The first blow didn't come by blade, but by paper.
Three days after the plaza attack, a stamped letter arrived at Jade's door—neatly folded, sealed with the insignia of the Alchemy Guild. Niamh slit it open with her nail, her eyes narrowing before she even spoke.
> "Notice of Review: Apprentice Jade's license is under audit. Allegations of forgery, illicit practice, and unsanctioned resource use have been lodged. The Guild reserves the right to suspend pending investigation."
Niamh's jaw tightened. "Illicit practice, my foot. They're fabricating it." She tossed the parchment onto the table, glaring at the neat letters as though she could burn them with her stare.
Jade only skimmed the page, his fingers resting lightly on its edge. His dual pupils shimmered faintly in the lamplight. "Expected. Blades failed, so they've turned to ink."
Outside, the slums buzzed differently than before. Rumors rippled through the alleys like an infection: The boy's too young. His license was bought. His potions are laced with contraband. The whispers carried further, planted carefully by Guild agents with coin and ale.
The beta woman— Amara came before Jade again, this time with her younger brother at her side. Her face was pale, her lips tight with worry. "They're saying you never passed the exams," she blurted the moment Niamh let them in. "That you bribed the Council… that your medicine kills as many as it heals."
Her brother shifted, clearly torn, but then shook his head fiercely. "We don't believe it. Not after you saved me!, We just… thought you should know how ugly it's getting."
Jade smiled faintly—not the soft smile of a child, but one sharpened with understanding. "Good. Let them talk. Noise is proof of fear."
Niamh shot him a look, equal parts proud and exasperated. To her, he was still a boy—her boy. But his calm, his precision in moments like this, unnerved her.
By evening, another tactic surfaced: slum officials, bribed by Guild hands, came knocking with forged ledgers. "Routine inspection," they said, rifling through shelves, pretending to tally herbs and vials. Niamh bristled, ready to throw them out bodily, but Jade touched her wrist.
"Let them search," he murmured. His voice was low, measured. "They'll find nothing. I made sure of it."
Indeed, every drawer gleamed with perfect order. Jade's alchemy had left no scrap unaccounted for, no herbs outside their records. Even the inspectors faltered under the weight of his meticulousness, their pre-written accusations useless in the face of exact ledgers.
Still, whispers grew. He's cursed. He's dangerous. He's too perfect—it can't be real.
And yet, for every lie spread, another thread of loyalty anchored itself around Jade. Patients continued to come, poorer folk trusting his touch over Guild-sanctioned clinics. The siblings stood guard outside his door more often than not, daring anyone to approach with malice. Gorvoth, old and gruff, was seen leaning against the shopfront with his arms crossed, a silent statement to those who knew his reputation.
One night, as the city lights pulsed with their artificial glow, Niamh sat across from Jade at the small wooden table. The letter of review lay between them, weighted with a stone.
"They won't stop," she said flatly. "They'll hound you until something sticks. Bureaucracy is slower than blades, but it's crueller."
Jade's silver-gold gaze lifted, calm but unyielding. "Then we don't play only defense. They chose whispers—I'll answer with proof. They chose paper—I'll bury them in it."
Niamh raised a brow. "You have a plan?"
He leaned back, hair spilling like liquid metal down his back. "Alchemy is trust, Niamh. They think reputation is fragile. But I'll make it unbreakable. Let them question me—I'll force them to choke on evidence they can't dispute."
Somewhere beyond their walls, in the higher districts, the Governor's aides were already noting the disturbance. The Guild's campaign was too loud, too desperate. And the name Jade—a child alchemist from the slums—was spreading faster than they had intended.
The war of ink had begun. But Jade was not merely enduring it. He was preparing his counterstrike.
....
The first whispers drifted through Nexus like smoke from a smoldering fire. Soft at first, almost harmless, but carrying the acrid promise of something dangerous if allowed to spread.
"Too young," some muttered at market stalls.
"A child playing at alchemy," others sneered in the slums.
"Bet the Guild didn't even test him properly."
"He's got someone backing him, that's all."
The words clung to the air like grime. The Guild hadn't sent blades this time—they had learned the cost of blood. Instead, they sent shadows in the form of lies.
Jade heard the rumors within days of their birth. He always did. His dual irises caught what most could not: subtle glances traded between merchants, words hissed under breath, the flicker of falsehoods woven into gossip like threads of rot.
He didn't react, not outwardly. Behind his blindfold, his gaze remained still. To the world, he was the boy who smiled faintly while arranging jars of glittering powders and neatly labeling vials with steady hands. But beneath that calm, he was measuring the weight of every rumor and the direction of every glance.
....
It began formally a week later, with a polished piece of bureaucracy: a summons.
Stamped with the sigil of the Alchemy Guild, delivered by a pale apprentice too nervous to meet Jade's eyes.
"Shopkeeper Jade," the letter read, "Your license to operate as a certified alchemist in Nexus City is under review. Until the conclusion of the investigation, all transactions must be logged and submitted for verification."
Niamh's jaw tightened when she read it over his shoulder. Her hands, rough from years of work and combat, trembled with fury.
"They dare?" she hissed. "After sending blades to kill you in broad daylight, now they hide behind parchment and seals?"
Jade folded the letter with deliberate care and set it aside. "They're cornered," he said softly. "A beast that fails with claws will try venom."
Niamh's voice rose. "You are seven years old. Seven, Jade! How much more will they try to bleed from you before this city sees the truth?"
He looked at her then, silvery-blue hair spilling over his shoulder, dual pupils gleaming faintly beneath his blindfold. There was no anger in his voice, only a chilling calm.
"As much as it takes," he murmured.
----------------------------------------------------------
First, the inspections. Stern-faced clerks arrived unannounced, demanding access to his shelves, counting vials, checking seals, questioning ingredients. They found nothing amiss—Jade's standards were beyond their comprehension—but each visit slowed business, unsettled customers, and fed the rumor that something was wrong.
Second, the complaints. A man stormed in one evening, waving a vial he claimed had made his cough worse. The bottle's stopper bore Jade's sigil, but the contents were nothing Jade had ever brewed. Poison slipped in under a forged mark.
Niamh nearly threw the man out bodily, but Jade silenced her with a glance. He uncorked the vial, lifted it to his lips, and drank it in front of them all. The crowd that had gathered gasped—but Jade stood untouched, calm as the void.
"Interesting choice of additive," he said, voice as light as frost. "Mercury. Subtle, but fatal if left to linger. Not mine." He let the empty vial fall into the man's hands. "Take your lies back to your master."
The accuser fled before anyone could stop him. The onlookers, eyes wide, whispered among themselves. And slowly, the tide of rumor bent in a different direction:
If the boy could drink poison and live, perhaps the Guild's accusations were weaker than they seemed.
Jade understood the Guild's strategy. Erode trust. Starve him of customers. Strangle his reputation until he was forced to close his doors.
But he would not play defense alone.
He began offering free treatments at dusk—simple remedies, nothing extravagant, but precise and effective in ways few could match. A fever broke with a single sip of his draught. A festering wound sealed clean without scar. An old man's failing lungs steadied after inhaling a thin mist of crystalized herbs dissolved in ether.
Word spread not as rumor but as testimony. Not whispered slander but shouted gratitude.
The same slums the Guild hoped to turn against him became his shield. Mothers sent children running with coins clutched in fists, begging for tinctures. Soldiers on leave slipped into his shop quietly, desperate for relief from injuries the Guild's alchemists had dismissed. Even a few minor merchants began to visit, curious to test the skill of the boy everyone spoke of.
Niamh stood guard at the door each night, arms crossed, glaring at anyone who lingered too long with suspicious eyes. But inside, Jade worked with tireless grace, each motion of his hands echoing the knowledge of an alchemy God.
.....
But the Guild did not retreat. Their whispers slithered upward, carried to the higher districts where Nexus's true powers lay.
Councilor Draven, leader of the Alchemy Association, pressed the matter at council gatherings. "This child's license undermines centuries of order. A boy of seven wielding an alchemist's seal? A dangerous precedent. We must correct it."
His words were honeyed, but the council chambers were not so easily swayed. The Governor's eyes lingered on Draven, weighing motive against necessity. Other councilors, each representing their sectors, murmured doubts. Some saw opportunity—if the boy truly was talented, he might be useful. Others feared the Guild's growing desperation would bleed into open conflict.
But none moved openly yet. Politics on Nexarion was never a matter of truth alone, but of timing.
One evening, as Nexus's twin moons cast pale light across the city, Jade sat at his counter arranging a set of crystal vials when he felt it.
A ripple.
His pupils contracted, twin irises spinning faintly as his vision pierced the veil. The figure approaching his shop wore a disguise: plain clothes, a humble gait, even the faint illusion of a weaker aura. But Jade's eyes unraveled it instantly.
Beneath the facade stood a man of immense presence, threads of dominance woven through his very essence. An Alpha—not ordinary, but one whose talent blazed like a star.
Governor Kael Varros.
Jade lowered his gaze before the man entered, hiding the flicker of recognition. To Niamh, to the customers inside, it was just another visitor. But Jade already knew: this was the moment that would shift everything.
The bell above the door chimed softly as the Governor stepped inside.
And the world, for Jade, tilted toward a new path.
Dingiling....