Arbiter

Weiyefu led Xialuote out of that sunlit room, through a short corridor paved with pale stone, and pushed open two unremarkable wooden doors before they came to a windowless hidden chamber. No lamp was lit. Once the door was shut, everything around them was pitch black. Weiyefu merely murmured a line, and a gentle radiance rose about her. Like the morning sun, it lit the walls, the square table, and the things upon it as if it were dawn. Was this the power of an Extraordinary? If only middle-sequence Extraordinaries showed a fairly obvious difference from ordinary people, then Miss Weiyefu was at least Sequence 7... Xialuote could not help glancing at the nun, whose expression was calm and whose age did not seem much greater than her own, and a trace of envy rose in her heart. She suddenly felt that choosing to join the Purifiers and become a devout believer might not be so bad. Unaware that the person beside her had already begun to think of changing her choice, Weiyefu opened the iron box on the table, drew one sheet from among several rolls of parchment, and took out several other things, setting them separately on the tabletop. Xialuote looked toward the parchment by instinct and found it covered in curved, complicated writing that seemed to carry a rhythm of its own. "This is written in the Hermes language. It is one of the things an Extraordinary must learn." Fortunately, Weiyefu explained at once. "Many rituals, records of formulas, knowledge of mysticism, and even the activation of certain abilities cannot do without the Hermes language, or other languages that possess a primal power." She paused, then added, "If you do not know these, you are little better than illiterate in the world of mysticism." She had thought that getting the potion would make her stronger at once. She had not expected this to be only the entrance, and that afterward she would still have to make up language, rituals, and common knowledge, perhaps even starting from the alphabet... No wonder Hengli'aite had advised her to come to the Church and confess everything of her own accord. Otherwise she could never have mastered this power... Muttering to herself, Xialuote realized that no system hidden beneath the ordinary world could be thoroughly grasped by a single bottle of potion. Weiyefu spread the parchment, set her gaze upon it, and began to read the formula. "Main ingredients: the facial skin of a White-Maned Hunter, and three tail feathers of a Crown Falcon. Supplementary ingredients: one hundred milliliters of White-Maned Hunter blood, one Crown Falcon claw, one green olive, and one gram of gold." As Xialuote listened, her expression gradually stiffened. Facial skin, tail feathers, blood, a bird's claw... Could these things really be drunk? Were they meant to be boiled into a soup? As if noticing her expression, Weiyefu said, "The main ingredient is the core of the potion. It usually comes from the bodily tissue of an extraordinary creature, or from something rich in spirituality. Supplementary ingredients are used to stabilize and balance it. Some of them likewise come from parts of extraordinary creatures, while others carry a symbolic meaning. "The supplementary ingredients are not the key. A little more or a little less is no great matter. But once a main ingredient is wrong, loss of control and madness are almost the inevitable end." Loss of control again... Xialuote had already heard the term a moment ago and hardly needed to ask in order to understand its plain meaning. She looked nervously at the parchment covered in unknown writing, then asked with sudden curiosity, "Then why not simply give me a potion that is already prepared? Why show me the formula?" "For the Sun pathway, the Church keeps rather strict control. Formulas are held in strict secrecy, and materials must be applied for separately... But Arbiter, Lawyer, and Assassin are not complete pathways. If a peripheral member wishes to advance later, they must often seek out formulas and materials themselves, so they at least have to learn how to recognize and concoct them. And if you later obtain formulas for the potions that follow and turn them over to us, that is also supplying the Church with new strength." As she answered, Weiyefu took a small iron pot with lug handles from beneath the table and set it directly between them. Then, following the parchment once more, she checked the materials on the table one by one. "Of course, this does not mean a formula may be passed about at will. Peripheral members must abide by secrecy as well." A complete pathway was controlled even more strictly. Was it because that power lay closest to the Eternal Blazing Sun? The guess rose in Xialuote's mind, but she soon fixed her attention on Weiyefu, who had begun to concoct the potion, and committed every small movement to memory. The concocting was far simpler than she had imagined. No stove fire was needed. Weiyefu only put the already measured and portioned blood, bird claw, green olive, and fine grains of gold into the pot, then added the three tail feathers and that piece of deathly pale skin in turn. The rather rough skin softened rapidly the moment it touched the blood. The tail feathers sank in as if drawn by an invisible force, merging with the green olive and the gold, and at last became a brownish-yellow liquid in which black flecks rose and fell. The whole process was so calm that it was unsettling. "A finished potion cannot be left for long," Weiyefu said, pouring the liquid into an open-mouthed glass bottle and holding it out to Xialuote. "Otherwise it very easily bonds with the container and forms a dangerous Sealed Artifact." So this was the real reason for concocting it in front of her... Xialuote used the inward complaint to ease the unease in her heart, took the bottle, and felt the warmth coming through the glass. The Church had once used her as bait, and Weiyefu was certainly not a good person who held nothing back. Xialuote was very clear on that. But if the other woman had truly meant to harm her, there would have been no need to go around in so wide a circle. She need only have appeared a little later while Xialuote was being attacked, and let another's hand do the killing. More important still, this was her only chance to obtain power and become an Extraordinary. She looked up at Weiyefu, confirmed that her expression was calm, and hesitated no longer. She raised the glass bottle, tilted her head back, and drank the potion. A strange sensation, sour, sweet, bitter, and spicy all mingled and balanced against one another, burst open in her mouth. The next second, Xialuote felt as if some invisible force had lifted her. Her consciousness briefly left her body, passed upward through the ceiling of the hidden chamber and the onion-like golden spire, and looked down upon Saint Luoke Cathedral, and then upon all of Suxite. The prosperous Bo'ersi District in the center showed orderly streets and dense roofs beneath the sunlight. The Old City huddled on the other side, its narrow, damp alleys like so many twisted cracks. Warehouses and docks to the west formed the busy Dock District. Ships followed the Laien River and converged to the north with the Suona River, and the military fortresses along the banks were like silent giant beasts. Farther off, toward Kelusi Mountain in the south, the Craftsman Church's Lever Church could faintly be seen. To the southeast lay Fuweier Monastery, its white walls somewhat bright in the sun. The feeling of looking down on the city, the roads, the bridges, and the crowds was captivating. It seemed that if she only reached out a little, she could throw them into disorder, or else return them to neatness and order. Yet higher and farther still, an indescribable gaze seemed to be descending. Xialuote suddenly realized that she was observing Suxite, and that she herself was only one part of what was being observed. With a boom, her point of view plunged back into her body. She was still holding the posture of tilting her head back and raising the vessel to swallow the potion. Ethereal whispers sounded in her ears, as if many people were talking softly through thick walls. The walls and table around her, lit like morning, kept spinning, and dizziness swam through her. The radiance beside Weiyefu strengthened. A warmth washed over like a tide and pressed those stray noises down bit by bit. "Dizzy?" "A little..." Xialuote answered with difficulty. "Noise in your ears?" "Yes..." "This is normal just after taking a potion." Weiyefu pressed her wrist, confirming that nothing further was wrong. "You may picture something simple and clear in your mind, and put all your attention on it." Simple and clear... maintain her attention... Xialuote closed her eyes. The first thing that came to her was not the Sun Holy Emblem, nor the city she had just looked down upon, but the family portrait at home. She imagined the wall facing the stairs, imagined the patterns on the frame, imagined Lawuer, her mother, her elder brother, and her elder sister, and imagined herself in the painting, still an infant. As the oil painting opened before her and gradually grew clear, the fine, scattered noises in her ears at last receded, and the world no longer spun as if she were about to fall. Looks like I'm all right... She opened her eyes again. There was no oil painting before her, only the windowless chamber and the nun giving off light. The door was ahead and a little to the left, about seven paces away. From standing still to charging out would take two seconds. But Weiyefu's position happened to block the way to the only exit, and she had a direct grip on Xialuote's wrist. If anything went wrong, this nun, whose slender body hid tremendous strength, could deal with it at the first moment. These judgments surfaced in Xialuote's mind almost without any need to think. She thought again of the black-robed woman in the storeroom of the printing plant, and her mind unexpectedly held many ways of answering that she had not thought of at all at the time: how to use the wooden racks to limit an enemy's speed, how to use the opponent's intent to take her alive as a way to stall for time, how, when pressed close, to break the opponent's rhythm first rather than only retreat. As for imposing presence and authority, she did not yet feel anything obvious. She would probably have to test that slowly later on. Was this an Extraordinary? Was this an Arbiter? Looking at a world utterly different from a few minutes before, boundless joy surged up in Xialuote, and then fatigue spread from her chest into her limbs. She did not hide what was wrong with her. She gently drew her wrist back from Weiyefu's hand and said, "The noise and the dizziness are gone, but I feel a little tired." Weiyefu did not stop her. She nodded. "That is normal after spirituality has been consumed. Let us return to the office from just now. Next, I will first teach you the most basic common knowledge of mysticism, and the rules of secrecy." She put away the parchment, the iron pot, and the empty bottle, and went on, "After you go back, you must begin learning the Hermes language, come to the cathedral to pray at least once a week, and report your situation to us. After that, I will introduce you to several other Purifiers, and tell you the rules you must keep as a peripheral member. "Do not think that being an Extraordinary lets you set yourself above ordinary people, unless you wish to see the other side of the Inquisition." Weiyefu's words were rather stern, but Xialuote did not truly take them in. She lowered her head and looked at her own hands, still fair and slender, with no change to be seen. From this moment, she had truly entered the world of the Extraordinary. * * * The sunlight of late February was not yet too glaring, but it was already warm enough. Luosaier Gusitafu returned to his bedroom, took off his tricorn and thick coat, hung them on the coat rack to one side, and locked the door as he did so. Only after entering this wholly private space did he relax completely. Yawning, he sat down at the desk, casually pulled out a book, glanced at it a few times, and set it down. "This world is practically a cultural desert. No popular novels, no entertainment papers, and certainly no Douyin or Honor of Kings..." He muttered under his breath, then drew his head in as if afraid someone might hear. He glanced out the window. Something stirred in him. He opened the desk drawer, drew a notebook from an inconspicuous place at the very bottom, opened it to a fresh page, dipped his quill, and began to write. "February 22, 1143. Saturday. "From time to time I will write this diary in Chinese, setting down my fanciful ideas and certain questions. For instance, why does a year in this world likewise have three hundred and sixty-five days, and a week also have seven? Perhaps the theory of parallel worlds will be verified in my hands. "This morning I went to Gelin's house and met his father. Having a middle-aged man bow and greet me was far too awkward, and yet there was a secret thrill in it. Mr. Lande'er is very interested in my idea. Perhaps the question of funds can be settled by him. Of course, that depends on my producing a fully worked-out plan, and on Miss Suolun settling the matter of compliance. "Speaking of Xialuote, she is utterly different from the other women I have met..."