Book 5: Chapter 25: Welcome Back
The last few days on the way back to Fu Ruolan’s home weren’t precisely peaceful, but it felt that way compared to fighting a beast tide that included a dragon. Even without his core or dantian topped off, Sen found that most of the challenges they faced were... He hesitated to frame it exactly as trivial, but he couldn’t think of a better term for it. The beasts who attacked them seemed trivial by comparison. Falling Leaf had the right of things about it taking time to gather a substantial number of beasts for an attack. That didn’t solve the mystery of why such a beast tide had occurred in the first place, which bothered Sen more than he liked to admit. When the pair of them finally emerged from the wilds into the semi-tame area that was Fu Ruolan’s domain, Sen exhaled in relief.
He didn’t necessarily feel safe under the nascent soul cultivator’s watchful gaze, but he did feel safe from random spirit beast attacks. They all steered clear of her, lending more credence to Falling Leaf’s claim that they would trouble him less often the higher he scaled the mountain of cultivation. Not that her claim really needed any confirmation. The spirit beasts had all given Uncle Kho’s home a very wide berth as well. It hit Sen that the same thing must have been true of her before the ghost panther effectively adopted him. He’d never really considered that she had been knowingly taking a risk even getting near the place, especially before she knew that Uncle Kho had a soft streak a mile wide. He didn’t realize that he’d been staring at Falling Leaf until she stopped in place and stared back.
“What?” she asked.
“Sorry,” said Sen. “I just never thought about how dangerous it might have been for you to come to Uncle Kho’s house. Why did you do that?”
Falling Leaf squinted a little like she didn’t entirely understand what he was getting at. “The Feng was polite to me. You were nice to me. It stood to reason that the people you went to see would be similar.”
“Really? You just took it on faith that they’d also be nice to you?”
“Plus, I’m difficult to catch if I put my mind to it,” she offered with a smile, but then the smile faded. “I was difficult to catch. I’m not as stealthy as I used to be. You humans never see me if I don’t want to be seen, but other spirit beasts can always seem to pick me out.”
Sen resisted the urge to apologize again. Falling Leaf wouldn’t like it. She’d told him more than once that she’d made her choice and didn’t regret it. She was just struck from time to time by what the choice had cost her. It had been a while since it last came up, and Sen had thought she’d come to terms with it. Still, on the scale of her lifespan, it hadn’t been that long at all. He shouldn’t be surprised that she was still grappling with such a life-altering transition, even if she didn’t bring it up. He looked for a way to lighten the mood.
“Well, you got fingers. That seems like a fair trade.”
Falling Leaf held up a hand and peered hard at her fingers. “They are terribly useful. I don’t have to carry everything in my mouth. They aren’t beautiful like my paws were, though.”
Sen saw an opportunity to cheer her up. “That’s true. You had very lovely paws.”
Falling Leaf beamed at him. “It’s good that you understand these things.”
“I would like you to make that,” she said.
Sen took the paper and read it over. His frown deepened. It was an alchemical recipe for a pill. A recipe that used the dusk mushrooms.
“I don’t make pills,” he finally said.
“Aren’t you an alchemist?” she asked sweetly.
“I am,” said Sen, feeling like he was stepping into a trap.
“Alchemists make pills,” said Fu Ruolan.
“This alchemist doesn’t,” said Sen.
“Then, you aren’t an alchemist. Not really. More to the point, you agreed to do as I said. I want that pill.”
“I don’t know how to make pills. I never learned.”
“Caihong was too soft on you,” said Fu Ruolan flourishing her hand again and producing a small manual. “I suggest you learn. You have two months.”
She tossed him the manual and left the galehouse. Sen looked down at the manual. The cover was blank, so he opened it up and leafed through a few pages. It was an alchemy primer. At least, he thought it was at first. Looking more closely at it, he realized that only the first part was a primer. The rest of the manual got into increasingly complex applications of alchemy, a fair bit of it that Sen only understood in the vaguest of terms. The time pressures that had finally lifted from his heart when they got back descended on him again twofold. He honestly didn’t know if he could learn what he needed to learn in two months. Pill refining wasn’t something that people just picked up as a hobby. It was practically its own discipline inside of alchemy.
“You look ill,” said Falling Leaf.
Sen tried to smile at Falling Leaf, but he worried it came out as more of a grimace. “I’m pretty sure she just set me up to fail.”
