A Dangerous Pill

Aiden pushed through the doors with a smile on his face, he saw Marcus working at his desk as usual. Anton stood by his side keeping a vigilant watch to make sure no accidents happened to the fragile young master.

 "Marcus I successfully made some mid grade Snapfire Pills, the ones I told you about that helped me kill the Saber Tailed Viper. Look! Be careful not to drop them." Aiden handed over the two bottles of pills to Marcus. Marcus immediately took the porcelain bottles carefully pouring out one pill from each to compare. Seeing the vivid difference in color and the higher fragrance of the deeper colored one Marcus was sure that Aiden was correct and this was a mid grade pill. He handed the pills over to Anton who immediately left the room with them in hand. 

"Finally got tired of Swift Pills?" Marcus asked, seeing Aiden's eager gaze following Anton.

 "No, I have reached a bottleneck in my progress so I think I need to continue to accrue experience. Hopefully as I try different recipes I figure out what I need to achieve the next step." Aiden moved his attention back onto Marcus, and explained his thoughts.

 Marcus frowned on hearing this, "When I recover, I will send some people out to try and retrieve more comprehensive alchemy news from the Bright Sky Empire. They have a more complete alchemy inheritance than our kingdom." He couldn't be too obvious right now, otherwise if the other families found out about Aiden then they would do everything in their power to get rid of him. Once he was recovered however, it would be too late and he could exert his forces without as much restraint.

 "There is no hurry, I have plenty of recipes to try in the meantime." Aiden waved his hands, not hugely concerned. He had made an extreme amount of progress in a short time. It was okay to slow his pace down and consolidate what he had learned. When he was ready, then he would attack his bottleneck. Anton soon returned with the results of the test.

 "The low grade Snapfire pill, causes an explosion with the force of a full strength blow of a Hardened Bones warrior. The mid grade pill is twenty percent stronger still. If they were unprepared, these pills could kill or seriously maim a Washed Marrow warrior." As he spoke, Anton looked at Aiden with an appraising look. He had never heard of such a dangerous pill before. Marcus' eyebrows shot straight up. These pills could be an incredible boost to the power of his private forces. They also were uniquely suited to people like Aiden and himself, who for various reasons had a weaker fighting ability. 

"Aiden, please prepare at least one hundred mid grade Snapfire pills. Same rules, hand them to Dylan and he and Gwyneth will make sure to compensate you. Make sure to keep a good supply for yourself as well. Although Anton keeps a tight watch over the manor, you can never be too careful." Marcus implored solemnly. Aiden's eyes seemed to be emitting golden light as he imagined all the gold he was going to get. He clenched his fist and declared, 

"Consider it done!" He spun on his heel and rushed off to the alchemy room. Marcus leaned against his left hand and smiled wryly at the gold obsessed boy. He had begun to be mildly worried that if one day a richer young master came by, Aiden would be abducted by the other's wealth. 

Arriving back at the alchemy room, Aiden threw himself into the work. He was reinvigorated by the promise of a mountain of gold waiting for him. His hands moved with a strength and ferocity that he had never tried before. This was the result of his meditation, some recipes were more suited to a delicate control, and some like this recipe needed a stern hand to reign in the rebellious energies.

 This time when the Black Spark Rock was thrown in, there was no chance for the energy to act up, he had already strangled it. Although the process was more exhausting, and Aiden felt as if he had refined three cauldrons of Swift pills, it was also very rewarding. Nine pill embryos gave birth to six mid grade pills and three low grade pills. An exponential increase from the first one. 

However, he was too tired to move on to the next cauldron immediately. Instead, after putting away the pills, Aiden sat cross legged to cultivate and regain his energy. In the past several days, not only had he been progressing on the alchemy front, but his cultivation had reached the thin barrier between Tendons like Bowstrings, and Hardened Bones. Aiden felt like one more hard push and he would break through. 

With his eyes closed, he could sense the dense aura around him. Thick clumps of the threadlike energy moved slowly in the space. He specially sought out fire aura, the most beneficial for his practice the Heavenly Flame Ascension. Aiden paused for a few moments as he found a concentrated patch of fire energy. He thought back to his innovation of the Snapfire pill crafting process. In fact the fire energy was extremely rebellious on its own as well. He should be harsher and more bold when using it. 

With a hard tug three fiery aura strands flew towards him. Without hesitation he ran the Heavenly Flame Ascension and directed all three strands into his body, running along his tendons and ligaments. It felt like pure magma searing a path through his body. Aiden clenched his jaw to prevent a scream from leaking out, he used the pain to sharpen his focus. He couldn't lose control of this energy or else it could cause severe damage in his body and his cultivation could even regress. He couldn't accept such an outcome, this energy had to yield to him.

 He urged the energy to temper his tendons, shutting the pain into a different part of his mind. His whole being seemed to have only one thought, temper over and over again. He couldn't think of anything else, because a distraction would mean that he would lose his hold over the pain and be overwhelmed. It seemed to be an eternity, floating in a sea of flames and pain. There was a soft pop, and the pain receded like the tide. The excess energy rushed straight into his bones, the tendons had reached their limit. 

He had successfully broken through! Aiden let out a slow breath, that was close. The results had affirmed his theory, the raging energy was exactly what he needed to break through the bottleneck. It was dangerous though, very dangerous. That much energy was explosive and did not take kindly to restraint. If he had slipped up even slightly, he could have scrapped his cultivation. But his mind had been firm, and now it was firmer still. He knew what his path needed to be. The Soulfyre clan was the master of flames, and so must he be. Aiden could never allow fire to dominate him, otherwise his cultivation would fail. 

After calming his mind, Aiden glanced at the time and was shocked. It was almost time for dinner, he had been meditating for hours. He burst into action, quickly preparing their meal. Marcus' body couldn't bear for the treatment to be interrupted, otherwise it may leave hidden injuries. 

Today's meal was a refreshing stir fry featuring the meat of the Boulder Eating Yak, an earth element biased magical beast. The meal was hearty and good for building a strong foundation. Marcus' body had almost recovered, and the next step was preparing his body for cultivation. Tomorrow Aiden was going to prepare a special elixir that would add a layer of energy over Marcus' meridians and organs to prevent backlash if something goes wrong in his cultivation. 

When Aiden finished the stir fry, he called Marcus and excitedly shared the news, "Marcus I broke through! I am officially a warrior in the fourth stage of body tempering!" Marcus was startled, Aiden was only ten this year but was already a Hardened Bones warrior. Even more shocking was that he had only been cultivating for a few weeks. 

"Are you making sure that your foundation is stable? Don't rush, you have plenty of time. With your cultivation method, it is imperative that you burn away all the impurities within your body during the body tempering stage otherwise the power and heat of your flames in the later stages will be hamstrung." Marcus asked, concern filling his voice. Aiden smiled softly, it was nice to be cared about.

 "Don't worry Marcus, I am making sure that I don't blindly rush through. On a different note, how has your self created method going? Your body has pretty much recovered, so we can move to the next step." 

"I have crafted the first part of the method, extrapolating off of the methods that I have read with a lot of new knowledge provided by your inheritance. It should be able to get me through the Body Tempering stage, after that though I will need more experience and cultivation tomes to draw from." Marcus' green eyes shined with confidence. Once he knew what was wrong with his body he immediately began planning for his cultivation. And now his efforts had finally borne fruit. After finalizing a few details about tomorrow's plan, the two headed back to their rooms to rest. Aiden was so preoccupied that he even forgot to meet with Dylan about the Snapfire pills.