Three months after Tianqi started on the Threaded Breath method, Chu set a small clay furnace on the worktable in front of him and told him to make a Qi Gathering Pill.
Tianqi looked at the furnace, then at the ingredients beside it. Redthorn root, dried goldvein grass, a finger-length of peachwood bark, and a small paper packet of cinnabar powder he had not handled before. He knew the first three well enough to sort them in the dark. The cinnabar was new.
He let the eyes run over each ingredient before he touched anything.
[Redthorn Root] Grade: Low | Potency: Intact | State: Dry but usable
[Peachwood Bark] Grade: Low | Potency: Intact | State: Good
[Cinnabar Powder] Grade: Low | Purity: 91% | State: Refined, stable
[Goldvein Grass] Grade: Low | Potency: Reduced by 8% | Cause: Sun exposure loss since eastern slope elm fell last autumn. Stalks drying progressively.
He had noticed the stalks were drier than usual when he brought the batch in last week and had not said anything. He noted that as a mistake and moved on.
Chu was on the stool by the window with a pill in his hand, not watching.
Tianqi picked up the redthorn root and started breaking it down.
He had watched Chu run this process enough times that the sequence was familiar. Heat the furnace, base ingredients in order, manage temperature through three stages, cinnabar at the right moment, condense, cool, extract. What the eyes added was the layer underneath. The exact shift in each compound as it met heat. The colour change at the furnace mouth that signalled the goldvein approaching its limit. What the dissolve rate of the cinnabar told him about the condensation phase ahead.
The goldvein was already compromised. He kept the temperature below 380 through the entire middle stage and did not push it. Pushing it would not recover the lost potency. It would just burn what remained.
The condensation phase ran long. He watched the furnace mouth and left it alone until the timing felt right, then cracked it and pulled the pill out with the wooden tongs. It came out small, slightly darker than standard, and intact. He set it on the ceramic tray.
[Qi Gathering Pill] Tier: 1 | Grade: Low | Purity: 93% — High Purity | Potency: Moderate, suitable for Qi Refinement Stage 1 to 3 | Flaw: Base ingredient potency reduced prior to refinement. Output ceiling limited by material quality, not process | Toxicity: None | Market Value: 6 low grade spirit stones
He read the flaw line twice.
The pill was not his ceiling. It was the goldvein's. That distinction mattered more than the number.
Chu set down what he had been examining and came to the table. He picked the pill up and held it to the lamp, turning it slowly between two fingers, checking the surface and the underside without any expression Tianqi could read.
"Ninety three percent on compromised material is acceptable for a first attempt," Chu said. He set the pill back on the tray.
Tianqi noted the word acceptable and said nothing.
"The cinnabar dosage is sensitive," he said after a moment. "I kept it under half a measure."
Chu said nothing to that. He checked the underside of the pill one more time and placed it in the storage box with the finished batch.
"The eastern goldvein patch," Chu said. "The elm came down last autumn. The stalks have been drying since then."
"I should have flagged it when I brought the batch in," Tianqi said.
"Yes," Chu said. He closed the box, latched it, and set it on the shelf. "Tomorrow, go get fresh material from the northern slope. I want to see what you can do without the material working against you."
He went back to his stool and picked up the pill he had set aside.
Tianqi cleaned the furnace and put the tools away in their order on the rack above the worktable. He thought about the 91% cinnabar while he worked. That was the other ceiling in the room, the one nobody had mentioned yet. A pill's purity could not exceed its inputs. The cinnabar set the floor on what the output could reach regardless of how clean the process ran. He said nothing about it.
The next morning he was on the northern slope before the light had fully settled. The walk up took longer than the eastern route, the path cutting around two ridgelines before opening onto the flat ground where the good herb patches ran. He had been up here twice before on restocking runs and knew roughly where the goldvein clusters were.
The first patch he found read clean across every stalk.
[Goldvein Grass] Grade: Low | Potency: Peak | State: Optimal, full sun exposure, root system intact
He cut what he needed and checked two more patches further along the flat before coming back down, not because he needed more but because he wanted to know the range of what the slope carried. Both read the same. The northern side had not lost its light source.
The second pill ran cleaner from the first stage. The goldvein held its colour longer through the middle, the condensation phase closed in half the time the previous run had taken, and the result came out pale amber with a surface that caught the lamp evenly. He set it on the tray.
[Qi Gathering Pill] Tier: 1 | Grade: Low | Purity: 97% — Peak Purity | Potency: High, suitable for Qi Refinement Stage 1 to 4 | Flaw: None detected | Toxicity: None | Market Value: 8 low grade spirit stones
No flaw. Potency ceiling a full tier above yesterday. The only thing between 97% and 100% was the cinnabar sitting at 91%, putting a hard floor on the output regardless of process. The process itself was clean.
Chu came to the table and examined the pill the same way he had the day before, though the examination ran longer. He turned it, checked the underside, held it at the edge of the lamplight and tilted it slowly. Then he placed it in the storage box separate from yesterday's batch and closed the lid.
"Again tomorrow," he said. "Same ingredients, same measure."
He went back to his end of the table.
Tianqi set the wooden tongs on the rack and looked at the storage box. Two batches, two separate sections. Chu had not explained the separation and Tianqi had not asked. The answer was already obvious enough that asking would have been a waste of both their time.
The herb sort was still waiting. He went and started on it.