Blake didn’t know exactly what fiendsmoke was. It was a black and gray mist that filled the inside of a small, tear-drop shaped bottle. The smoke was always moving, leaving a faint residue on the inside of the glass, like condensing steam.

  It was toxic and harmful to your internal organs. That much he knew. It was also immensely corrosive, it could be harvested from some fiends, and got used in alchemical processes.

  He sat in the room in the inn, holding up the vial and swirling it around.

  No one would’ve even thought of using fiendsmoke as a catalyst for body reforging, Ethbin said.

  “Does that mean I’m unique?”

  No one has thought of it for a reason. It would kill anyone who ingested it at Body Tempering one.

  “Uniquely stupid, then…”

  But you might just be able to pull it off, Ethbin said. Blake imagined the old grandpa sighing. Aside from the fact that you are partially a fiend, you have a greater resilience than most cultivators your age.

  “How do I use it?” Blake asked. “Is it like a spirit fruit? Do I just drink it?”

  For Bone Reforging, you must inject it.

  “I don’t exactly have any needles on me.” He looked around the room for anything suitable for use as a syringe. In the kitchenette, there were a few knives for cooking, but that wouldn’t work.

  In the very bottom drawer between the two beds, however, he found a few petrified rushlights. According to Ethbin, it was an alchemical process to petrify a rushlight and leave it just solid enough to burn, but solid enough that it could burn for weeks if it had to.

  And better yet, it had a hollow center and a hard, sharp tip. This was going to hurt, but hey, apparently the Nords enjoyed their acupuncture (which they’d learned from the Cohongs) and it was never too late to start.

  You will need to refine your entire skeleton, Ethbin said. But first, you must start with your ribcage. It is the easiest and most stable to refine. Once the fiendsmoke touches your bone, the process will begin. You must flood your Bone Meridian with Honour as soon as the fiendsmoke begins to do its work.

  “Do I have enough here?” Blake asked.

  You might need to purchase a new vial later, but at most, you will need two. This is already highly concentrated, and I would be immensely surprised if you could handle two.

  Blake took that as a challenge and set to work. He laid down on the couch-bed, then placed the sharp tip of the petrified rushlight into the center of his ribcage, its tip grinding against his sternum and cutting the thin layer of flesh above. With his spare hand, he poured fiendsmoke in the top of the vial. Most of it descended, and more droplets condensed on the walls of the petrified rushlight.

  As soon as it touched his bone, he clenched his teeth. It felt itchy at first, then came a burning sensation, like he’d eaten something spicy—just in his bones. It just kept getting worse, first like he’d drank tea that was too hot, then like his bones were melting over a fire. Ethbin probably tried to talk to him, but it was taking most of his concentration not to scream.

  He didn’t need any of the other hunters rushing in to see what was wrong, only to find out that he was using an ancient and probably forbidden method of Body Tempering.

  It took the rest of his concentration to push Honour through his Bone Meridian. The fiendsmoke spread naturally, and he followed it up with Honour. In his perception, he felt the insides of his bones liquifying, only to solidify moments later, marrow turning into tightly packed clay then baking in the furnace of his Honour’s fire.

  The outside of his bones wanted to shatter. His ribs vibrated, and every breath he took felt like there was phlegm rattling in his throat. But as soon as the outside of his bones melted, the Honour passed back through, remaking the bones’ mineral in a crystal structure that felt stiffer than normal, but at the same time, less brittle.

  He was pretty sure the bones were turning black, too. He didn’t know how he knew, but the fiendsmoke was becoming part of the bones.

  They bonded with him. They became closer to him.

  Within an hour, the process finished. His entire ribcage had reformed. He bolted upright, rubbing his sides, but the pain was disappearing fast. The only sign of the advancement was a slightly darker outline of his ribs beneath his flesh, like a faint tan line, and a bleeding hole in his chest where he’d injected the fiendsmoke.

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  Then he punched himself in the chest as hard as he could.

  It hurt his knuckles far more than it hurt his ribs. He barely felt anything in his chest. It was like he’d tried to punch an iron fence.

  What was that for!? Ethbin exclaimed. Don’t even think about attempting that once you’ve refined your knuckles.

  “Sorry, gramps,” Blake replied. “But it worked?”

  You’re not supposed to go that quickly. You used up nearly half the vial for just that. Oh, I’m going to eat my words, aren’t I? Two vials is hardly going to be enough at this rate.

  “Whoops,” Blake whispered. “In my defense, we can afford at least five more vials.”

  I am starting to seriously wonder if you were dropped on your head as a child.

  Blake shrugged. “So, uh, what’s next. Arms?”

  Skull.

  It turned out Blake didn’t have time to refine his skull. It was almost noon, and his next shift for the afternoon was about to begin. But he took his vial of fiendsmoke with him, anyway.

  His afternoon consisted of watching Sclera and the others on his shift haggle—they didn’t trust him to negotiate prices yet, so he was ‘shadowing’ them. At first, watching Sclera haggle put a massive smile on his face. Whenever someone began to get too uppity, she’d lean over the counter and snag them by the collar and tell them to bother someone else if they weren’t going to respect the Red Pines’ efforts.

  But he got bored really quickly. While he waited at the back of the stall, between a few racks of furs, he made sure no one was looking then pulled his petrified rushlight and vial of fiendsmoke out of his bag. He pressed the tip against his chin.

  This time, he went slower. He didn’t pour as much fiendsmoke into his bones, and it didn’t cause as much pain. It made it difficult to talk, but he could handle walking around while the corrosive liquid-gas made its way around his skull.

  The best part was that, as long as he filled his Bone Meridian with Honour, none of the other cultivators could sense what he was doing.

  By the end of his shift, his skull was mostly reforged, and the plaza was getting dark again. Before dinner, he decided he was going to finish the job. He hid in the washroom and poked a hole in his forehead that he could easily hide with his shaggy hair, then injected the rest of the fiendsmoke vial in.

  It was over in minutes. From what he could tell, his skull was slightly darker, but it hadn’t made a difference to the appearance of his face. Maybe his cheekbones were a little rigid, his jaw a little more defined and sharp. He rubbed his chin like he’d just shaved.

  But better yet…his fiend horns stopped aching. They felt like a part of him now, like they were connected to his skull, not stabbed through it. He wasn’t sure what to do with that information.

  Before he could try to start reforging any other part of his skeleton, Iver, Konuth, and Froskur burst into the room.

  “Junior Brother!” Froskur called. “We were looking for you getting off your shift! What are you doing?”

  “Uhhh…” Blake quickly brushed his hair down his forehead, then flushed the toilet. It was a surprisingly Earth-like design, and he wouldn’t have been surprised if they’d just taken the old toilets from this building and modified them for the inn. “Just had to use the facilities.”

  “Well, come with us,” Froskur insisted.

  “There is a restaurant serving rori-rori skewers,” Konuth said. “You’ve never tried those before, have you?”

  “They may not be a…traditional delicacy of the trade,” said Iver, “but they are delicious. And Froskur has offered to pay.”

  “Well, if even Iver thinks they’re delicious…” Blake said. He brushed off his shirt, making sure he was at least slightly presentable, then followed the others out into the city. They ran down the main thoroughfare until they reached a restaurant on a street corner. It was nestled in between a longhouse and a pagoda, and it wouldn’t have stood out if not for the long line out front.

  While they waited, Blake glanced around. A street cat walked past, and he gave it a scratch between the ears, and a wagon trundled through, pulled by Blended fiend-oxen. They snorted at him, which made him avert his eyes instantly and glance around. There were a few other oddities—a woman with a Foundation three rank seal sweeping the street, a Blended tiger-girl in a Green Bear cloak who was helping an old man clean up his produce for the night, and a merchant selling bottles of blue wine that smelled suspiciously like seaweed.

  When they finally reached the front of the line, Froskur paid for three skewers and a bowl of rice for each of them. Blake had no idea what the meat was, but it tasted like chicken and he left it at that. It had been charbroiled over a fire and glazed with a sweet and spicy sauce, and the others were right: he had been missing out for never trying them before.

  The rice bowls were standard fare, but it had been fried and was slightly salty, giving the perfect contrast to the meat.

  Afterward, Blake parted ways with his friends, promising to return to the inn soon. He would have another early morning shift, and he had to be back soon.

  He made a beeline to the fiendsmoke seller at the edge of the city and purchased five more vials—it was the most he could afford with what hacksilver he had—then raced back to the inn.

  Along the way back, he kept to crowds. It was never dark out. People burned petrified rushlights, and strings of firefly-filled lanterns criss-crossed overhead, making everything glow greenish-gold. No one would attack him when there were so many eyes on him—he hoped. It would make whoever laid a hand on him look horrible, an untold loss of face.

  But when he reached the inn, he took a glance around the plaza. At the Red Pine Hunters’ stall stood a slightly pudgy man with long hair and a Body Tempering Five rank seal, haggling with the hunters over a fur. But he spared a moment to glance back at Blake. A smirk brimmed on the man’s lips.

  Not good. Not good at all. Svarikson was coming up with a plan.

  Blake had a feeling that only one of them was going to leave Mergewatch alive.