It took Tian a long few minutes to adjust his mindset after Voidcatcher’s teaching moment, but he put the time to work by getting a sense of the manual. The book seemed to be broken up into categories, then subdivided by plants within those categories, then different strains of the plants. It made sense, but it also meant you could have two profoundly different looking plants on the opposite pages, still notionally within the same categories.
More alarmingly, the categories weren’t what he would have found intuitively sensible, like grouping the grasses in one category, pines in another, roses in a third, and so on. No, it organized them into Major Yang, Minor Yang, Neutral, Minor Yin, and Major Yin. Then sorted by elemental type, going from dominant down. There was a sickly feeling that gummed its way up his hand and into his brain through his eyes when he realized that within the varietals section, should there be any elemental variation within the varietals, they were organized according to the principles of mutual generation and restraint.
“Teacher, this manual… was intended as a sort of desk reference? Or a manual for people compounding medicine?”
“Ohoh? Well spotted. Yes, it was for the novices in the medicine compounding hall to use to check they had the right ingredients and guide them towards understanding medicine synthesis. They were tested on how much of the book they could memorize as part of their annual assessments.”
Tian kept flipping through the thigh-thick book. The hospital didn’t have annual assessments. In West Town Temple, medicine compounding was handled by Brother Wang, briefly assisted by one Tian Zihao. He had a sudden stab of appreciation for the Bamboo Medicine Hut. He could only imagine what percentage of the Ancient Crane Monastery's medicine came from them.
It also said some interesting things about just how big the sect Teacher Voidcatcher had offended was. They were big enough to need standardized references to conduct annual reviews, because there was presumably no way the managers of the medicine making halls could keep track of so many novices.
Doubtless a highly valuable and useful tome, but nearly worthless as a field manual, Tian concluded. Just casually flipping through, he had found four or five grasses pictured in the book that looked pretty similar to the ones he ate, and he was barely a hundred pages in.
Rather than lose his mind trying to keep all the herbs and their locations memorized, Tian started marking the pages with bits of string. It took him thirty minutes to work through the book, doing little more than identifying similar grasses without getting into the details. It took him another half hour to narrow down his selection to just four herbs.
The odd organization of the book came into play here. The herb was strongly wood aligned, which made it Minor yang, and it had a secondary elemental component in the form of Yang Water. Any grass not found in that section and subsection could, therefore, be ignored. Each herb was carefully scrutinized, each detail checked, and in the end-
“This one. Threeleaf Blucore Chevron Grass.”
“Boy, are you dumb? You spent two hours on this, and a quarter of that was looking through the parts of the book where you knew the answers weren’t!” Voidcatcher roared, heaving to his feet in agitation.
“Sorry, Teacher.”
“Let me guess, you just wanted to be sure you weren’t missing anything.”
“Yes, Teacher.”
“This is going to be endless if you keep going at this pace.” Voidcatcher muttered. “Haaah. I guess I’m in for a lot of naps. Well, you identified the right herb, at least. Pull out some of that blank paper you have.”
Tian pulled out a sheet of cheap paper. It floated out of his hand and stretched itself to cover the whole of the page in the manual. There was a faint stirring of qi, and then the sheet returned to his hand.
“Your first herb record. When you accumulate one hundred of them, we will start with medicine compounding. I think you can manage… let's say three more today.” Voidcatcher sounded a little tentative there. It was hard to tell from body language, but Tian had the distinct impression his teacher didn’t think he was capable of much more. He was about to jump up to defend himself, considered more carefully how the last grass tasting went, and nodded obediently.
“Try that little three lobed plant that’s growing just above the ground. It’s a little trickier to identify, and the medicinal strength is a little more potent, but with your physique, I am confident you can handle it.”
Twenty minutes later, Tian was seriously reconsidering the wisdom of taking a teacher. None of the elders were reliable. None of them!
Though, this time, it only took him an hour to identify the plant as “Sheepsbite Downy Clover,” and collect his second page.
“Varigated Collared Frill-Yarrow” was another hour, and Tian was prepared to admit it was sheer luck. It was either that, or "Variegated Garden Frill-Yarrow” and Tian couldn’t tell the difference between the two even going back and forth between the pictures.
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This, perhaps, led to a feeling of overconfidence, as he failed to correctly identify “Blue Hawk-Snake Mouseroot” just because the whole plant was manifestly green. The manual specifically said that a notable trait of the plant was its vivid blue color.
“You might also have noticed that it said ‘Under the light of the sun between dawn and noon.’ You might also have noticed that we are solidly in the after noon, now.”
“Your student is ignorant, and does not understand the difference between sunlight at the start of the Hour of the Horse, and the sunlight at the end of it.” Tian bowed, politely-ish. He was trying his best, it was just his nerves kept spasming in his hand.
“As obvious as the nose on your hideous face! Before noon, the light is waxing yang, and after noon it’s waning yang. Obviously the pigments would only be visible when stimulated by the proper lightsource. But that is clearly beyond where you are now. Try the tall grass with the little white fronds on the top, that shouldn’t prove too challenging for you.”
The tall grass with little white fronds was a minor revelation. Yang wood, but yang wood on a spectrum, ranging from practically yin, to overwhelmingly yang. He could feel the wood qi concentrating in his liver and gallbladder, swelling them painfully. His head pounded, and the most intense irritation washed over him. He kept it under control. The Mouseroot had hurt worse.
“Common Silktop Longstem Grass.”
“And it only took you an hour and ten minutes, start to finish! Have your reward.” The page was duly copied. “Alright, let’s get one more down you. If you can identify it correctly, I’ll let you go home for the night.”
“Which should I pick, Teacher?”
“This one.” A bright blue halo surrounded a reed. “You don’t need to eat all of it, but do eat the top, a bit of the stem and the leaves.” The halo vanished. Tian cupped his fist, and set to work.
He had the oddest feeling of drowning. He knew he wasn’t, of course, but he couldn’t shake the sensation of his lungs filling with water. Despite that, the taste of the puffy bit at the top of the stem was bland but acceptable tasting, the stem was green and vegetal and tough, while the leaves would probably stir fry up nicely, or be decent steamed and tossed with garlic. Aside from the whole making him feel like he was drowning thing.
He was quite proud of himself for not screaming and waving for help. He really had to tighten up his guts to eat the second one. The third one made him tighten up everything. It didn’t get easier.
Digging through the book forced him to think about something other than his lungs filling with water. He could still taste the river he fell into when he was a boy. The feeling of his mutilated hand waving in the air, trying to grab something, anything, and slipping under the water again. Not something he could ever forget.
His hands paused over the book. “Oh.”
“You can’t possibly think that reed is a common vetch.”
“No, not that. Just connecting two memories.” Tian shook his head and started turning the pages again. It was Liren. He felt safe on the boat, traveling up and down the Agate, because he was with Liren. The crane too, but it was really Liren that gave him a sense of safety. Logically, he knew he could hold his breath long enough to walk out of the river if he fell in. Logic didn’t have a single thing to do with it. He was still scared of drowning. It was Liren who made him feel safe.
How on earth could he convince her that she was safe for him?
Once again, there were a handful of identical looking reeds listed, and the descriptions of the taste were incomprehensible. How, exactly, was one meant to know the difference between “Almost Tasteless” and “Bland?” Tian considered whether the blue aura his teacher had put around the plant was a clue, but there didn’t seem to be a connection beyond the obvious water affinity of the plant.
It was quite difficult to get past the memory of drowning. That wasn’t listed as a side effect in any of the descriptions either. He picked through the words in the descriptions carefully, finally landing on “Useful in cases of scorching and treating poisonous smoke inhalation.” Initially, he thought that something that made you feel like you couldn’t breathe wouldn’t be useful for treating something that resulted in you not being able to breathe. But wasn’t inhaling smoke an influx of hot, dry qi? Combatting it with cold, wet qi made at least some sense.
“This one. Whiteflag Marshgrass.”
“Correct.”
The page was copied out, and Tian started wondering how he was going to get home. For that matter, how was he going to come back tomorrow? Teacher Voidcatcher didn’t seem the type to pick up and drop off his students.
“The Myriad Colors Holy Land is easy to navigate for birds and those of us who can fly. Less so for those at the Earthly Realm, but we have so few visitors of that level it’s not really a problem worth solving. I was going to rent you a little flying artifact, but, hmm.” Voidcatcher trailed off. It seemed Tian’s broke-ness perturbed him.
“How far is it to walk back to the guest quarters, Teacher?”
“The distance isn’t the problem, though it is also a problem. The problem is what, and who, is on the ground between here and there. We have established flight paths that everyone is required to respect. While the entirety of the Holy Land is the property of the White Peacock, the guests and disciples living here are territorial over ‘their’ patch of dirt. I know I certainly am.”
Voidcatcher’s throat wobbled. Tian thought it might be with amusement, but he wasn’t really sure.
“Ah! I know. I will have you prepare and apply my skincare regime every day. It will only take you thirty minutes or so, once you get it down. My poor old disciple was truly skilled at it, always leaving me so refreshed. Perhaps you can match one percent of his ability.” Voidcatcher nodded happily. “Basically all you do is brew up a medicinal water and lightly mist it over me. I usually do it for myself, but handing the job to you seems reasonable.”
Tian agreed that it was so, and bowed appreciatively. Voidcatcher summoned a flying leaf from his storage ring. You had to look quite closely to see the veins within the leaf had been grown in a most curious set of shapes and patterns, and faintly glowed with energy.
“Here. This will carry you between the guest pavilion and my cultivation ground. And nowhere else. People won’t try to kill you if you tresspass, but there are many ways to kill yourself, and watching people do it is considered a rare entertainment up here.”
“Your Student is grateful for Teacher’s care and reminder. I won’t wander.”