Mage And Wolf
Chapter 86

We explain about the incident with the Divine Fist Sect guys, just in case we’re recognized later. If they show, they won’t be happy.

"What I can’t believe is that she spent 2 days with those snobbish nobilites and didn’t kill anyone" One of the other disciples laughs.

"Excellent disguise though, you even followed through and won the cooking competition" another laughs.

"What does that say about our luck though? Elder Po is secretly getting the best food in the country and we’re eating at the mess hall."

"Impress Elder Po with your martial arts and he might invite you for dinner" I tease and the disciples cheer.

"That’s right, do better than The Young Miss and you’ll get to have her serve you dinner with me in my pagoda" Elder Po ups the ante.

"Game faces on everyone. Alchemy competition starts in an hour, listen for your group number." Elder Ming calls and I look at the draw sheet. My registrant number is in the first group of the morning, day 1. Alchemy runs through the first 3 days, all in the mornings, then day 4 is a final round where the top 10 draw a random prescription to make for an extra prize.

Fighting is in the afternoons, so the crowd, which often drinks itself insensible, has time to recover and watch all the bouts.

I hear the 30 minute warning for group 1 to get ready, so I put on my Priestess Robes, hood up and head out to the grounds. The competition is held in the fighting arena, but the floors are covered in wood to keep the dust down with cushions on a 3 meter grid.

Each contestants cauldron is checked and we’re all seated ready to start. The judge looks afraid of me, no, not me myself, but of my cauldron. He must have encountered one like it before.

They announce the beginning and I remove the ingredients for the aphrodisiac and start cleaning them. They’re flashy, and pleasant smelling and I’m making a bit of a production of it to hopefully distract my competitors.

Soon my cauldron is warm and it’s time to start. The recipe calls to throw the first 14 ingredients in all at the same time, so I do, with a big overhand flourish, causing laughter in the crowd. they merge quickly under my energy after all this practice and I start adding the other ingredients.

I don’t want to create a cursed pill, but I do want to refine it with Death Energy, so this takes some serious concentration.

As always, it’s a quick pill to make, even being dramatic and starting it out with a slow refining. The smell coming from the cauldron is making contestants 3 spots away squirm uncomfortably in their cushions and I’m having way too much fun, but I can feel the peak coming, where the pill reaches maximum purity before burning up, so I stop the flame and quickly condense the pills.

I pop the lid and a judge scurries over. For fairness sake, they remove the pills from the cauldron, ensuring no cheating occurs. They’re a fleshy colored marble with purple pill veins so bright they’re almost glowing. There’s only 3 pills instead of the usual 6, but they seem slightly bigger and more dense.

The examiner is so shocked he actually drops one, catching it before it hits the ground.

"This, this is the forbidden holy aphrodisiac!" he stage whispers looking at the contestant number by my seat "How did you learn this?"

"That, my dear friend, is a secret. Now if you’d kindly pick the finest product to judge and return the rest as per the rules, I’ll be on my way"

With shaky hands he picks one that is ever so slightly brighter veined than the others and hands back the rest.

"You’ll want to hide quickly if you expect to live and keep those pills" he warns me. "They’re a forbidden recipe, and a great many people want them."

"That’s not a problem". I say behind my hood, the effect making my voice sound seductive and evil. "I’m here with the Shadowed Blade Sect."

"I should have known" He mutters, turning away to have the panel judge the pill.

His arrival causes a muted uproar, the trial grounds being separated from the outside noise by a barrier, so the contestants aren’t interrupted. More and more Elders are pouring over from the assembled sects to see the pill.

A few others finish, sending their products to be graded until effectually time is called, the last successes are in, and the first group scores are up.

Group 1 1st place Young Miss

Grade 5 pill, 98.3 percent purity.

Grade 5? All that wasted time refining really paid off. Now I really want to light these things on fire and see what happens. Elder Song is motioning something to me though. I think it’s no, then antidote, then broken or doesn’t work.

I think he means the antidote won’t work on the grade 5 quality and I’d cause an unstoppable incident over the entire city. That could be messy. In more ways than one.

The announcement causes chaos. An outer disciple creating such a pill is unheard of. Grade 5 is well beyond their means, and pure enough for pill veins is a once in a lifetime prodigy at this level of cultivation. If I didn’t have a millenia of a true prodigy’s experiences in my head anyhow.

The attention is currently all on the pill, so I activate Shadow Meld, it’s a terrible version of invisibility and rarely fools anyone experienced, but in this crowd, it’ll do. Everyone is pushing and shoving anyhow, they won’t notice that I’ve gone.

Once I’m free of the crowd I release my robes, returning myself to my usual combat outfit under the shadow of a vendor’s stall, then deactivate Shadow Meld and step into the street like I’d been there all along.

It’s not long before I realize I’m being followed by a woman in transparent robes. Could the hardcore dual cultivators be any more obvious? I nod to acknowledge I’ve noticed her and lead her back to the hotel where the Elders are waiting.

She follows me in, not at all concerned about the Elders, and feeling more secure I turn to take a good look at her. This woman is beautiful. she’s so perfectly proportioned it looks like someone photo shopped her in real life. She also looks to be in her early 20s, but the energy she gives off suggests she’s looked that way a long, long while.

"Sect Master Becky, welcome. I’d ask what brings you to our humble abode, but I already know" Sect Master Sun greets her.

"So you’ll give it to me?" She asks.

"I’ll give it to you anytime, anywhere Becky." He jokes with the seductive woman.

"I want the second pill that came from the cauldron" she clarifies.

"Not here. I won’t risk an incident." Sect Master Sun says "but for the right price I’ll send it to your Sect"

She pulls a small black statue from her storage "I’ll trade you this".

I can feel the energy pouring out of that thing. It’s got a feeling of wisdom and eternity. But what is it?