judges about it, but he blocked them all out.
Instead, he focused on the process. On the ingredients. On the runes. I didn’t have time to finish it, but I can do it here, he thought. He’d settled the basics and eliminated a few rare ingredients. He would need to improvise in the next seven days. A pity I don’t have more of these, he thought, reviewing his remaining ingredients. Mostly fruits and roots, but pieces of ice and metal and earth. Some, he had few of, but others, only a single portion.
He began to blend ingredients, splitting his mind into many parts, refining and aligning and marking tens of ingredients at a time. He was no longer working with dozens of ingredients; now it was closer to a hundred. The chaotic jumble melted and twisted into runes in the large cauldron. He could practically taste their potency.
Cha Ming labored for hours, constructing each rune one at a time. He then followed up by folding them into their most basic groupings. There were three main components to the pill: the broken glacier structure, the violent fire structure, and a regulating substrate that would prevent them from violently exploding on contact.
The glacier was violet blue, the fire red, and the substrate gold. They trembled and pulsed impatiently as he built them. First trial, frozen well lotus, he thought. He took the variant flower, chilling instead of heating it. It melted from the cold. He refined in reverse as he sifted through his spiritual sea for a suitable runic pattern. He eventually found one, and to his relief, it easily melded with the rest of the blue glacier structure.
It was a good start. Now that this was settled, he shifted his attention to the violet-red blob that represented flame. It felt less like a steady fire and more like a violent explosion. The runes were erratic and malevolent and didn’t like sitting still.
The thousand-year-old four-colored burning-pith fruit is a safe bet, Cha Ming thought. He had three of them, so he could afford to waste one. He slowly ground away at the prickly thing, cutting it and melting it with his Grandmist flames. They burned away its impurities until it only a thin liquid remained. He used it not as a rune, but as a light coating that he added on to the entire flame runic structure. It morphed and twisted following the addition.
Finally, Cha Ming proceeded to the golden blob and added a final component. Iridescent Charity’s multicolored feather. It contained the Iridescent Clan’s essence and her personal emotions. It merged with the thin golden chains that proceeded to join everything together and gave everything they touched an iridescent hue.
Come on, Lady Luck, Cha Ming thought. He had a good feeling about this pill. He began to combine the runic structures and supervise their reaction. Runic alchemy was different than normal alchemy in that it required a lot of careful upfront setup as well as runic manipulation during the process. Normal alchemy would instead rely on many batch reactions and fusing of ingredients. Failures could easily be spotted and discarded. The process was very forgiving. Unlike Cha Ming’s method, which didn’t allow for mistakes. He had to get everything right the first time and live with the consequences.
Cha Ming worked at merging the components for twenty-four hours. Merging the pill was both grueling and exhausting. Unlike the other alchemists, he couldn’t take breaks and rest between key reactions. The constant concentration took a toll on even his powerful soul. He didn’t know what he would do without his angelic endowment and the Crown of the Starry Sky to guide him.
One by one, the components merged. The resulting pill glowed with a chaotic but iridescent light. A gray seal formed, crisscrossed with hints of iridescence that still failed to merge completely with the overall matrix. It was an unbalanced pill. It was close to what he was looking for. He looked at the pill, knowing that he could present it. He gave himself a fifty-fifty chance.
Not good enough, he thought, popping the pill into his mouth. The moment the alchemical reagents entered his body, his mind shattered. Each piece began to think and fight individually, much like when he’d activated Sun Wukong’s King’s Crown during the Star-Eye Ancestor’s trial. If that were all, the pill would be useless. His thoughts needed a guide, but how could his mind guide him when broken? A fire lit up inside his heart, one filled with rage and determination. His blood began to boil—both literally and figuratively. If he were not a body cultivator, this side effect would have killed him.
His soul burned like it did when he used Thirty-Six Heavenly Transformations. Currents of emotions buffeted him and threatened to consume him. He navigated this intense maze by channeling starlight as a guide.
I need to leave, a piece of his mind argued. I need to save her.
Let’s just go kill Cao Wenluan and get this over with, another piece thought.
No, you need to focus, yet another said.
You call this emotional enlightenment? Weak.
Nothing you do will ever be good enough.
Pathetic. You can still think? What’s the point of something useless like thinking?
Fine, his other self replied. Show me how.
That piece of his mind replied with flashes of insane inspiration. Most of them were crazy and unworkable. Fortunately, he had his intuition to guide him. He discarded most of the ideas but clung to a few of the healthier inspirations. Even then, they might just kill him.
Some were minor adjustments to ingredients, but others were major changes. For example, this time, he would use mind-shattering ice thorns harvested from a mind-reaping death vine. A dangerous ingredient to harvest and use, even after its collection. That should wreck your brain about three times more than this time, the fragment of his mind said.
I only have two of these, he thought.
You only have two tries left anyway, his other self argued.
That was true. Two days had already passed. Why wouldn’t he try? Then, suddenly, the pieces of his mind fused back together, and he found himself exhausted and wounded. He ignored the speculating announcer and downed a half dozen pills and began meditating to replenish his qi stores, his divine energy, and his vitality.
A few hours later, Cha Ming opened his eyes. They were red, and his expression desperate. He saw Iridescent Wonder frowning at him from the judges’ table. Still, he said nothing. He was a judge, and he couldn’t interfere. Besides, how could he possibly know Cha Ming’s agony?
Cha Ming channeled the pain and the anger and immediately began on the next pill variant. The colors were drastically different this time. They were darker and more sinister and threatened to consume any hint of light. The starting process was mostly the same, and the gold stabilizing and red flame components were similar, but the lingering darkness changed their nature.
He turned his attention to the mind-shattering ice thorns. He didn’t bother melting them down. Instead, he chopped them with his multipurpose Grandmist flame, keeping them cold as he molded the paste into a simple runic form that would slowly collapse and react as it diluted itself into the main structure.
Then, he began merging runes again. The process was more difficult to manage than the last time. The reaction that unfolded was a battlefield. The overall reagents were locked together in formation, but on the micro level, there were unpredictable events and opposing patterns. Crafting this pill was less about guiding and more about putting out fires before he lost the overall battle.
He lost himself in that state, wondering if and when he’d fail. The slightest mistake would lead to total collapse. Then the next thing he knew, the pill was in his hand. Perfectly made. Perfectly still. The Grandmist seal was broken and jagged now. A mockery of what it once was. A swirl of colors that resembled mixed paint surrounded it like a border.
Almost, he thought, then hesitated. Should he give it to the judges? Wouldn’t he stand a good chance at winning? Then he laughed, knowing full well that at this point, he’d abandoned rationality. He was beyond common sense. This pill was no guarantee, and he knew deep down that there existed a pill he could make that was unlike any other.
So he took the pill, and his mind shattered once again. This time into many more pieces. They spoke to each other. They taunted each other. Their only guide was the raging bonfire of his emotions. As they searched, his body and soul burned.
Starlight flooded his mind, illuminating all the pathways he found. There were many possibilities. Some were even sure successes. Yet there was one path that stood out. A single uncertain option. It called to him. It frightened him.
No. I could die, he thought.
You could die anyway, his other self replied.
I’ll lose.
You’ll lose if you don’t try it.
I’m desperate, but not that desperate, he said venomously. You know exactly how that fruit came to be. It’s the reason why we’re here in the first place.
That’s why it’s so perfect, the piece of mind replied. It’s only fitting. It’s exactly what we need. Then he felt cold apprehension when he realized the crazy voice had won the argument.
Cha Ming laughed out loud. Tears ran down his face. He felt anger and sadness and raw hurt. He wanted to kill. He wanted to weep. He wanted to destroy cities. He wanted to step off the edge of a cliff and end it all, but he had things to do. People to kill. Clans to bury.
That state of mind lingered as he threw ingredients into the cauldron. He began refining ingredients with a thousand pieces of his broken mind, not even bothering to re-form it. The chorus of thoughts worked in concert with a flame that burned him from the inside out, barely contained by the dozen pills he took to sustain himself.
Was he insane? Was he a genius? Cha Ming didn’t know. He could only describe this state of mind as mad enlightenment. It was both similar and completely divergent to the epiphany he’d once had at the Kingfisher Guard Station when he’d simultaneously learned a dozen concepts at once.
He felt his way through the refining process, throwing in ingredients that didn’t have a right to be there. He forged runes on a whim and hoped they would come together. Instinct, insight, and random chance worked in an unholy symphony. Nearly a hundred ingredients became over three hundred, many of which conflicted.
He wasn’t performing alchemy anymore, he knew. He was making a stew. The most complex puzzle he’d ever created came to life as he poured in his anger, his fear, and his frustration. Then he got to the final ingredients, and his insanity deepened. He didn’t bother shielding himself from the mind-shattering ice thorns, and his mind broke even further as he worked. When he got to the golden binding agent, he worked in not two iridescent feathers but seven. Then, laughing, he summoned the one fruit that had forced him down this path. The fruit birthed from the fires that had ruined him. The Iridescent Flame Essence Fruit’s seven colors of misfortune glistened as his gray flames licked.
Cha Ming laughed maniacally. He could practically hear Iridescent Wonder cursing him, but he didn’t care. The reddish-black flame ingredients took on seven different colors, and the fruit melted over them. The runes morphed chaotically, even randomly thanks to what he called a Bifang fruit. From a strictly logical point of view, he had no idea how this was going to w
ork out. He could only trust his eyes. His crown. His wings.
Two days passed as he put together the most complex puzzle he had ever seen. Some pieces melted together in ways he couldn’t comprehend, and others just slipped into place. There was a logic to it, he was sure, but he couldn’t understand it. Even if he succeeded, he would never be able to replicate it.
He worked, piecing the pill together. As he did so, he realized he was also assembling his mind. Piece by piece, it gathered as the runic pill formed. When the last of it came together, his thoughts became a uniform whole. It almost came as a surprise when it happened, and he realized what he held: a perfect sphere formed from interlocked ingredients. It was black. It was gold. It was many colored. It glowed with an intense iridescent light. It reeked of the madness that had pushed him so far and inspired its creation.
This isn’t over, Cha Ming thought, gathering what was left of his energy. He summoned his gray flames and began to melt the pill. He slicked the outer layer, then began to trace a framework of runes atop the pill that glowed gray with the power of his flame.
No, he thought. This isn’t what I need. The colors would never merge, he realized. They couldn’t. So he gathered what was left of his tattered soul and poured the rest of his maddening rage into the flame itself. A tiny speck flickered to life at its center, and within his spiritual sea, something happened. A spark of iridescence appeared. It flickered faintly, there in the middle of the gray flame, so subtle that he had trouble telling it was there. But it was. He felt it.
In that moment, the nature of the seal changed. Lines rearranged and were melted away. A new seal appeared. And when it did, the color of the pill bled into the seal, forming a gray character that shone with a hint of iridescence.
Cha Ming fell to his knees. He laughed and cried as he pulled the pill from the cauldron. It was scorching hot, and it burned him, but he ignored the pain as he closed the pill bottle, sealing the pill within it. He could no longer walk, so they took the pill to the stands in his stead for the judges to evaluate. They weighed it and measured it and had heated discussions. Then, when it was all over, the announcer stood up and listed off the victors one after another. Iridescent Virtue won handily, followed by Iridescent Smile. A few of Iridescent Smoke’s many disciples pulled through, then some other names Cha Ming had never heard of. But he didn’t care. He only had ears for one name.
Claddings of Light : Book 12 of Painting the Mists Page 45