Seth opened the slim tome and studied its contents. The opening paragraph... was a tone-setter.

  

As all things gather, so too must all things rot. The Dao of gathering is well-traveled. Mortals scamper around, gathering until their hearts and bodies burst. Decay, however, is a path most fear. Yet the darkness at the end of the path is not the final darkness to which all must eventually succumb, but is rather a transitory state from stratified to simple. From this simplicity, all Dao surges forth to stratify and simplify in a ceaseless cycle...

  Unfortunately, that was the clearest part. The main thing Seth took away from it was not to view the decay here as simple rot, but as a process returning all things to their base so that they can be born anew. That message resonated with Seth, and he smiled.

  After the introductory reading were pages of instructions on how to construct the furnace. He understood how to execute all the steps, though why they all worked went over his head. He practiced it a few times, getting comfortable with the process of setting it up just below his dantian. As he wasn't pushing qi into it just yet, he released the technique and kept going.

  It was the next section that showed why the elder suggested this technique. The main difficulty of the technique is that the user has to split their dantian into two sections. One with lesser refined qi, and one with more refined qi. With his tumors, however, he didn't need to do that.

  Excitement bubbled up in his chest as he fired up the technique in earnest.

  [Food?]

  "Yes, Mal. Just need to cook it a bit."

  [Cooking?]

  "Making the food even more delicious"

  [Really? YAY!]

  In its joy, Mal squeezed his insides, sending a wave of pain racing through his body. His vision in one eye blurred and swam, and he fought to keep focus. Maybe it's healthier to keep this thing less happy.

  [Cook! Cook!]

  "I need you to stop squeezing. It's making it hard to cook."

  The squeezing stopped. Seth took a deep breath and centered himself. He dove into his mindspace and found the unrefined qi in his dantian. First, he'd need to refine this. Constructing his furnace, he sent this unrefined qi into the furnace.

  Inside the furnace, he saw it decay into nothing. Worry gnawed at his stomach. He expected some sort of remains, not an empty furnace. Still, he didn't dare to stop. Destabilizing the furnace at this stage could cripple his cultivation, if not outright kill him. After taking a deep breath to rein in his emotions, he checked for errors in the technique. He found none.

  Two hours later, out of the void of decayed qi, a bright mote of qi sprung to life and entered his dantian. The tension in his stomach drained at the confirmation that the technique was working. Granted, it was a lot slower than he thought it would be. Once he had it running and stable, however, he could cultivate even in his sleep. The tumors would handle drawing qi in, and he would refine it over and over. A virtuous circle.

  [Hungry!]

  Fucking glutton. Still, it had behaved for the most part, so Seth sent a mote of purified qi to Mal. It inhaled the qi and... savored it? It made little gurgling noises in his head that Seth chose to interpret as happy.

  [Yay! More?]

  "In a bit. The others need to eat too."

  [Mine.]

  "But if they starve, who will you be the boss of?"

  Mal sank into silence at that question, leaving Seth to cultivate in peace. Hours passed, and the next morning arrived with him having cultivated through the night.

  In the morning, he felt a probing wave of qi wash over him. Then, he received a message from elder Frerren.

  "Focus on your cultivation for the next few days. Report back once you become accustomed to it."

  He's going to make me earn this later, isn't he? With a mental shrug, Seth dove back into cultivation. Once he was through this initial batch of qi that didn't match what was in his dantian, he could direct the qi from his tumors directly into the technique and reap the rewards that way. At first, he thought that needing to help the cancer cultivate was a downside. The more he thought about it, however, it seemed the only way he could keep the peace within his own body.

  The rest of the day passed in cultivation. Then two and three. It took four more days for him to refine the unrefined qi in his dantian. He had sent motes toward the tumors, and each time they made tiny gurgling noises.

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  After that, Seth hooked the qi the tumors output to the furnace. After double-checking that everything was flowing correctly, he flopped into bed and was asleep before his head hit the pillow.

  The next morning, he woke up and checked his cultivation. His furnace was operating as expected, and his dantian was filling up with the compressed qi. To prevent the little thieves from complaining, he sent bits of qi to each of them. Not too much; he needed to prioritize his own development. Time waited for nobody, and the next culling was just around the corner.

  As he walked to the job hall, a group of three cut off his path. He recognized these three as Johan's, having fought against a couple of them in a prior fight. Back then, they had been intimidating. He activated his qi sight and saw nothing he needed to worry about. The most troublesome one had just filled its body with qi.

  He was content to just walk past the three, but the leader swung a fist toward him. So slow.

  Seth dodged to the side, and his fist slammed into the man's chest. Bones crunched like popsicle sticks, and the man's eyes went wide in shock. Seth put a hand on the man's shoulder; the wound would be fatal if he didn't act soon. He poured qi to heal the man and reconstructed his damaged lung. Once he took care of the fatal injuries, he stopped healing.

  He looked over his shoulder and noticed the two outer disciples ready to stop the fight the moment it turned deadly. Seth looked at them. He had gotten stronger, but they were still far beyond him. Not that he intended on breaking any rules. Still, leaving this be just wouldn't do. It wouldn't do at all.

  The initiate on his knees in front of him was babbling on about something. The sound of blood rushing past his ears drowned out the noise, and a sickly heat burned in his chest. Seth stomped down, shattering the man's knee. Then, he kneeled down and started to heal it. As he healed it, though, he twisted the healing so that it would come together just a bit wrong when it finished healing. Seth flashed the man a grin before he stood up.

  Nausea gripped him as he stood up and walked away. Nobody moved to stop him. He was vaguely aware of yelling in the distance, but he pushed all those out of his head. The sound of his own heartbeat helped drown them out.

  He blinked, and he saw his family staring at him. They weren't smiling. Instead, they looked on with horror.

  Sound returned to the world, and he heard the man's cries for help. His friends were carrying him away. The outer disciples were still standing there, as if unsure of what they should do. After a few moments, one of them walked over to him.

  "Initiate, you are aware you almost killed that other initiate, yes?"

  "Senior brother, I'm not sure I follow. Sure, he would have died of his injuries had they been left untreated. However, the life-threatening injuries were treated, and his life is in no danger now." At least, not immediately.

  "Be careful, initiate. There are brothers who would take your answer as disrespect."

  "I apologize, senior brother," Seth said with a deep bow.

  The outer disciple sighed and walked away. Seth continued his trip and could sign up for more training at the job hall with no further incidents.

  After an early light breakfast, Seth was in Elder Frerren's office. The elder had a sour look on his face. Elise was already off doing something, but Toman was still there.

  "Seth, I heard something about you almost killing an initiate," elder Frerren said. "Is there any truth to this claim?"

  "Elder, there is truth to the statement that I inflicted wounds that would have been fatal without intervention. As for having almost killed him..."

  The elder snorted and waved his hand. Seth relaxed; it seemed the elder had heard enough.

  "Just be careful. I have enough to do already."

  "Of course, elder. Also, thank you for suggesting the cultivation technique. It truly suits me."

  "Thank me by working hard. I have nothing else for you. Toman, take Seth and show him how to maintain the resource preservation arrays."

  Toman's face twitched up as if he were trying to repress a smile and bowed to the elder. Both of them left the office.

  Once they left the office, Toman started chuckling to himself. Then, he looked at Seth and started laughing.

  "What's so funny, senior brother?"

  "Please, just Toman or brother Toman, Seth."

  "I thought—"

  "After your recent exploits, it would be surprising if you didn't end up an outer disciple, if not directly made into an inner one once the initiation concludes. Better to start sucking up now."

  "Anyway, what's so funny?"

  "Just reminded me of when I got assigned resource preservation array duty. Think of it as part punishment and part education. Here we are."

  "But this is just a random street..."

  Toman laughed as he explained that resource preservation arrays meant the arrays that detected whether initiates were about to kill one another. Seth couldn't bring himself to laugh at the joke, but took in the nuances. It took hours to learn about these arrays, and the check process took about thirty minutes total. There were so many factors that the arrays accounted for. Apparently, you could set these things off by attacking with a clear intent and plan to kill, even if you had no actual ability to pull it off. In Seth's case, he had set it off with overwhelming damage.

  Still, it was educational to see the exact limits that would draw attention. Or, more accurately, the fuzzy and imprecise limits, as karmic magic was involved. Everything with karma was maddeningly fuzzy to Seth.

  He found Therus after he wrapped up the day and went to the cafeteria. They got food and sat down to catch up.

  "So, you have any trouble?" Seth asked.

  "Not after I roughed a couple of people up. It's amazing how much I gained from the inheritance, and I didn't even get the inheritance."

  "Would the inheritance even have been useful to you?"

  "Probably not, but you never know. Anyway, I heard you almost killed another initiate today."

  "It wasn't even close to killing him. Had plenty of time to heal him before he died."

  Therus laughed, which made Seth feel conflicted. Is that something that we should be laughing about? Or horrified at?

  "Anyway, you get any good jobs from the job hall?"

  "Absolutely. After what you did to that guy, initiates are getting nervous about pissing you off."

  "Because I almost killed someone then healed him?"

  "No, because you gave the guy an injury that apparently can't be healed."

  "What?"

  "You broke the guy's leg, right?"

  "Yes..." Seth didn't like where this was heading.

  "And you also partly healed that, right?"

  "Yes..."

  "Well, they tried to give him a healing potion, and the thing healed wrong. Even the normal healers couldn't do anything for the guy. Johan apparently had to blow thousands of contribution points for the head healer to undo whatever you did and heal the guy."

  Seth's heart dropped.

  What the fuck did I do?