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I spent far more time than usual on these pills, trying to make them as perfect as possible. I wasn’t sure how good my competition would be, so I had to do my best. I was exceedingly careful with my spirit fire, and I always made sure to only use fire qi when cleaning near medicinal power.

It took longer, but the five pills I made were undoubtedly my best work to date.

While I did spend significantly longer on these pills, it was still only a fraction of the time I was allocated. The entire point of taking so long was to avoid showing my concoction speed, so I couldn’t make other pills to sell to the sect. Instead, I spent my free time cultivating.

It had been a long time since I sat down to raise my cultivation. I had been focused on improving my alchemy skills instead, but since I finally had some downtime, I could work towards my next advancement. Three days wasn’t enough to make a lot of progress, but it at least got me started.

Around about noon on the third day, I left my apartment and returned to the pill hall to turn in my completed pills.

The hall was bustling with activity when I entered. There had to be more than twice as many people as there were last time.

When I stepped through the door, I heard a loud, familiar voice.

“There he is! That’s the idiot who thinks he’s better than Senior Brother Wen Hao,” said the same young woman from last time.

Everyone in the room stopped what they were doing at looked over at the commotion. I saw the same deacon from last time in the corner of the room. She was observing the situation, but she didn’t step forward.

“We all thought you gave up and ran away like a coward,” the female disciple said. “I don’t know what’s more shameful. Running away or proving to everyone how worthless you are.”

Again, like last time, I decided to just ignore her. The sect rules were clear. Neither she nor anyone else here could do anything physical to me. All she could do was talk. I could talk back to her, but what was the point? How could that possibly benefit me? There was zero chance anything I said would change anyone’s mind, and even if it did, that would all get reset in the future anyway, so why bother?

This was not a battle of words or a battle of martial skills. It was a battle of alchemy. Anything else was meaningless.

Walking past the yapping girl, I stepped up to the counter and placed my pill bottles on it.

“Disciple Su Fang, turning in his mission,” I said.

“Hand over your jade,” said the receptionist. His face was a mask of professionalism. Even as others in the hall jeered and mocked, he calmly noted everything down. “As you are the last to turn in this mission, the results will be announced shortly. If you want to leave, you may do so, and the credits you are awarded will automatically be added to your account in a few days."

I decided to wait since the goal of this mission was to compete with others. Alchemy was an individual pursuit, so only by knowing the results would the competition be meaningful.

I stepped away from the counter and began walking to a less busy part of the room.

“Running away?” the young woman asked. “Hmpf, we all knew you were a coward, but now you are running away before completing your part of the bet. Are you even a man?”

I raised an eyebrow at that. “What bet? When did I ever make a bet?”

“Denying it?” she asked. “Everyone here heard you bet that you would beat Senior Brother. Don’t think you can lie about it.”

“I don’t know what you heard, but I know I never said any such thing.”

“How dare you. Do you think…” she continued talking, but I tuned her out.

It took a quarter-hour before the results were ready. My ability to assess Rank 2 pills wasn’t great, but I had made many Meridian Builder Pills over the past year. Based on previous results, I estimated that the ones I had made for this mission were all above 90% efficacy, and a couple were above 95%. I may not win all five spots, but I expected at least one to pass.

The receptionist quieted the room as he began to read the results. “The five pills selected were all concocted by Disciple Wen Hao. The efficacies were 135%, 136%, 139%, 140% and 143%. He will be awarded the full 5,000 points. All others will be compensated at 60% of the normal value of the pill.”

The room burst into applause. The young man who had been with the screaming girl earlier stepped forward and handed the receptionist his jade token to collect his points.

After the room quieted down, I stepped forward to do the same.

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My five pills had only netted me 142 points after paying the initial cost of the mission. The points weren’t the biggest issue though. I needed to go back to Deacon Liu and learn how Wen Hao had made those pills.

I stepped away from the desk and began walking toward the exit.

“Where do you think you’re going?” asked the screaming girl. She and several other disciples moved to block my way. “You aren’t leaving here until you get down on your knees and bark like a dog.”

“I’m leaving,” I said with a calm voice. “I didn’t bet with you. Anyone who was actually there can confirm it. Please move out of the way.”

The people around me began to laugh. “Do you think this is a joke?” asked the girl. “Kneel!”

The people around me took a step forward, closing the circle tighter.

I looked the girl in the eye for a moment as she gave me a malicious smirk.

I turned my head to look at the deacon who was standing in the corner.

“Deacon,” I said, “are you just going to stand there?”

The deacon gave me a furious glare. “What did you say?”

“Are you going to stand there as these people threaten me with violence?”

She waited for several moments with a scowl across her face. “Make a path. Let him through.”

“Deacon!” yelled the shouting girl. “We can’t-”

“Let him through. Don’t touch him.”

I gave the deacon a short bow and walked through a small gap that opened in the circle.

I hadn’t made any friends in the pill hall, but as expected, they couldn’t directly hurt me in any way.

After exiting the sect’s pill hall, I went back to the elder’s enclave to talk with Deacon Liu about everything that happened.

“Little Fang,” he said when I entered, “welcome back. How was your mission?”

“Deacon,” I said, “I wanted to ask you about it. There’s something I don’t understand.”

“Hold on, let’s start from the beginning. Just tell me everything that happened,” he said with a smile.

So, I did. When I told him about my first encounter in the pill hall with the woman and the deacon, his smile began to fade. When I told him about the five pills Wen Hao made, his face showed no reaction. After I talked about the final confrontation and how I had to force the deacon to intervene, he began to frown.

“Su Fang,” he said with a cool voice, “how would you grade yourself during this trip?”

“I’m not sure,” I said, “Regarding the mission, I didn’t succeed, but I did my best. I don’t know how he made pills with that kind of efficacy. I never had a chance.”

“And regarding your interactions with the other sect members?”

“Everyone seemed completely unreasonable. I believe I handled it the best way I could, but it all left a bad taste in my mouth.”

“I see,” said the deacon, “For the first encounter, I would give you a poor grade. It was bad, but not disastrous. For the second, I would rate it a complete failure.”

“What? Why? What else could I have done?”

“Before talking about your actions, let’s discuss the others in your tale. The young woman you say kept yelling at you, what is your impression of her?”

“She seemed crazy,” I said. “I didn’t do anything, but she wouldn’t stop.”

“And why was that do you think?” he asked. After a brief pause, the deacon continued, “Don’t answer, I’ll tell you. She has the same cultivation techniques you do. Rank 1 reduced aggression, Rank 2 increased aggression. These don’t cancel each other. They both form different pathways for your thoughts to follow. With a balanced individual, they will begin to even each other out, so you will be able to consider different ways to handle each situation.”

I tried to feel what he was talking about in my own thoughts, but it was difficult to sense.

“I do not know this woman, but I can make a few solid guesses about her. The situation isn’t uncommon here. She is probably a Martial Master 9 or 10, but she could well be a Peak Master. She rushed her cultivation. Likely, she sped through the entire Master realm in only two or three years. This has completely unbalanced her mental state. It may take a decade or more for her to completely recover.”

“Is that possible? Rushing cultivation has that impact?”

I thought about my own experiences. I had assumed the strong changes in my mental state were simply a factor of the cultivation technique, but if cultivating faster made the effects stronger, it would explain some of the more powerful influences I had been under.

“Yes. This is a common problem. Everyone wants to advance to Grandmaster before thirty, but trying to do so can cause serious problems.”

“Alright, I understand the girl, but what about the deacon? Does the sect allow that?”

Deacon Liu grunted. “Why wouldn’t it? The deacon didn’t violate any rules or cause any real problems for you. You accepted the mission, turned it in, and were graded fairly.”

“But… why?”

“Do you think deacon of the sect’s pill hall is some great position?” asked Liu, “Working there, she has no future. Disciple Wen Hao is a genius alchemist with a bright future. The deacon is doing everything she can to climb up a tall tree. It is a little unsightly, but she is in a difficult position. As long as she does her job fairly, no one is going to overly criticize her for her words. She would have prevented any actual violence from breaking out, but as long as it was only words, she was always going to side with the known genius.”

“That seems… wrong…”

“If what you described is accurate, I doubt her actions would even tempt Wen Hao. She went too far, but she is desperate. Truthfully, if I hadn’t already climbed up Elder Mu’s tree, I would be tempted to do something similar myself.”

“I get it, but why do you say I failed, what should I have done?”

“The failure is because you called out the deacon’s behavior and didn’t give her any face. Even if you aren’t happy, you shouldn’t try to directly humiliate a deacon like that. Aside from that, your performance was bad because you lost face for the elder. As his disciple, you represent his face.”

“Yes, deacon,” I said resigned. “I just don’t know what I should have done. Please help me.”

“You picked a mission that a far superior disciple had already chosen. You were bound to lose. That is acceptable, but your behavior wasn’t. Again, most importantly, never call out a deacon for their behavior. If you think they did something wrong, report it to one of us and let us handle it. You should always show deference to their authority.”

I didn’t like it, but I could obey. The deacons were given their authority by the sect, so challenging them was challenging the sect. If I was a respected genius, it would be different, but I was just a nobody in the sect, so I had to be diligent in my respect for authority.

“As for your handling of the young woman… She was representing Wen Hao. Her behavior lost face for him, and it is likely he accepted that loss of face when he decided to be seen with her. If you had apologized and tried to placate her, it would have been a small loss to you, but it would have been showing respect to a genius disciple. But by your actions, you were saying you were above Wen Hao. If you had won the competition, it would have been one thing, but by acting superior and losing, all you do is lose face.”

“So, what should I do?”

“You have two choices. You can learn your place in the sect and learn how to act properly. The only other option is to be overly respectful to every disciple. If you don’t know who is better than you, you have to treat everyone as better than you. The second option is far, far inferior, but if you aren’t willing to spend the time learning your place, it is the only thing you can do. This will lose face for the elder which your fellow disciples will have to earn back, but sufficient contributions can offset this loss.”

“I understand, deacon.”

I didn’t want to play these social games because it felt like they had no real meaning, but being overly respectful would become grating. Hopefully, I would eventually be powerful enough that I could ignore all this.