Knowledge's First Pot of Gold

At first, there were only a few workers they knew from the lumber yard. They traded a copper or two, or a small handful of roasted beans, for a drink of the bitter brew. The effects varied from person to person, but most felt that their grinding fatigue had indeed eased a little.

For these laborers at the bottom of society, that little bit of relief was worth the meager price.

Before long, word spread through their small circle. The skinny boy from the Lu family had "stumbled upon" a folk remedy, and the bitter brew he made could stave off fatigue.

Scattered orders came their way. Sometimes, after work, a man would squat outside their courtyard gate with copper coins in his pocket. Other times, a hunter would leave dried meat or mushrooms in the morning and take away a tube of "Energy Soup"-a name Lu Yuan had come up with on the spur of the moment.

Lu Yuan kept tight control over everything. He gathered the grass only in places where people rarely went, and never much at a time. He brewed it himself and never let the proportions slip.

The income was meager but steady. A few Copper Soul Coins a day, along with odds and ends of food, came in like a trickling stream.

Lin Xiu kept the copper coins in an old clay jar hidden beneath the bed. Every few days, she counted them, the worn coins gleaming beneath the oil lamp. She smiled more, and when she cooked, she was willing to add a couple more drops of oil.

The change in Lu Qinghe was even more noticeable. With the support of the "Energy Soup," he felt less tired during cultivation and could keep going longer. His Soul Power vortex circulated more smoothly with each passing day. His back grew a little straighter.

Lu Yuan observed everything calmly. He knew this was only the beginning, and that this income was nowhere near enough to support real cultivation. But its significance lay in proving one path: knowledge, even the most basic knowledge, could be exchanged for resources as long as it met a practical need.

Half a month later, a small pile of copper coins had accumulated in the old clay jar.

That day, Lu Yuan counted out twenty. "Mom, I'm going to the market in the east of town."

Lin Xiu grew nervous. "What are you buying?"

"Some seeds." Lu Yuan tucked the coins deep inside his clothes. "I'll be back soon."

The market in the east of town was a shabby affair. Lu Yuan squatted in front of a general goods stall, his gaze sweeping over the shriveled seeds. Finally, he pointed at one packet. "These, Soul Condensing Grass seeds. How much?"

The stallholder was a squint-eyed old man. "Boy, you can read? That packet's the worst of the lot. Hardly any of them will sprout. Ten Copper Soul Coins."

Soul Condensing Grass was one of the most basic plants related to Soul Power. Anything that had found its way to this little border town could only be low-grade.

But Lu Yuan wasn't interested in its current value. In his memories was a theoretical method for stimulating a beneficial mutation in low-grade Soul Condensing Grass and increasing its affinity with Soul Power. His conditions were crude, but it was worth a try.

"Eight."

The old man scoffed. "Take it or leave it."

Lu Yuan said no more. He took out ten copper coins and took the packet of shriveled seeds. A small handful, feather-light in his hand.

He turned and left. The seeds pressed against his skin through his clothes, jabbing him a little.

He could clear up the neglected vegetable patch in the backyard. The first step was improving the soil, which would require rotting leaves and animal dung... There should be some in the woods outside town. He would need rainwater for watering...

He planned as he walked, a rough layout for his "experimental plot" unfolding in his mind.

Just as he reached the mouth of an alley, Lu Qinghe came hurrying over from another direction, his expression troubled.

"Little Yuan!" He grabbed his son and lowered his voice. "When I got off work just now, Shopkeeper Liu from the general store asked me privately about that 'Energy Soup.' He seemed a little interested. He asked if we could supply more and said he'd pay for it."

Lu Yuan stopped in his tracks.

What had to come had come. Even a small profit had drawn attention.

He raised his head, his tone calm. "Dad, what did you say?"

"I said what you taught me: that a child had thrown it together, there wasn't much of it, the grass was hard to find, and we couldn't supply much." Lu Qinghe swallowed. "But he didn't seem to believe me. He said he'd come find me tomorrow to discuss it in detail."

Lu Yuan nodded, looking toward their humble courtyard gate.

The first pot of gold from knowledge was already in his pocket. But the wind had come with it.

Lu Qinghe wanted to say something else, but Lu Yuan was already pulling him toward home.

"Dad, if he asks again tomorrow, tell him this." Lu Yuan lowered his voice. "The recipe was something a child stumbled on, the ingredients are hard to gather, and we can only make three bowls a day at most. If he wants it, this is the price." He held up two fingers. "No Copper Soul Coins. We want grain, salt, or cloth."

Lu Qinghe stared. "Will he agree?"

"He will," Lu Yuan said. "Three bowls of soup are enough for him to win over three or five people. It's worth it."

He paused. "But stick to three bowls. There's no more than that. A child gathered the ingredients at random, so there's no telling when they might run out."

Lu Qinghe considered what he meant, then nodded. "All right."

That night, the oil lamp burned like a tiny bean.

Lu Yuan sat at the small table. Rough paper and a small packet of shriveled seeds lay spread out before him. He left the seeds untouched and picked up a charcoal pencil.

Soul Condensing Grass: low-grade, low germination rate, almost no affinity with Soul Power.

He wrote down a few terms: soil pretreatment, Soul Power microenvironment, growth intervention.

Fragments of theory surfaced in his memory. Not a formula, but a line of thought. Assuming low-grade Soul Condensing Grass possessed a latent affinity with Soul Power, resonance with an external energy field and specific induction had a chance of triggering a beneficial expression.

The probability was low. The conditions were demanding.

But it was worth a try.

He blew out the lamp. Lying down, he opened his right hand.

A slight movement of his thoughts.

A faint tingling came from his palm. The illusory image of a limp Blue Silver Grass plant appeared, its two leaves pale green tinged with yellow. It looked like a dead thing.

Lu Yuan gazed at it. There was no discouragement in his eyes, only scrutiny.

He closed his eyes. The improved "Tide" meditation method began to circulate.

His Soul Power was as faint as a thread, but obedient, flowing along a smooth path.

Accumulation was slow. He had patience.

A few weeks later, he separated a wisp of Soul Power-thinner than a strand of hair-and extended it toward the Blue Silver Grass.

The instant they touched, feedback came.

A feeling of stagnation. Like a drop of water on dusty glass.

Lu Yuan didn't stop. He controlled the Soul Power, making it "travel" along the leaf veins at an extremely slow speed. He sensed.

The Soul Power became a crude "probe." The fibers were loosely structured, the energy nodes dim and blocked, the channels narrow and full of "inert" resistance.

The mutation was not pure deterioration.

He caught that information. The nodes were still there, and so were the channels, but they were like rusty pipes, thin and clogged.

The problem lay in "activation."

He withdrew his Soul Power and opened his eyes.

The next day, Lu Yuan rose very early.

After the meal, the house fell quiet. He shut the door and pulled a small clay jar from beneath the bed. Inside was the residue left from the last batch of clarified Starlight Dew Vine liquid, now dried and caked. He scraped off a thin layer and placed it on a roof tile.

He summoned the Blue Silver Grass.

He dabbed a tiny amount of juice from the residue onto his fingertip and smeared it along the central vein of one leaf.

He waited.

There was no reaction whatsoever.

Lu Yuan wasn't surprised. Holding his breath, he separated a wisp of Soul Power and brought it closer.

This time, the feedback showed the faintest fluctuation. It was like a pebble tossed into a muddy pool, spreading ripples almost too faint to see.

A tiny bit of the juice's weak Soul Power had been "absorbed." That was all.

The frequency is wrong, he thought. Or the intensity isn't enough.

He needed more precise "stimulation."

For the next dozen or so days, Lu Yuan's life followed an unusually regular routine.

He rose before dawn and practiced "Stance" with his father. His hands and feet no longer grew cold so easily.

After breakfast, his father went to work. Lu Yuan stayed in his room or in a corner of the backyard, conducting "Martial Soul stimulation experiments."

He tried using Soul Power to simulate different fluctuation frequencies, from extremely low-frequency pulses to rhythmic vibrations. Each time, he used a tiny amount of processed Starlight Dew Vine juice along with it-he had used sedimentation to remove as many impurities as possible.

The process was mind-numbingly dull.

Most of the time, the Blue Silver Grass showed no response. Occasionally, there was a faint "tremor," gone in an instant.

Lu Yuan didn't rush. He found a stone slab and used a charcoal pencil to keep simple records: date, frequency range, amount of juice used, and feedback level. There was little data, and it was all failure.

But from those "failures," he could trace out some boundaries.

When the frequency was too high, Soul Power was consumed quickly, and the Blue Silver Grass showed slight "rejection." When it was too low, it sank like a stone into the sea. Somewhere in the middle, it seemed occasionally to cause the slightest "resonance."

It was vague. But it was better than nothing.

Through this fine control day after day, his Soul Power had actually grown a little. He was still some distance from becoming a first-rank Soul Scholar, but that thread had indeed grown a tiny bit thicker.

The only consolation.

Meanwhile, Lu Qinghe's dealings with Shopkeeper Liu proceeded without a sound. Three bowls of "Energy Soup" a day were exchanged for coarse grain or daily necessities. Shopkeeper Liu tested the waters several times, asking for more, but after being rebuffed with "the ingredients are hard to find," he stopped bringing it up. Only, whenever they made an exchange, an indescribable glint flickered in his shrewd eyes.

Lu Yuan told his father not to show off what they got in exchange, but to use it quietly. Lu Qinghe did as he said. A few whole grains of rice could now be seen in the family's porridge, and occasionally a few specks of oil floated in their dishes. The worry on Lin Xiu's face faded a little.

Everything was moving in a better direction, slowly but surely.