The art of alchemy had always fascinated Hong Tang Kiro. With a single pill, even the weakest of children could go toe to toe with a mighty warrior. With a gulp of elixir, even the harshest of wounds could turn from certain death to a minor inconvenience. And with the proper dose of poison, entire armies of accomplished mystics could be felled with a single strike.

Alchemy was indisputable proof that even those forbidden from cultivation could harness the powers of heaven and earth, and with this new elixir...

Well, he'd find out.

He turned his attention to the vial in front of him, focusing on the transparent red liquid. This was one of the first recipes he had ever learned — two parts ground crimson lotus and one part dayspore, dissolved together in water just shy of boiling. The Hong Clan called it the Breath of Heavenly Fire, but it was just an apprentice-level solution that bolstered cultivation speed.

He wiped sweaty palms onto his stained alchemical robe, squinting in the golden rays of the evening sun. The burns on his forearms flared at the friction, but right now he was too close to a breakthrough to care.

Carefully, he poured in five pasted leaves of frostfrond, turning up the burner a quarter of a notch. This was the last variable he had to isolate — four leaves had been too little to completely react with the fire mana, and six had been too much. Hopefully, this would be just right.

A plume of azure fire blossomed from the top, and he shielded his eyes, frantically swirling the bottle with a pair of wrought iron tongs. A frosty blue awakened within the sea of red, and the liquid brightened with newfound light.

Stable!

A grin spread on his face, but he shook the excitement away. He wasn't done quite yet. All the individual steps had gone as planned, but as years of alchemy had taught him, chaos had a million ways to disrupt even the most controlled of environments.

Still, he wouldn’t know until he tried. With a quick prayer to the Saints, he dumped in three spoonfuls of powdered crystal.

A second passed. Then two. Then three.

Had he failed again?

Finally, an excruciating four seconds later, the crystal fulfilled its role as catalyst, disintegrating as the two colors fused into a shining, coherent white. A slight pressure permeated the air, and as he stoppered the vial, he couldn’t help but wish that he was anything but a Sun. To a mystic’s spiritual sense, that reaction must have been beautiful.

In the Hong Clan, it was custom for clansmen to have their mana awakened at birth. As soon as a newborn got their mark, an Elder would use a special technique to channel fire into them, ensuring that all members of the clan safely achieved the First Level of Purification, the bare minimum needed to practice the mystic arts.

All except for Suns.

This elixir was extraordinary, but not because it was especially potent, or because it contained any particularly rare ingredients. In fact, when consumed by any normal mystics, it would prove to be quite weak. No, what was extraordinary was that despite being aspected with fire mana, it was calm.

When they were still children, Seira had once tried to force an advancement onto his core, and he still had the scars where the stream of energy had wildly combusted. Without control over his spirit, it was impossible for him to safely take in any injected mana, meaning that even aided cultivation was all but impossible. With this, though…

Perhaps it would be stable enough to actually work.

He shot to his feet, laughing despite himself. After what must have been hundreds of tries, in this bottle, he had combined two completely ordinary things to form something extraordinary. His hands shook with excitement, but he forced them still, bringing the vial to his lips. But… no. He’d best get a mystic to test it out before he tried.

He set the elixir down and scribbled the details of his concoction onto a spare piece of parchment. Though he wouldn’t be able to taste the fruits of his labor quite yet, he was finally done!

He flopped onto his worn bamboo bed, ignoring the overwhelming smell of medicinal herbs emanating from his clothes. There would be a lot of cleaning to do later, but that was just how it was when enlightenment struck. He couldn't wait to tell Seira, but for now…

A red and black blur tackled him, and he yelped, falling off of his bed and onto the hard wooden floor.