After Teacher left, I did not see him again for a long time.


    It took me nearly three years to concoct my first pill. The day after it was deposited, I checked the ledger to find that I had submitted a trash pill. I had to do better. I didn’t deposit another pill until a year later.


    In that period of time, I finally advanced to Martial Disciple 7.


    Years flowed by in a steady stream. I began submitting pills regularly, but all of them were evaluated as trash. Unfortunately, I had not learned a method to evaluate pills from Teacher. If I had, I would not have bothered submitting my failures.


    Over time, I began to feel the process at a deeper level. I began to sense the qi that made up the peonies. It was like strings of chaos wrapped around a thick green strand of power. As I heated the flower up, the strings of chaos burned away. If I heated it too far, the green medicinal power began to evaporate.


    One big stumbling block was keeping my power correctly distributed. If too much was concentrated in one spot, it would quickly burn through the strands of chaos and eat away at the medicinal energy. To combat this, I had to quickly move all energy away from this area, which usually had the knock-on effect of creating several new hotspots. Really, I felt like once the situation began to grow out of control, it was completely unsalvageable. That must have been why Teacher highlighted the importance of Qi Gathering Powder. When the situation began to spiral out of control, I would quickly turn up the heat and begin burning everything away.


    I persisted for decades. My output of trash pills had dropped to nearly zero. I still occasionally produced a few I thought might be viable. They weren’t, but I was nearly always able to salvage the situation into usable powder.


    When I was over 50 years old, I finally had a breakthrough. I learned to more smoothly control fire qi. This allowed me to treat it almost like a self-leveling liquid. The qi wanted to evenly disperse around the flower. This still wasn’t perfect, since the chaos strings weren’t evenly distributed, but it was getting close.


    That year, I finally submitted my first successful Low-Purity Basic Qi Gathering Pill.


    I was a Martial Disciple 8, and my cultivation had nearly ground to a halt. Pulling in Qi was extraordinarily difficult at this point, and I probably would not make even a half step forward again in my life.


    The problem was, I could feel myself struggling each time I made a pill. If I had a higher cultivation, I was sure it would be beneficial in concocting pills. Part of the reason I had been able to make that first successful pill was the extra power and control level 8 had granted me. To progress in alchemy, I needed to progress in cultivation.


    I made a choice. It felt like a betrayal of the trust Teacher had placed in me, but I knew this was the only way I would ever be able to repay him. The next time I created a pill I thought was successful, I did not deposit it, I chose to consume it.


    Qi rushed into me at speeds I hadn’t felt in decades.


    Teacher had said Basic pills were only suitable for Martial Disciples 1 to 3, but maybe that wasn’t the whole story. Even at level 8, there was definitely still a strong effect. I quickly noticed a potential problem, though. If it had such an effect on me, the rate that low-level cultivators gathered qi would be exponentially greater. Gathering that qi for a breakthrough would be easy, but attempting to purify it would be significantly more difficult.


    Of course, as an alchemist, purity wasn’t a concern at all for me. As Teacher said, dealing with problems of low purity was simple for an alchemist. Others, however, would not be so fortunate.


    For the next year, I worked even harder. Whenever I felt a pill might not meet quality standards and would just be destroyed, I consumed it instead of depositing it. My cultivation quickly rose to level 9.


    At this point, concocting became smoother and smoother. I could both control and sense qi much more easily.


    Decades passed.


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    I was nearing the end of my life. I was over 90 years old, and I had finally reached Martial Disciple Peak. Sadly, I was a terrible alchemist. I had never been able to create anything better than a Low-Purity pill.


    <hr>


    All those years, I never saw Teacher again. I was worthless. I had failed him. I did not have the face to see him.


    Through the years, others came and went from the small building. Several people had lived on the second floor for short periods of time, but I was always diligent about leaving the room when I heard them coming. I was not to bother Teacher’s guests.


    Even though I was constantly wasting them, the chest of blue peonies was always refilled in a timely manner. No one ever came to question why they had been destroyed by me. They were simply restocked.


    This was a final blessing from Teacher. Even though I failed, he still believed that one day I would succeed.


    For eight decades, nothing changed. I never left Teacher’s home. I remained committed to my duties.


    <hr>


    I was walking from the pill room, through the main hall, back to my room one day when I heard several people approaching.


    I began moving back to the pill room so as not to bother Teacher’s guests, but my body had started failing me. I was not able to move fast enough to leave before they entered.


    “Stop. Turn around,” a calm voice commanded. “Who are you? What are you doing here?”


    I turned around and looked at the three men who had entered. One was an aging man whose hair had begun to gray. One was a youth that looked no older than twenty. The man in front… it was Teacher! He looked nearly unchanged since I had last seen him.


    “Teacher!” I said, bowing as my eyes began to fill with tears. “Disciple has failed you. I should have left before you entered.”


    It was a long moment before he responded.


    “You were to call me Teacher Su,” he said.


    Tears dropped from my eyes. Decades had passed, and I had already failed twice in quick succession.


    “Is he the one that has been making our pills?” asked the aging man.


    “Indeed,” Teacher said, before turning to me. “Go to your room. Return here in one hour.”


    I gave another deep bow before exiting. The wait in my quarters was excruciating. I had not been this excited in years. Finally, Teacher had returned. Exactly one hour after my dismissal, I promptly returned to the main hall.


    The three men sat at a table, facing me. I felt as if I were on trial.


    “I have reviewed the ledgers,” said Teacher. “The expenses you have incurred are, quite frankly, staggering. You have never been able to create anything more than a Low-Purity Pill. Something that is still worth less than the materials that went into it.”


    I bowed in shame. I was a failure.


    “I have not bothered to make a detailed calculation of the debt you have incurred under me. I estimate that it is well over a hundred thousand gold. Do you agree with the assessment?”


    “Yes, Teacher Su.”


    “Very good. You are honest. What is your plan to repay this debt you owe?”


    “I do not have one, Teacher Su. My only hope was to one day be capable of concocting High-Purity pills to begin repaying you, but disciple has failed.”


    “You are not my disciple,” he said lightly. “You admit to your debt and the need to repay it, correct?”


    “Yes, Teacher.”


    “Good, then we have a way for you to do so. You can make a significant contribution to the clan. One worth far more than the debt you currently owe. Are you willing to do so?”


    “Yes, Teacher!” I said, bowing excitedly. I could finally give back to someone who had done so much for me.


    “Good. This is Su YuanFei,” Teacher said, gesturing to the aging man. “He is the Second Elder of the Su Clan and brother to the current patriarch.”


    I bowed to Elder Su.


    “You are likely not familiar with the current state of the Su Clan. It is failing. Ever since the current patriarch wrested control from his father, the Su Clan has been beset by one problem after another. If this continues, the clan will soon collapse. Our goal is to save it. You will help us do that.”


    I smiled inwardly. I would give my all to help Teacher!


    <hr>


    Elder Su threw me to the floor in the middle of a massive, open hall. A large, U-shaped table wrapped around me. Behind it were seated over a dozen elderly men.


    “Patriarch, we have found the traitor!” said Elder Su, “this is the clan alchemist who had been poisoning our disciples. He hid himself inside the abandoned alchemy workshop and slowly siphoned resources from the clan. For the past several years, he has been adding poisoned pills to our supplies. He had been doing so from deep within the clan. That is why our past inspections failed to find the source.”


    Every eye in the room glared at me.


    “You are all bastards!” I shouted. “The Su Clan is finished! Just wait for your destruction!”


    I began to laugh maniacally.


    “Take him away!” shouted the patriarch.


    <hr>


    I was taken to a dungeon. The guards were not kind. Over the course of days, I was methodically tortured. I was old and frail, but they were careful to never do so much damage that I died. When I became too weak, I was given a healing pill.


    This lasted for nearly a week before I broke.


    I confessed. I told them how the Great Elder and Fourth Elder had worked together to engineer the downfall of the Su Clan.


    After that, I was taken outside. In front of all the disciples and elders of the Su Clan, I was executed.


    Before they killed me, I gave them my last words. “The Su Clan is finished!” I smiled a bloody smile. I died.


    You have died. Calculating…


    You died as a Martial Disciple Peak. 100 credits awarded.


    Total Credits: 100