After leaving Elder Mu’s office, Deacon Ma guided me out of the buildings and back down the bluff. Once we got back to the cliff face, he took me into the first opening we came to. Like all the others, it was a perfect rectangle, showing it was manmade, but what set this one apart was that around it was a wide, delicate carved border of floral design. A heavy wooden door was set well back in the tunnel.


    Inside this cave, we found a nice homey area that felt like someone’s personal study. Tatami mats covered the ground and tidy bookshelves lined the walls. There was a small desk against both the left and right walls where two people were working. Light was provided by glowing orbs set on sconces around the room.


    Deacon Ma approached the old man who was working at the desk on the right.


    “Old Chen, we have a new in-name disciple. He needs someone to show him around,” said Deacon Ma.


    “Oh,” said the old man, looking up from his work, “new disciple? Yes, yes. Very well, Jun’er, come here.”


    The girl working at the other desk stood up and walked over.


    “Yes, Deacon Chen?” she asked.


    “Jun’er, this is a new in-name disciple. Show him around and assign him a cave.”


    “Yes, deacon,” she said before turning to me. “Come with me please.”


    I followed the girl out of the deacon’s cave and back to the cliff face while the deacons stayed behind.


    “Hello,” said the girl, “I am Chen YanJun. You can call me Little Jun.  That was Deacon Chen. He is in charge of administration for this area. Try not to disturb him.”


    “Little Jun?” I asked. “Is that appropriate? Shouldn’t I call you senior sister?”


    “No, I am only a servant disciple,” she said, tugging on her pale robes. “Because we share the same name, Deacon Chen took me in to assist him, but I have no official position. As you are a disciple of the elder, it is proper to call me Little Jun.”


    “Alright, so, what do I need to know?”


    She pointed to our right. “First, that direction leads to the deacons’ caves. You should never go down that path without permission. The same applies to the elder’s abode. While you may not face any official punishment for violating this rule, your fellow disciples will not be so kind.”


    I nodded. I began to get a sense of how this place worked. “Are most of the rules going to be like that?” I asked. “No official punishment, but social conventions are enforced by the other disciples?”


    “Yes. Cultivators strive to defy the heavens, so of course they would be willing to defy the elders. Instead of rules from above, it is the rivalry between disciples that maintains order.”


    That seemed impractical. Trusting rivalry between children to maintain order seemed like a disaster waiting to happen. However, the effects of cultivation techniques combined with an invisible guiding hand might make it possible.


    “Follow me,” said Jun, leading me to the left. This was the same path the deacon and I took earlier.


    We walked back to the place where paths split apart, some going up and some going down the mountain. “The upper caves are the residences for inner sect disciples. The lower caves are for outer sect disciples. Those in the middle are shared areas. They will be able to handle most of your day-to-day transactions, including pills, techniques, and basic resources.”


    “Do they use the same contribution points as before?”


    “No,” she said, “the halls here are run by Elder Mu, not by the sect. They do not operate on a strict point basis, and what you are allocated is determined by the deacons. The more you contribute, the more resources you will be allocated. As an in-name disciple, your base allocation is extremely limited, so you will need to contribute significantly more than a direct disciple would.”


    “Everything I get will need to be purchased through Elder Mu now?” I asked, somewhat surprised.


    “No, you can go down to the village. The sect operates halls there that run on the standard contribution point system. There are more resources available, and the prices may be better or worse than they are here. However, by going through the sect halls, you are not contributing to the elder. That is your choice to make, but it could limit your access to any special opportunities he could provide.”


    It was a choice between a hard currency exchange and a favor system. I didn’t know which would be better to focus on, but ideally, I would be able to make enough pills to work both systems simultaneously.


    After explaining the halls, she took me on a path to one of the lower caves. The entrance was bare rock, lacking the carved flourishes of Elder Chen’s room. Inside was barren except for a sleeping mat and a ratty tatami mat on the ground. Its only saving grace was its relatively large size. It was a square nearly three meters to a side. If I could get furnishings, it would not be a terrible place to stay.


    “This is your cave,” said Jun. “Since you are new, your cave is the worst one available. If you want a better place to stay, you will need to defeat others in challenges for the right to claim their place.”


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


    “Can I buy furniture?” I asked.


    “Yes, but none is available from the elder. Some furnishings are available in the sect halls, but you will need to carry whatever you purchase up the mountain. Most people find it easier to simply focus on winning a better cave than trying to improve the one they are assigned. If you do make improvements, you may find yourself losing this cave in a challenge.”


    “They will get to keep anything I place in it?”


    “You will have a short time to move, but it will not be enough to take everything away.”


    So, either way, I needed to be able to win challenges. Doing any work to improve my living situation first would be futile.


    “What are the challenges? How do we compete?”


    “Everyone here is an alchemist. You will compete through concocting pills. There are many different ways to compete though. If you compete on quality, both will be given the same ingredients and whoever makes the best pill wins. You can compete in speed, to see who can make pills the fastest. You can compete in value, to see who can make the most profitable pills. Basically, you can compete in any way you wish.”


    “Can I challenge anyone? Can they refuse?”


    “Yes to both. However, challenging a disciple who is considered far more or far less skilled than yourself risks offending the other disciples. Likewise, refusing a challenge may be seen as cowardice. Of course, if a highly skilled alchemist is challenged by a weak one, they will usually refuse because even competing would be a dishonor to them. In truth, there are no rules about challenges, but you need to understand how others will react to everything you do.”


    I thanked Jun for her tour and explanations, and she left.


    I sat down on the mat in my new house to begin preparing. I was not yet ready for the challenges of the outer sect, so I needed to prepare.


    <hr>


    Before doing anything else, I needed to gain an understanding of my spirit fire seed. It could be a serious advantage in this situation, but until I could control it, I would not be able to make any Rank 2 pills.


    I opened the book that Elder Mu gave me and began reading. As he had told me, it was nothing like a technique scroll. The books detailed the experiences of a cultivator as he tried to master his own fire seed.


    The cultivator in the book had absorbed a seed of the Tidal Waters Fire. It was, as the name suggests, a water-attributed spirit fire.


    I didn’t know how attributes affected spirit fires, and the book didn’t explain anything on the topic, but it seemed like the difference in attributes wouldn’t have too much of an effect on the basics of how to control them.


    The book described a process of opening one’s soul and allowing a tendril of the fire seed to enter the body. If I had only absorbed the spirit fire normally, the energy would be fused with my body, and I would use my qi to empower and control it. With the seed, the first step was to get the energy into my body. The biggest difference was that the fire would be empowered by the seed, not by my personal qi.


    Reading everything, it seemed like the biggest roadblock was simply opening my soul to allow the fire to flow into my body in a steady, controlled way. Without opening my soul, I would not be able to reach the fire. If I opened it too widely, the fire could rampage in my body. In that case, surviving with only serious injuries would be the best-case scenario.


    Without an actual technique or real instructions, trying anything here would be extremely risky. So, I needed to rely on the system for assistance.


    “System, how much to learn how to control my fire seed?”


    Your current fire seed is Yellow Rank. Mastery of Yellow Rank fire seeds costs 100,000 credits.


    I had checked this back when I was secluded in Rudy’s workshop, and even with this journal, the price hadn’t changed. I would not be able to purchase such a skill without the credits from a death as a Martial Grandmaster.


    “How much to learn what is described in this journal?”


    The journal describes controlling a Profound-Ranked fire seed. The cost is 5,000,000 credits.


    “No, just the cost to learn the basics of what is described when applied to a Yellow Rank seed.”


    The cost is 5,000 credits.


    That was much better. It was clear I would be missing a lot, but if I had the basics, I could at least begin practicing. Then, I could learn more on my own. Still, the price was too high. Maybe I should have saved more credits earlier, but everything is useful and everything costs money, unfortunately.


    “Okay, System, what about only the basics for opening my soul to release the fire? I don’t want mastery of the skill, but I need enough expertise that I can successfully release the fire into my body without significant risk of injury.”


    The cost is 500 credits.


    Good enough, I decided. I could try to add a few more features, but it was unlikely my remaining credits would be able to make much of a difference.


    “Purchase it.”


    Confirmed. Cost 500 credits. 290 credits remaining.


    The ability I received was as limited as I expected. I would not be able to make any Rank 2 pills for a long time, but at least I had a starting point to work from.


    I tried my new skill, opening my soul and allowing a small trickle of energy to seep into my body from the seed. It felt strange, like an alien presence had invaded my body and was squirming around my chest cavity. I quickly closed my soul, and the invading energy stopped increasing, but what was already inside me did not dissipate.


    I began to feel pain. It was similar to what I experienced during my death when I first absorbed the seed, but it was still tolerable at this stage.


    I was supposed to use the qi in my body to control the spirit fire energy, so that is what I tried to do. I wrapped the foreign energy in my qi and tried to force it to move. When I did so, I faced complications I did not expect.


    The Cold Mountain Fire was mainly made up of a type of earth energy, but it also had a trace of water energy inside it. My qi was fire qi. When I tried to control the spirit fire’s energy, the water energy in it eroded my control over my fire qi. At the same time, my fire qi fed the earth energy, making it stronger.


    This was part of the basics of the five-element system. Water extinguishes fire. Fire produces earth. These interactions didn’t just make controlling the energy from the spirit fire more difficult. They made it life-threatening. As my qi fed the earth energy, the pain in my chest steadily increased. In reaction, I quickly pulled all the qi I could away from the area.


    Somehow, regular alchemists of the sect could control the Cold Mountain Fire, but I didn’t know the details, and at that moment I was in no condition to go ask. I needed to do something quickly to save myself.


    Controlling the energy through qi didn’t work, but I had another option. I had affinities in both earth and water. They were only low eight-star, but I didn’t need deft manipulation. I just needed to expel the energy.


    I mentally connected with the energy and pushed. It was not as easy to manipulate as the medicinal energy in herbs, but it still gave way. Slowly, ever so slowly, it emerged from my chest. After it did so, the energy quickly dissipated, vanishing into thin air. It had been using my qi and life energy to sustain itself while inside my body, but that was no longer possible once it was expelled.


    While this incident had been dangerous, I still had to consider it a success. Now, all I needed was practice.