The salvage chit didn't feel like wood.
It felt like permission.
Not permission to do what he wanted—nothing in the Pavilion worked that way—but permission to have his effort turn into something clean, written, and recognized without needing to argue for it.
Li Shen didn't spend it the next day.
Spending immediately was how you proved you didn't know how to hold anything.
He worked his forge shifts first. He let rope-strain settle into soreness instead of becoming injury. He drank River-Jade tea at night and woke with his throat less raw than it deserved to be.
Then, three days later, when the corridor traffic was thick enough that one more body didn't matter, he walked to Intendance.
The Exchange Counter looked the same as always: iron bars, scuffed wood, clerks who didn't own their own faces.
A line formed and dissolved. Names got turned into stamps. Stamps became numbers.
Li Shen waited until he reached the slit and slid the salvage chit across.
The clerk's eyes finally lifted, because a chit wasn't a receipt.
It was authority.
"Salvage," the clerk said, reading the stamp as if he was tasting the word to make sure it was real.
Li Shen gave a single nod.
The clerk pulled a small ledger book from under the counter, wrote the chit number down, then compared it to a list pinned beneath the bar—an internal registry Li Shen couldn't see.
The brush paused for a heartbeat.
Then moved again.
"Six points," the clerk said, not offering it like good news, just stating the Pavilion's decision.
Li Shen didn't waste breath on gratitude. "I need powder. And salve."
The clerk's mouth twitched, almost like he wanted to remind Li Shen he wasn't the one setting prices. Instead he simply said, "Powder's two points a packet."
Li Shen did the math without letting it show on his face.
Powder wasn't optional now, not if he wanted to keep stacking control without turning his lungs into scrap.
"Two packets," he said.
The clerk didn't look impressed. "That's four."
"And the salve," Li Shen added.
"Standard," the clerk said, already reaching. "One point."
Five spent.
One left.
The clerk slid two wax-paper packets and a small tin through the slit, then stamped Li Shen's slip and tore off a thin strip of paper.
SALVAGE CREDIT POSTED — +6
REDEEMED — -5
BALANCE — +1
Li Shen folded the strip and tucked it away.
One point wasn't useful on its own, but it was still a unit of control—and units of control accumulated.
As he stepped aside, he saw another man at the counter—a cultivating servant he recognized from the salvage detail. The man slid his own chit through, received less, and left with only grain.
His jaw was tight with disappointment, not at the Pavilion, but at himself for expecting fairness to be part of the deal.
Li Shen took the lesson without enjoying it:
salvage pay wasn't equal. It was assessed.
And assessment meant eyes.
If you wanted more, you had to be seen doing more—without being seen doing the wrong kind of more.
---
That night, Li Shen didn't cultivate immediately.
He ate first.
A measured portion of grain ration, hot water poured over it, steam rising thinly in the dormitory's stale air.
He didn't eat like a starving boy. He ate like a man fueling an engine he couldn't afford to stall.
Afterward he dissolved one pinch of powder into warm water and drank.
The bitterness hit fast. The heat followed behind it like a delayed punch.
His throat tightened. His chest warmed. Then the warmth sank down into the space behind his navel and spread outward into channels bruised by smoke, rope work, and too many controlled breaths.
He sat with his back against the wall and let the first wave settle.
He didn't force circulation while the powder was still climbing. Forcing it early made his Qi jump and leak. Leaks were wasted points.
When the warmth stabilized, he began.
He guided his Qi in slow loops the way he always did—lower abdomen, along the channel that snagged near his ribs, back down again.
The snag came on the second pass as expected.
It always did.
A thin resistance that made his breath want to tighten.
He didn't push through it.
He held.
He breathed.
He used Smoke-Sealing lightly—not against smoke, but against the reflex to inhale shallow when discomfort rose.
A small seal at the throat, just enough to keep breath steady.
Then he guided again.
The knot resisted.
Not like a wall.
Like a bruise that hated being touched.
He circled the Qi around it instead of into it, warming the edges, letting it soften by degrees.
The powder helped.
He could feel it—not as "power," but as a stubbornness in his Qi, a willingness to stay gathered instead of running off into his limbs and vanishing.
On the fourth loop, the snag eased a fraction sooner than it had the week before.
That fraction mattered.
Fractions accumulated.
He kept the loops slow, counted them in his head, and stopped before fatigue turned his control sloppy.
Stopping early was one of the hardest disciplines at Stage 1.
Because stopping early felt like wasting opportunity.
But he'd learned something from the forge: metal ruined by overheating didn't become better metal.
It became scrap.
He ended the session while his breath was still steady and his heart wasn't racing.
Then he rubbed salve across his chest, the smell sharp and medicinal.
The paste cooled the skin and made it easier to lie flat without feeling the scrape inside his ribs.
Across the room, Bai Ren shifted on his mat and watched without staring.
His hands were still marked by rope burns, though the raw lines were already beginning to harden.
"You spent it," Bai Ren said quietly. Not accusing. Just confirming he'd noticed the change in Li Shen's routine.
Li Shen didn't pretend not to understand what "it" meant. "Yeah."
Bai Ren hesitated, like he was deciding how direct he was allowed to be in a room with other ears. Then he asked anyway. "On what?"
Li Shen let his eyes skim the dormitory—sleep-breath, coughs, the soft rustle of someone turning over. Too many people, too close.
He kept it boring on purpose. "Powder."
Bai Ren's shoulders loosened a fraction, satisfied. Powder was common enough to be unremarkable. Powder didn't invite the wrong kind of curiosity.
After a moment, Bai Ren added, "My four went to food."
Li Shen didn't comment, because food wasn't weakness. Food was survival, same as breath.
"Good," Li Shen said. And he meant it.
Bai Ren's voice stayed flat, but the meaning underneath was clear: salvage made the bottom breathe easier for a few days. Not more than that.
Li Shen didn't romanticize it. He didn't dismiss it either.
A few easier days were still leverage.
---
Over the next month, the salvage credit became more than a one-time purchase.
It became an option in his head.
Not a guarantee.
An option.
When his chest started feeling tight again, he didn't panic. He adjusted the budget. He bought one more packet of powder. He cut something else. He took an extra shift instead of hunting for miracles.
When his forearm ached from Iron Grip practice and forge work, he used salve and rested it properly rather than forcing a "stronger" day and tearing something.
His progress didn't announce itself.
But it showed up in small places.
Smoke-Sealing held longer on average. Not because he suddenly had more Qi, but because his Qi leaked less.
His cultivation loops went farther before snagging. Not because the snag disappeared, but because it softened faster.
His sleep came easier, which meant his next day cost less.
That was how Stage 1 approached Stage 2: not as a leap, but as the slow removal of things that stole effort.
---
The Pavilion posted salvage again twice that month.
Li Shen didn't sign up both times.
He signed once.
He let the other pass.
Not out of fear.
Out of balance.
Forge was still his foundation. Salvage was opportunity. Greyhaven was outside leverage.
Too much of any one thing turned into a visible pattern.
So he kept moving, kept working, and let his gains look like the only thing the Pavilion respected:
steady output.
At the end of the month, he sat in the dark with a bowl of warm grain and a mouth still bitter from powder, and ran his Qi through the bruised channel near his ribs.
It snagged.
It eased.
It traveled.
He opened his eyes and exhaled slowly.
Not satisfied.
Just certain he wasn't stuck.
That certainty was worth more than six points.
And it had been bought honestly: with rope burn, miasma sting, and a wooden chit that proved the Pavilion could still be made to pay—if you pulled the right lever.