by Charles Dean
You say that, but with a full plate of food in your belly, it’d be a lot easier. Anyway, can’t we get them to write it down after the meal? While we nap or something?
What part of “I need to keep my word and put in the effort I said I would” don’t you get? Stop nagging me, or there will be no tteokbokki today, Lars warned.
WHAT?! No!!! Don’t threaten me in such a way. You’re just being downright evil at this point.
Really? Me? Evil? Coming from the girl that asked me to butcher an entire village . . .
They would've been better off. I maintain my case. Death is sweet and quick, and the afterlife is nice. Torture and slavery and whatever else that sect is up to . . . that’s a different story.
“That’s really very interesting,” an unfamiliar female voice said.
“Not that any of it makes sense. My master just said this is the best way for them to cultivate, so I’m writing it down,” Lars replied. He was slightly annoyed that someone, probably some random servant coming to tidy the place, was bothering him while he focused.
“Your master must be a genius. I don’t think anyone in any of the kingdoms I have ever visited would think of lining up their Qi with those meridians or using their own internal Qi and elements to attack their own body in that way. It’s rather fascinating. Indeed, Hsein Ku really is a genius. She’s also ridiculously beautiful, very wealthy, part of a noble family, and quick to get angry,” the voice said over his shoulder again.
Lars was so engrossed in his work that he was barely even paying attention to the servant or whoever it was. Nevertheless, he replied, “I wouldn’t say she’s quick to get angry. She only gets angry when there is a reason to get angry.” Focused as he was, Lars still didn’t want to let someone who was likely a maid or precocious child besmirch the name that was bringing him so many comforts. “To say she’s quick to anger is just something people who don’t understand her deep wisdom say.”
“So, you think that there is a method to her . . . literal madness and that only a fool would believe she’s just an angry, overbearing, self-righteous woman?”
“If you continue to talk that way about her, she won’t be the only one you think is mad,” Lars continued, persisting in his defense of Hsein Ku, a woman he had never met. For all he knew, she really was every rude or cruel adjective anyone thought. The only thing he did know was that her name scared people into respecting him when he used it, and it had given him a free meal.
“Ha! I like your style.” A rough hand smacked his back, jarring and aggravating the work-absorbed Lars enough to prompt him to turn around and see who was bothering him.
He was about to get angry at her, but then he noticed something peculiar: she was like him. He couldn’t for the life of him see a single beast feature on her. There was no tail wrapped around her waist, no awkward eyes, no morphed ears, no fur-like patches of skin. Everything was human. “You’re . . .”
“Weak-blooded? Overly human? Lacking the strength of a proper cultivator? Go on, pick your adjective,” she said with a smile.
He actually thought of stealing her words instead. To Lars, who had been forced to deal with the mutant-like creations of the cultivator system his entire life, being confronted with someone who shared the same lack of traits was like finding an oasis in the middle of a desert.
“But . . .” He stared at her. Nathaniel did mention how annoyed he was with some of the more . . . weak-blooded members of the family. He had said he sent them off to fight, but perhaps because her blood appeared even thinner than the others’, he might have kept her around out of sight but close enough to watch over in case someone tried to take advantage of her . . . If she heard I had accepted another disciple, perhaps she came to see if I’d also help her, another . . .
She’s not weak. You’re just not looking at her properly. Look at her Qi, not the body that holds it.
Huh? Lars was taken aback, but then he realized what she meant. This woman’s power far exceeded his. She was at least past the Qi-Gathering Stage and into the Qi Condensation Stage based on how the energy surrounded her body like a coat. Unlike Nathaniel’s raw power, however, which was so pervasive that Lars could feel it easily, this Qi was more subtle and flowed off of her and into the ground.
After feeling it and knowing exactly how deadly this woman really was, he decided to take a different approach. A sly smile spread across his face. “I would never say that. You look stunning. I can’t . . . I can’t believe there are others like me!” he proclaimed with exuberance, deciding to leverage her lack of characteristics. Build common ground. Build a sense of solidarity. Survive. “I had thought I was the only one. I thought I was alone in this world, but here you are!”
“No,” she, a woman with at least an inch or two on Lars in height despite the fact he was now standing up as tall as he could, said down to Lars. “I’m not like you.”
“But . . .” He studied her more intently. He couldn’t, for the life of him, find a single attribute that denoted any beast blood on her. How did she get powerful then? Why is she so strong?
“I said I’m not like you, not that you have the right to question it,” she quickly said again. “Try to compare us again, and I’ll kill you on the spot for the insult.”
And she’s not afraid of offending Hsein Ku, Lars thought. “Sorry.” He bowed his head apologetically. Even if she had insulted every part of him and spit in his face, he’d have to. Survival was that important because, if he didn’t live, no one would be trying to save his mother. No one would ever care about the lives of some tiny, little backwater village that only survived as long as it did by being unnoticed. “I’ll be sure to refrain from doing that again in the future.”
She nodded her head. “That’s good. It seems you’re a cunning enough sycophant,” she added. “I don’t hate your kind. Maybe you’ll manage to live another year.”
“May I ask what brings someone of your status to visit a humble one such as myself,” Lars said, hating the feeling of powerlessness and uncertainty as he spoke to a woman he knew nothing about.
“I’m here for my property,” she said.
“Property?” Lars’s face scrunched up as he tried to imagine what she was talking about, but he drew a blank.
“You took prisoners in my name. Since you took them in my name, they’re mine, no?”
The moment she mentioned “my name,” Lars instantly knew who she was: Hsein Ku. She was the fiendish, horrible woman of legend, the one that caused grown men to quake in their boots and bought people to experiment on from jails. Lars didn’t know exactly how she earned the reputation, but he knew one thing: no one would show fear the way people showed fear at the mere mention of her name if people hadn’t died—horribly—somewhere along the way because of her. People talked casually about the king, who could have anyone in the city executed with an order, but they sweated like it was the middle of a summer day and they had just worked a full shift when she was mentioned.
Yet, not only was she here, but she was also probably very angry with him because he had abused her authority and that reputation she had built up just so he could sneak past a few guards, get a free stay at a fancy guest house, and break into a jail. If Lars were in her shoes, he would be livid at the idea of some charlatan using his name, so it only stood to reason she was. “I didn’t think of them as property,” he clarified, his face stiffening as he forced himself to maintain composure despite being terrified of what she was going to do to him. “They were just in the wrong place at the wrong time, so I helped them out.”
“With my name. You procured them with my name, leveraging its authority to get that corrupt little snot-nosed jailor in trouble,” Hsein Ku replied.
“I procured them with my strength and my wit, however measly they may be when compared to yours. I am sorry if your name was brought up, but they are people, not my possessions, so I sadly can’t give them to you.” Lars hated even having to say this. He missed the relaxed, peaceful village life he had
grown up with.
“People, possessions—little difference. They’re my cattle, and you’ve let them off the ranch,” she said, pressing closer to Lars as her tone became more and more menacing. He thought Nathaniel’s loud and powerful voice, his demanding persona, and the physically aggressive way he invaded Lars’s space was terrifying for someone of that strength level, but this woman’s voice felt like small droplets of ice sprinkled across his spine as she sent chills through him.
Nevertheless, Lars, against his own better judgment, continued to defend his choice. “They weren’t cattle; they were people. People have the right to open the gate and walk out of the pens if you lock them up.”
“ . . . Are you, a pathetic little Qi-gathering brat, trying to tell me what is or isn’t mine?” she asked.
“When it comes to people?” Lars thought of his mother, the woman who might be in the hands of a girl just as seemingly wicked and menacing as this one, who referred to people as cattle. “Yes, yes, I am. People aren’t property, and I am not about to tell you how to find them.”
“Well, well, well then, little thief.” She pushed down on Lars’s shoulder, forcing him to sit back down in front of her on the little stool he had been at when writing the manual. “What will you do to pay me back then?” Her eyes flickered with what Lars could only hope wasn’t as evil a plan as it seemed from her gleeful expression.
Tell her you’d be willing to give her your body for a night. You’ll do all sorts of naughty things she’s only dreamed about. If she takes you up on it, I’ll create a quest so you can get the appropriate skills to blow her out of the water! Do it!!! DO ITTT! She may be a little tall, but I bet that bubble butt of hers feels great, and those hips . . . mmm . . . I bet they’d work wonders.
Stop it, Lars thought, hushing the voice in his mind and pointing to the cultivation method he was making for Matthew and his sister. “Were you interested in this?”
“I was, yes,” she said. “It’s rather interesting, and the implications of that Qi concentration method are truly astounding . . . but that is still just a cultivation method for mutts, and I’m not some foul-footed, tail-wagging mutt.”
“They’re nice enough people . . .” Lars realized he couldn’t stop himself from always saying what he knew might get him killed. “Anyway, what do you want?”
“I want the valuable experimentation material that you owe me,” she said, her mouth snarling upward. “Since you owe me two bodies, you need to find me two new ones.”
“I’m not taking people for you,” Lars replied, making his position clear. Even if it got him killed, even if it stopped his plan to save his mother, it was better than becoming the same as the very people that had put him in this horrible situation to begin with.
Death in this world . . . It’s really not the worst thing that could happen to you. There are a lot of things that are more awful than death. For instance, you could be having breakfast with that nice chap, go to sink your teeth into some bacon, and BAM, you find out it’s vegan . . . or, even worse, turkey bacon. There is no death that is crueler than surprise turkey bacon.
I am not even going to ask what surprise turkey bacon is, Lars snapped, but will you focus? We need to figure out how to get out of this, or we’re going to die.
Correction: You’re going to die. I’ll be fine. I’ll need to find someone new to contract with, but it is what it is. I promise to mourn you if it makes you feel better.
That does not. Lars sighed.
“I require bodies, not people,” Hsein Ku said. “You owe me two bodies for my research, and you will get them. You will either get them, or I will use my own name and my authority to hunt down both those people you let free, everyone they care about, and everyone you care about, and turn them into my experiments instead.”
“Finding the people near and dear to me?” Lars had a mischievous grin spread across his face. “I don’t think, even with your authority, you could do that.”
“Don’t test my patience, or you will find out exactly what I can do,” she replied.
“Alright, alright, fine. So what bodies do you want?” he asked.
“Either the body of a dokkaebi, still intact and capable of transforming at night,” she answered. “Or I want you to bring me the two-striped, two-tailed yeou-nim,” she said.
“The what? Or the what?” Lars blinked.
“I thought you were an alchemist,” she said. “Shouldn’t you know of both those creatures? Their blood is, after all, valuable in the world of alchemy.”
“If rumors are to be believed, then aren’t I your disciple too?”
“Touché. I had forgotten about that pesky rumor. I think it needs to be tested, don’t you?” She took a few steps back and then snapped her fingers. Four men came through the door, each one carrying a set of objects and items that they began assembling right in the space between Lars and Hsein Ku without making a sound. When they were finished, they all politely gave ninety-degree bows before leaving as quietly as they had come in.
Lars, a little stunned by the whole ordeal, looked at what they had set up. There were a few pots, a stack of finely cut wood, some tinder, several glass vials, and what looked like a dozen or two different ingredients laid out on the table in front of him. He had no idea what was going on as he stared at the table, but he could tell that every single thing that they had set up looked incredibly valuable.
“Well?” the woman asked. “Either you prove you’re an alchemist, or I will personally kill you right here for disgracing my name by masquerading as a student of mine without the knowledge a student of mine should have.”
“But . . . that’s food . . . Shouldn’t I be proving my abilities with alchemy? Not cooking?” Lars asked as he continued to inspect the glass vials of spice and the different edible treats on the table.
“Cooking is the first stage of alchemy. Or are you doubting me, a Swan Class alchemist, and my understanding of it?”
Lars quickly shook his head. “Never.”
“Then you won’t doubt me when I say that if you are a true alchemist, cooking is the first way you prove your skills. Only by deeply understanding how heat, patience, multitasking, careful observation, and use of your normally dormant senses like your nose can transform even the most basic ingredients into something magical can you ever hope to start your journey into alchemy. So if you really have what it takes to be an alchemist, to be my disciple, prove it. Or else I will need to kill you to remove the blemish on my name an unworthy man calling himself my tutored one would make.”
“You want me to cook for you? What do you want me to make?”
“Creativity is part of alchemy. Amuse me.”
OH MY GOD! THIS WOMAN!!! YES! SHE UNDERSTANDS THE IMPORTANCE OF BREAKFAST, BUT . . . Wait . . . where the hell is the fatty pork belly? How are we going to make breakfast without bacon? Is she insane? She has 500 unnecessary and mostly useless spices and not a single strip of fatty pork? Hold on . . . Let’s go through this . . .
Will you stop celebrating? If she isn’t happy with my meal, I’m dead, Lars snapped.
Fine, fine . . . just make the food your mother taught you how to make when you were younger. Except . . . instead of an oven, trust your Flame of the Pill God. You won’t need an oven at all. You’re my contracted disciple, not this wrinkled-up cultivator’s. Don’t forget that, and make me proud.
Yes, master, Lars thought with a mixture of sarcasm and actual appreciation. He began to work as quickly and quietly as he could. He first took an onion and several potatoes and began removing their rough skins. Then he grabbed a grater and grated them all down so that they were both properly mixed together. Next, he took the hash and began squeezing it to remove the water. He had to be careful to get all of the liquid out of them but not squeeze them to the point of turning the potatoes into mash. Once the liquid was removed, he started going through the woman’s spices. He couldn’t find exactly what he wanted, but he did find other things. He took several of the herb le
aves—dried oregano, sage, and thyme—and began crushing them into a coarse powder. Once done, he mixed that powder with what Lars hoped, and guessed based on the smell, was a ground chili pepper or a ground cayenne pepper, which he mixed with black pepper, sea salt, and paprika and began to heavily season the potato and onion hash. After the spices were thoroughly mixed, he gave the food one more squeeze to make sure that there was no water at all in the hash. Lastly, he pre-shredded some cheese and cracked five eggs into a bowl while removing a third of the egg white to even out the ratio between white and yolk.
He found a good skillet and coated it with olive oil and butter in a two-to-one ratio. Ignoring the tinder and wood set aside for him to make a fire, he began to heat the skillet with just his Flame of the Pill God. It took coordination to both use his hands and manipulate the flame at the same time. It was an unnatural feeling like when his master had forced him as a child to learn to write with his left hand. It took nearly half a minute, which was a long time in cooking terms, to get the flame because the fire came out of his mouth instead of his hands like previous attempts at making fire with Qi.
Once the flame was behaving properly, however, he was able to get the skillet heated to the exact temperature he needed before dumping his hash inside of it. He immediately heard the sizzling sound he wanted and then used his hands to flatten out the mixture. After he was positive the bottom half had crisped up like a good hash should, he flipped it over like he would a pancake and began to heat the other half of the mixture. As it was heating, he poured the eggs across the top of the hash and then placed a metal sheet atop the skillet before using the Flame of the Pill God to heat the makeshift cooking vessel as if he had just tossed it into the oven.