Kael returned to the warehouse to find it transformed into a fortress.
Feng hadn't wasted the morning. Barricades reinforced the entrances, lookout positions occupied the roof, and armed guards patrolled in coordinated shifts. The celebration atmosphere had evaporated, replaced by military efficiency.
"You're alive," Feng said, not quite managing to hide his relief. "What happened?"
"The Deception bearer now controls the Silk Veil. They ceded the buffer zone permanently and offered intelligence exchange." Kael moved to his corner, already pulling out writing materials. "But we have a larger problem. Chain Order hunter team arrives in five days. Not observation—elimination force."
The warehouse went silent. Even the contracted fighters, who couldn't feel fear through the binding in the traditional sense, registered the threat.
"Five days," Mei Xing repeated. "That's not enough time to prepare defenses against Foundation Establishment cultivators."
"No. Which means defense is the wrong strategy." Kael began writing rapidly, his mind processing multiple calculation streams simultaneously. "I need to reach Sequence 7 before they arrive. At Sequence 7, I gain abilities that make me difficult to kill even for higher cultivators. It's my only viable survival path."
"How many contracts do you need?" Chen Wei asked.
"Thirty-nine more complex contracts. Simple service agreements won't provide sufficient weight—I need bindings with real stakes, meaningful costs, genuine consequences." Kael's hand moved across the paper, creating organizational charts.
"Which means I need to expand operations beyond the Iron Fist's immediate territory."
Feng leaned over the papers. "What are you planning?"
"Systematic expansion through contract networks. Not violent conquest—that's inefficient and attracts attention. Instead, I identify desperate populations, offer solutions to critical problems, bind them through mutually beneficial agreements."
Kael pointed to different sections of his chart. "Three target populations: the dock workers, the underground cultivators, and the outer sect disciples."
"That's insane. Those are three completely different social structures with different power dynamics, different needs—"
"Which is why I need intermediaries who understand each population." Kael looked up. "Liu Shen handles merchant contacts and dock workers—that's within his expertise. Mei Xing handles underground cultivators—her new operation needs their business anyway. I need someone for the outer sect disciples."
"That's suicide," Chen Wei said flatly. "The sect is actively hunting you. Walking back into their territory—"
"I have Elder Greaves' protection token and a week before the Chain Order arrives. The sect's internal hunters are inefficient compared to the Order." Kael pulled out the jade token. "And outer sect disciples are the most desperate population available. No cultivation resources, brutal competition, constant fear of expulsion. They're perfect contract candidates."
"You're talking about binding sect disciples. The Azure Sky Sect will execute you slowly if they discover it."
"Only if I'm caught. Which requires them to recognize contract binding, trace it back to me, and apprehend me before I reach Sequence 7." Kael's tone remained clinical. "Probability of all three occurring within five days is approximately eighteen percent. Acceptable risk."
Feng rubbed his face. "You're gambling everything on a mathematical probability."
"All strategy is gambling on probability. I'm simply calculating the odds explicitly instead of relying on intuition." Kael stood, organizing his papers. "I'm leaving immediately. Liu Shen will receive instructions for dock worker operations. Mei Xing, I need you to identify three underground cultivators who are desperate enough to accept unusual terms."
"What kind of terms?"
"Cultivation resources in exchange for violence prohibition and information sharing. I want to bind cultivators who can't or won't fight—failed students, crippled practitioners, those who've lost their nerve. They have knowledge value even without combat capability."
Mei Xing nodded slowly. "I know several. The cultivation underground is full of people who couldn't make it in legitimate sects."
"Perfect. Begin immediately." Kael turned to Chen Wei. "Your contract expires in three days. I'm releasing you early. You've fulfilled the essential terms already."
Chen Wei stared. "Just like that?"
"Just like that. You were bound for seven days of service in exchange for healing. You've provided more than adequate service. Continuing to hold you serves no purpose except demonstrating I can, which damages my reputation for fair dealing." Kael extended his hand. "The contract ends now. You're free."
The black chains around Chen Wei's chest manifested visibly for the first time since the binding, then dissolved into shadow and nothingness. Chen Wei gasped, hand going to his chest where the pressure had been.
"It's... gone. I can actually feel the difference." He looked at Kael with confusion. "Why do I feel disappointed?"
"Psychological dependency on certainty. The contract provided absolute clarity about your obligations. Freedom reintroduces ambiguity and choice, which are cognitively more demanding." Kael's marked hand pulsed as the released contract energy fed back into him. "Do you want employment? Real wages, no binding, voluntary arrangement?"
"I..." Chen Wei hesitated, visibly struggling with the choice. "Yes. I do. But why?"
"Because you're competent, understand how I operate, and have demonstrated reliability beyond contract enforcement. Those traits have independent value." Kael calculated quickly. "Fifty silver per week, plus healing if injured during work-related activities, plus information bonuses for high-value intelligence. Acceptable?"
"More than acceptable. That's three times standard gang rates."
"I pay for value, not market average. You provide significant value." Kael gestured dismissively. "Now help me prepare for sect infiltration. I need information on outer sect disciple gathering points, vulnerability patterns, and which administrators can be bribed."
Chen Wei nodded, but something in his expression had shifted. No longer the resentment of forced compliance, but something more complex—possibly respect, possibly fear of what Kael was becoming.
The Azure Sky Sect's outer district was a warren of cheap housing and competitive desperation.
Kael moved through it wearing borrowed outer sect robes, his jade token tucked visibly at his belt. The token's minor authority meant most disciples gave him space, assuming he was running errands for an inner sect senior.
His Contract Sense swept the area constantly, identifying desperation like a bloodhound tracking scent. Outer sect disciples radiated it—fear of failing advancement trials, anxiety about resource scarcity, terror of being expelled with nowhere to go.
Perfect candidates.
He found the first in a shared dormitory room. Male, early twenties, cultivation stagnated at Qi Condensation third layer. Contract Sense revealed the problem immediately—damaged meridians from a botched advancement attempt, slowly getting worse.
"You're dying," Kael said without preamble, standing in the doorway.
The disciple—name tag read "Wei Lin"—jerked upright. "Who—what are you—"
"Your meridians are degrading. You have maybe three months before complete cultivation collapse, six months before the damage kills you. The sect won't provide healing for outer disciples with self-inflicted injuries. You're going to die slowly and painfully." Kael's voice remained flat, factual. "I can fix it."
Wei Lin's face went white. "How do you know—"
"Irrelevant. What matters is whether you want to live." Kael entered the room fully, closing the door. "I'm offering a contract. I heal your meridians, restore your cultivation potential. You provide five years of information service—report on sect activities, disciple movements, internal politics. Nothing that would get you executed for treason, just observation and documentation."
"That's... that's espionage. The sect would kill me."
"Only if discovered. And I'm very good at ensuring my contracts remain undetected."
Kael pulled out a written contract outline. "Read the terms. You have five minutes to decide. After that, I find someone else and you continue dying."
Wei Lin read with shaking hands. The terms were detailed, fair, explicit about expectations and limitations. Not slavery—employment with supernatural enforcement.
"If I refuse?" Wei Lin asked.
"You die in approximately three months. I calculate an eighty-seven percent probability of agonizing final weeks as your cultivation collapses inward." Kael's tone didn't change. "If you accept, you live, your cultivation stabilizes, and you spend five years doing what amounts to advanced bookkeeping. The mathematics favor acceptance."
Wei Lin stared at the contract for a long moment. Then: "I accept."
The binding formed instantly. Black chains wrapped around Wei Lin's torso, sinking beneath his robes. He gasped as Kael placed a hand on his chest, channeling healing energy directly into the damaged meridians.
The cost was steep—Kael lost an entire year of childhood memories. Age seven to eight, completely gone. Not forgotten, but erased as if they'd never formed. He knew intellectually that year had happened, but possessed zero experiential memory of it.
"It doesn't hurt anymore," Wei Lin breathed. "My cultivation... I can feel it stabilizing. You actually did it."
"Contract fulfillment. You'll receive detailed instructions tomorrow about information gathering procedures." Kael stood, already moving toward the door. "Tell no one about this arrangement. The contract enforces secrecy, but voluntary compliance is more efficient."
He left Wei Lin sitting there, touching his chest where healthy meridians now pulsed with restored qi.
One contract. Thirty-eight remaining.
Kael moved to the next dormitory, then the next, his Contract Sense guiding him to desperation like a diviner finding water.
Second contract: Female disciple, poisoned by rival, slowly dying. Healed in exchange for three years of service.
Third contract: Male disciple, gambling debts to inner sect seniors, facing crippling as punishment. Debt cleared through Kael's resources in exchange for four years of intelligence work.
Fourth contract: Female disciple, talented but poor, about to be expelled for inability to pay fees. Fees paid in exchange for six years of service.
Each contract cost memories. Childhood fragments, mundane moments, the texture of lived experience. By the eighth contract, Kael had lost everything before age ten. He knew factually that he'd had a childhood, but possessed no experiential memory of what it felt like to be a child.
By the fifteenth contract, completed as evening fell, he'd lost everything before age fifteen.
The personality formed in those years—curiosity, hope, the capacity for wonder—had been traded away for power and survival.
"Sequence 8 progression: eighty-nine percent," the Pathway's voice whispered. "Twenty-four more contracts and you advance. You're ahead of schedule."
Kael stood in an empty courtyard as night settled over the sect, his marked hand blazing with absorbed power. Fifteen outer sect disciples now bound to him, a network of information gatherers who didn't fully understand what they'd become.
His reflection in a nearby pond showed a stranger—same face, same body, but the eyes were different. Calculating. Empty. The last traces of humanity burning away like morning fog under harsh sunlight.
Chen Wei's words echoed: "What happens when you run out of memories to trade?"
Kael had thought it was a hypothetical question.
Now he realized it was a timeline.
At current expenditure rate, he'd reach Sequence 7 with perhaps five years of experiential memory remaining. Everything before age eighteen would be gone, leaving only the cold logic and calculation that had formed in his final years.
He tried to care about this loss. Tried to mourn the child he'd been, the person who'd loved his sister, who'd felt something other than cost-benefit analysis.
Found nothing. That person was already gone, traded away piece by piece for the power to survive.
The mathematics still worked.
The cost was mounting exponentially.
But survival required payment.
And Kael Yuan had already proven he'd pay any price.
Twenty-four contracts remaining.
Four days until the hunters arrived.
The acceleration continued.