Being an alchemist in a mansion, retired, just experimenting… It totally rocked! Exactly like I’d assumed, which, duh.
I woke when I wanted, brewed when I felt like it, and stopped the moment the room started to smell more of singed herbs than progress. It was an amazing lifestyle, satisfying and carefree by turns, hard enough to be a challenge and unrestricted enough to limit frustration to the bare minimum.
Especially since I had Labby, Ash, Sheldon, Nyan to accompany me. Speaking of Nyan, that cat truly was something, disappearing whenever it wanted to and then randomly reappearing; I’d even learned it had saved two soldiers in the final battle, but I didn’t even know about it until months later!
The mansion had more rooms than we needed and more corners than any sweeping schedule could truly handle, but it gave us space: a quiet library with a long table that held three pill furnaces in a row; a sunlit corridor where Ash preferred to nap, stretched across the warm tiles; a back courtyard for drying ingredients on racks; and a small copper still I swore I would not overuse and then absolutely overused anyway.
The rest of my friends—including my master, Granny Lang, Elder Yan and Matriarch Shie—visited regularly. Zhang never knocked and always arrived with fruit or a sealed box of ore samples he thought I might want for catalysts. Qiao Ying kept promising to take a full week off and then settled for one long day where he reorganized part of my notes and scolded me for letting labels fade.
Liuxiang tested my tinctures and made faces only when the bitterness deserved it. Yan Yun turned the garden path into a sparring route for the juniors, then pretended she hadn’t when Granny Lang raised an eyebrow at the muddy footprints.
Yin sent letters from the road with sketches of restored bridges and sketches of food she wanted us to try next time she passed through.
And, like today, Labby’s petulant voice echoed out of the room. “Master, we need to go to the picnic. Hurry up!”
“Two minutes,” I called, pinching a flame lower under the smallest furnace a few meters away from me. The pill cores inside were stable, but I didn’t trust them unsupervised even for a breath too long. “Three at most.”
“You said that ten minutes ago!” Which was true, and which made Ash lift his head and huff, his ears twitching at the sound of Labby’s steps pacing the hall.When we weren’t brewing or resting, and one of us had an idea for a walk, a ride, a tea shop worth testing because the owner had finally found decent water, a hillside where the grass had regrown thick enough to sit on without dirt clinging to every seam. It was quite nice.
Each time, we got to see how the world was steadily beginning to heal in our excursions. The old scorch marks on the city walls had been scrubbed down and filled with new stone. Market streets had their canopies back. The early morning clatter of carts returning to the main road replaced the silence that had filled the months after the war.
People were steadily beginning to rebuild. New roofs showed up above old foundations, plain and sturdy, not waiting for a grant or a command. School courtyards rang with the sound of first forms and first mistakes. The clanging of iron came back to the forges at a regular hour instead of a frantic one.
Every day, the cities recovered a little more, and the population seemed to grow just a bit more. Families who had fled returned, and new families formed from people who had met in the worst months and refused to part now that there was sun and soup again.
Support creative writers by reading their stories on Royal Road, not stolen versions.
Cultivators and mortals seemed to find just a bit more technology. Workshops that had been devoted to war work converted their tools to peaceful use: rune-etchers engraving household talismans for heat and light; alchemical kilns firing tiles that didn’t crack in the first rain; portable formations that filtered water for villages too small to build permanent systems.
Children argued about which aeroplane model was fastest and then argued about whether aeroplanes should even be used for racing.
My friends were also able to smile now. The smiles weren’t careless, and they didn’t erase the lines around their eyes, but they came easier and lasted longer. None of them could quite fully move on, but they were able to move forward, carrying the weight of everything they had lost and gained.
They told stories about the people who weren’t at the table anymore and poured a cup for them anyway. They built small shrines in corners and put fresh flowers there without turning it into a show.
Honestly, I didn’t regret this journey one bit. The cost had been real. But the result was real too. On most days that was enough to quiet the questions that liked to surface when the night ran long.
I looked down at the book I was writing—I was at the final page, the page which contained the tales of my final battle against the demon god.
The book sat open on a low desk by the window, pages weighted by a smooth stone Ash had found and insisted was lucky. The ink on the previous chapter had dried clean. The left margin carried my narrow corrections. A ribbon marked the appendix where I had placed my notes on the Laws so far: examples that would make sense to a student without my senses, edge cases that had almost broken my nose when I tested them, warnings about shortcuts that looked elegant until they spilled you onto the floor.
I wrote a paragraph:
“And so my adventure might have ended, but that doesn’t mean my journey has ended. I’m sure there are many other things I’ll face, many other adventures I’ll experience—even if none of them will be as exciting as facing a demon god. Good riddance for that. I do not want to face another world-ending entity.”
Did I just jinx things by saying that? I paused, then shrugged. It’d be fine. I stretched my fingers, and glanced at the small clock Granny Lang had bullied me into placing on the shelf. The hand that marked the quarter hour had edged farther than I liked. Labby’s pacing outside picked up speed. If I made her late, she would forgive me, but she would sigh about it all the way to the field and all the way back.
I wrote one final line into the book.
“There is only one thing all of you, my dear readers, need to remember:
At the end of the day, Qi = MC².”
I underlined the formula, just the once. A neat underline carries confidence; a double underline makes the page look nervous. I sanded the ink, tipped the page forward to check for any wet glints, then blew gently to be certain.
“Master!” Labby’s voice echoed outside, and I chuckled, closing the book and standing up. The chuckle made my ribs twinge in a few old places and then settle.
I slid the ribbon to the final page and smoothed it down so it would not crease.
The Laws of Cultivation.
I’d argued with myself about that title for a week. Other options had sounded clever for a breath but didn’t quite stick as well or as straightforwardly as this one did. This one told any reader exactly what waited inside. I wrote a name on the inside cover I didn’t plan to show anyone yet, a private dedication, and then shut the cover with my palm.
I walked out of the room, closing the door behind me, the latch clicking shut. The faint smell of ink stayed inside.
In the corridor, Labby stood with a basket, two blankets rolled tight, and a smile that had already forgiven my delay. Sheldon trotted past her toward the kitchen, knowing a leftover bun would find its way into his mouth before we left. Ash glanced up from a scroll he pretended not to be reading upside down and tucked it under his arm, ready to act surprised at whatever food the picnic revealed.
The old man cleared his throat from the courtyard and pretended he hadn’t waited at the gate for the last five minutes. Granny Lang tapped her cane once and gave my clothes a fast inspection for ink marks. The house breathed in and out around us.
It sure was good being a retired alchemist.
End of Series