While the participants schemed on the arena, scraping for the best benefits, the Prescriptions and Recovery District bloomed in quiet.
Towering pagodas rose here. The halls looked like luxury meant for the rich and the wounded at once.
Soft carpets. Polished railings. Lamps that did not flicker.
The sharp cleanliness of a top tier hospital laid over the comfort of a high rated hotel.
In a room that felt like a presidential suite, an old man sighed.
Heron lay on the bed with a linen screen angled so he could watch the fighting outside without leaving the sheets.
Master of Jalin. Once the best alchemist in the Northern Emperia, until he tried to make a pill meant to ruin a cultivator from the inside, meridians and blood alike.
A weapon in a porcelain coat. The cauldron had rumbled. His qi flared as he tried to stabilize it. Too late.
He woke without arms and legs. His meridians were mangled. Nearly ninety percent of his fire meridian had turned to dust.
