When Leon woke, it was already dark. He lay upon the bed, still fully robed, his talismans digging into his waist, so he automatically sat up to remove his sash and outer robes. He inadvertently woke the man lying next to him. That man treated him to a flick upon his forehead."Ow," Leon complained. "What was th-that f-for?"
"A secondary Cultivator is not lacking in spiritual energy," Jin Li advised him, "and yet you collapse after pouring it all into four small pills? Draining your soulsea almost completely, are you an idiot?"
"I d-d-didn"t m-mean too," Leon replied, chastised.
"Don"t do it again," Jin Li stated. "It is dangerous and this Lord will just leave you next time, wherever you fall." He sighed and rolled over onto his other side.
"S-sorry," Leon whispered. He finished removing his outer robes before lying back down beside Jin Li feeling downcast. But he could not fall back to sleep. He listened as Jin Li"s breath steadied, thinking over what had happened. He was usually a little more conservative with his energies, knowing that that which he released from his soul sea was easily wasted if he was not careful, so he"d become used to knowing exactly how much each pill required of him thus producing perfectly acceptable, but very average pills. But this time, he had been so focused on not messing up, he"s actually managed to go too far and pour too much of himself into those four pills, hence pushing himself to the point of collapse.
Closing his eyes, he turned his mind"s eye inwards and felt his consciousness float down to his soul sea. It was spinning a little sluggishly and as the specks of light were not so cl.u.s.tered, it seemed less bright, but he could also see that it was slowly filling with fresh energy. If he cultivated, it would draw in the energies in the surrounding air and earth much more swiftly, but Jin Li still had him on a cultivation ban, so he could only refresh naturally.
After examining the rest of his internal body and seeing nothing wrong, he took a deep breath noting Jin Li"s musky scent and settled into sleep.
His head pounded slightly as he woke and his stomach felt hollow. Groaning, he lifted himself from the bed to notice Jin Li was not there. However, there was a note; Gone to train. He turned the note over, but it did not say anything else, so he tossed it aside and brewed himself a cup of tea.
Jin Li did not return that day and Leon decided that he didn"t wish to mope around in his small hut waiting for whenever the man deemed him worthy to be once again in his presence. Also, although his soulsea was back to normal, he did not want to make more pills today. So instead, he decided to take a walk to the library.
It still irked him that he could not create an improved version of the cloudy spiritual pill. He had clearly become too reliant on Leo"s diaries, even though they could only help him so much. Leo had not broken through to secondary rank before he died, which was likely why he had not researched this pill, just jotted down its recipe. However, he had left notes about how he first discovered that he could change pills for the better.
It came down to luck and curiosity.
When Leo was a boy, he helped his village collect wild herbs to sell. Where he lived, most herbs did not grow abundantly, but it also happened to be near where a few types of herb grew best, though they would be considered rare anywhere else. One of these were fragrant beasttails.
The Elder"s had told him that beasttails attracted weak beasts, their fragrance was mostly calming, but every so often, the beasts would become enraged after scenting them. So they would only be harvested at the height of day, when most beasts were napping or seeking water, or in winter when most were hibernating. Leo wanted to know why the fragrant beast tails would cause two very different reactions. So he rose in the morning to watch beasts interact with the Herb, then harvest it when they went away. It took two weeks for him to realise that what was happening.
Beast tails, which were long curled green fronds with spikes of green hair, sometimes changed colour a little, from green to red. Sometimes it was a small patch, sometimes it was the whole tail. He found out later that this had something to do with how it reproduced, but that red patch also altered it"s scent. Not enough for the human nose to detect, but any patch with a red frond was often ruined in a beasts rampage, although it was hardy enough to regrow and wherever the red fronds fell, a new patch would grow later.
But the villagers did not discriminate when harvesting this weed, sold all developed beast tails though autumn and winter. Hence the pills took on both the ability to calm and enrage the weak beast it was fed to.
The poison came from the northern gem weed"s succulent leaves, but only would be deadly to a beast exhausted from rage, so Leo figured out that as long as he was careful not to use fronds with red patches, his pills would be safer. Not perfectly as it too easy to miss small spots beneath the tufts of green hair, but still. The less red in the pills, the less likely the beast would rampage or die.
As Leo realised this and began tweaking the recipe to also reduce the poison (by adding a small amount of its natural antidote, a thought to be useless weed called northern tingweed, that grew amongst the succulent), he wondered what other recipes could be made better. Hence he had stepped on a path of discovery, that unfortunately also lead to his death and Leon"s rebirth. Leon could only hope that he too had been reborn and was happy in his new life.