[RSM] Chapter 119. Token (Patreon)

Luharlia

"While you are here, let's make yourself useful." Consort Hanya said. "My Princess desires more of that pill, and quality is no issue. Anything and everything you require, please just say so." 

Tundra blinked, a little surprised. He had theorized that the Golden Dragon was some kind of multi-elemental inheritance, with a strong spatial focus, but this reaction made him reconsider. Could it be a spatial-focused dragon, with the elemental aspects more of a supporting element instead?

"I need to be in the eighth realm to create the stronger version. My current strength is insufficient to wrestle with the larger spatial realms. Also, my son and my wife are in the hands of the Brownhill Fists Sect. If I am to work on more pills-" 

Prince Consort Hanya laughed, his sense of timing a little unusual.  

"Oh? A small sect that I never heard of dares interfere with my Princess's imperial matters? They do not know who they offend! But my own informants tell me that these family members of yours are estranged. They left on their own accord, did they not?" 

"Oh." Those words felt rather sour in Tundra's heart. There was a saying that family matters stay within the family, but such ugly stories inevitably escape. "They are my family, even if we have difficulties."

Prince Consort Hanya laughed even louder. "Family is such a troublesome thing, yeah? Don't worry, even the Emperor can't get his children to get along, and did you know that I was also estranged and exiled by my own family centuries ago? Now, I wouldn't even bat an eye if I needed to slaughter them all." 

Tundra didn't, and he felt a brief recollection of his own alternate future. One where he did have to fight his own corrupted family members. But he focused on the man standing in front of him, Prince Consort Hanya's background was surprisingly hard to uncover. 

"But I understand. Family is family, and as the patriarch, you are the guardian of the family's honor. The head must lead, even if the limbs refuse to follow." 

"That is why I must go and make a statement. I cannot allow other sects to so freely take advantage of my family, even if things are tense between us." Tundra said with a sense of resignation that was annoyingly too familiar to him. "But unfortunately here I am."

"Fair, fair. As a member and observer of this entire succession conflict, I am no stranger to family conflicts. I ask for some patience and do not worry, I will send someone over to ensure no harm comes to them, but I cannot allow you to leave until my Princess returns. So, let us get you moving on that cultivation."

Tundra eyed the Consort, and wondered how effective his pills were. They must have worked very well for the Princess to react in such a forceful and pushy manner.

***

Luharlia was home to many secrets, and Prince Consort Hanya had access to a few of them.

Just like Prince Kaorl, Princess Luharl has access to a large array of high quality cultivation chambers deep underground. "This is something reserved for young royals, but Princess Luharl has decided you deserve some time in there. Know that even someone like myself has not tried it."

"Then I dare not take what belongs to others." Tundra thought that sounded like a threat.

"Bah. I joke." Prince Consort Hanya said, and Tundra struggled to understand whether it truly was a joke. "It is a cultivation chamber with ancient metal energies, not something for me. The one I use has a more mixed nature, of both water and earth. Such raw metallic energies are not useful to me, and I have access to other cultivation chambers."

The Consort was a strange person, but probably anyone at that level of power embodied a little bit of eccentricity. "Ah. Water and earth." Tundra paused and wondered why the Prince Consort's elemental energies felt more like a blend of earth and metal instead. 

"Well, get moving. The Princess wants more of those pills, and we'll need to get you up there as fast as possible."

"One shouldn't take so many of those pills." Tundra cautioned.

"The Princess is no fool. It will be for the treasury. Pills with strong spatial and temporal aspects are very rare."

"That pill cannot be stored for long." 

"The Princess has other means to store things, in ways that are not for us to know."

Tundra realized maybe he truly was a frog in the well, unaware of how deep the royal family's coffers were. "Then I shall trust your wisdom."

"If you do, then get inside and get started." Prince Consort said, and tapped Tundra on the shoulder. 

He took a step into the cultivation chamber and felt it whirl into activation. Luharlia's underground likely had a powerful spirit vein that powered such an intensely thick cultivation chamber. As he looked around the small, empty room, he briefly realized it has been a while since he used one of these places.

Many of them were destroyed by the Zuja, since the Zuja cultivators rarely needed these chambers, so they were mostly used by their enemies. Borrowed power was so easy. So addictive. Most cultivators just resorted to taking the easy path. 

He was fond of telling his friends and anyone who would listen that the borrowed power was hollow, and it was. But there was a rawness to that borrowed power that is a quality some cultivators desired. 

Power was power. He knew more than one cultivator who would do whatever it takes to get it.

He sat, and felt the raw metal energies in the room, and the room was so dense with it that it felt like everything was on the verge of metalizing. Some of them began to form a coat on his skin and his robes. 

He had to work quickly, then. 

He sat, and opened his meridians and spiritual roots. Through these parts, spiritual energies enter. The haze of metallic energies swirled as he pulled them in, and compressed them into motes and shapes. Usable forms. 

Raw energies are useful for refilling the tank, but to ascend, these raw forms must be reshaped and turned into structures that last. Wrestling with these spiritual motes of metal was quite like forging. He has to sometimes strike them hard, sometimes hit them gently. These reshaped them, reformed and transformed them. 

Occasionally, he has to turn on the heat, and forge the metallic motes into more unique shapes. There was a description often used in the higher realms, that forming the spiritual structures within their spirit realm with fire elemental energies was like trying to direct the flames during a firestorm, building structures with earth like pushing boulders uphill and building a giant wall, cultivating water was like standing in front of a flood and trying to slow it down, and cultivating wood like trying to chop down an overgrown forest of thorns.

From this chaotic mess, they needed to turn it into usable, practical forms. 

He hammered away. Not physically, but with his mind.

He recalled the concepts and principles he understood well and mastered in the tenth realm, and began to shape the metal elemental energies.

In the presence of a master, even tough metals must bend to shape. 

Now was a great time to relook at the structures he built throughout the seventh realm. Some of his cultivation structures were hastily built, even if they were still competently constructed. Improvements here and there. 

The ample metallic energies meant he had more than enough energies to experiment on upgrading aspects of his cultivation, and before he knew it, Tundra spent three days inside the cultivation chamber.

He would've spent more, but the Princess returned.

As it turned out, the Princess wanted to see him immediately.

***

Tundra knelt at the center of the hall, the audience room a little different from before. He could feel the Princess's cultivation, it didn't increase as much as he expected. 

In fact, it felt as if it didn't change much after that first pill she took. 

Yet, the way Prince Consort Hanya not-so-subtly forced him into the cultivation chamber suggested otherwise. His mind scrambled to comprehend it. Did he misjudge the potency of his pill? Did she even take it?

"You seem like you have a lot of questions."

"Were there any side effects from the 2nd and 3rd pill, Princess?" Tundra asked as his forehead still touched the wooden floor. If she took those two pills, there should be some benefit to her cultivation.

And yet he felt none at all.

Had she attempted to push through to the next realm of her cultivation, failed and now was where she is? 

She was already at the peak of the seventh, and should be an eighth realm. 

"Ah." The Princess said, as her aura fluctuated. 

Tundra tried his best to squeeze out as much information as he could from her response. It sounded like she was surprised. Her aura didn't feel like that of a failed ascension. 

She has not attempted the breakthrough. 

Then the pills? It shouldn't be kept too long, since that mash of spatial and temporal aspects were so hard to contain that their efficacies should have turned to nothing by now. 

The alchemist continued to prostrate before the Princess, and the two shared an unusually long moment of silence.

Was the Princess trying to hide something? Did she give the pill to someone else?

But who?

"None. None at all. They worked perfectly." The Princess declared. "Which is why we need more." 

Tundra blinked as he focused on that last part. We?

Was the pill not for her? 

"But I have heard from Hanya about your son and your wife." Tundra felt the Princess toss out a golden badge signifying the authority of the Imperial House. The badge accurately slid on the ground and landed right next to his hand. His eyeballs rotated briefly to glance at it, and noticed a golden character signifying 'four'. A Token of Authority. "You may call on my 4th Legion to go with you and deal with this Sect. They should know that harassing a valuable alchemist of the royal house is unwise. I leave their fate in your hands. Make haste. Those pills are a priority above everything else."

Tundra listened to those words, but his mind focused on the pills. As an alchemist, he really wanted to know what happened to those pills. "Princess, are the pills securely stored such that their temporary suspended state can be preserved?" 

"They functioned as intended, Alchemist." The Princess deflected. "Let us leave it at that."

Tundra frowned, but she couldn't see it. He breathed as he suppressed his own alchemical curiosity. That part of him really wanted to figure out what happened. 

"I thank the Princess for her generosity and wisdom."

"Do not. Your service has just barely begun." The Princess declared. "Go get your family, and come back quickly. Pillmaking will be your life for the near term. I have already made arrangements to procure higher quality versions of your earlier list of materials."

He subtly cursed his luck and failure to follow the wisdom of the ancients. The capable are often rewarded with more work.

The regressor also nursed his suspicions, his senses tried to pry more from the Princess's aura, but decided it was wiser to keep his mouth shut. 

***

"We are free to go, but it appears I am now specifically needed to make some pills for the Princess." Tundra returned, and noticed that the guards were already gone. The orders to relieve them of their house arrest came a while ago, but none of them wanted to leave until Tundra returned.

"What pill?" Jashen asked. 

"Something a little more exotic." Tundra said. "A Pill of Compressed Space."

In truth, the Compressed Space Pill had very specific requirements. It must be made using a spatial realm created by one of the Golden Dragon's descendants. Only those spatial realms contained compatible types of spatial and temporal qualities.

Tundra's old friend merely looked at him with more questions unasked, but he would save them for later. There were other more pressing matters. "So, what of Lady Mistburn and Young Master?"

"Well. She has granted me leave to get them out of the Brownhill Fists Sect, so that is what we will do." Tundra then took out the Princess's token, and everyone's jaw dropped. "And, it seems the Princess deems it fitting that I take an imperial legion with me."