"The man who's immune to every poison should watch out for knives"

  -Common "proverb" among students of the Lead and Emerald sect.

  It was by the time of my nineteenth birthday that I decided I'd had enough. This was not a realization that struck me for the first time- as divine revelation might- but something that had been brewing perhaps since the beginning of my training in this gods-forsaken sect. One would have thought that being reincarnated into a world of martial arts, monster and demons would have been a huge change of pace from the more quietly stressful life of industrialized society, but...

  "Maybell!" An older woman's voice called out from down the hall. "Have you finished cleaning the glassware? It must be ready for the evening class!"

  Indeed, one might say that my situation was altogether not that different from how it was in my last life, despite everything.

  "It will be done, Ms. Basil. Some-" I took a deep breath. "Honorable disciple or another seems to have made away with the soaps and disinfectants for a personal project, so I've been having to create my own."

  Basil swooped into the cleaning room like a hawk, the middle-aged matron's eyes unbothered by the dim light of the late morning's lanterns. I hardly disliked the woman, who had practically raised me from the moment the elders lost interest, but she had an obsession for pulcritude that made her extremely suited for the position of head of cleaning staff. Perhaps she might have been even more suited to be an army's drill sergeant, if the Red Emperor was hiring.

  "...Ah, you are actually making it from scratch. They took all of it?"

  "Indeed." I sighed, recieving an equally long-suffering sigh from the matron. What should've been barely 45 minutes of cleaning had turned into the entire morning's work due to the caprice of someone who'd thought to rob the cleaning supplies rather than ask for permission- I'd had to go by the kitchen to collect salt, the fats from meat and wood ash from the stoves. Given everything, that might have been enough, with my meagre mastery of alchemy, to skip most of the process and get to work- But the glassware in question had to be cleaned from the byproducts of the inner sect's lessons, and thus regular soap could hardly contend. The poisons involved could burn through mundane glass like it wasn't there- I'd become able to tell what they had been messing up horribly by just how vile the leftovers in the vials and alembics were.

  Instead, I'd had to swing by the outer sect's alchemical supplies, have an entire hour-long argument with the person in charge at the time, swing by the forest to collect flowers for a favor, fight a boar who'd gotten too close, and return for what I actually needed to make high-quality soap I could mix with my qi and clean the gods-forsaken glassware that had cruelly devoured my morning. Such was life in the outer sect, for those of us who'd failed to be talented enough.

  "Well, come on, then." She sat down beside me, circulating qi through her arms with a faint glow so the soap wouldn't melt off her skin as she grabbed a hold of the cauldron. "I'll help, and we'll be done in a hurry. Then you can take a break."

  "Ms. Basil-"

  "None of that." She chided. "Yes, I know full well you can do it on your own. You don't have to,and I won't let you, besides- merely be quiet and grateful, yes?"

  It was quite simple for her to push her qi into the mixture, getting a solid reading of it's acidity, composition and purity. "You do good work. You've got the mind of a true alchemist, Maybell. We all know that. You don't need to go at everything alone just because the inner sect-"

  "Basil." I interrupted her, but- then, I thought better of it. I didn't want to lash out at her- she was looking out for me. She looked out for everyone stuck in the outer sect's compound, really- her whole family had grown up here, and she considered it her responsibility to keep things running as smoothly as possible so we didn't have to deal with the cultivators who actually owned the place. A lot of the children adopted by the Lead and Emerald sect over the years had wound up being taken care of by her, so she was something of a mother figure to most of us. Unfortunately, much like a parent, she also had very personal ideas of what was good for us, which I didn't always appreciate.

  The matron sighed, quickly condensing and solidifying the mixture, molding and splitting it with her bare hands. "You need to stop comparing yourself to all those people and be happy with yourself. It's been years since your sister joined the inner sect, and she hasn't visited you once... why do you want to go and meet her so badly? You need to grow some backbone and stop hurting yourself like this."

  "...Some backbone- Giving up is backbone now? If I could just..."

  Perhaps because I wasn't the original owner of this body, the flow of my qi was wrong. Blockages lined its circulation, slowing and choking it- It took me hours to do the work my sister could do in fifteen minutes, even back when we were kids. She was a prodigy, and I, too, had been expected to be - a pair of twins who'd survived a demonic plague, the kind of thing the Lead and Emerald sect cherishes like a treasure. That kind of thing required a lot of internal strength- a body that could fight against magical diseases was perfect for our sect's internal-focused style. It'd taken years of wasted tutoring and elixirs to try and fix the issue before they finally gave up on me as a failure, leaving me to be raised and to work here. To spend every day cleaning, working on basic remedies, while she studied secret arts and became immortal.

  How could I be happy and accept it?

  "...I have to at least try, Basil. I don't care about the inner sect, or the privileges. It's not that I don't like working here, it's just..."

  "It's just that you're a stubborn oaf." She laughs, despite herself, tired. It's an argument we've had many times, old and worn and familiar. "Just like I was at your age. I suppose I can't tell you to listen to our elders, given all the quarreling I do. I just worry that you'll get hurt. People change, Maybell- especially when they delve into that sort of life."

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  "Don't worry. If it turns out she's just an idiot after all these years, I'll break my fist on her face myself."

  We fall into a comfortable silence, finishing the work. With the rest of the day free, I've got time to plan. I knew most of the outer halls and chambers of the inner sect's temple from working in cleaning- they never let us too deep into the complex, where the older students resided when they weren't out wandering the world on their quests for power and serving the Emperor's army as healers and warriors, but I knew she hadn't gotten quite that far yet. Given our shared birthday, she would probably be celebrating.

  Like hell I was giving up. I was planning to leave this place. I'd been planning for a long time, and a real alchemist works best with time to prepare.

  I wasn't leaving without seeing her. The girl whose sister I replaced- the only reason I hadn't left this sect after so long. The girl I suspected knew I wasn't Maybell.

  Stealth is one of those things you get pretty good at, when you're used to being yelled at. Midday in this world didn't manage to fully disperse the darkness that gripped the sky, the dim sun managing to give everything a faint gray pall, but the usual gloom began settling in during the later hours. I was wearing the perfect camouflage, at least- after all, cleaning staff is expected to be there, hardly paid attention to. With my black hair tied into a bun and a cloth wrapped around my face to protect from dust, nobody should recognize me either.

  I snuck out of the servant's quarters when the busywork of the afternoon died out, so nobody would notice my absence. The constant rains of the region made my sandals sink into the soil, so I took care to begin circling around the building in what would be a normal direction- before pausing to focus on the flow of my internal energies. Though I hadn't remained long in the care of the inner sect, I'd learned the bare basics- a bit more than what they taught to most servants, which boiled down to the bare necessities for everyday alchemical work. With a deep breath, I let my awareness sink into my body, feeling my qi struggle to move smoothly. It was like trying to push through water, or perhaps as if its density was entirely wrong- it tended to stagnate in place, being difficult to move around freely. Over the years, it'd caused me no end of medical problems until I'd learned to circulate it manually- and even now, the kind of manipulation a cultivator uses required a lot more effort than it should. Still, I could do this much- it wasn't too different from how Basil and I had used qi to shield our hands from alchemical mixtures earlier, a trick to coat the soles with a thick, smooth layer to avoid leaving footprints. I pivoted in a different direction, towards the rocky cliffs atop which my destination stood.

  Climbing the mountainside to the upper sect's compound in a long skirt while carrying dangerous alchemical mixtures in my bag, however, was a much more involved process than a simple sneaking around trick. It was important not only to use my muscles, but to try to move the energy within my body to align with each movement, taking it where it was most needed- flowing power across your whole body was good for your health, but intense effort was best served by knowing exactly where to put the most. The sluggish flow struggled to keep up as I pulled myself up with a single hand, grumbling to myself as I stared up at the faded afternoon stars.

  "Maybe I should punch her. I feel like I'm owed at least some sibling violence, it's practically traditional."

  "Taking the scenic route to your violent ends?"

  The voice made me lose focus and disrupt the flow of qi into my fingers, losing my grip and beginning to tumble down- the stranger's hand lashing out like a snake to grip my wrist before I fell. The vials in my bag clinked dangerously.

  "...Maybe so. It's a beautifully dark and sneaky hour of the day, so I was in the mood." I joked weakly, looking up at them.

  Staring down at me was a woman I'd never seen before, golden hair like a lion's mane framing her face as she smiled down at me. Her red robes hung loosely around her, revealing dozens of silvery scars wherever there was exposed skin. She seemed perfectly at ease, lifting my whole body up by the wrist without effort- pulling me up close with a painful yank. I could smell the alcohol in her breath as she talked to me, and the intense warmth of her body as it burned through the toxins with her qi. Her yellow eyes looked me up and down, like a beast deciding if I was worth the effort to eat.

  "So, what to do with a little assassin..."

  Oh, gods. A cultivator from another sect. I had to think quickly, which sadly meant not thinking well.

  "No assassination. No. None of that, it's just punching. I need to punch an idiot sibling of mine" I managed, keeping my voice cheery. "It's my birthday, I'm allowed that much."

  "Are you? Sneaking around into this sort of place, I'm thinking maybe I should call the guards." She dangled me lower, and I struggled to push away from all the sharp stones, taking a deep breath. I had to pray I wasn't going to die to something this stupid- my foot managing to find a small amount of purchase on an indentation in the cliffside.

  "Not allowed." I interjected, laughing with fear. "It's my birthday, after all. You wouldn't get a girl killed on her birthday, right? It's bad luck. Ancient tradition, you know? I'd haunt you for at least a thousand years." 'Just be funny and maybe they won't kill you', after all, is a tried and true technique against cultivators who could kill you in a single blow.

  "Mm-hm. Well, I'm not from around here, so I wouldn't know~ I guess it'd be bad to break tradition today, at any rate."

  Just like that, I was safely deposited on solid ground, my heart feeling like it was going to simply give out and kill me on its own. Finding my footing, I took a deep breath, trying to ignore the smell of alcohol and think. Silver scars, foreign... Some sort of external cultivation method from another of the Border Kingdoms, certainly. The red robes with gold embroidery mean she's definitely a warrior, here on behalf of the Red Emperor's forces- maybe part of the military, or bodyguarding a diplomat. That boded... pretty ill. We weren't kept very up to date on things, in the outer sect, but even then- we hadn't been made to thoroughly clean everything more than usual, so this must have been some kind of surprise visit, even to the elders.

  Which meant it was just about the worst time to sneak into the complex.

  "..." I can't give up. I'm leaving, so I had to do something. This woman... If I was reading her correctly... "...So, you wouldn't happen to want to help me sneak in?"

  "Would I?" She was curious about what I wanted. Bored with the meeting, probably- she was already drunk before 8 pm, on what was probably an important day. "And who is this sibling I would be helping you..."

  She looked me in the eye, recognition sparking in her brain as she stared all too intensely at me. "A-ha. As a matter of fact, I entirely understand."

  "Y-you do?"

  She put an arm around my shoulders, already pushing me towards the complex with a laugh and a mean smile. "Oh yes. Young mistress Lily will be leaving tonight! If you don't fight her today, when will you?"

  I was in way, way over my head.