Blueprint for Immortality: a Crafting Xianxia

Fen definitely had Booker’s interest now, but he glanced sideways, towards the Sect. Wei Qi would be firing up the furnace now. He really didn’t have time to engage in another side project. “Can we walk and talk on the way?”

“Of course.” Fen said, nodding.

“I’m stretched thin, Fen. I want to help you – but I don’t know if I have time. The Grasshopper Examination is in three days…”

“Naturally, I understand. How are you getting past Instructor Graysky? He’ll never pass you…”

“I… I don’t know yet, but I’ll know.” Booker answered uncertainly. In truth, it was a major fault in his plans. He’d been so busy that he hadn’t had time to mend bridges with the Instructor, or try to find a way around being failed on sight.

“I have a suggestion.” Fen stepped forward. “Rain, we can solve both problems easily. I’m going to break into Instructor Graysky’s apartments.”

Booker stopped immediately. “What?”

Fen swept past him, continuing, and turned back to say, “Rain, I’m going to rob his apartments. I need your help.”

Booker’s eyes narrowed. “Okay, next up– Why?”

“Rain, that I can’t tell you. You know what it’s like to have secrets, don’t you?” Fen resumed walking, pulling Booker along after him.

“So you want me to break into an instructor’s apartment on nothing but ‘trust you’.” Booker hissed, waiting until a cluster of disciples had walked past to resume, “That’s a lot of risk. Where’s the reward?”

“You mean the medicine isn’t enough?”

“Fen, is that medicine going to be in my hand, or is it going to be a whisper about a rumor?” He insisted.

“Very well, I’ll also share the secrets of the Sect.” Fen promised. “Delicious ones. Things they wouldn’t give to disciples.”

“Alright.” Booker sighed. “You have me. Only because I’m trusting you – and don’t make me regret it.”

Fen grinned. “I won’t.” He walked away, leaving Booker at the entrance to his laboratory.

— — —

Booker stepped inside to find Wei Qi slaving away at the bellows pump, stoking the furnaces. He had his sleeves rolled up and sweat was dripping from his brow. The young apprentice was using his foot to pedal the bellows, hanging onto a chain on the ceiling and pulling himself up and down to pump the bellows.

“Here.” Booker grabbed the chain alongside him and together they got the fire blazing hot, raising the furnace to howling temperatures.

“It will… it will still be hours before they’re done…” Wei Qi gasped out.

“But we’ll at least have progress to show.” Booker assured him.

“Greenmoon wants results on this… fast! I think he bet on this, and bet hard.”

Booker nodded, stepping away from the furnace’s billowing heat. He glanced down and saw an itemized list of everything they’d requisition for the laboratory. “You did this?” He asked Wei Qi.

“Yes, of course. I’ve inventoried the whole laboratory too.” Wei Qi toweled off his face and pulled the top layer of his robes back on.

“That’s excellent work.” The average alchemist is dedicated in a way I can’t even imagine. In a way I only begin to understand when I let myself feel the maniacal devotion Rain felt in his lifetime… Even little Sprout is a powerhouse in his own way.

“So what do we do now?” Wei Qi asked.

“I think we wait. Greenmoon will show up when he shows up…”

But as minutes turned to hours, Greenmoon didn’t make an appearance. The furnace burnt down from raging flames to low embers, and they took out the purified and ash-coated tubes of salt with wooden paddles, collecting them on the floor in front of the furnace.

“Do you think he forgot?” Wei Qi asked eventually.

“No, I think he forgot on purpose. I gave him bad news on a delay, so he makes an impossible demand, then never shows up to check that we did it. It’s just his way of yanking our chain.” Booker said calmly.

“Brother Rain always knows which way the weather is turning,” Wei Qi said with respect.

“Wei Qi, I have something I need you to do.” Booker said, opening his bag. Froggy and Snips crawled out, hopping onto the countertop. “I want you to take them to the fighting ring.”

“You…” Wei Qi paused. “Want me to take your beasts to fight?”

“No, I just want them to get a sense for the place. Snips is a smart beast. He’ll know if there’s any threats nearby.” Booker shrugged. “Just go over, get a sense for the place. Tell me what you see.”

Wei Qi seemed uncertain, but Booker added, “So long as you go there and come back, I’ll owe you a favor, how about that?”

“Er, there is…” Wei Qi paused and rubbed his head. “One thing if I was wondering you could help me with…”

“What’s that?”

“Some of the servants have… something of mine. I’m not a cultivator yet, I can’t fight them all, but they’re cripples like…” He cut himself off, sensing he’d said something wrong.

“I understand. You want me to talk to them.” Booker nodded. “I’ll handle it. Give me their names.”

“Tong Chen, Dai Ya Quin…” Wei Qi seemed embarrassed by the whole matter.

“They’ll soon stop bothering you.”

— — —

Booker walked back to his rooms feeling confident. He was beginning to run low on time – there were four days before the auction, and three before the Grasshopper’s Examination – but with his sleep replacement pills he had eight hours in his day that others didn’t.

He lay down and folded his hands under his head, waiting to listen to the doors opening and shutting in the hallway beyond. If he hadn’t already taken his sleep replacement pill, he would have soon drifted off to sleep – as it was, he hovered in a barely-lucid state, just able to mark the passing of minutes and have idle thoughts, like the moment right before you fall asleep when your logic becomes looser and looser.

When everyone was asleep and muffled snores echoed through the Sect, Booker rolled back onto his feet and shook the dreams out of his head. Folding his cloak and mask under his arm, he walked through the empty courtyards to where the Sect had an open green practice yard next to the wall, and tall trees.

From there it was a matter of pulling on his disguise, scaling up the tree, and jumping over the wall in two short hops, his feet briefly landing on the tiled top of the wall before leaping down into the alleys below.

Booker was beginning to like the city: not just feel its opportunities, or relish its freedom, but genuinely like Mantis City. It was full of boisterous characters and dreaming youths, full of excitement. The scent of spices and burning candles flavored the air as he made his way through the bustling city.

At the end of the city, the walls cast a shadow on the buildings built beneath them, and everything past the walls was poorer, cheaper, and uglier, a shantytown clustered around the walls in tents and hovels trying to gain some lingering protection from the Sect’s presence. It was here that the docks were located, wooden piers and tied up boats bobbing in the slosh of the fast-flowing river.

And just as he’d hoped, Booker found a group of disciples about to set off. They were in a large, slow raft and armed with long hook-bladed polearms to fight off creatures below the water. Their job was to harvest and reset the massive pots that captured crawfish and eels from the riverbed. The task would take the strength of a full cultivator to complete, because even before being weighed down with the catch, each pot was a massive construction made out of reed and metal spikes: the reeds were woven into the basket, and the spikes were set on the lip of the lid, pointing inwards. A creature could easily brush past the spikes without harm getting in, bending them aside…

But anything that tried to get out the same way would discover a sharp reality to their situation.

As one of the disciples waded through the shallow water to untether their redwood barge from the dock, Booker stepped up before him.

“What do you want?” The disciple’s sword-like eyebrows immediately narrowed.

“I’m an alchemist.” He opened. “I know you catch all kinds of creatures in your traps, including ones the Sect isn’t expecting and doesn’t care about. I’ve heard you even hunt a little along the riverside. I can help you get good prices and extract the most value from anything you catch – the only thing I want in exchange is the right to buy the haul off you first.”

The set of the disciple’s face remained skeptical. “How generous of you.”

“I’m looking for something in specific, which we’re unlikely to find. But with the Sect locking down so many resources, it’s my only route.” Booker had been ready for skepticism, though. These were Sect-dwelling people, and they were used to everyone having a scheme or a con. The fact that Booker honestly didn’t need anything from them but the chance to practice extracting valuable organs from monsters and complete his quest would have been too suspicious. “Surely you’ve had your own adventures and trials that have set you seeking something rare and improbable.”

He’d noticed a difference in the way he spoke when he was the masked doctor. More authoritative. Longer words.

The disciple tilted his head. “What are you looking for?”

“A hundred year carp with three hearts.” Booker answered smoothly. “The third heart is a longevity cure.”

“Hmm.” He turned back and shouted to the people aboard the raft. “Hey, this alchemist wants to join us! Cao Mei? Qin Ziwen?”

“Whoever, whatever, as long as he helps lift and doesn’t get in the way!” The girl called back. The boy next to her checking the pots just shrugged and said,

“Why not?”

Booker took that as permission to help unmoor the boat and leap aboard, landing with a rocking sway beside them. As the last of the disciples – Dai Ji – waded over and pulled himself onto the boat, they used their polearms to push off against the mud and paddle into the center of the river where the current was swift and strong.

The sides of the river flowed past to either side, the current carrying them past roads, forests, and meadows. All was dark and nearly silent. Now and again, the sloshing of the river against its banks would be interrupted by a bellowing animal call from the forest, or a dark fin would slice above the midnight surface of the river before sinking back below.

Booker kneeled on the edge of the raft and – being careful to watch for any rising, predatory shadows – looked into the water beneath.

Enormous snails and crabs meandered across a flat bed of mossy stones. Silver-bright fish darted and ducked out of the raft’s way. River beasts the size of dogs and cats sent the smaller fish fleeing in panic.

As they neared the first lobster pot, they pulled themselves out of the current and towards the shore, steering the ship by digging their spears into the bottom of the river.

They ground to a halt on the muddy banks and waded through tall grass to grab hold of ropes anchored to stakes dug into the solid ground past the bank, straining to hold onto something heavy that tilted and turned below the water. Qin Ziwen grabbed his hooked polearm and stuck it into the water, digging around until he got it hooked against the pot’s side, and Cao Mei threw him a rope. “Here,” she said. “Make yourself useful.”

Booker nodded without speaking, and on the count of three, threw himself against the rope, straining hard to pull the lobster pot free of the heavy water. With three cultivators helping him, the task was still enough to burn the rough surface of the rope into his hands, dig his boots into the mud, and bring sweat budding to his forehead. The pot heaved up – slowly! – and sloshed, losing water weight to the thin spaces between the reeds. As Dai Ji let go off his rope, dashed around the pot and pushed with his full might, it rolled up onto shore and with a last heave they had it safely beached.

But the hard work was hardly over. They opened the latch on the back of the pot and out poured dozens of slick, night-black eels, eyeless with snapping jaws. The worm-like creatures poured in a jellied mass across the pebbles and mud of the beech, thrashing blindly as they sought about for water.

The three disciples walked among them, picking out young eels the size of normal serpents, which were still tender and pale, their skin yet to develop midnight pigment and thus, totally translucent like glass. They tossed these, the keepers, into a large cage tied to the side of the raft where they’d have enough water to breathe.

Glass-Bodied Eels

Intact // Dull Quality

These species of eel cultivate by devouring the qi in their mother and eating their way out from inside. As such, they are only potent as qi medicine early in life.

Beast Cultivation 10% (-)

Toxicity 20% (-)

Cultivation Boost 5% (+)

Temporary Water Adaptation 5% (Water)

But as the tide of eels subsided, sliding back into the waters, other things were revealed inside the pot. There were small green crabs, one of which Cao Mei immediately plucked up and began crunching between her teeth, offering another to Booker, which he wordlessly refused with a shake of his head. “Your loss.” She said, tossing it into the air and catching it with her mouth. “They’re delicious.” She said, her voice interrupted by the smacking lips and the crunching of soft, undeveloped crabshell.

Dai Ji went through the fish inside – red carp, dull-eyed bottom-feeders, small silver-gray baitfish. Lifting them up by their tails he examined them and flung them back into the river. “Nothing worthwhile.” He said.

Booker was happy to move on with the rest of them as they waded out to the raft, but Qin Ziwen caught him by the shoulder. “You’re not a cultivator.” He said seriously.

“No.” Booker replied. “I never said I was. I’m an alchemist, and I can help you all profit.”

Qin Ziwen released him, but said. “Just stay back if there’s any danger, then. You won’t help us by risking yourself, and if one of us tries to save you, we might both die.”

Booker nodded, climbing onto the raft and offering his hand to help Qin Ziwen onto the swaying platform. He had already formed a good impression of Qin, who was a bit older than Cai Mei or Dai Ji, and maybe sixteen, with broad shoulders, a pudgy build, and an bowl-cut of glossy black hair, his face plain and somewhat craggy, so you could easily write him off and not notice the sharp eyes underneath the ledge of his caveman brows.

“How dangerous is this, really?” He asked.

“Depends on how well you can keep your balance. Hungry things will ram the boat sometimes, to see if anyone falls over the side. Even a cultivator won’t survive hitting the water, nine times out of ten. The real danger is, sometimes nobody sees the thing coming in to ram us, nobody shouts a warning – everything goes from safe to deadly in a heartbeat.” Qin Ziwen answered.

“If you’d have chosen a boat going out in the day, things would be much safer.” Cao Mei chimed in. “Sometimes a bigger fish will go for the cage and all the catch inside, but mostly you can drive them off with a good few pokes.” She brandished her hooked polearm with a devil-may-care grin.

“Truly, fishermen don’t get enough credit.” Booker said, with mild surprise. If the river really was this dangerous, then he had nothing but respect for the mortals who dared to try and make it their livelihood.

“Once you get out to deeper waters, your boats are bigger and you can tie yourself down.” Dai Ji said as he sat down, chugging from a bottle of rice wine and offering it around the raft. Only Cao Mei refused, as she stood by the raft’ till and watched the waters. “But by the same token, the monsters grow much bigger. You’re less likely to die alone, but it’s more likely the whole ship is eaten in one bite.”

“You’re knowledgeable.” Booker praised, taking the rice wine and pushing up his mask enough to take a hearty gulp. The water was cold and the liquor made his body feel warm again.

“Me and Ji’er have made a pact! If we don’t make it to the second stage by the time we’re eighteen, we’ll quit the Sect and become sailors on the Whitedragon River.” Cao Mei declared proudly.

“Ah, it’s all thanks to our Elder Brother, Qin Ziwen.” Dai Ji was blushing as he bowed his head towards his senior brother. “He taught us everything about the river, and we’ve become converts to the sailor’s lifestyle.”

“I’m flattered, but really it’s thanks to my Elder Sister, all the Elder Brothers who sailed this raft before her, and the ship herself..” Qin Ziwen said for himself. He reached out, patting the red mantis figurehead that curved up off the rudder below. “She’s may sail like a barn, but she’s actually the oldest ship in the Mantis Sect. Every board has been replaced but her soul is as old as the Sect’s foundations.”

“One moment.” Booker said, and lowered his head, putting his ear against the boards of the raft. For a long moment he heard the rushing of the water underneath, the friction between river and vessel, the rumbling and splashing as the water carved its way over the bed of stones.

And then…

So faintly he could have imagined it…

Singing.

He straightened up, and although all three were looking at him oddly, he only said – “You’re right. This ship definitely has a soul.”

“I never doubted.” Qin Ziwen laughed.

“I never doubted either!”

“Hey, me neither!”

Booker tilted his head back and laughed. It was easy to laugh, in that moment, because he felt no danger at all except for the river underneath. And that was only the danger of the world, of nature and beast, not the danger of humanity.

One you could learn to live with. One kept you constantly paranoid, worried about who you could trust.

Booker felt as if these people were sincere and good, and he was happy to have met them. More than anything, he was glad to know he could still see friendship in people, underneath the constant lies about his identity and the equally-constant pressure of paranoia.

They worked together for several more hours, hauling up the pots and collected the tender glass eels. One of the pots was occupied instead by a massive crawfish, often pleasantly relabeled as a ‘river lobster’. It was the color of blood and the size of a great dane, and simply hauling the trap out of the river was such a massive endeavor that at the end, all four of them lay exhausted on the grass, huffing and panting as sweat drooled down their faces. Even Booker, who was objectively doing the least, felt as if his muscles had softened to jelly.

“Come on, we have to–” It was Qin Ziwen who stood up first. “– kill the damn thing.”

“Fuck iiiit.” Groaned Cao Mei as she rolled onto her feet. “Can we just kill it inside the trap? Thing must weigh a fucking ton…”

“We’ll catch hell…” Complained Dai Ji. He was still on the ground as Booker got onto his feet.

“Let’s catch it then.” Qin Ziwen gasped. “I’m not going to let that thing out and kill it the proper way. It’s heavy like a stone.”

Grabbing their polearms, they began to hack and cut through the reed pots, stabbing down through the material to jab at the creature inside without having to let it out. Even though every surface was dripping with black river water, Booker saw blue sparks fly as the points of their weapons dented and slid off the creature’s shell.

Finally, lifting his polearm out of the pot, Qin Ziwen shifted his grip and drew his weapon up, letting out a fearsome cry into the night sky before bringing the polearm hacking down. Booker saw the blade shine with qi and cut a moonsilver slash through the air. The basket was split open and the creature inside let out a pathetic squeal as its armor split open, yellow blood gushing across the ground.

It was a crawfish alright. A rust-colored, spiny lobster that turned black at the end of its segmented tail. The bottom half, split open and bleeding badly, came blindly thrashing out of the split remains of the pot. It thrashed back and forth a little and died.

Booker and Dai Ji hurried forward, helping Cao Mei back as the Qin Ziwen poured the other half out of the pot. Despite everything, despite losing half its body, it was still barely alive. Huge pitch-black claws snapped in the shallow water. Its face was a gruesome mess of twitching antenna, drooping whiskers, and gnashing mandibles.

“What a massive motherfucker.” Qin Ziwen prodded it into turning over with the tip of his polearm. Its legs waved in the air.

“C’mon.” Dai Ji passed Booker a knife. “We have to scrape the eggs off. We did the least, so we do the dirty business.”

Together they rolled the tail over and, after Dai Ji positioned a bucket, began scraping away the large black eggs that were clustered there. Her entire tail was encrusted with them, held together by a slimy gel. As they slopped it out, Booker examined one of them. It was like a squishy black pearl.

River Crawfish Roe

Intact // Dull Quality

Roe from an old river monster. Used in spirit cooking and high cuisine, but originally part of an early form of cultivation.

Beast Cultivation 5% (+)

Toxicity 10% (-)

Qi Recovery 5% (Water)

Hardened Skin 5% (Earth)

“Eat one.” Qin Ziwen said. “They’re delicious.”

Booker lifted his mask partway popped it into his mouth. It burst like a jewel of salt, lingering creamily on his tongue, with a faint mix of light flaky fish and rich butter. He felt the burn of qi on his tongue, sinking into his dantian, but somewhere along the way it… got lost…

Like a river without a clear path to follow it dispersed out to nothing.

“Nature’s cultivation pill. Back before the Sect, these were how the first warriors of the valley cultivated.” Qin Ziwen said enthusiastically.

“Let’s sit a while and roast it.” Cao Wei voted.

“Yeah, let’s relax. As long as we bring in the roe they won’t know if we leave a few traps at the end for tomorrow.” Qin Ziwen agreed. He dug about in his robes for an iron seal, which flickered and burned with drifting embers as he pushed qi into it. “Grab some firewood.”

They dragged together stumps and branches pulled from the pine trees, and the little green needles of the fir boughs curled up black as he put the iron seal to them, a flame instantly burning where the metal touched anything but his hand.

As they warmed their hands they set up the tail on a spike to cook. As they prepared to do the same with the head, Booker held up a hand. “Hold up. I have work to do.”

“Oh, I’ve been waiting to see this.” Cao Mei cooed.

“You’ll want to eat the stalks of the eyes raw. They’re a petty alchemical, not really worth making into a pill, but they’ll lose whatever they have to give if you cook them. The brains are a little better, and I’ll help you get them out.” Taking a knife, Booker began to pry and separate the armored plates, cutting through the thin membranes between them. As he dug his fingernails around the plates of chitin, he pried up and there was a treasure of folded wet tissue underneath.

“Ewww.” Dai Ji exclaimed, wincing.

“I’ll pass.” Qin Ziwen agreed.

“All the more for me.” Cao Mei spat out, “And both of you are cowards.” Without hesitating, she dug her fingers into the mess and scooped up a mass of fatty, yellowish meat, pushing it into her mouth and chewing. “It’s delicious!”

Briefly glancing across to Dai Ji, Booker saw him looking queasy as Qin Zinwen whispered, “You kiss that mouth…”

“You two aren’t free of it. You’ll be having the eyestalks.” Booker instructed sternly. “No sense wasting medicine.”

The two of them grudgingly took the stalks and sucked off the glassy vitreous jelly at the top, wincing as the flavor spread across their tongue.

“A tour of delights with an alchemist on board.” Qin Ziwen said.

“I’m going to explore.” Booker said. “I’ll bring back something nice for the fire.” He reached into the shell and scooped away a chunk of red-and-white flesh.

“I’ll go with you.” Dai Ji said, instantly hopping up. “I’ve been practicing my hunting every time we have a chance to stray like this.”

Booker said nothing, and together they took off into the forest of pines on the Sect’s shallow eastern slope.

“So, mysterious man wandering the Sect…” Dai Ji began as they tread over a terrain made slippery by the raised, moss-encrusted roots of trees. “Why do you wear a mask?”

“I don’t want trouble. The mask saves me some.” Booker answered honestly. “Say, do you know what that mushroom is?”

“Oh?” Dai Ji paused, glancing at the cluster of white bulb mushrooms growing among the tree roots. “Oh, you’re sharp. Those are mole-eye mushrooms, right?”

Booker nodded. Good for what the book calls minor sicknesses, which probably includes most things we would survive long enough for medicine to help us.

Dai Ji slid down and used his knife to pry the mushrooms up from the earth, dislodging their gangly root structures. “Hmm and this is vinegarwilt.” He grabbed a bunch of hairy leaves from beside it. “Good once you sear off the hairs. Do you like vinegarwilt?”

It was essentially an edible weed that people ate when they might otherwise starve. Even among those, it was an acquired taste. Rain’s only memory of it was from when they fled his home for the Sect.

He shook his head.

“I love it personally. For me, it’s the taste of a good home stir fry.”

In some ways…

I could have started a lot lower than Rain’s position in life.

They both continued walking, taking turns pointing out herbs that would be good for the roast meat, mushrooms with a good flavor, and very petty alchemicals, the kinds used to disinfect wounds and ease the healing process in folk medicine. Booker naturally had the alchemy book on his side, but Dai Ji nearly kept pace.

In many ways the forest was a much more lively place than even Mantis City. There were ants crawling over every trunk, wood-boring beetles eat every tree, hosts of maggots on the dead wood that resulted. Predators ate the insects and life continued, the canopy full of small monkeys that watched them from among flocks of bright-feathered birds.

“Stop.” Dai Ji said suddenly. “That’s a Paintbrush of Omens.” He indicated a tall flower that turned from deep red to a translucent orange, after climbing five feet into the air on a thick wooden yellow stalk covered by thin needle-sharp hairs. “Touch it and you’ll have bad luck for a lifetime.”

Paintbrush of Omens

Intact // Dull Quality

A valuable but deeply poisonous flower. Its thin spines inject anyone who touches it with a subtle venom, one that makes them exude a nearly undetectable smell that lures beasts.

Paralytic Poison 5% (+)

Toxicity and Potency 5% (+)

Cultivation Boost 10% (-)

Alluring Fragrance 15% (+)

“Not true.” Booker said. “And it might mean good luck for us. Stay there and try to stay unseen. Keep your polearm at the ready.”

He stepped forward, and pressed the piece of lobster meat against the spines of the paintbrush flower, letting it soak the poison in deeply before dropping it to the ground. He stepped back and scrambled to hide behind a tree alongside Dai Ji.

“Are you crazy?” Dai Ji whispered. “This is the kind of bad luck that can end your life. I shouldn’t even be near you.”

“It’s not bad luck.” Booker explained. “It’s poison that lures beasts, contained within the needles. Since only the lobster meat touched them, now, the beasts will come looking for it instead of me.” Just to clean off any trace that might have touched his gloves, he took out some of the washing powders he’d filled one of his pockets with and mixed them with water from a small rainwater collection among the roots, cleaning his hands until the cold water soaked straight through his gloves.

“Just wait.” He promised.

Together they waited there, huddled and cold, until slowly Booker began to see a dark shape stirring in the brush. It made no move after arriving, only laid itself down against the forest floor so it was incredibly hard to see through the undergrowth.

After a little while longer, a large hawk dropped from the canopy to the ground and reached for the meat–

And in a single smooth leap the panther shot from the briars, landing with one paw slamming the stunned bird to the ground.

Dai Ji looked to Booker, gripping his polearm.

But Booker shook his head, and pointed up.

Because as the panther enjoyed its prey, a massive spider was descending the tree from above, its tree-green body and thin limbs blending into the canopy.