The first time Li Shen used the Fumeguard Breathing Method in the forge, it didn't feel like power.
It felt like budgeting.
He stepped through the gate at bell one, jeton cold in his palm. The stone frame flashed once, then shut behind him with a click that sounded too final for a place that produced things meant to be replaced.
Inside, Furnace Two was running clean again. The green edge in the smoke was gone. That didn't make the air harmless. It just made it predictable, which was the only luxury Circle One ever offered.
Li Shen tied his cloth mask tighter than usual, then waited.
He didn't start the method immediately. The booklet was explicit: forcing it at Qi Condensation Stage 1–2 drained too fast, and drained Qi made shaky hands. Shaky hands in a forge didn't just ruin metal. They ruined reputations.
He worked the first hour without it—carry runs, bin shifts, tongs held steady while someone else struck.
When the smoke thickened—when the rafters blurred just slightly and his chest began to feel like it was swallowing sand—he took a short step back into a shadowed corner near the charcoal bins, where no one could call what he was doing "rest."
He inhaled in the pattern he'd learned.
Measured. Controlled. Not deep.
He guided a thin thread of Qi as if he were laying a film over the inside of his lungs. Not a wall. Not armor. A sheath—something that would take the first bite of the air and keep it from reaching deeper.
He exhaled slowly.
The smoke didn't vanish.
But it stopped feeling like it belonged inside him.
He did five cycles.
Six.
On the seventh, he felt a faint heat-sting at the base of his throat—the booklet's warning sign. He stopped immediately and went back to work.
That was the point.
The method didn't make you immune.
It made you smart enough to last.
Near bell two, the foreman's shadow cut across the hammer lane.
Work didn't slow. It never slowed. But bodies shifted to make a corridor anyway, the way people made a corridor for a blade.
The foreman wasn't tall. He didn't need to be. His voice had the authority of someone who could turn a day's points into a week's debt with a single sentence.
He carried a slate board under one arm.
He set it down hard on a crate, and the sound drew eyes the way a gong did.
"Maintenance order," he said. "Listen. Furnace frames, gate rails—Circle One is already thin on stock, and I'm not having it go thinner."
He tapped the slate with two fingers, once, like punctuation.
"Ash-Bite rivets," he said. "Three hundred. Today. Not 'by tomorrow morning.' Today."
The word made the lane react, subtle and immediate.
Some faces went blank. Some eyes narrowed. A few hands tightened around tongs.
Ash-Bite wasn't glamorous. It wasn't a blade. It wasn't even a tool people bragged about. It was fasteners—ugly little pieces that kept other ugly pieces from coming apart under heat.
But it had a reputation.
Not because it was valuable.
Because it was unforgiving.
The foreman looked down the lane.
"I want consistency," he said. "I don't care how hard you think you worked. I don't care what you meant to do. I care what comes out of the trough. If it cracks later, it'll be my name that gets dragged upstairs."
He pointed at the slate's bottom lines.
PASS RATE TARGET: 85%
BONUS: +8 points if target met
PENALTY: -5 points if under 70%
REWORK: unpaid
The room didn't react loudly.
No one cheered. No one argued.
But Li Shen felt the shift in the air anyway: a job became a contest, and the contest became a spotlight.
Someone moved half a step forward.
Zhao Kun.
His brassard was still too clean. His mask still sat too loose. He looked like someone who wanted to be seen "handling" work instead of simply doing it.
"I can run it," Zhao Kun said, voice smooth, pitching it like an offer. "I've done Ash-Bite before. I know how it behaves."
The foreman looked at him the way you looked at a tool that had started talking.
"Your pass rate?" the foreman asked. "Last time."
Zhao Kun hesitated—just a blink, just long enough to be noticed.
"I didn't… keep the exact count," he said, then hurried to fill the gap. "But the line didn't get flagged. We weren't eating penalties."
"Mm." The foreman's eyes slid off him, already done. "That's not an answer."
He turned again, scanning hands.
Li Shen's stomach tightened as the foreman's gaze passed over him—then paused.
Not because Li Shen was strong.
Because Li Shen had not caused problems the foreman had to paper.
"Li Shen."
The name landed with a blunt weight.
Li Shen stepped forward without hesitation. Hesitation was a form of weakness in a place that priced weakness.
"Yes," he said.
"You handled the quench incident," the foreman said. No praise. Just a record. "You don't get clever when you should be steady. Your hands don't shake, and your mouth doesn't start trouble."
Zhao Kun's eyes sharpened.
The foreman kept going, as if he hadn't noticed.
"You run the batch," he said. "Two assistants. Pick them, and pick people who won't turn this into a story."
Li Shen didn't look at Zhao Kun. He didn't look at the eager faces either.
He picked two bodies he'd seen endure without drama—men who didn't talk during transfers, men who didn't try to turn work into theatre.
"Han Lu," he said, pointing at a thin cultivator with scarred wrists.
"Mu Jian," he said, pointing at a broader man with a permanent cough and a steady grip.
Both nodded immediately.
Zhao Kun's smile returned, tight and bright.
"Well," he murmured, almost pleasant. "Of course."
The foreman tapped the slate again.
"Circle One rig," he said. "Furnace Three. Quench trough B." His eyes flicked between them. "Seal checks at bell three. If Seal rejects your batch, you don't come whining to me about effort. You eat the penalty."
Then he walked away as if he'd assigned a broom to sweep.
Furnace Three ran hotter than the others. Not in temperature alone—behavior.
The heat from Three felt more alive, as if it wanted to climb out and touch skin.
The ash additive sat in a small ceramic jar on a shelf above the work table, labeled with a tag that had been stamped twice. Extra control. Extra accounting.
Han Lu lifted the jar carefully, as if he expected it to bite.
"This stuff," he said, turning it slightly, "it gets into your eyes. You'll be tearing up before the metal even settles."
Mu Jian gave a short laugh that caught in his throat and turned into a cough.
"Everything in here gets into your eyes," he rasped when he could breathe again. "This just doesn't pretend to be polite."
Li Shen didn't answer. His chest already felt tight from standing close to the jar.
He set up the workflow like a man setting up a trap he intended to survive.
Metal blanks on the left. Ash mixture measured in small spoonfuls—too much made brittleness, too little made uselessness. Heat in controlled cycles, never left too long. Quench timing kept strict. Cooling rack aligned so the pieces didn't touch and contaminate each other's heat field.
Not mysticism. Just discipline.
He glanced at the quench trough.
The water was not clean water.
It never was.
Trough B had a faint grey film on the surface, residue from previous work. That residue mattered for Ash-Bite; impurities changed the bite.
Li Shen leaned in, inspected the film, then looked at Mu Jian.
"Drain it," he said. "Refill."
Mu Jian blinked. "That's time."
"It's cheaper than a penalty," Li Shen said, and it came out calm because it was arithmetic, not opinion.
Mu Jian held his gaze for a beat, then grunted and went to the latch.
Han Lu muttered under his breath, "Zhao Kun would've dipped straight into this and called it 'experience.'"
Li Shen didn't bite. He didn't need to. The trough refilled. The work began.
They heated the first batch until the metal shifted from dull to a steady orange, then added the ash mixture and worked it in with controlled stirring that felt more like cooking than forging.
The smoke thickened immediately.
Not more volume—more weight.
A sour-metal scent crawled into the cloth mask and tried to sink into the throat. Han Lu coughed once, sharp. Mu Jian's eyes watered.
Li Shen watched them for a fraction of a second.
"Short blocks," he said quietly, like he was talking about posture. "Don't try to hold your breath control forever. You'll drain yourself and get sloppy."
Han Lu's head snapped toward him. "You… bought the method?"
Li Shen didn't confirm. Confirmation was currency.
He only said, "It's ten points. You don't need a sermon. You just need to think before you burn out."
Mu Jian spat into the dust, wiped his mouth with the back of his wrist.
"Ten points is cheap," he rasped, "right up until you're buying pills anyway."
Li Shen didn't argue. The Pavilion loved that argument. It kept servants busy fighting each other's math while the system kept printing new costs.
They began quenching.
The first dozen rivets hit water with a hiss that sounded offended.
Li Shen controlled the angle, minimizing splash. Splash wasn't just mess. Splash was steam. Steam was smoke condensed into pain.
His shoulders ached. His chest tightened.
He used the Fumeguard method in short bursts—five breaths here, six breaths there—whenever the smoke started to clamp too hard.
Each use drained his Qi. He felt it in the dull heaviness behind the navel, the way his reserves dipped like a bucket taking on grit.
He couldn't keep it up all day.
So he didn't.
He treated it like a tool: for the worst air, not for comfort.
By the second hour, a stack of rivets cooled on the rack—small, ugly, consistent.
That was the goal: to make something no one praised and everyone depended on.
Zhao Kun appeared halfway through the batch.
He didn't walk into their lane directly. He drifted close enough to be "nearby," eyes flicking toward their rack with the lazy hunger of someone shopping for leverage.
He looked at the fresh water. His mouth tightened.
He looked at the rack. His eyes narrowed.
Then he stepped closer, mask loose, voice low.
"Foreman's trusting you," Zhao Kun said, like trust was something you could weaponize. "That's… bold of him."
Li Shen didn't look up from the tongs.
"He's trusting the pass rate," Li Shen said. "Not me."
Zhao Kun smiled slightly. "Pass rates don't stay kind forever. Ash-Bite has a way of turning on you late, when you're tired and you start cutting corners without noticing."
Han Lu's jaw tightened. Mu Jian coughed again.
Li Shen set the tongs down for a heartbeat and finally met Zhao Kun's eyes.
"You want to be useful?" Li Shen asked.
Zhao Kun blinked, caught off balance by the directness.
Li Shen kept his tone even, almost courteous.
"Then go refill the charcoal bin for Furnace Three," he said. "We're burning through it faster than normal. If the heat drops, the ash won't bind right, and when the batch fails it won't just be my name on the tag."
Zhao Kun's smile twitched.
He'd wanted to be seen commenting, not seen sweating.
"That's not my assignment," Zhao Kun said, and it sounded like a shield.
Li Shen nodded once.
"Then don't stand in my smoke," he said simply.
Han Lu made a short sound—almost a laugh—then swallowed it.
Zhao Kun's eyes went colder.
He leaned in a fraction.
"Careful," he murmured. "People remember tones. They remember who talks to them like they're nothing."
Li Shen didn't give him the satisfaction of a reply. Replying made it a conversation, and conversations were where grudges got their footholds.
He picked up the tongs again and returned to work as if Zhao Kun had been a gust of bad air.
Zhao Kun hovered for two breaths, then drifted away.
Not defeated.
Just denied.
That was enough for today.
At bell three, the Seal clerk arrived.
Not an elder. Not a supervisor in silk. Just a narrow-eyed clerk with ink-stained fingers and a portable stamp box hung from a strap like a weapon.
He didn't greet anyone.
He looked at the rack, counted quickly, and said, "Tag."
Li Shen handed over the thin wooden tag with its stamped number.
The clerk checked it against a slip of paper, then flicked his eyes toward the trough and the furnace.
He wasn't judging craft.
He was hunting deviations.
He pulled out a thin strip of pale paper, pressed it to a rivet, watched for discoloration.
Three tested. Then three more.
He paused once—long enough that Han Lu's shoulders tensed.
Li Shen didn't move.
The clerk tested again, then nodded, small and reluctant.
"Pass," he said.
He stamped the tag with a dull thud and closed the box like a verdict.
Only then did he look at Li Shen—not really at his face, more at his brassard and the state of his hands.
"You ran this batch?" the clerk asked.
"Yes."
The clerk's eyes narrowed slightly, like he was filing Li Shen away under potential complication.
"Keep your rate," he said, and it wasn't encouragement. It was the kind of warning that meant: Don't make me notice you twice.
Then he walked off.
Han Lu let out a breath he'd been holding too long.
Mu Jian coughed, then grinned through it.
"No penalty," he rasped. "That's a clean day."
Li Shen looked at the rack again.
Three hundred rivets. Ugly, consistent, stamped.
He felt no pride.
He felt the absence of punishment.
Which, in the forge, was the closest thing to profit.
The points board updated the next morning.
Li Shen didn't stand in front of it like a worshipper. He walked past at a normal pace, eyes sliding just long enough to catch the mark.
Next to his name:
+8 — Ash-Bite batch (pass rate met)
A small number.
A small recognition.
A small hook.
He kept walking.
Behind him, he heard a quiet laugh.
Not friendly.
Zhao Kun's.
"Eight points," Zhao Kun said to someone else, voice light on purpose. "He's getting expensive."
Li Shen didn't turn.
He didn't need to.
He wrote it down later.
That night, the dormitory air felt slightly less hostile.
Not because it was cleaner.
Because Li Shen's lungs weren't fighting as hard.
Yun Xue was still there near the lamplight, stitching with her head bowed. She looked up when Li Shen sat, then looked away too quickly—like eye contact could be mistaken for claiming something.
"You… you're coughing less," she whispered, careful, as if saying it too loudly might undo it.
Li Shen paused.
It was true. Not gone. Less.
He didn't give her the technique. He didn't give her the stamp. He didn't give her the points.
He only gave her something she could carry without it becoming dangerous.
"I found a better way to breathe," he said.
Yun Xue nodded too fast, relief flashing across her face before she could hide it. Then she bent her head again, embarrassed by how much she'd reacted.
"I'm glad," she murmured, and it sounded like she'd admitted something she wasn't supposed to say.
Li Shen opened his Journal.
He wrote what mattered.
Ash-Bite rivets: 300. Target met. Bonus posted (+8).
Fumeguard used in short blocks. Qi drain manageable.
Seal test: residue strip + stamp. "Keep your rate" warning.
Zhao Kun: watching, counting, labeling me "expensive."
Conclusion: success increases visibility. Visibility increases risk.
He closed the Journal, wrapped it, and tucked it away.
Tomorrow would be heat again.
But now he had something else to manage besides smoke:
a number next to his name that made other people look twice.