Chen Ai winced as she walked downstairs into the Vermillion Ibex. There were broken tables, holes in the walls, and the lingering scent of spilled alcohol in the air. She should have known better than to buy the Drooping Lily Spirits. Every time she drank that stuff, she ended up having to flee town.

  But her emotions had been churning after the fight in Flint Oak Park. Abandoning her jian, facing the icy beauties of the Winter’s Heart Sect, the generosity and trust of her senior brother…

  She’d needed a drink.

  Now the pounding in her head wasn’t the only consequence.

  Innkeeper Bu sat at the bar with a bump on his head and a glowering expression. Light poured in from the damaged walls, but she refrained from mentioning how this improved the inn’s gloomy atmosphere.

  His eyes narrowed as she approached him.

  “You,” he said with quiet menace. “If Alchemist Ran hadn’t personally covered the costs and vouched for you, I would have kicked you out onto the street!”

  She bowed deeper than her status as a cultivator would have required.

  “I am truly sorry, Innkeeper Bu!”

  He sniffed.

  “Well, like I said, the damages have been paid for.”

  She vowed to thank Alchemist Ran when she got a chance.

  “Truly, your heart knows no bounds,” she said.

  “Just ensure you cause no further damage, especially with whatever it is these people are here for.”

  He sniffed again, poured himself a glass, and wandered away, but she could tell he was smiling. Standing caused the blood to pound in her head, and even chewing the spirit grass was having diminishing returns.

  The cultivator formerly known as the Flawless Blade joined her.

  “The candidates from the Shen and the Ran clans are over here.”

  She’d already spotted them, and despite the hopes she could avoid them, she knew that would be impossible. They each sat in a booth on opposite sides of the inn. Four to a booth, one group in the rusted iron robes of the Shen, and the other in the violet and cream robes of the Ran. She couldn’t be sure if they were glaring more at her or each other, but the clashing of aura and personality was thick in the air.

  A woman from the Shen stood up. She was diminutive, with her hair coiled in buns on the sides of her head, and two black eyes set around a broken nose. Chen Ai detected a 6th Stage Qi Condensing cultivation. The woman’s strides were proud as she strode over to glare at Chen Ai.

  “Well?” she said.

  “Yes?” Chen Ai asked cautiously.

  “Don’t you have another apology?”

  Chen Ai’s hangover pounded with her temples like a child with a drum.

  “I’m sorry…”

  “That’s better!”

  “I’ve never seen you before,” Chen Ai finished.

  The Shen woman stepped back in shock.

  “What?!”

  Chen Ai shrugged sheepishly.

  “I’ve been quite drunk the last two days.”

  “Barbarian! You punched me in the face!”

  The Ran table snickered with obvious glee.

  “Ignore that driveling Shen goat,” called out a poised Ran man with sharp cheekbones. “They brag about strength, but don’t know the meaning of the word.”

  The Shen table stood as one, and the qi flooding the room spiked, causing the tables to quiver.

  Chen Ai glanced at the cultivator formerly known as the Flawless Blade, but he just shrugged.

  “Master entrusted this to you.”

  Of course he did…

  “Enough!” Chen Ai said before any violence could unfold. “No fighting in the inn.”

  Both groups looked about at the damage with dubious expressions.

  “No more fighting,” Chen Ai clarified as a blush rose in her cheeks. “Now, are you all candidates?”

  The Shen woman with the black eyes stepped forward, and she was joined by a portly man from the Ran.

  “We are the liaisons,” said the black eyed Shen woman. “We have come to present our candidates.”

  Chen Ai swept her gaze over the two booths. Each contained three cultivators in the upper stages of Qi Condensing. Since only a Qi Condensing cultivator could enter the Valley of Howling Blossoms, this was the peak of strength that they could allow in. She vaguely recalled that her senior brother had told her to pick two from the Shen and two from the Ran, with him and her making up another two, and then the final three cultivators would be independents put forward by the Stone Forest Merchant House.

  That memory cost her a bit of nausea, but she forced herself not to lean against a table.

  “Your candidates look good,” she said in an attempt to soothe the raging egos.

  “They are the best of the Ran’s younger generation!” the portly man said proudly. “Though I am sure the Shen’s dregs cannot compare.”

  “You Ran dog!” the black eyed woman said as she stepped toward him.

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  Chen Ai placed herself between the two.

  “No fighting in the inn. Now, I require that you both write a short passage about each candidate describing why they will be suited for the expedition. As you know, only two from each clan will be considered.”

  “What?” shouted the sharp cheekboned Ran man. “I thought you wanted us to be strong warriors? Not poets!”

  Chen Ai raised an eyebrow before turning to the portly Ran man.

  “If the Ran are all so unruly, we may not bring any.”

  He bristled.

  “Shut up!” he barked at the sharp cheekboned man. “This is more important than your pride.”

  “Write the passages,” Chen Ai said. “You have one hour.”

  She went off to sit in a corner booth with the cultivator formerly known as the Flawless Blade.

  “Interesting,” he said. “After your actions yesterday, I would have thought you sought to test them with your fists.”

  She rested her head in her hands.

  “I do, but I need time,” she whispered. “Please fetch some water and my pack.”

  He nodded and headed out to get what she asked. Once her pack was before her, she fished out the Garnet Meridian Expansion Pill.

  The portly Ran man gasped.

  “We thought the expedition leader took that pill,” he said.

  “He gifted it to me,” Chen Ai explained.

  The portly man was startled, but quickly returned to writing. The other Ran were crowded around him, pointing out words, and the Shen were arranged likewise.

  Chen Ai downed some water, swallowed her spirit grass cud, and then swallowed the bright red pill.

  A torrent of earthy qi rushed through her body. She tasted iron ore and mud and the scintillating hardness of gems. It was easily the most powerful pill she’d ever taken, and the energy thrashed through her body. Medicinal qualities undid the bruises and hangover as though they were wiping a table clean, but she had to force herself to harness the energy and cycle it as though she were wrestling a mountain lion.

  Visceral energy pushed through her meridians, and as she cycled it with absolute willpower, she felt her meridians widening.

  The spirit grass she swallowed was swept up into the flow, disintegrating and adding its unique quality to the rushing qi. She split her focus, doing what she could to braid the grass qi in with the earth qi, and thus repurpose the specificity of the Garnet Meridian Expansion Pill.

  With every breath and every cycle, her meridians expanded, and the flow became easier to control. The iron earth tasting qi faded into her body, saturating her blood, as eventually her meridians became so wide that the flow of rushing qi felt completely normal.

  Her dantian was replenished to the point of bursting, but she hadn’t advanced a stage. While this pill was powerful, it wasn’t designed to boost cultivation. Fortunately, she had the elixirs coming.

  Feeling refreshed and rejoicing at how smoothly she could now cycle her qi, Chen Ai opened her eyes.

  Six pieces of paper lay on the table before her. She read them quickly and glanced at the cultivator formerly known as the Flawless Blade.

  “How long was I cultivating?”

  “Two hours,” he answered. “I believe they’re growing impatient.”

  Indeed, the Shen and Ran nobles were glaring at her, but at least they kept their mouths shut. She gathered up the pages they’d written.

  “There’s a park a few blocks away,” she said. “We’ll commence with the next phase of the application there.”

  ###

  A root ran under the park, turning it into a series of undulating hills covered in smooth grass. No longer hungover, Chen Ai picked a hill and used grass qi to mark a circle twenty paces in diameter. Standing in the center, she addressed the gathered nobles.

  “Your write-ups were excellent, and now I’m going to test how truthful they were. I am at the 7th Stage of the Qi Condensing realm, and will be second in command of the expedition. If you knock me out of the circle or cause me to otherwise submit, you can join us. If I knock you out or cause you to submit, then you are rejected. Understood?”

  The glowering expressions told her that they weren’t used to being spoken to like that, and Chen Ai did her best not to show how much she enjoyed the experience.

  “Good,” she said. “I’ll begin with the Shen.”

  The first Shen candidate swaggered forward with a chest like a rooster and a luxurious jian at his side. His long hair made him look every part the entitled young noble, and Chen Ai found herself disliking him before he even spoke.

  “My name is Shen Jun,” he said proudly.

  He was 8th Stage of the Qi Condensing Realm. His write-up said he was a twenty-seven-year-old master of the jian and had placed highly in all Mountain Root City martial competitions since he started competing at the age of fifteen. From the way he walked, she figured he had an ego that would make working with him a hassle.

  “Do you wish to fight with the sword or with your hands?” she asked.

  “My sword,” he said snidely.

  “Very well.”

  “What of you? You walk like someone who used the jian poorly, but I don’t see any weapons, unless one counts those absurd horns.”

  She raised her fists.

  “Enough talk,” she said. “I think you’ll find that your name doesn’t bribe the judges in this competition.”

  His face reddened as the Ran jeered from the other side of the circle.

  “You will regret those words,” he said.

  “I’m sure I will.”

  He charged forward, drawing his jian swiftly and slicing toward her head. With his cultivation being a stage higher than hers, the blow could kill her if it landed. Chen Ai stepped into the attack and caught the sword against her horns. The metal rang and her skull vibrated but she ignored the shock, cycled her qi, and twisted her neck. The sword was ripped from his hands, and before Shen Jun could react, she uppercutted his jaw with the strength of an Ox.

  His eyes rolled into the back of his head as he sailed out of the circle.

  “Disqualified,” Chen Ai said. “I suggest the Shen Clan rein in this young master’s temperament before it causes more problems.”

  The black eyed Shen woman frowned, but said nothing. However, the other woman in the Shen party shot a poisonous look at Chen Ai.

  “You forget your place!” she shouted. “A thuggish wandering cultivator does not have the right to speak to us like that!”

  From her write-up, Chen Ai knew she was Shen Mai, a twenty-five-year-old who had reached the 8th stage Qi Condensing Cultivator and served as Shen Jun’s attendant. She practiced the Heavenly Iron Fist Style and was considered quite highly skilled, though she had fewer accolades.

  “This thuggish wandering cultivator just knocked out your young master in a single punch,” Chen Ai said. “So, right now, I do have the right.”

  Another fragile ego flared, and Shen Mai entered the circle. The two women paced around each other.

  A metallic gleam spread from Shen Mai’s fists up her arms as she channeled her qi.

  “You will regret your words when I shatter your jaw,” she said.

  “Will you now?”

  Shen Mai stepped forward with a swift jab. Chen Ai blocked, and even with her Ox Bloodline strength, she felt the power in that blow. She returned a punch, and Shen Mai ducked aside. Though she had a temper, Shen Mai wasn’t a slouch when it came to fighting.

  The exchange continued, moving from probing strikes to outright attempts at pummelling. Their blows rang out, and many parkgoers stopped to watch.

  Though Shen Mai maintained her aggression, after forty exchanges, she grew tired. Swinging those heavy fists must be exhausting, Chen Ai noted, and Shen Mai clearly wasn’t used to fighting someone as strong as Chen Ai. On the other hand, Chen Ai’s qi had never flowed smoother, and she found her body responding better than ever before. Despite the difference in formal training and cultivation stages, she didn’t feel that she was at too much of a disadvantage.

  After seeing an opening in her opponent's guard, Chen Ai stepped forward and delivered a savage headbutt.

  Shen Mai’s nose crunched, and she sagged bonelessly to the ground.

  “Disqualified,” Chen Ai said as the black eyed Shen woman dragged Shen Mai out of the circle. “I hope your last candidate is better; otherwise, there’ll be no Shen on the expedition.”

  The last Shen candidate was a young man with average features and wide shoulders. His fancy rust iron robes seemed ill-fitting and uncomfortable, as though he were a peasant rather than a noble. His write-up named him Shen Botao, twenty-four years old, and 6th Stage of the Qi Condensing Realm, who practiced the Mountain Root Style. There was nothing else about him. No accolades, and no prestige, simply the word: diligent.

  He stripped and folded his outer robes without a word and stepped into the circle with only trousers. His chest was large, but a layer of fat covered his muscles.

  Chen Ai raised an eyebrow.

  “I hope you don’t expect me to strip down,” she said.

  He blushed.

  “Those are my only robes,” he said quietly.

  Chen Ai mentally placed Shen Botao into the ‘illegitimate son’ box.

  “Smart,” she said. “I wish my senior brother took such good care of his clothes.”

  Shen Botao adopted a wide-legged stance.

  “Ready when you are, Miss Chen Ai,” he said.

  Chen Ai smiled at his polite mode of address

  “Let’s begin.”

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