Huang Jin cradled the small body in a towel. His eyes were chapped and reddened, his movements slow and jerky. He tried to steady his breathing as he prepared a little hole in the corner of his garden. The smell of calming herbs did nothing to soothe him. He failed, again.

  Qi deviation, this time. The rat’s meridians didn’t develop properly; that needed to be the first effect in a safe version of the Serum. The lesson burned. He had done so much to separate himself from these animals. He gave them no names, gave them comfortable living conditions, drafted them from pests slated for extermination… it didn’t work. It stung, it burned his stomach and heated his entire body every time one of them took ill because of him. They were his charges, he was responsible for their wellbeing, and he killed them.

  The corpse was not in good condition, either. He had to perform a full autopsy on each one that fell, to figure out exactly which interaction, which part of the process had proven too much. At no point during that process did the pain stop.

  The body settled into its grave, and with his bare hands the prince piled dirt on top. Now, three tiny, rat-sized graves lay in a neat row. “I’m so sorry,” he said, bowing his head. Then, he got up, brushed off his knees, and returned to the shed to work on the formula again.

  Horrible things had happened, and further horrible things would. But it was better for it to happen to rats than to pigs or humans, and he could not stop now. If that had ever been an option, it was no longer open to him; the project had spilled blood, and abandonment would put it all to waste.

  Huang Jin locked into his task. Next time, the Serum would be perfect.

  -

  The perfect dose for body size. The perfect balance of ingredients, activating in the correct sequence. He’d been hopeful with every new revision; this time, he was sure.

  This rat had endured the full seven day exposure period. In every lethal case, the negative effects had shown up by day three. The animal’s eyes were sharp and intelligent, even moreso than usual for the species. The brown fur shimmered in the light, and the weird little hand-paws worked with an elegance betraying an active mind.

  Through his advanced qi-sense, Huang Jin examined the animal. Its qi, rich but furtive, flowed in perfect harmony.

  Human eye met rat eye. He knew. They both knew. This was no longer a mere rodent; this was Rat.

  He’d done it, after two gruelling months. An all-in-one solution that would jumpstart the process of cultivation, removing years of work and the fundamental reliance on talent normally involved. The Serum of Awakening, a product worthy of the title, ‘Apprentice of Dahe Yiji,’ had been completed.

  -

   a jolly mental voice broke through Huang Jin’s concentration. He turned to the offender, forcing his face to remain serene.

  A week after Rat’s Awakening, Pig had reacted just as positively to the formula. He’d expected his new spirit beast to be like Rabbit or Ox; basically a regular animal, but different, more powerful, and more intelligent.

  Pig was certainly intelligent. All pigs were capable of shocking displays of intelligence, but Pig went one step further and had learned to use qi-speech almost immediately after Awakening. Oh, he did the normal ‘pig’ things. He adored food, and loved a good wallow as much as anyone. But every moment not spent doing one of those two things, he spent asking questions. Huang Jin was beginning to understand why his Master’s ‘ask anything at any time’ policy was so rare among teachers.

  He did, however, try to emulate the style. “Well, I’ve run out of the Awakening Serum, and I need to make a new batch.”

  Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

  The large porker ambled to the cauldron, barely missing the chalk lines on the ground. Rat clung to the top of his head, along for the ride. As a part of the same ‘graduating class,’ the two were practically inseparable.

  “I can’t promise that will change,” the prince laughed. “But it won’t get finished at all if your snout’s in there. It’s very delicate!” He shooed the pair away.

   said the animal. At least his new ‘sub-student’ was obedient. Rabbit only learned to keep a distance after nearly getting blown up.

  The process of refinement continued. Under the small alchemist’s ministrations, the cauldron broke the materials down to their fundamental components. His formations took up the burden of fine control, guided by his own exquisite techniques to meld the ingredients, amplifying certain features while burning away others.

  Something snagged. The confluence of elements pushed against his control… just a little. The elements tended towards desynchronization, and it took far more effort to force them into alignment than the last time he’d made the Serum. It was not a problem of direct interference, out of the corner of his eyes he saw Pig shying away from the brightly-pulsing chalk lines.

  Feeling deeper, the prince applied the weight of his subconscious mind to the problem. It was as if something were tugging on the elements from the outside, so subtly that he wouldn’t have noticed if the procedure weren’t so sensitive. Like fate, or… star alignment? He dared not leave the Serum fallow for even a moment. He couldn’t investigate the cause immediately, he had to finish first.

  Something in that unfathomable wellspring in his head told him he should stop, that he needed to figure it out right now, that this was important. He knew better than to question the results of [Cognitive Enhancement]. After pausing to let his brain work on its own for a moment, something popped into his head.

  “Pig? Rat? Could you please go stand there, and there?” he broke away from the process to say, pointing just so. The two obeyed… or rather, Pig obeyed, and shook Rat off of his head at the indicated point. Pig now stood in the twelve o’clock position in relation to the cauldron, and Rat in the one o’clock.

  By the time they arranged themselves thus, the Serum had nearly subverted itself. It took a positive effort of will to keep the energy flowing correctly, but as he’d half-expected, the work became easier. Now, why would the relative positions of Pig and Rat have an impact on his refinement?

  A flood of connections flowed out from the prince’s enhanced hind-brain. The Foundational Law of Feng Shui, interlocking affinity values, the Arcane Synergy Postulate, all kinds of facts and implications. After the current batch finished, he had yet more work to do, but he put it all off for now. Instead, he spent the time arranging all of his spirit beasts in a circle around the outside of the shed. He had four, now, and he had them all stand in position relative to the Zodiac: Rat in the first, followed by Ox in the second, Tiger’s spot skipped as he hadn’t Awakened yet, then Rabbit, and all other spaces blank.

  Then, he returned to the cauldron, filled it with a random assortment of disposable, low-quality ingredients, and concentrated. The result would not make a medicine; this was pure testing.

  The chaotic mix was even easier to balance. Better. There was something here.

  Huang Jin grew excited, so excited he could barely contain himself. Even as he went around releasing his companions from their posts, his mind whirled with possibilities. An image formed in his mind of a formation mimicking the Zodiac, enforcing balance and stability. He had four out of the twelve already!

  The Serum was stable; he could start administering it to Dog and Tiger immediately. Clive David and his exotic shop… they could help with the rarer beasts. Most of the others he’d need were regular barn animals, easily located.

  He came up short when he realized he’d have to source an actual, literal dragon for the plan to get off the ground. Then, he recalled a conversation he’d had with Master, on the very day he’d picked up Rabbit.

  ‘You’re gonna have some trouble when you get to the dragon,’ she said.

  And he had said, ‘Maybe I could count for the dragon?’

  Again, there was something there.

  He had a dragon scale. But trying to make something out of that with genetics might cause real trouble, if the dragon it came from ever found out. But… he had draconic ancestry. He raced back into the shed. In preparation for Project Coral, he’d made far too many petri dishes, and there was plenty of room left in the hermetically-sealed qi laboratory. The scope of his projects expanded.

  On the way to gather materials, he grabbed an additional stack of paper. Master would want a full research paper on the thing he was about to do. Project Coral, the new idea, obtaining and Awakening all of the other animals, and after all that was done he’d still need to make a second product for the Auction. He’d do it all; one thing at a time, all at once.