The Alchemy of a New Age

The Imperial Palace. The Emperor's private study.

The ruler of the Great Hwan Empire, the Changsung Emperor—a man well past his fortieth year—listened in silence to the report Chief Seal-Holding Grand Eunuch Sang On was delivering.

As head of the Directorate of Palace Servants, the very apex of the palace's eunuch hierarchy, the Chief Seal-Holding Grand Eunuch supervised every eunuch within the palace walls. Beyond that, he wielded formidable authority: transmitting and receiving the Emperor's commands, and reviewing petitions in advance to offer counsel before the throne rendered judgment.

"...And so, the 'Petition for a Merchant's License to Sell Salt' submitted by Sangguan Wan'er of the Man'geum Merchant Guild remains pending before the Salt Administration Office, owing to the opposition of the Minister of Revenue."

The Salt Administration Office oversaw all administrative matters concerning salt distribution, under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Revenue.

When Sang On finished his report and bowed his head, the Changsung Emperor spoke.

"The one standing behind the Minister of Revenue is the Gold Pagoda Mountain Manor, I take it."

It took the shape of a question, but certainty was threaded through his voice.

"Just as Your Majesty suspects. And it would seem the Gold Mountain Tower has grabbed hold of the other side's coattails as well, fighting this matter tooth and nail."

The Changsung Emperor knitted his brow.

"The Gold Mountain Tower too? They were never ones with such a hunger for salt."

"It would appear the proposal Lady Sangguan submitted was so radical that it rattled them," Sang On offered carefully. "She has declared that if she is granted the right to purchase salt permits, she will sell salt at one nyang of silver per seok—half the price it commands in the market today."

The Changsung Emperor's eyes narrowed.

"Half the price... Is such a thing even possible?"

"It is not, Your Majesty. By our own Directorate's reckoning, the bare production cost alone—before margin or taxes—approaches one nyang of silver at today's market price. And with the levy set at sixty percent, one nyang and two ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠hundred mun would be taken in tax alone..."

"Hoh... So this Sangguan Wan'er means to sell at a loss, at a price that does not even cover her costs?"

The Emperor chuckled low and went on.

"A curious thing. The Myriad Gold Mountain Manor, foremost under heaven, would sooner die than court ruin—why ever would they submit such a proposal?"

"The Gold Pagoda Mountain Manor and the Gold Mountain Tower appear to surmise that the Man'geum Merchant Guild has resolved to bleed heavily at the outset in order to secure its footing in the salt market."

"Hmm... So the strategy is for the Myriad Gold Mountain Manor to swallow losses early on, then, once established, sell salt at the same price as everyone else. That is the shape of it?"

"Just so, Your Majesty."

The Emperor's gaze sank deep. An entirely different calculation was running ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠behind it.

"The Gold Pagoda crowd mean to bring even the frontier armies under their sway with the mountains of silver they've wrung from salt. It does not sit well with Us. They have grown too large. Restraint is needed, certainly..."

He glanced out the window once more.

"Can the young daughter of the Myriad Gold Manor truly hang a bell about those old foxes' necks? Heh heh heh. This promises to be entertaining."

The Changsung Emperor spoke.

"The great merchant guilds will want to protect their profits, no doubt. But for the sake of the people's lives, the price of salt ought to fall."

Sang On ventured a careful question.

"Shall I then convey word to the Ministry of Revenue, instructing them to grant Sangguan Wan'er the right to purchase salt permits?"

The Changsung Emperor shook his head.

"No."

A languid air crept into the Emperor's voice.

"Let Us simply watch how this girl Sangguan Wan'er surmounts the obstacle—her wisdom and her nerve alike. We wish to see a new variable enter the board."

His gaze settled on the crown of Sang On's bowed head.

"There is no need, then, to issue a separate decree to the Ministry."

"As You command, Your Majesty."

"You may withdraw."

Sang On withdrew in silence.

And so a new stone was set upon the vast Go board known as the Imperial Capital.

Guided by Yeom Pung, Ouyang Qiangang made for the eastern outskirts of the Imperial Capital. It was a sparsely settled stretch of open paddies and fields, yet at Sangguan Wan'er's recent command several colossal warehouses—each spanning well over a thousand square meters—had newly risen there. More than thirty warriors stood guard, keeping watch with meticulous rigor.

Acknowledging the warriors' bows, Ouyang Qiangang and Yeom Pung stepped inside. A distinctive scent of oil hung in the air. In one warehouse stood thousands of panels—oiled paper stretched taut across wooden frames—while in another, bamboo cylinders rose in mountainous stacks. All of it was raw material for an alchemy of a new age: designed by Ouyang Qiangang, procured by Sangguan Wan'er.

As he was making his rounds with Yeom Pung, Sangguan Wan'er hurried over upon hearing the news.

"Young Master, what brings you here of all places?"

"I came to see with my own eyes how the plan we built is taking shape in the real world."

At his words, Sangguan Wan'er turned her gaze on the mountain of oiled-paper panels stacked within.

"Forgive my impertinence, Young Master, but... I still cannot bring myself to believe it. That these thin sheets of oiled paper and these bamboo cylinders can truly yield eight, even ten times more salt than the evaporation ponds we have always known."

Ouyang Qiangang turned to her, smiling.

"My lady, I never claim the impossible is possible."

He lifted a single panel to show her.

"Right now, this is nothing more than oiled paper. But soon it will become the heart of the Heavenly Fire Radiant Flame Formation Art—the formation that will seize the power of the sun and set the sea itself to boiling."

He paused, then met her eyes squarely as he continued.

"Upon this paper I will inscribe the Heavenly Fire Radiant Flame Formation Art, an art of my own creation. The formation gathers the sun's yang energy into a single point and amplifies its force tens of times over."

Then he gestured toward the bamboo cylinders piled like hills in the neighboring warehouse.

"And the cylinders will carry an inscription of my own Heaven Salt Purification Art. The salt gathered by the Heavenly Fire formation and first filtered through quicklime undergoes a second treatment inside those cylinders, where the bitterness and every last impurity are stripped away."

"Ah..."

"What remains after that is a crystal as white and pure as snow. The salt we produce will stand in a different dimension from what the Gold Pagoda Mountain Manor sells—not merely in quantity, but in quality."

Seeing that she was still wrestling to follow, Ouyang Qiangang grinned and tried another way.

"The Heavenly Fire Radiant Flame Formation Art is much like etching tens of thousands of tiny mirrors across the paper to gather every ray of sunlight into a single point. As for the secret art inscribed on these bamboo cylinders—think of it as the finest sieve in the world, one that strains out even the smallest grain of sand suspended in the water."

Coming from anyone else, it would have passed for the ravings of a charlatan Taoist spouting nonsense. It was precisely that far beyond belief. But before the absolute conviction burning in his eyes, no seed of doubt could find soil to sprout.

Sangguan Wan'er sighed inwardly. Some part of her felt faintly ashamed that every conversation with this man left her so thoroughly overwhelmed by his confidence.

"Trusting in your word, Young Master, I have already all but completed every preparation." Heat crept into her voice as she went on. "We bought fifteen million pyeong of worthless coastline along the shores of Shandong Province for a song—nearly fifty square kilometers—and secured every panel of oiled paper and every bamboo cylinder needed to raise the great greenhouses there. I believed you would prove equal to it."

"The laborers to build those greenhouses are already on their way to the site. The moment His Majesty grants the license to sell salt, we can move every item of material here to the salt farms and begin production. We are ready."

Ouyang Qiangang asked with a gentle smile.

"Superbly done, my lady. And your funds—do they hold?"

"Not yet. My private nest egg—the stake my father advanced me as venture capital when I left the manor—together with the returns from the elixir sales, is more than enough to bear it."

"This venture is not a burden for you to carry alone, my lady. The fortunes of the Ouyang Clan ride upon it as well. A shortfall of funds is not failure—only another step in the process. Should the slightest difficulty arise, tell me without hesitation. So long as I draw breath, our great undertaking will never be stopped for want of money."

Something trembled in Sangguan Wan'er's eyes at his words.

"Those words alone are a great comfort. If I have need, I will not hesitate to call on you." A shadow passed over her eyes as she continued. "But the license... that final gate is proving anything but easy to unlock. The interference from the Gold Mountain Tower and the Gold Pagoda Mountain Manor is unrelenting."

Ouyang Qiangang smiled faintly.

"With your abilities, my lady, you will break through that gate as well. That is what I believe."

Once again Sangguan Wan'er sighed within, murmuring to herself.

"When the Young Master says such things, how could I possibly do anything but rise to meet them..."

After Sangguan Wan'er and Yeom Pung departed, Ouyang Qiangang sat cross-legged before the mountain of oiled-paper panels.

"Akasha, let's begin."

Akasha's bright voice followed, crisp and clear.

"A most desirable evolution."

"Too many panels for that. I can't spend months in this warehouse. Commit everything. Even at full output for a two-hour stretch, I can recover with a Yang Dragon Elixir and a gak of circulating my qi and regulating my breath."

"I erased the Thousand-Li Tracking Incense, so the Blood Sea Cult can't trace me. Besides, there are thirty warriors guarding this place, remember? Let's trust them."

One hundred thousand nanobots streamed out of Ouyang Qiangang's body and swarmed toward the stacked panels. Seeping into the paper's finest crevices, they spread like ink blooming across rice paper, embarking on a long campaign to rewrite the very molecular structure of oil and paper.

But sustaining the process demanded a constant supply of his vast internal energy. He had to keep cycling the Transcendent Peerless Divine Art without pause to feed the nanobots, and his true qi drained steadily all the while.

Fortunately, this inscription work did not burn energy in the explosive bursts of combat; it drew it thin and long, like a fine thread. Thanks to that, the recovery rate of his Transcendent Peerless Divine Art could just barely keep pace with the drain. Had this been "maximum combat mode," the task would have been impossible.

This salt production venture would have been impossible without Akasha's transcendent technology, genius though Ouyang Qiangang was. The method he had conceived was nothing less than alchemy from the future, demolishing every received truth of the age.

Nearly all of the Great Hwan Empire's salt came from coastal evaporation ponds, where seawater was left to the mercy of sun and wind. Some was mined from rock salt deposits and salt lakes, but the yield was negligible.

What Ouyang Qiangang had envisioned belonged to another dimension entirely. His plan fell broadly into two stages.

The first stage was the heart of the project—the miraculous alchemy at its core. ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠He intended to blanket the entire salt farm with a colossal greenhouse of oiled paper stretched over wooden frames, and then, using Akasha's nanobots, inscribe the Solar Energy Integrated Circuit across that paper.

This greenhouse system, which Ouyang Qiangang had named the Heavenly Fire Radiant Flame Formation Art, captured the sun's power in its entirety, boiling the ponds' water and forcing salt of the highest purity to crystallize. By Akasha's calculations, the method would theoretically yield eight to ten times more salt than conventional evaporation ponds.

The fatal weakness—oiled paper's vulnerability to high heat—had been solved by etching another microscopic network into the paper's interior: the Magnetic Resonance Thermal Network. It converted excess heat into an invisible energy field and dispersed it, perfectly preventing the paper from scorching or degrading.

The second stage, christened the Heaven Salt Secret Art, involved inscribing the Natural Magnetic Field Generation Circuit into the bamboo cylinders. The circuit ran repeating patterns of molecular activation, impurity filtration, and recrystallization catalysis, and through that process produced a modern salt—white and pure as fresh snow—a ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠world apart from the yellow, bitter salt of this era.

The work Ouyang Qiangang was performing now was the first of the two: the Heavenly Fire Radiant Flame Formation Art.