Huang Jin bowed. “Welcome home, Master! Did you have a fruitful trip?” She didn’t answer for a moment, so he looked up. For the first time he could remember, she wore an expression of complete consternation. For a time, nobody spoke; Dog cocked his head, Dragon remained tense on the prince’s shoulder, and the Master just stood there.

  She shook herself out of it, flipping her long hair about. After drawing in a long breath, she started speaking. “Let me tell you something important. You might have guessed this already, but when I ask a question of my student, it is virtually always as a teaching tool. You know, the whole ‘Socratic’ thing. Anything you know, I will probably know already, or easily work out. It is very rare for a student to force a real, actual, I-want-to-know question out of me.”

  She paused for effect. “Congratulations. Sincerely and from the bottom of my heart, congratulations for compelling me to ask you a genuine question. Now!” She pointed at Dragon. “Where the fuck did you get that dragon?”

  He digested this praise, puffing out his chest and completely failing to suppress the smile forcing its way onto his face. Rather than stumble through, trying to summarize, he darted inside the shed with Dragon clinging hard to stay stable. “Here! I wrote a whole research paper on the process,” he said as he handed her the folder.

  She took it from his hands and flipped through it, absorbing each page in an instant. He supplemented it with a quick, verbal summary: “Basically, I made a draconic clone of myself using formations and my own blood.”

  Once finished, she snapped the folder shut and closed her eyes. Her jaw tightened and the corners of her mouth twitched, trending upwards. Finally, she gave up and started laughing. She doubled over, slapped the ground, and eventually lost her feet and rolled around in the grass, practically hysterical.

  At last she rose to a sitting position, wiping tears out of her eyes. “Oh, gods! By all of the gods, that’s amazing. Huang Jin!”

  “Y-yes?” he answered, bewildered.

  “How many dragons, exactly, do you think you have in your ancestry?”

  The question took him by surprise, but he got the gist immediately. His eyes widened as he processed the full implication of that question.

  She laughed again. “Yep! You took the laws of reality in both hands and shook until an exact, one-to-one replica of your ancestor fell out. You didn’t clone yourself, you cloned Yulong!”

  “Oh,” was all he could say as she kept on with her merriment.

  “I wish I could be in the room when he finds out! I can only imagine the look on his noodly-ass face, your homecoming is gonna be lit! Time to start thinking up a script, sweetheart!” After another moment of wheezing, her breathing came under control but the wide smile remained. “So! What’d you name your ancestor-slash-son?”

  In all the excitement, Dragon had been too afraid to move. Now, he crossed from one side of the prince to the other, eyes still fixed on the Master. “I’m sure you’ve guessed already. It’s Dragon.”

  “What did you name him?” Much of the joviality faded from her voice. Her graphite eyes met his, penetrating effortlessly through his intentions. It was pointless; of course she knew.

  Huang Jin’s shoulders fell and his head hung in defeat. This didn’t go exactly as he’d planned, but honestly he should have foreseen that. “Baoshi.” Dragon’s attention snapped back to him in an instant, his reptilian jaw hanging open in shock. The prince petted the little creature’s head gently with two fingers. “Sorry I didn’t tell you. I wanted to be equitable, but...”

  “Hard thing to do, when blood is involved. Best to be honest, lying to yourself can fuck up your cultivation,” the Master interrupted. She got up from the ground, brushed the dirt and loose grass from her robe, and shrugged. “It is what it is. Now, as long as we’re talking cultivation… what is up with your meridians? Your qi is flowing all weird.” Her eyes turned piercing again, but this time not in an accusatory way as she closely examined his insides. She squinted. “What are those…?”

  “Ah, that’s another thing!” The little apprentice made a quick turn to run back into the shed, cradling his Baoshi against the sudden movement. He emerged with a second research paper, this one labeled ‘Project Coral,’ and handed it to his Master.

  She took the folder and gave it a quick read. This time, there was no laughter. She blinked once, and twice. She turned her gaze straight upward and kept it there for an uncomfortably long moment, breathing deeply as though centering herself. Then, rather than putting it away, she flipped through the document a second time, and then a third, before finally snapping the file shut. “Name?” she asked, her eyes betraying nothing.

  “I call the species Bacteroides Lebes Spiritus.” He hesitated, then asked, “Did I do something wrong, Master? I thought I was being careful.”

  “Love, if there were a bioethics board for alchemy, you would never work again.”

  He thought he could detect just a bare hint of her usual levity, so he smiled, took a step closer, and fluttered his eyelashes while looking up at her. “Is there a bioethics board for alchemy?”

  “Ha! Fuck no. If anything, it’s the opposite. Eighty percent of alchemists are some flavor of raving madman, so this would earn unanimous approval. If I understand correctly, you’re trying to turn these microbial colonies into, like, micro-cores, right? So rather than condensing qi with your dantian to form a core, and then distributing the energy through your meridians, you’ll be condensing it in your meridians and distributing it using your dantian like a water pump.”

  “That’s basically the plan,” the prince affirmed, nodding.

  She closed her eyes for a moment, as if recalling some memory. “Have you ever heard of Leto II, heir to the House Atreides?”

  “... No?”

  “I probably should have included more fiction in your reading list. Whatever, either you’ll achieve something totally incredible or you’ll die in screaming agony. That’s the way it is with cultivation, though! You’re doing fine if you don’t eat someone or get struck by lightning. Honestly, if this is the surprise you were going to spring on me? I’m quite satisfied. There’s a future in this.”

  The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

  Huang Jin lifted, suffused with a warm glow. She liked it! He hadn’t boasted unnecessarily, or misinterpreted his own level of skill. He’d actually managed to impress her. He bowed, not bothering to hide the wide smile on his face. Mid-gesture, a clap sounded out like thunder, stopping him short.

  “Not yet! Are you forgetting? I’d imagine you got a little lost in the sauce, what with the whole bioengineering thing… but I know for a fact you’re not going to sell any of these animals. Did you, or did you not, remember the original assignment? I’m not going to be mad if you forgot, goodness knows I’ve had my fair share of getting lost on side-quests.”

  “Ah, one moment!” The prince pivoted and darted back into the shed for the third time. He really was too excited; had he been thinking clearly, he would have brought out all of the necessary documents at once. This time, he gathered everything he needed to present both products, including a wooden desk he’d stashed in a corner for the occasion. After setting the platform in front of his Master, he directed Dog to jump up and lay on top of it.

  “Behold!” he started in on the practiced sales pitch, pepping up his voice to mimic the barkers he’d seen in Songying. “A mere six months ago, this spectacular specimen was a regular, ordinary, even aged housepet! Yet today, you can see he is something more! Indeed, my once-unremarkable canine friend has taken the first step on the road to immortality.”

  Dog, his head now at eye-level, gave him a mournful look. “No, buddy, it’s just a… market thing, you’re my ‘shill.’ You’ve always been amazing,” he whispered into the red dog’s ear. Getting back on track, he continued aloud, “And how has this metamorphosis been accomplished? The answer lies in this unassuming little bottle!” He took a single container-full of the Awakening Serum from the pocket of his gi and held it up for his ‘audience’ to inspect.

  Master’s eyes turned piercing as she examined it, arms crossed. “Huh.”

  “It is called, ‘the Serum of Awakening!’ One dose per day for a week, and even the most average mortal individual will find their internal eyes opened and their qi… uh, awakening.”

  Master blinked slowly. “Sweetheart, I promise that you won’t have to make your own sales pitch at the auction. Don’t get me wrong, someone who looks and sounds like you do can sell anything to anyone… But they won’t ask you to, they’ll introduce the crafters and collectors in a big ceremony at the start, then they’ll have a professional doing the presenting.”

  “... Oh.” Huang Jin suddenly felt rather foolish, face turning red. In the brief silence that followed, he found himself petting Dog to occupy his free hand. “Well, that is how it works, anyway. It works on rats, pigs, tigers, dogs, roosters, sheep, snakes, monkeys, and horses, and based on its composition and efficacy I am certain it would work on humans just as well.”

  Master took several steps forward, and as she leaned over the table Dog jumped off. She then accepted the vial out of the prince’s hand. After careful examination, she concluded, “Yeah, seems safe. Like, from a medical perspective. Socially, this is going to be absolutely fucking hilarious. How much did you make to sell?”

  “Enough for three full one-week courses, so twenty-seven bottles this size. I have them all boxed up, with little instruction scrolls and everything.”

  “Marvelous. Now, on to your second offering! I can tell it won’t be for mortal consumption. You only tested one medicine on animals.” That figured; she’d only passed by the planting area for a matter of seconds, but she missed nothing in her home. If he’d made something else that needed to be confirmed safe for mortals, it would’ve required another series of lethal tests.

  He nodded, then took two more bottles from his gi. Each bore a cork cap covered over by a paper writ with formations; warded against contamination from the outside. He set these on the table for his Master to inspect. “Behold! I call them, ‘Perfect-Balance Spirit Refining Pills.’ These are the first real results of the Zodiac Ritual Formation I’ve set up.”

  The woman plucked the bottles from the table in turn, inspecting them from every angle. “‘Zodiac Ritual Formation. Do you have a paper about that?” she asked as she turned the bottles round and round.

  “Uh, no. Sorry. It’s pretty simple, though! By arranging the twelve spirit beasts in their proper positions, it enforces a kind of cosmic balance on qi movement within the circle. The refinement is more refined, the balance is more balanced- and so, the Perfect-Balance pills! One bottle contains Adept-level pills, the other, Master-level.”

  Master nodded, setting the bottles back on the table. “I see. Earth, Fire, Water, Metal, and Wood, Yin and Yang, all held in perfect, fragile harmony. Each pill is like a little self-contained machine. When it comes into contact with a potent source of qi, the affinities will collapse to match that of their new environment. It’s a pill that adapts itself to the consumer.”

  “Exactly! What do you think?”

  She tapped her finger on the table, closing her eyes and cocking her head. “To summarize: You prioritized your ‘symbiosis’ experiment first, then found a commercial use for the growth medium. During testing, you noticed some anomalies to do with the newly-Awakened animals, and extrapolated that into a novel ritual formation which then required you to clone a whole-ass dragon. Finally, you used this formation in the final month of the assignment to hastily improvise a second product to meet my requirements. Correct?”

  “... Yes.” Hearing laid out that way, it sounded downright irresponsible. He knew it, already, but it hurt to hear it. Dog had taken up a position by his feet after evacuating the table, so Huang Jin stroked the dragon at his shoulder instead. His smooth, glossy scales were soothing to the touch.

  “Okay! With that context,” Master continued, laying the Awakening Serum next to the two bottles of Perfect-Balance Pills. She pointed to the Serum. “This is incredible. Revolutionary! And I’m sure it took you much time and effort. This,” and she indicated the pills, “you slapped together in under a month, basically as an afterthought. Yet, I assure you, the Perfect-Balance Pills will sell for ten times the price of the Awakening Serum, minimum. The Master-level batch, you’re looking at twenty to thirty times.”

  The hand stroking Baoshi ceased its motion. “But-”

  “See, to the great and the powerful, the difference between a powerless mortal and a stage-one, Realm-one cultivator is negligible. You, of all people, ought to know that. Why pay money to turn the former into the latter? Now, a spirit-refining pill that works the same for any cultivator that tries it? Perfect as a prize for a junior or mid-level tournament, or as a reward for some quest. The paper tigers of the mortal nobility- they’re gonna go apeshit for a shot at easy immortality. But they’re not the ones with the real money. It’s all about perspective.”

  That was certainly something to think about. But she wasn’t done. With the lesson delivered, she straightened up and put her hands on her hips. “Either way, job well done! You’ve got plenty and to spare for the Auction, and you’ve managed great things in the process. Unqualified success!” She jabbed a finger straight upwards, as if pointing at the glowing formation on the ceiling. “Inspection time is over, it is time to make your preparations to depart! You’ve got quite a crowd to manage, and you’ll need to make arrangements with all of them, since we can’t take them with us. We’ve only got one day before we have to head to the Hallowed Rift.”

  Huang Jin winced. “We can’t take them with us?”

  “Taking twelve spirit beasts into that nest of lunatics, are you crazy? They’d get abducted, taken apart and ‘refined’ for sure. If you could use your authority as Prince, maybe, but you’re still on the Dao Journey, so that’s out.”

  “B-but Baoshi’s still in a delicate stage. I trust the others, but he needs me.”

  Master thought for a moment, then shrugged with one shoulder. “You know what, a dragon specifically might be fine… if he’s on you, like physically on you at all times. The others would have to be confined to a stable, and that’s a definite no-go. Are we clear?”

  The prince straightened his back, but still held the dragon gingerly to his chest. “Yes, Master!” He shot a quick look to Dog, who nodded and headed back toward the cabin. He’d lay the groundwork, so that Huang Jin would have less to explain to his animal companions. ‘Delegation’ was one of those princely skills he’d had to learn quickly, now that he had real followers.

  “Excellent. Prepare well, student- this will be your big debut!”