After I got home I started trying to refine the snow leopard heart.
The detection array gave me two readings — seventy percent and forty percent. Neither was certain. The array just wasn't precise enough to be sure on the exact amount.
I went with seventy.
The process took longer than the first attempt. The higher concentration made the reaction more volatile — I had to adjust the temperature multiple times in the first hour alone. But the experience from the previous sessions helped.
Twelve hours later, a fragrance finally came from the furnace.
I opened it. The pill was good. It had a more pronounced dark color compared to the one I made last time.
The remaining thirty percent of the heart sat on the cloth beside me. Not enough for a pill. I wrapped it carefully and stored it. No use for it now, but throwing it away wasn't something I was willing to do either.
I wrapped the snow leopard pill and headed to the Association the next morning.
The same attendant was at the counter. She examined the pill the same way as before.
"Mid-grade mortal. Snow leopard." She checked something behind the counter. "One hundred and twenty gold."
More than I expected. The quality difference between the boar and the snow leopard was reflected directly in the price. I took the gold and was about to leave when I stopped.
I started looking at the shelves along the wall. There were a lot of materials, most of which I couldn't even recognize, and the ones I could from my knowledge were rare. I walked over and looked more carefully. Tier 3 beast organs, sorted by type and species. Herbs I'd been struggling to source for months — the ones I'd had to buy from multiple distributors just to maintain output. Prices listed clearly beneath each one, at rates equal to what the market used to charge back when supply was normal.
I picked up a snow leopard heart from the shelf and brought it to the counter.
"I'd like to buy this."
The attendant glanced at it, then at me.
"Member stock. Not available for outside transactions."
"How do I become a member?"
"You need to pass a test first."
"Can I take it?"
"Come back tomorrow."
After that I left and went back to refining. The materials could still last me a few days.
The next day I went straight to the Association when I woke up. I asked for the test.
She indicated a hallway and said, "Alchemist room 38. If you fail the test you'll have to pay the tester for their time, plus three times the market price for the materials. You'll have to refine a mortal mid-grade pill. You'll be given four sets of materials — the moment you successfully make a pill, you pass. If you want to go back, you can still do so."
I told her I wanted to take it and she let me through.
The room was plain. A furnace — likely better than mine — with the arrays already set up for particle removal and detection. On the table sat three earth boar hearts and one earth leopard heart. The earth boar hearts were easy to get, only six gold each. The earth leopard heart was different. Still mortal mid-grade, but tier 4 — and it cost two hundred gold. It was considered rare even among tier 4 organs. I didn't know why they'd included it. My best guess was that they'd added it so they could squeeze as much gold as possible out of a tester who failed. But that didn't change anything for me.
There was another person in the room. The moment I looked at him he just said, "Don't mind me. I'm here to check if you try to cheat."
I didn't pay him much attention and started examining the earth boar hearts. I took the first one and placed it in the array. It gave three readings — fifty percent, forty-eight percent, and fifty-eight percent. I was surprised. A lower-quality heart should have been easier to read. Three readings meant the density was less uniform than what I was used to — could be from poor storage or damage during transportation.
I started with forty-eight percent. Eight hours. Failed.
I didn't care much. Fails like this happened normally.
I went for the next one. Fifty percent. Eight hours. Failed again.
I still didn't think much about it. I did the readings on the third heart — forty percent, forty-six percent, and fifty percent. I went for the highest this time, fifty. Failed again.
My mouth started twitching.
I knew I couldn't use the earth leopard heart. I wasn't even close to skilled enough for a tier 4 organ. And if this last heart failed too, I might risk having to reset because of bankruptcy. But it was too late for regrets.
I used the array one more time. Two readings — forty-eight percent and fifty-three percent. Those numbers were like a slap in the face. If either had been just one percent lower I would have had a near-guaranteed pass.
I went for forty-eight percent.
Seven hours. Some of the longest seven hours of my life.
I succeeded.
The examiner came to me with a stamped paper and told me to give it to the clerk after resting. I was surprised — I hadn't paid attention to my surroundings at all, but he'd actually been watching me for over a day straight. That didn't matter now. After refining at full capacity for that long I felt like dying. I tried to stand up and move to the door but my legs gave out. I hit the ground and lost consciousness.
When I woke up I was in the waiting room, the paper still in my hand. Someone had carried me here — likely the examiner. I got up immediately and went to give the paper to the clerk.
The moment she saw it she started explaining what membership meant.
"Membership grants you access to all materials at member prices, which are below market rate. You can also place custom orders for specific materials that aren't currently in stock. In return, all pills you refine are sold exclusively through the Association."
"And if I break that last term?"
Her tone didn't change.
"The contract is binding. Breach results in gradual death. During the process you won't be able to communicate in any way."
She said it the same way she'd quoted the pill prices. Just information. She reached under the counter and placed a paper on the surface.
The contract.
I looked at it for a long time.
The terms were simple. Sell only through the Association. In exchange — materials, prices, access. Everything I needed to keep improving. Without it I was stuck buying tier 3 organs at full market price from whoever happened to have them, competing with every other refiner in the city for the same dwindling supply.
With it, the supply problem disappeared.
The binding part was what I didn't like. I'd never encountered anything like it — a piece of paper that could enforce itself. Not a social agreement, not reputation. Something that acted directly on the body. I didn't understand how it worked. The attendant hadn't explained and I doubted she would if I asked.
But the alternative was continuing as I was. Low-grade pills for income, mid-grade only when I could scrape together the materials on the open market. Slower progress. Slower cultivation. More time.
I didn't have a reason to refuse that outweighed what I'd gain.
I signed.
Nothing happened. No sensation, no change. The paper absorbed the ink and the attendant took it back, filing it beneath the counter without ceremony.
"Your membership is active. Member prices are listed on the second tag beneath each item."
I asked her why I had to wait a day. From what I'd seen, the place was well-staffed — overstaffed, even.
She looked at me directly. "Background checks. We can't accept just anyone. We need to know that in the long term you can repay it if you fail, or that we can take something from you to recoup our losses. And we need to call an examiner. The people you see here are mostly low-level staff. For membership tests we use high-tier mortal alchemists — tier 5 mid-grade at minimum — to make sure no one cheats. Memberships are not something we take lightly."
Made sense. If they accepted anyone, they'd lose gold every time someone failed and couldn't repay. The Association wasn't a charity. They bought pills from alchemists at higher prices than the outside market, but the pills still had to meet a certain quality, and they sold them at double the price to everyone else. They could do this because of their complete monopoly. Anyone who tried selling mid-grade or above through other channels tended to disappear — unless they had a strong enough backing to make the Association think twice. So nobody dared.
I went back to the shelves.
The second tags were there — I hadn't noticed them before. The snow leopard heart that would have cost fifteen gold on the open market was listed at eleven. The ironhide boar heart was five instead of seven. The herbs — the ones I'd been paying a full silver for — sat at sixty copper here. I bought two snow leopard hearts and enough herbs to last a month Between the hearts and the herbs I spent almost fifty gold, though I'd gained more than that today
While browsing I noticed a section further back. Tier 4 organs. The prices started at fifty gold and climbed from there. I looked at them for a moment, then moved on.
Not yet.
I carried everything back to my room and started preparing for the next session.