Seth stumbled out of the library after almost twenty-four hours of researching, an arm full of books in tow. He squatted down in front of a prepared ritual circle in the main area, lit a couple of candles, and grabbed a hunk of red wax. After heating it until it was pliable, he worked it into a flat disc and carved a sigil on it with a needle. After double checking the sigil against the open tome of basic containment rituals, he put it to the side and worked on the next. During the creation of the next one, his vision blurred at the wrong moment, and his etching carved too deeply into the wax. He could only sigh, re-melt the wax, and start over.

  He was done with the sigil preparation work ten minutes later. After double checking everything, he activated the ritual, and it hummed to life. There was no visible effect, but he stretched his hand forward, and his hand pressed against the wall surrounding the two-foot radius hexagon. He tapped one of the seals, and the wall of force deactivated. After reactivating it, he escalated through a series of strikes of increasing power. It broke after he hit a third of his punching power. Can't hold anything too large, but one rabbit around here should be doable.

  With a smile on his face, he moved on to his second experiment of the day. While reading, he came across a ritual that created a wall of flame that sparked his interest. To be precise, the way the ritual kept the flames alive was by using wind mana to stoke the flames. In that construct, he found some ritual parts that seemed to be repeaters. If he could get these repeaters to work with his needles...

  With excitement buzzing through his body, he sketched out the first experimental ritual. He sent a pulse of qi through the ritual and smiled. It wouldn't blow up the moment he activated it. After double checking, he sent a steady stream of qi through it and then performed his needle technique. As the needles passed through the ritual, they rippled, but left the other side unchanged. That's odd. Where is the excess... A tingling on the back of his neck made his hair stand on end, and he threw himself back, activating his shield. The ritual detonated, the ring of fire smashing into his shield, draining half of his qi in one go.

  It took him a minute to calm down enough to pull out something to write with and scribble down some notes.

  A week later, Seth was standing in front of a new test ritual. It may have been a crude solution, similar to sticking capacitors on a circuit until it behaved, but he believed it would work. After taking a deep breath, he activated the ritual, and it hummed to life. Then he performed his needle technique. The needles rippled before another set materialized behind the first. Then another. He activated his qi sight. So far, so good.

  As soon as he thought that, he saw the issue. The repeating was still causing qi to build up in the ritual, threatening to explosively release. He terminated the ritual before it exploded, and another wave of needles left before it faded from existence.

  He smiled. The ritual had fired eight waves of needles, an improvement on the previous day's five.

  Seth walked over to the enclosure where he had trapped eight six-legged rabbits. Six of them had his variant of the healing, while two had Mal's. He could feel the six as if they were a distant part of him, but he couldn't actually do anything with them yet. Compared to Mal's effects, his seemed underwhelming.

  Only because I don't understand them yet.

  While on a hunt, Seth came across a pack of six wolves. They'll do. Seth reached into his mindspace and activated a ritual that he had spent the last month developing. The ritual flared to life in front of him, a ten-foot diameter circle of blue and green qi. Without missing a beat, he activated eighteen needle incapacitation with ice qi and fired them into the ritual.

  Those needles became a shower of glacier blue lights streaking toward the wolves. Dozens of needles rushed into the first wolf, freezing it solid before it could react. The remaining five wolves howled and charged at Seth. With a wave of his hand, he moved the spell to target another wolf, which was overwhelmed as quickly as the first had been.

  He froze two more, but the last two were too close. Letting the spell drop, he activated iron arms with ice blades, making short work of the last two wolves. He smiled through the wave of exhaustion rippling through him, his qi reserves mostly depleted. Given that it started as a useless technique, he would call that a success.

  He walked over to the nearest frozen wolf. On a cursory glance, it looked like someone had paused the wolf mid-charge. The only sign that something was wrong was the layer of ice crystalizing on the skin, and the wolf being freezing cold to the touch. He examined the wolf with his healing qi. The internal organs were mostly undamaged. Except for the blood, which had frozen, expanded, and burst inside the wolves' arteries and veins.

  With a sigh, he abandoned the wolf, hopped on his flying sword, and returned to the trial grounds. If I cut the number of needles in half, would that result in less destructive freezing? Or is trapping living creatures via flash-freezing not realistic, even in a cultivation world?

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  After he landed and entered the building, he turned toward the half of the main area filled with forty-eight six-legged rabbits contained in the rituals he learned his first day back. He reached out for the rabbits he had healed, and sure enough, he could feel all thirty-three of them. He couldn't feel the others. Mal had healed those.

  "Mal, are you sure you don't feel anything from these?"

  [If yes, will you give food?]

  "Only if it's true," Seth said, a smile playing across his lips.

  [Then no. Food?]

  Seth laughed and gave Mal seven tiny pieces of qi to distribute. He wasn't sure whether he should be proud of the creature or terrified of it. He had found no evidence that the tumors were making further progress in his body. Then again, Seth was sure there was something Mal wasn't telling him about why things had been so quiet lately.

  Over the past month, he had been studying this new variety of healing that both he and Mal did. As similar as the process was, the results were as different as night and day. When Mal healed, the mass grew, absorbing nearby qi and nutrients from the body, and could cultivate. It had also killed fourteen of the rabbits.

  Seth's "wrong" healing, by contrast, left no visible trace. Even to his qi sight, nothing looked out of the ordinary. When healing, he could only spot the problem because he knew what to look for. As for effects, these spots did not cultivate or grow. After a month of experimentation, Seth could only find two noteworthy properties. First, he knew in what general direction anything bearing this healing was, as long as it was within a couple of miles. Second, if he was within twenty feet, he could disrupt the internal qi around the healing site.

  Unfortunately, his healing was also far easier to undo than Mal's. While Mal's grew from healing energy, Seth's would eventually succumb and return to normal with enough healing energy. Granted, it wasn't easy, but a dedicated healer could reverse it with some time.

  Pushing that chain of thoughts out of his head, he examined each of the rabbits and wrote his observations. Once he finished with that, he summoned one qi needle. It was thin as a hair and as long as his hand was wide. Then, he tried a combination of formation parts that should allow him to bind qi together. Or so he believed. Following that, he carefully imparted the needle with ice qi, and tried to give a bit of healing qi.

  Now that he knew what to look for, he realized he wasn't directly generating these types of qi. Rather, he had internalized parts of techniques that allowed him to generate this qi rapidly. As for generating it, that was one benefit of foundation establishment. It was risky, but being able to directly draw large amounts of attuned qi sounded like a dream come true for Seth.

  The needle wavered, then stabilized. Seth let out a breath he didn't know he was holding. The needle wavered again and shattered into a shower of qi.

  He still had work to do.

  Johan sat across from Xiaobo, sipping wine as he studied the man. Before the expedition, Xiaobo had been relatively strong, if unremarkable. After the expedition, he had become a force to be reckoned with, if not on the level of Therus, Aaron, or Seth. Especially Seth.

  "May I ask why you invited me to dinner?" Xiaobo asked, putting his cup down. "I know I'm a likeable fella, but..."

  Johan let the silence hang between them for a moment. It wouldn't do to appear too eager to justify himself, after all.

  "You are correct that the invitation has a purpose, as enjoyable as our dinner has been. What do you think of Seth?"

  Xiaobo's smile didn't falter as he took a sip of his wine.

  "He's a likeable enough guy, if terrifying at times. I am grateful that he found a way to get the inheritance without killing all of us."

  "You are aware that if he went through with it, he would have been executed upon his return to the sect, right?"

  "Wouldn't have made me any less dead," Xiaobo said, shrugging his shoulders. Before Johan could speak, an initiate came in with dessert: white pastries with a pink and red jelly spread on top.

  "Thank you, Loren," Johan said to the initiate. Loren gave a small bow before exiting the room. Xiaobo picked up a pastry and started eating.

  "By the way, have you heard of Seth's maiming of brother Anton?" said Johan, trying another approach.

  "Only rumors."

  "And what do these rumors say?"

  "Mostly that Seth did the healing wrong, somehow. Some of the crazier versions say that he implanted a living creature that eats a cultivator from the inside out."

  "What if I said the crazier version is pretty close to the truth?"

  "I really wouldn't care. I hate to sound unhappy about being here," said Xiaobo after a moment, "but what did you invite me here for?"

  "I need strong allies," said Johan, trying to keep the anxiety out of his voice. "And you are strong."

  "No, you need allies you can control," said Xiaobo, a lopsided grin on his face. "What are you offering?"

  "Enough resources to break through to core formation."

  "Add an opportunity in one of the fringe lands your family owns, and you have a deal."

  Johan's brow creased as he frowned. It may have been a lucky guess, but Xiaobo had pushed right up to the limit of what he was willing to offer. He drummed his fingers on the table as he considered his response.

  "Access to the fringe lands are not mine to grant. Instead, I grant you my friendship."

  "You have yourself a deal, young lord."

  "One thing," said Johan. "It would help me if we could act as if we hadn't come to some arrangement."

  Xiaobo frowned slightly before smiling and nodding. Johan kept his own smile off his face. Ever since Seth had returned more powerful than ever, he knew he had made a mistake in making an enemy of the man. Still, he had thought that he could quietly deal with him after the initiation.

  Rumors of Seth's newfound ability forced him to accelerate his plans. If Seth survived the initiation, the sect would ensure Seth's safety. Even worse, if Seth could do half of what the sect was hoping, it would forever weaken the Thrisbane's relationship with the sect.

  No, he would not allow such a threat to the family to continue to exist. Could not.

  After a little more drinking, Xiaobo left. Johan left as well, going to the main office in his building. Aaron was sitting at a desk, reading a slim tome.

  "Aaron, help set up a meeting with Andirs."

  "Andirs, sir?"

  "Yes. It's time to see if we can put aside old enmities for the sake of our families."