Alex walked through the new tournament square at the southern edge of the village. It had been built at the end of the road where the new guildhalls, in their various states of completion, stood. Unlike the rest of the street, which still smelled mostly of sawdust and limewash, the square was finished and ready for the weekend’s tournament.

  The arena was built into the southeast corner of the village where the palisade walls met. To the east and south of the arena, the palisade walls rose behind tiered wooden stands with the heavy palisade posts acting as natural supports. Six rows climbed upward on each side, long benches of fresh wood lined the stands with a heavy railing separating them from the tournament grounds.

  The central ring was a broad square of packed sand nearly twenty meters across, its boundary marked by wooden timbers set into the earth. The whole thing stood a foot higher than the surrounding ground.

  Alex scuffed his foot across the freshly raked sand as he walked across the space. He had entered from the west, following the road in from the guildhall where he and his friends had spent the night. At that end of the tourney square sat a squat two-story structure of timber and plaster; the competitor’s hall. It is where they would all get ready for their fights tomorrow and had a narrow covered passage that jutted out towards the ring.

  Alex turned to the north, where the square opened up towards the village. There was a broad courtyard of tight cobbles and a wide arched passage through the low wall that blocked the square off. There was space here for stalls and kiosks and people to mill about between fights. He wondered if there would be any stalls tomorrow? All the previous tournaments had just been held in the training yard, and there wasn’t really room there for that sort of thing.

  By the looks of this new event space though, Dungeon Inc. wanted to make even more of a spectacle of these types of tournaments than they had in the past.

  It was quiet here so early in the morning. But tomorrow was going to be a different story. This whole weekend was going to be like a little holiday for a lot of people in the village. A lot of the village was going to turn up to watch the new cohort throw down in the ring and show off their newly learned skills.

  Alex turned once as he walked under the main entrance arch and looked back. Mist drifted low across the sand. The morning light filtered over the palisade, lighting up the square in grays and golds. Tournament banners hung from the uprights—red cloth stitched with the company logo alternating with the crescent moons of Silvergate—barely stirring in the light breeze. A handful of birds stood watch from the top of the banners, heralding in the sun.

  Tomorrow the stands would be packed with hundreds of people. It was going to be loud and chaotic. He had already heard folks betting on potential matchups at the Silver Gate the previous night.

  He shoved his hands into his pockets and left the grounds, following a side road up the edge of the village, trying not to think about how nervous he was about the prospect of fighting. He hoped he wouldn’t have to fight anyone like Mel or Danny. He was pretty sure they wouldn’t be difficult to defeat and he didn’t want to hurt them. Sarah or Connor or Jay though… any of those would be a difficult fight unless he just figured out some magic to knock them out of the ring.

  Would using magic be cheating? He could probably just think of a way to defeat everyone with his magic if he needed to. But the point of the tournament was supposed to be about showing off their new martial prowess. If he was going to use magic, it should probably be in a way to enhance his fighting. Sort of like how he could use his bracers. Not something that wins the fight outright, just something to give him a bit of an edge.

  Lost in his thoughts he almost walked past his destination. Mei Lin’s apothecary. He had so many questions for her and had wanted to visit the previous weekend. But he never seemed to have the time he wanted lately. First he had been busy preparing for the forest challenge, and then, afterwards, just trying to decompress from everything. Now though, and especially after running into Jinhai the previous night, he had more questions for her than ever.

  The house, and business, that Mei Lin shared with her husband Dr. Holt, sat just off the main street, close enough to the heart of the village to be convenient but far enough removed that they had a little more space for their extensive gardens. The building was two stories with a mixture of eastern and western design. It was a timber-framed building with pale plaster walls, but had a roofline that curved slightly at the eaves and the lanterns here were of a red paper design.

  The building faced south and the entire front of the ground floor was lined with wooden window frames covered in a narrow latticework that hatched the floor inside into small skewed squares of light.

  Alex opened the door to soft chimes and stepped through into the neat, organized space. He loved the smell of the room. Spicy and musky and peppery all at the same time and depending on where you stood you could make out notes of mint, camphor, citrus and other things that he didn’t know well enough to name.

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  Shelves ran the length of the outside walls built from a smooth, sanded wood, each lined with ceramic jars spaced evenly and grouped by use and square-labeled drawers with red doors, built right into the shelving. Every container was inked in the same careful script. A low counter stretched in front of the back wall, its surface bare except for an intricate scale, a folded cloth, a group of small wooden trays and a large book.

  When Alex first visited the storefront, back on his first full day on Earth3, he had thought this all just a front for the true medical facilities that lay beneath the building in the undercity; where Dr. Holt did the real medicine. He had since learned his mistake. Turns out that herbal and traditional remedies on a magical planet can be just as effective as many modern alternatives and Mei Lin had a thriving business here taking care of the day to day needs of the village.

  Alex heard soft footsteps above him, coming from the apartment that Mei Lin shared with Dr. Holt, and he wandered around the room looking into various jars as he waited for her to come down.

  He was flipping through the book on the counter. The title on the first page was Azure Materia Medica. It was an enormous thing. Its leather cover had long ago softened to a dark, almost black sheen from years of use. The corners were reinforced with dull bronze caps, dented and scratched.

  The paper was thick, fibrous, and uneven at the edges. Each page was dense with carefully inked diagrams containing cross-sections of roots, flowering stages of plants and sketches of various beasts and their skeletons. Notes filled the margins in smaller, tighter script.

  There were a dozen thin strips of cloth of various colours sewn into the binding and being used to mark out various pages. There was a section at the back listing ailments that cross-referenced ingredients by page number and preparation method.

  Alex found a page with a diagram of a human showing pressure points and circulation paths. It listed internal organs and functions as detailed as any anatomy book back home would contain, but there was more listed here. The diagrams here showed channels that moved something called qi around the body and an internal source in the belly called a dantian. The page had faint stains that could have been herbal, oil, or maybe blood.

  He held a hand to his stomach. Dantian. He had seen it. Not directly of course, but first in the bear, and then last night in Jinhai, he had seen the pool of energy in their stomachs. He had thought of it as a core of energy, but they had a name for it in the east. It was also clear that the qi of the east was the mana that he could see. What was really interesting to him were the pathways marked in the body where the mana, or qi, was supposed to circulate. He had seen this in practice too and wondered if it was an actual physical system that moved the mana around the body.

  A lightly cleared throat caught his attention and he looked up to see that Mei Lin had come into the room and was standing behind the counter watching him. She smiled when he looked up.

  “This book,” she said, running her fingertips across the edge of the page, “has been in my family a very long time. Back home we would keep it behind the counter, but your people,” she paused here and looked up at Alex, “Earth folk I mean, you really like to see the proof of knowledge. Everybody wants to flip through, but no one really reads it.”

  Alex laughed. “Internet culture I suppose. Everyone wants to see something new, but nobody really wants to learn if they don’t have to.” He flipped through the pages and said, “I might come back to read it though. This is fascinating. And there are so many creatures here that I don’t know anything about.”

  “You are always welcome, Alex. Learning about this world can only be a good thing if you are planning on spending more time here.”

  Alex smiled. He’d never lived in a small community before, but he was starting to see how fast news travelled in one. “I am. I’ll be here full time from now on.”

  Mei Lin just smiled. “Well, I’ll mark off some sections for you before your next visit. Plants and animals that can be found in this area might be a good place to start. And if you have questions, just let me know.” She looked at him for a long moment and then said, “speaking of questions. You look like you already have many.” He only nodded. “Yes, I can feel the energy you are carrying now. You have come far in just a few short weeks.”

  Alex remembered what Jinhai had said about the pressure of his aura and he consciously pulled it back in. He was going to have to practice holding it in as his default.

  Mei Lin raised one eyebrow but her smile didn’t falter. “Come,” she said. “We will have tea and talk.”

  Alex stepped around the counter and followed her into the back room, brushing aside the lacquered bead curtain. The room behind the curtain was at least as big as the one out front. The right side of the room was dedicated to storage, but the back of the room looked like it was set up for processing of plants, herbs or medicines.

  ***

  Elder Yu, Azure Sect; Year 412

  All our techniques are there to help teach new disciples the Way.

  Not THE Way, just the Way of our sect.

  These are methods that have endured millenia, sharpened and honed through the ages.

  But Inner disciples start to learn not to mistake method for truth.

  There is no single truth and everyone must find their own path eventually. Trying to adhere to any one technique will only inherit its limits.

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