Your sister, Zhuge Xin, is waiting for you in the outer courtyard. She is wearing her usual clothing green and yellow robes with snakes embroidered on them. Her sleeves are long and hide her hands. You know from experience that she keeps various weapons and poisons in them so that she can launch vicious attacks at any time. Poisoning you and seeing how long it takes you to notice is one of her favorite pastimes after all.
Ah so she's the type to actually attack him.
"Brother, I see you finally broke through. It took you long enough." Her voice is cold and you can sense her aura probing you.
You can't help but rise to her provocation, "Took me long enough! It was only fifteen years!"
"And I took eight," she scoffs. "You've always been slow. It makes me wonder if we're even related. Give me your hand."
You grit your teeth. Normal cultivators take nearly a century. Even your older brother took nearly thirty years to become a knight. You were not slow! But you know arguing won't get you anywhere. You extend your hand and your sister starts poking at your palm. You can sense her energy examining your own.
Basically they're both impressive but she's more impressive and she thinks he could catch up to her if he tried.
"A forest core. Not even a hint of water or fire. How like you brother. What are you going to do if you have to fight someone who is actually strong?"
"I have my blades and poison. I fought a grain horror just a few days ago."
"Did you kill it?" You take too long consider how to answer that without proving her point, and she scoffs. "You're weak brother. I'll prove it to you. Spar with me!"
"And let you beat me! What would that prove? A lord fighting a knight."
"I won't use any poison or weapons. I'll keep my Qi to the level of a Knight. And if you win I'll give you a Bountiful Lily Elixir."
You pause and consider your answer.
She's very combat focused while he isn't. Basically she thinks he's cowardly for being so focused on noncombat stuff.
Once you've made your decision you make your way back to the Silver Grass Pavilion, your own personal quarters. You settle into your study surrounded by cases full of recipes and old cultivation manuals while An Lia catches you up on the latest gossip and news from the clan.
Having a private area with nerd stuff is fitting.
Your mother has refused any such thing and is quite adamant that Zhuge merchants would never sell anything less than the best quality. But the Kasjan Clan is threatening to get Imperial arbiters involved. The arbiters take a dim view of being called in for insignificant matters so either the Zhuge merchants actually were corrupt or the Kasjan clan have fabricated some very convincing evidence.
Everyone seems to be in a tumult to figure out which one it is. If it's the first, then your clan will likely need to actually pay reparations and suffer a loss of prestige, but if it's the latter then potentially things could be turned around on the Kasjan clan. Unfortunately nothing comes to mind for how you could help with this situation personally.
Ah a messy political issue.
More pertinently you have personal matters to take care of. Miss An Lia has informed you that the stocks of ingredients in the medicine pavilion are getting low. It seems that shipments are not arriving from the spirit herb gardens. Specifically your private gardens.
Unfortunately spirit herbs don't just grow anywhere. They need especially potent sources of natural Qi to grow properly. As such your private gardens are located about two hundred li north east of the capital in a particularly auspicious mountain valley. There hasn't been any word of problems from the guards or overseers there, but the fact remains that the spirit herbs have not been arriving.
Gotta makes sure we keep the quality goods.
Virtue/Vice Pick Take Two
Since I kind of messed up the presentation in the last vote this time I'll give a more straightforward list this time. However if the winning options this time don't get at least 10 votes, then I'll just go with Kind/Sadness.
That's understandable.
[ ] Organize Medicine Pavilion (Goal: 10) (Stress: 1)
Now that you are Knight it is time to take stock of your current situation. Organize your underlings, see what recipes you have the ingredients on hand to make, and generally see what you can reasonably accomplish in the short term.
Unlocks more Alchemy and Learning actions
This is his power base gotta focus on this.
[X] "Alright"
EXP is EXP and hopefully it'll be a good start to get her to stop thinking the MC is a wimp.
[X] +Kind
[X] +Sad
I liked this combination.
[X] Plan: Poison and Cure
--- [X] Select a technique to boost with 3 TP. [School of the Iridescent Toxin]
- [X] Brew Flowing Ivy Elixir (Goal: 5 Repeatable)
It's always good to have some healing elixirs on hand. You already have the recipe so it shouldn't be too hard to brew a few elixirs. You will gain 1 elixir for each five points of progress.
- [X] Organize Medicine Pavilion (Goal: 10) (Stress: 1)
- [X] Research a new Recipe (Goal: ??)
-- [X] Your sister has a point, you do need something to back you up in a fight. And you're good at making poison… (try to make something that can harm a Knight, preferably seriously. Also devise an antidote, of course)
Seems like a reasonable plan. Combat training, using alchemy expertise and building on the power base is good.
