Now, with three sets of pills laid out before them, Wu Ying was receiving his last piece of education for the day. A much closer review of the tiers of pills.
“See how my pills have a glossy sheen all over them? It is from the earth slug extract we added at the end. Properly coated, it seals in the chi and medicinal properties of the pills. On the other hand, these pills, your low-tier pills, have none of that sheen. They were all burnt off due to your inefficient control of the heat,” Liu Tsong pointed out. “These pills are not storable at all. I recommend eating them in the next two days.”
Wu Ying dipped his head.
“Next, look for consistency in sizes. Again, we have the consistent sizes of my pills, while yours…”
Wu Ying winced. Inconsistent was being kind.
Liu Tsong ignored his facial expressions as she continued speaking. Over the next fifteen minutes, Liu Tsong listed all the differences, beginning Wu Ying’s education on how to tell the difference between pill grades, before she deposited the pills in three different bottles and marked their tied-on labels with a brush.
“And that is it. We’ve run over the allotted time by four hours, so I expect you’ll visit the hall to inform them, yes?” Liu Tsong said, hands on her hips.
Wu Ying immediately agreed.
“Good. You did well for your first real lesson,” Liu Tsong said, smiling.
He flushed—at the praise or the sudden reminder that Liu Tsong was quite pretty, he could not say. Having spent the last few hours learning from her, he had forgotten the fact entirely. But her sudden smile and the way she twitched her head, sending her hair cascading around her, was a powerful reminder. “I did?”
“Yes. You are no genius, but you’re certainly not hopeless. It’s hard to say where you’ll end up without more practice, but I would definitely recommend you continue.”
“Thank you, Senior,” Wu Ying said, bowing low.
Liu Tsong waved goodbye, reminding the cultivator to clean up properly.
Left alone with a dirty cauldron and three pill bottles, Wu Ying sighed. More practice was a nice thought, but the ingredients for the pill formula had cost a hundred eighty contribution points. Liu Tsong’s fees and the rental cost of the public cauldron had set him back another three hundred odd points. And that was before he paid for the overage charges. If not for his little jaunt out with Tou He and the slow but continual points he earned from Elder Li, he would be broke.
As it was, he was not far from that. Finding a way to earn contribution points would be a major issue. Just as he had been warned.
Chapter 13
The end of the staff came spinning, nearly taking Wu Ying in the head. He ducked, but that just set him up for the sweep with the other end. One leg scooped up, balance off-center, Wu Ying fell with a crash as his breath was knocked out of him. Before he could recover, the end of the staff flew forward, stopping right in front of Wu Ying’s face, signalling the end of the match and his loss.
“Stop thinking about unrelated things and focus on me,” Li Yao said grumpily as she retracted her staff.
As Wu Ying stared at the young lady glaring at him, he could not help but smile and roll to his feet. “Good one.”
“No, it wasn’t. You weren’t paying attention,” Li Yao said, pouting. “What is with you today?”
“Sorry,” Wu Ying said, gesturing for them to exit the stage. The pair jumped off the fighting stage and walked over to the water station. “I’ve been thinking about, well, contribution points.”
“Spending or earning?”
“Earning,” Wu Ying admitted. “I spent most of mine on a pill refining lesson. And now I’m back to earning a few points every day.”
“What is the problem?” Li Yao said, brows furrowing across unmarked skin. Over the course of the winter, Li Yao had shed some of the baby fat around her face while adding another half inch in height. The fit cultivator drew the eye of more than one interested party, though she continued to be oblivious to the attention given to her. “There are so many missions right now. The end of the winter is the best time for hunting demon and spirit beasts. Even the monk is out earning his keep.”
“Ex-monk.”
Li Yao waved away Wu Ying’s correction. “If you’re looking for a group, you can speak with Elder Ge. He’ll be happy to set you up.”
“I’m not a martial specialist,” Wu Ying said.
“As if officially joining matters.” Li Yao sniffed. “You train with us, you work to improve your combat abilities, you’re one of us. The rest is just bureaucracy and no one has time for that.”
“That’s not what others say,” Wu Ying said, recalling his earliest interactions with the sect bureaucracy.
“Not my concern.” Li Yao pounded her chest firmly. “We’re too busy for such things.” Then, dropping her voice, she added, “Also, there’s always more work than we can do. The more missions we complete as ‘martial specialists,’ the more the sect values us and the better support we receive. So you’ll be helping us by joining our teams.”
Wu Ying scratched his head. “But I don’t really want to fight…”
Li Yao raised an eyebrow, glancing at the jian Wu Ying had sheathed at his waist then around the arena.
“That’s different,” Wu Ying protested.
“How?”
“I’m training for when I might have to fight. But going out, hunting…” Wu Ying shook his head. “It’s not the same.”
“But you had no problem with the ghosts,” Li Yao said.
“Vampires. And that was Tou He.” Wu Ying shrugged. “I’m not opposed to fighting. But I don’t want it to be my, my…”
“Your dao?”
“Yes.”
“Do you think it’s ours? Mine?” Li Yao said, her eyes narrowing. Wu Ying had to stop himself from backing up as she pointed at him. “Do you think I’m a combat maniac or something?”
“Uhhh…”
“Ooooh, you!” Li Yao stamped her foot on the ground, then not finding it sufficiently satisfying, she stamped down on Wu Ying’s foot.
He could dodge, but seeing the dangerous light in her eyes, he chose to take the blow rather than anger her further. As Wu Ying hopped around on his bruised toes, Li Yao stalked away, growling wordless imprecations under her breath.
“What did you do?” Chao Kun said as he walked up to Wu Ying nursing his foot.
“Nothing! I just, well, I might have said something wrong.”
“Obviously.”
“I, well, all I said was I didn’t want this to become my dao.”
“The fighting?”
“Yes.”
“Ah…” Chao Kun nodded sagely. “Not wise to say that to Li Yao.”
Wu Ying frowned. “Why?”
“Her family circumstances.” When Wu Ying continued to look puzzled, Chao Kun said, “Like many of us, she is from a noble family. Hers is particularly old-fashioned and does not feel it is suitable for a woman to be a martial specialist.”
Wu Ying frowned. Holding such views made little sense. At the Energy Storage stage, the physical differences between sexes became much less of a concern compared to the amount and density of chi in one’s dantian and meridians. At Core formation, the physical aspects could be considered almost negligible among the majority of cultivators, unless one was a physical practitioner like Elder Hsu.
“I know. As I said, traditional. Her family is unhappy she wants to train to defend herself, and even more so when she told them last year she would not marry any man who could not at least defeat her.” The older cultivator’s lips twitched before he leaned forward. “Though, I think, it’s our fault. Li Yao was being pestered so much to date, she made the challenge to us to defeat her before she would date anyone. And then a month later, her family must have heard of it and sent her younger brother over to make demands. And you know Li Yao. Rather than back down or explain, she doubled down.”