“You want me to craft for an Auction?”

  Only a day after his adventures in the Sapphire Strait, Master had called him to meet her outside for something very important. After living in the tropics for a week, the winter vista mystified him all over again, not least because the cabin’s glade remained untouched. Every tree lining the clearing was piled with so much snow they looked like stalactites, the mountains to the North glistened like jewels… but even winter knew better than to intrude on this Master’s domain. The grass remained green and fragrant, the cabin idyllic.

  Master wore her usual ‘cultivation stuff’ robe, and placed her hands on her hips. “Yes, indeed. The Hallowed Rift’s own Solstice Grand Auction is your next assignment- and take it seriously! You’ll be submitting a minimum of two creations, and there will be little anonymity. It’s time the world knew Dahe Yiji is up and about, and that she’s taken a student.”

  Everyone knew about Auctions. The powerful and the rich, the Sects and even elements of the government, would come together to bid on powerful artifacts and rare resources. A chance for incredible riches, fraught with danger and backroom politics, with great powers behind every corner.

  He wasn’t so sure about the idea. “Am I really good enough to create under your name, Master?”

  “Please! You made a Yang Affinity Shift pill in a cave, with a box of scraps. Er, on a beach, next to a reef full of bloodthirsty spirit beasts, you know what I mean.”

  “They were very nice to me!” he protested.

  “Look, babe, you don’t get a species name like ‘Souldrinker’ for sitting on the seafloor playing ‘pass the pufferfish’ all day. But nevermind that, yes, you can meet or exceed the average level of the playing field. Even in the Hallowed Rift!”

  As he mulled this over, his Master produced from her sleeve something like a black brick with buttons on it. “There’s a twist this time. You’ll be making your preparations on your own. You know the rules, you can use my facilities, but you’re on your own for materials. You should have more than enough stockpiled by now. The big shindig is in six months, and I’ll be back one day in advance to check over your work.”

  “Master, you’re leaving?” he asked. “But-”

  “I trust you. You need space if you’re going to grow any further. Now, do you have any last-minute questions for me before I go?” As she said this, she pressed a button on the controller. An unseen panel opened in the grass before the cabin, and Huang Jin gaped as a large metal structure slid up through it. A scaffold? A tower? It had to be at least twenty feet tall.

  As he wondered what it was for, it swiveled and tilted Northward. “Um, may I ask where you’re going?”

  “Yup. I’ll even answer! I’m off to pay a little visit to a friend up North. Zhenzhu Gui, have you heard of her?”

  He had to blink hard at that one. “The Pearl Turtle?”

  “Bingo. Any other questions?”

  He put a finger to his chin, mind already swirling. He put away any thought about the Northern country; down that road lay madness, or at least distraction. The important thing right now… “May I work on a personal project, as long as I can find a way to make a product out of it?”

  She shrugged. “That’s just an effective use of time. Sounds good to me.” A strange light twinkled in her eye, and she cocked her head at him. “Why? What did you have in mind?”

  The prince beckoned her down to his level, and she lowered herself to let him whisper into her ear. “You’ve raised a student that can keep a secret.” When she withdrew, he gave her his widest, brightest smile.

  She laughed, putting a hand over his whole face and gently pushing him away. “Cheeky little nugget! Fine, keep your secrets, but I expect to be blown the fuck away when I get back! On that note…” She strode to the scaffold and squatted down at the structure’s base, wiggling her back end slightly as she aligned her back with the frame. “Count me down! T-minus ten!”

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  “Uh, nine! Eight! Seven!” He counted all the way down to, “Zero!”

  He did not see her leap. A sonic boom rocked his body and shook the snow off of the trees at the edge of the clearing, and Master was gone. Peering up at the sky once he’d recovered, the prince noticed a giant hole punched through the low clouds.

  He was alone, for the first time in over three years. “Not alone,” he reminded himself aloud. “I’ve got Dog, Ox, and Rabbit with me.” Speaking of, he needed to go back inside and calm Dog; that boom must have scared the poor, aging animal.

  As he entered the cabin and comforted the animal curled up under the table, his mind got to work. The project. He’d never get a better time to initiate Project Coral, now that he no longer needed permission. The groundwork would be tough, but he already had some ideas.

  He would need to make a whole lot of petri dishes and refine a whole lot of qi batteries. If there were an ‘Intent’ for science, he’d certainly be radiating it at that moment.

  -

  The plan, as it turned out, was a huge pain. It hinged on three important truths: first, most organisms, even microscopic, could process qi. Second, the human body was filled with single-celled symbionts that helped to process everything from digestion to hormones. Third, and most recent of all, cultivation tended to proceed through biological lines.

  First and foremost, he needed to decide on a direction in which to pursue the microbiological aspect of the project. Protozoa, he ruled out immediately. Too unpredictable, and they couldn’t breed as fast as he would need them to. Fungi had parasitic tendencies which could prove disastrous. He narrowed down the candidates to a few species of Bacteroides, which had a good track record of coexistence with the human body.

  Next, the substrate needed to be established. That took more than a day, by itself. Only then, once the groundwork had been laid, could he begin working on the meat of the project.

  It was the usual scene. Master’s great sun-mimic formation shone overhead, Ox luxuriated in the grass, Dog and Rabbit crowded near and watched Huang Jin work. Dog just liked being included, splayed out on the ground and tongue lolling out. Rabbit payed close attention, though her comprehension was questionable. Finally, their master sat in the grass outside of the shed, with a hard-backed clipboard and a large number of discarded papers littered around his feet.

  “-And then a little Spirit Aspen root to balance it out. What do you think?”

  Rabbit looked down at the scattered papers and thumped her foot.

  “Yeah, that might shift the elemental affinity too far toward Wood. Then, I could replace the Grand Oak bark shaving…” Huang Jin made another note. His animals made for good sounding boards. The ‘Evolution Additive’ had to be perfectly balanced. Wood and Metal were his own elemental affinities, but if he wanted the bacteria to evolve down a path that would allow them to handle qi independently, he could not force them to conform to his own energy. That would stunt their development; they needed a varied environment.

  Then came the need to monetize the end product. An easy-to-incorporate load of energy, enough to trigger empowerment, but not overwhelm even a mortal system… Its intended use would be to trigger generational changes in a colony of bacteria. Who could benefit from such a niche creation?

  The prince found himself glancing down at Dog. The faithful animal had been with him since he could clearly remember. They had been together for over three and a half years now, and that was quite a span of time for a dog of indeterminate age. Grey hairs now sprouted around his muzzle, and his eyes were beginning to sag. Despite living within the qi-packed environment of Master’s hidden realm, Dog had not Ascended. He didn’t have the talent for it.

  But then, this project was meant to leverage the natural mechanics of qi to bypass the need for talent. If he upscaled the process a little… Then, the plan expanded. Awakening, reaching even the first stage of the first Realm, could double a living thing’s life expectancy. If he could put Dog on the Path, that would be incredible. But what would a mortal noble pay to double their time on Earth?

  The more he thought about it, the better it sounded. The nobility loved extravagance and convenience. The prince pinned another sheet of paper to his clipboard and got to work making revisions. If this was to be sold to humans, it needed a few more traits. The user would need to have their meridians strengthened and reconditioned, they’d need enhanced awareness of their own qi, and they’d need enough qi added over time to get their dantian working on a cycling routine.

  All of that, and it needed to be safe. And the process needed to be automatic! He had his work cut out for him. He liked the name, ‘Project Coral,’ and so decided to keep it. But he changed the name of the commercial product: across the top of the new sheet, he wrote, ‘The Serum of Awakening.’

  He had no idea what would eventually come of that one harmless, charming idea.