A Bet
The courtyards of the Pill Academy were thick with drifting mist, rolling like pale clouds across the stone pathways. Alchemy towers rose on every side, their chimneys puffing plumes of colored smoke that painted the morning sky in streaks of violet, green, and deep crimson.
The air was a battlefield of scents — scorched herbs, burnt roots, bitter spirit blossoms — a chaotic mixture only alchemists would call "fragrant."
Lin Xian stepped through the academy gates, silver-white hair dancing with the wind as though it had a life of its own. Even with his eyes half-closed, he followed the faint trail of burnt essence clinging to the air.
"Someone's massacring perfectly good herbs again," he muttered.
Xiao Jin stretched on his shoulder—one tiny golden paw pushing against Lin Xian's cheek—before giving a lazy flick of its tail. The golden kitten couldn't speak, but the expression on its face screamed: Amateurs.
BOOM!!
A fiery shockwave blasted through the courtyard. Heat blasted outward, rolling over Lin Xian like an angry beast, carrying with it the thick stench of charred spirit roots and failure.
Lin Xian stopped before a stone pavilion where chaos unfolded.
Apprentices—robes singed and hair sticking in random directions—were scrambling like panicked chickens. At the center of the disaster, a cauldron belched black smoke into the sky.
Hovering over it was an old man with a golden-trimmed robe and a beard so long it nearly touched his belt.
Grandmaster Xu Tian.
The guest alchemy master whose rank made even the Academy Head tread carefully.
Lin Xian leaned casually against a pillar, eyes narrowing as he watched the flames beneath the cauldron sputter and twitch like a dying candle.
"Third step is off," he said quietly. "You're forcing too much qi into the binding phase. Three breaths before it burns."
Xu Tian's head snapped around. "And who are you, boy? Daring to lecture me on pillcraft?"
"Two breaths now," Lin Xian added calmly.
Xu Tian's beard trembled with fury. "Ridiculous—"
BOOOOM!!
The cauldron erupted. A column of thick black smoke burst out, splattering soot over the entire pavilion. A few apprentices dropped to their knees coughing.
Lin Xian casually brushed ash off his sleeve. "Told you."
A wave of horrified whispers swept through the apprentices.
"Did…did he just talk back to Grandmaster Xu?"
"Is he tired of living?!"
"No one has ever survived insulting Xu Tian's technique!"
But Xu Tian didn't strike. He stared at the destroyed cauldron, pride visibly warring with denial.
"You said the third step was wrong?" Xu Tian gritted his teeth. "Explain."
"Over-stoked the spiritual breath," Lin Xian said lazily. "That formula requires a gentle heat. Not brute force. Also—one of your herbs is contaminated."
"Hah!? Poisoned herbs? Impossible! I purified them myself!"
"By your standards," Lin Xian said with a faint smile. "Not mine."
The apprentices' eyes widened.
"He insulted him again! WITH A SMILE!"
"He's dead. He's absolutely dead."
Xu Tian's face darkened. "If you're so confident, prove it. The Academy furnaces are open for all. Fail, and you kneel in this courtyard until sunset."
Lin Xian held his gaze with quiet amusement. "And if I succeed?"
Xu Tian huffed. "You take my quarterly stipend—five hundred spirit stones. Fail, and I'll personally teach you manners."
"Deal."
The entire courtyard sucked in a breath.
Five hundred spirit stones was enough to buy a low-grade spirit weapon—maybe even a top-grade if bargained well.
Lin Xian's lips curved. "I'll even use the cauldron you just blew up. Wouldn't want the grandmaster claiming I cheated."
Xu Tian's eye twitched.
"And what pill," he said coldly, "do you intend to refine?"
Lin Xian ran a finger across the cracked cauldron rim. Poisonous residue pulsed faintly beneath its surface.
"A fitting challenge," he murmured. "The Thousand-Venom Purge Pill."
The courtyard froze.
Even the wind held its breath.
"That pill?!" an apprentice gasped. "But…it hasn't been refined successfully in decades!"
"It cures nearly every poison instantly—and grants two hours of toxin immunity."
"Even Grandmaster Xu failed it last year…"
Xu Tian's expression stiffened.
"You'll blow yourself to pieces!" he snapped.
"Then step back," Lin Xian said dryly. "I'd hate for your beard to catch fire."
Xiao Jin let out a disdainful mrrp, tail flicking sharply—mocking Xu Tian with adorable precision.
Several apprentices snorted before quickly covering their mouths.
Xu Tian's face turned crimson. "Fine! Tomorrow morning—this courtyard. I'll prepare the ingredients. Let's see if your tongue is sharper than your skill!"
Lin Xian turned away, hands tucked into his sleeves. "Make sure you bring enough silver-mist moss," he added. "And a jade box. Ordinary ones can't withstand that pill's purity."
He left behind a courtyard thick with stunned silence—and one fuming grandmaster vibrating with rage.
As Lin Xian walked out between the rows of stone towers, the whispers followed like ripples in his wake:
"Five hundred spirit stones…is he insane?"
"Or a hidden genius?"
"I'm coming tomorrow no matter what. If he can really refine that pill… he's a monster."
Xiao Jin hopped onto Lin Xian's shoulder again, golden fur shimmering in the sunlight.
"Five hundred spirit stones," Lin Xian murmured with a faint grin. "Enough to buy a decent sword. Or two."
The kitten purred in agreement.
High above, thunder rolled faintly behind the clouds—soft, distant, amused.
As if the heavens themselves were watching a reborn Heavenly King of Nirvana… play at being an alchemist once more.
After Lin Xian's figure disappeared past the misty archway, the courtyard slowly returned to motion. Apprentices whispered, sweeping soot off the ground, shooting terrified glances at the grandmaster standing before the ruined cauldron.
Xu Tian did not move.
His beard trembled slightly, not with anger—but with something far more complicated.
Doubt.
He stared at the cracked bronze cauldron, fingertips brushing the rim where Lin Xian had touched. A faint residue of poison lingered—something subtle and insidious he should have detected.
I missed that? Impossible…
Xu Tian had refined pills for sixty years. His senses were sharp, his experience unmatched. He had earned his title through decades of failures, breakthroughs, and persistence.
And yet that boy—barely past his youth—identified the problem with a single glance.
Not only that.
He had mocked him.
No. Mocking he could handle.
But the audacity to challenge the Thousand-Venom Purge Pill with nothing but a cracked cauldron…
Xu Tian felt his jaw tighten.
Is he arrogant? Or… truly capable?
A memory flickered—Lin Xian's eyes. Calm, bored, utterly unafraid. Not the eyes of a reckless child. Not the eyes of a junior bowing to a grandmaster.
Those were the eyes of someone used to looking down at everything.
Xu Tian had seen such eyes before.
Back when he was young and had visited the Imperial Alchemy Pavilion, he saw those same eyes in only one kind of person—
Monsters in human skin.
Xu Tian exhaled.
"This brat…" he muttered. "Where did he crawl out from?"