He walked over and turned off the lights. The whole thing was weird, but I knew I could use shatter to kill this guy if anything happened. When he walked back over to me, he had a look of concern on his face.
"It alright if you don't want to show me," I said trying to make him feel secure, but in all honesty, id hate it if he chose not to show me.
"No it's not much of a secret it's just I don't want you getting involved in the murim any more than you already are."
"No I've made my choice ill have to get involved with the murim, I can't keep going on with my mundane life of bing loss"
"Well then pay attention to what I'm going to show you, this was taught to me by a tutor I paid sometime time ago a person who I came to view as my master."
"so then you maid the same choice as me. Your choice to enter the murim?"
"yeah in a way I did but enough of that pay attention, this is a method of qi use that doesn't require as much qi as the "stages" you talked about."
It took a few minutes but after some time I noticed the qi around his hand started to become thicker. It was as though he places a glove over his hand, though not very detailed and lacked all the realness that my qi molds had I could still tell that this technique he was using was qi molding. After the glove around his hand was formed. He started creating a string that extended from is fingertips to the flower. When it reached the flower, it seemed to fuse with it, after a few more minutes of this strange fusing process he started removing the qi from his hands.
He instead started creating a sphere-like object in the palm of his hand using the qi that surrounded his hand. This process was long, and I couldn't tell what he was waiting for. But the strings that connected to the flower started to change color. They became reddish also the ball started to change color as well. It took me a few seconds, but I realized what was going on. The flower started to wither… its essence transfer" I said lightly trying not to distract him.
He looked up at me with eyes filled with bewilderment but returned back to concentrating on what I assumed was transferring the essence of the flower to the sphere-shaped qi in the palm of his hand. The ball became a bright red color, after some time he solidified the sphere then handed it to me.
"What do you think this could be used for?"
It was a strange question I did tell him about the books I bought from the library, but I guess there's more that this sphere could help with. It felt weird holding someone eses qi it didn't feel as solid as I thought it would… it was a lot squishier than expected. Which forced my mind to wonder how he managed to create this so easily.
"It's used for creating alchemy potions, some have the effect of curing diseases. others have the effect of increasing qi etc."
The answer was obvious to me, I did read the book [Alchemy for idiots]. It seemed like my answer was correct seeing as he looked at me slightly pleased then took the sphere back and walked out of the room coming back a few minutes later holding a briefcase.
"You asked me earlier what I do as a "member" of the Murim. This is it I supply medical alchemy not anything qi related. People like me are the ones who supply the people of the murim the medicine needed to continue to "do" the things they do. Let's say someone was in a fight and lost an arm or was suffering from a murim related poison. well, they'd buy my medicine."
He took out some paste from his bag and put it on the table, handed me a book then asked me to follow along.
"First things first the essences of the white stem ruby flower, then the blood of the pink toad, after that we merge them together."
As he said this I followed along in the book, the process of merging all the ingredients together seemed to be simple as all he did was slowly put the essences of the white stem ruby flower in the blood of the pink toad. Though I didn't know what any of this was, just watching the process unfold in front of me was divine. This was my first experience with something that truly looked god-like. As I read ahead in the book, he handed me I saw that the name of this particular mixture was called "blood skin rebirth"
"What the hell blood skin rebirth," I said nearly yelling it out. Charles started to laugh while starring at me, though he quickly returned back to finish the concoction. I chose to return to my seat not having much interest in glorified skin treatment… damn it all that shit about it being divine how embarrassing. When he was done, he handed the finished recipe to me.
"it looks slimy. Is this how it's supposed to look?"
"yes, though you could still get the same effects if you used it like this. I actually plan to do more to it; I'll probably make the final stage of it to be more pill like. Seeing as people seem to like it like that"
He said while putting all the stuff away before sitting down and staring at me.
"Look kid you remind me a lot of myself when I was younger. And that's dangerous, I can see the pride seeping out of your pores. But the thing is you don't realize how dangerous the murim really is. (sigh) and well to help you avoid all the pitfalls that I and many others went through I'd like to take you under my wing. That is if you have the talent to use essence transfer. If not ill see what I could do."
"Id love that. But I have to know a few things first, for starters who do you work for?"
He gave me a look of pride, it was strange but I heard him whisper under his breath, "the kids smart good good"
"I work for the martial artist alliance. They are an organization that seeks to bring more order to the murim. But don't for a second make you think that they are somehow the good guys no they're just the biggest organization here in America. And the peace they want is nothing other than them wanting control over the murim. Sorry I just didn't want you getting your hopes up thinking that you'd be dealing with superheroes or something. The Crescent mood clan is also part of the Martial artist alliance so ill see if they'd be willing to cut you some slack."
I still had to process what he told me but instead of sitting around and dwelling on it. I decided to focus on learning as much as I can and trying to gain as much as I could. But before all of that, I needed to learn more about Charles, and I planned to do that with my next question.
"I need you to be honest with me are you selling alchemy pills to the murim because of wanting or need?"
This question would decide whether I worked with this guy or not, I won't work with anyone who "needs" to do something so dangerous like this, the reason being a person who needs something is most likely willing to do anything to acquire whatever it is they need. They'd be willing to lose anything to get whatever they "needed". An example would be someone that needs a drug that is keeping their family or them alive or something.
Such a person would be far less willing to negotiate for less simply because it's not something they want but instead need. I need to know that Charles was willing to possible call it quits if things ever got to bad and if he needed the money produced from selling alchemy pills then I doubt he'd ever let go. I doubt there would ever be a loss too great for him to overcome, such a person would even kill to keep going.
He sat there for a while, it looked like he was thinking about something. It's not like he gained much from lying, this could go either way ones not any worse than the other. A person could argue for both being great, he could say he needs it and try to gain my sympathy with some sad story, or he could just say he wants it for the money. Some time passed as I practically grilled him with my eyes… after a while, he got up and said.
"You know when I was younger, I always thought I was just following in my master's footsteps but after some time I realized that I really do love doing what I do. Yeah, I know you could argue that I'm not helping the best people, but I still feel the need to help those in need. So, to answer your question I believe it's a want I want to help people or maybe I need to. I couldn't tell you for sure."
Fuck Charles why'd you have to make it so complicated for, well I guess ill just go along with it. not everything is black and white after all, so I guess ill just make sure to keep an eye on Charles. From now on just to be safe.
"That's good enough for me. So, what do I have to do?"
"Well for starters I want to send you a few things so ill need your address. Also, I need to inform you that I will be informing a few people about you. Sorry but if you're serious about this you'll have to give a portion of your earnings to the Crescent Mood clan. And the alliance will take care of that transfer. Seeing as you'd be operating out of their territory."
"Alright, but what do you want to send me?"
"Just a few books about essence transferring and things about being a person of the murim. In all honesty kid, I don't want this for you seeing as you won't be able to go wherever you want or do whatever you want. If you accept this."
"Im fine with that. But how are we going to split the profits?"
He scratched his head a little while starring at me, it was clear that I was driving this guy crazy but in all honesty, it was kind of fun. He's like an uncle to me already.
"Look here boy the path to essence transferring is hard and filled with all kinds of talent barriers and learning curves so you need to keep your mind open to the large possibility that you'll fail. I remember when my master told me those same words. It may take a few years before you can ever even make a single pill of the lowest level. Just keep practicing and ill keep funding your tutorship. Alright?"
"ha-ha alright uncle Charles but if I do manage to complete a pill how much do I get paid."
"damn kid who are you calling uncle… fin whatever if you do manage to complete a pill you get all the profits from it. of course, after the Crescent Mood clan and the alliance takes their cut."
"Wait what I have to pay both the crescent mood clan and the alliance… but their part of the same organization? This sounds a lot like extortion"
All he did after that was laughing his ass off, he kept calling me a brat saying it wasn't extortion, no what would be extortion would be when a little kid like you or an old man like me tries to directly sell to the murim ourselves. After that, he just told my mom some medial words not like I cared or anything.
...…
The ride home was filled with conversations between my mom and me. I went on and on about how I told her nothing was wrong with me. Id go on to tease her the whole ride. When we got home, I immediately went to the cabin wanting to practice what I saw Charles do. The only thing is when I got there, I saw two people that I knew were both dangerous.
The guy that stood in front of the girl had a smile that would scare the living hell out of any monster, skin so pale and thin-looking that you wouldn't be too far off if you called him a ghost. With all white grayish hair that went down to his shoulders, but none of that could top his most strange feature his pale golden eyes that looked at me unblinkingly as though he was a soulless doll. I got off my bike and walked over to him.
We stood just about the same height, I stared him dead in the eyes refusing to look away. I had already started forming shatter reading myself for combat. With a cold growl like voice I said
"Riticus I take it or do you prefer "bird boy" huh well what is it little birdie"