Night had begun to spread its cloak over Clouded Jade City. The wooden buildings with their curved roofs reflected the faint glow of lanterns, while a soft silence settled over the tangled alleys that split through the city's heart.
In a small room inside the Rin family home, Asher and Eil sat at a simple wooden table, staring at a half-filled bottle of dark grey pills.
Bone-Dissolving Pills.
The name alone was enough to send a shiver down the spine of any ordinary person.
But for Asher…
It was a training opportunity.
And for Eil…
It was a financial catastrophe.
Asher suddenly said as he stared at the bottle:
"I'll start taking the pills after dinner."
Eil snapped his head up in shock, his hair standing on end as if electrocuted.
"Now?! But didn't you say we'd start in three days?!"
Asher replied in a very calm tone—the calm of someone who feared nothing… or simply didn't think things through:
"I said one pill every three days. And this bottle has five."
Blink… blink…
"And…?" Eil asked, eyes wide in horror.
"It means the sooner we start, the sooner we finish."
"That… that's not logic! That's disaster! That's— What if we die? Or explode? Or melt? Or—!"
Asher raised his hand, interrupting him:
"We won't die. We might writhe a little… but we won't die."
---
After a full hour of argument, Asher sat on the floor before a low table.
In front of him were a cup of water, the bottle of pills, and Eil's face screaming silently.
Asher sighed:
"Alright, let's begin."
"Nooo…!" Eil's voice echoed inside their shared mind, and he could almost feel his own soul pulling out its hair.
Asher calmly reached out, opened the bottle, and dropped one pill into the cup of water.
Bubbles slowly rose as the water faintly changed color, as if turning into liquid poison.
Asher said as if explaining a normal scientific experiment:
"First… we need to dilute the pill a bit so we don't die."
A scream detonated inside his head.
"Wait—what?! We can dilute it?!"
Asher replied with nerve-killing calm:
"Honestly? …I don't know. I'm just trying things."
Eil screamed with all the force of their shared skull:
"WHAT?! You don't know?! Then why waste my pills?! No—my precious pills!!"
Illusory tears glittered in Eil's mind while the pill kept dissolving…
just like the Rin family's savings.
Asher stirred the cup with a wooden spoon.
"Time for the trial."
"Trial?! Trial?! Try it on someone else! Try it on a rat! A rock! Uncle Han! Not us!"
Naturally…
Asher ignored him completely.
He lifted the cup and drank a third of it in one gulp.
Then swallowed a healing pill right after.
Silence.
Heavy silence.
A sinister kind of silence.
The kind that made Eil sweat in pure terror.
Then Eil asked, trembling:
"D-Did it… work?"
Before Asher could answer—
"It failed, didn't it?! My money! No—my beloved money!!"
He clutched his imaginary heart as if stabbed.
Asher raised an eyebrow:
"Calm down. It's just one pill. And it's good that it didn't—"
He froze.
The world shrank.
His body temperature skyrocketed.
Sweat poured down his skin.
Then the pain hit.
Pain like someone had poured fire between his bones.
As if a hot iron rod were being hammered into his marrow.
As if someone decided to dismantle his skeleton… with a hammer.
His hands shook.
He clenched his teeth hard enough that a grinding sound echoed in the room.
Hss… hss…
His breathing turned sharp and ragged, as if even air burned his lungs.
Inside his head, Eil screamed:
"ASHER!! Are you okay?! Are we dying?! Why do you look like that?! Stop! Breathe! Don't explode! Brea—"
But Asher didn't hear him.
Or rather… he was clinging to the last thread of his consciousness.
He sat up quickly and folded his legs into meditation position.
His face showed he was fighting the urge to scream with everything he had.
His teeth ground harder—
The hissing of his breath grew louder—
The pain flooded him again and again, each wave sharper than the last.
His bones felt like they were literally melting…
then being forced back together by the healing pill.
A cycle.
A brutal reconstruction.
He gasped violently:
"Haah… haah… haah…"
His body twitched, forehead pressing to the floor for a moment in a reaction he couldn't control.
And in his head:
"ASHER!! Say something!! Even if it's your last will!!"
Asher answered between ragged breaths:
"S… shut… up…"
---
A minute passed… two… ten…
Then the pain slowly subsided.
Air returned to his chest little by little.
Asher lifted his head, pale, drenched in sweat.
In a rough whisper, he said:
"Okay… this… worked."
"Worked?! You almost died! You almost exploded like an eggplant! How is that success?!"
"Yes… because I didn't die."
"These are terrible standards for success!!"
---
After another five minutes of resting, Asher stood—barely.
He looked at the cup, still containing two-thirds of the dissolved pill.
"We… need to finish it."
Eil screamed:
"NOOO! Don't finish it! Let it live! It's the only money we have left!"
But Asher lifted the cup and drank the second third.
Then sat down quickly in meditation.
The pain came again.
Grinding teeth…
sharp panting…
muscles spasming…
bones turning into burning clay before being reforged.
His body twisted slightly, but he didn't scream.
Even though his face contorted, he maintained his strange composure.
Asher muttered through broken breaths:
"Good… the progress… is fast…"
"Fast?! This is a nervous breakdown, not progress!!"
Minutes crawled by before the agony faded again.
---
Asher breathed deeply, recovering.
He closed his eyes for a moment, then said:
"The last part."
"L-Last?! Just throw it away! Bury it! Make poison out of it! Anything but drinking it!!"
Asher ignored him—again.
He lifted the cup and drank the rest.
This part hit harder than before.
Maybe because the concentration was stronger.
Or maybe his body was simply tired of being tortured.
His whole body shrank inward for a moment.
Hss… hss…
His breath blasted out like compressed air.
His teeth slammed together so hard he felt his skull tremble.
This pain was deeper…
reaching his spine…
crawling down his limbs…
As if his entire body was being reconstructed from the ground up.
And despite everything…
He kept meditating.
Guiding the raging energy through his channels.
Imagining how every part of his body was being reforged.
Inside his mind, Eil was living a nightmare:
"ASHER!! ASHER!! Answer me!! Don't die! We haven't finished my novel! ASHER!! ASHEEER!!"
But Asher was drowning in the struggle between life and death.
After nearly twenty minutes…
the pain finally eased.
Asher opened his eyes slowly.
His body felt heavier… but stronger.
As if his bones had become sturdier.
As if something inside him truly changed.
He whispered:
"This… is excellent."
Eil shouted:
"Excellent?! EXCELLENT?! I watched our life flash before my eyes! I saw bones melt! I saw my future! I saw my end! This is not excellent!!"
Asher gave a faint smile.
"At least… the pill wasn't wasted."
Eil collapsed dramatically inside their shared consciousness.
"I… I'm going to cry… I'm going to cry so much…"
Asher looked at the bottle.
Four pills remained.
He exhaled calmly:
"We'll take another one in three days."
Eil screamed:
"NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!"
---
And so the night ended…
with a body barely holding together…
a spirit in tears…
and a bizarre duo preparing for a future filled with even more pain than anyone could imagine.
But for Asher…
This was merely the beginning.
--