Kael emerged from the tunnels two hours before dawn.
The exit was a drainage grate in the sect's outer district, half-hidden behind a collapsed merchant stall. He pushed through carefully, scanning the empty street. Curfew had cleared the area—only patrol guards remained, and their routes were predictable. Kael had memorized them years ago, back when such information seemed worthless.
Now it kept him alive.
He moved through shadows, keeping to the narrow spaces between buildings where lantern light didn't reach. His body protested every step. The broken ribs ground against each other. Elder Shen's stolen cultivation churned in his meridians like poison, simultaneously keeping him conscious and killing him slowly.
Thirty days. Forty contracts. The clock was already running.
Kael's mind worked through the problem systematically. He needed targets—people desperate enough to accept deals, weak enough that he could enforce terms, positioned where their contracts would provide maximum utility.
Criminals. The outer district was full of them.
The sect's official doctrine claimed the outer district housed "hardworking mortals who supported cultivation through honest labor." Reality was different. The outer district was where the sect dumped everyone too worthless to cultivate but too useful to discard: smugglers, prostitutes, information brokers, black market alchemists, and thugs who collected debts the sect couldn't officially acknowledge.
Kael had lived among them for twenty-three years. He knew their patterns, their desperation, their price points.
Perfect test subjects.
He found the first candidate in an alley behind the Broken Moon tavern.
The man was dying. Kael could tell from the way he clutched his side, the dark stain spreading across his shirt, the shallow breathing that suggested punctured lung. Some kind of fight, probably. Debts unpaid or territory disputed. The specifics didn't matter.
What mattered: the man was desperate.
Kael approached slowly, hands visible, non-threatening. The dying man's eyes tracked him—young, maybe thirty, face twisted in pain but still alert enough to recognize danger.
"Stay back," the man rasped. "I've got—" He tried to reach for something at his belt but couldn't complete the motion. Too weak.
"You're bleeding out," Kael said. His voice was flat, clinical. "Lung punctured. Maybe liver too, judging from the location. You have maybe ten minutes before blood loss makes you unconscious. Twenty minutes maximum before you die."
The man's breathing hitched. "Fuck off."
"I can help."
"No one helps for free."
"Correct." Kael crouched just outside the man's reach. Close enough to be heard clearly, far enough to avoid a desperate attack. "I'm offering a contract. I heal you. You work for me for seven days. Simple terms."
The man laughed—a wet, bubbling sound. "Seven days? What kind of—" He coughed, blood flecking his lips. "What kind of stupid deal is that?"
"The kind that keeps you breathing. Seven days of service versus dying in an alley. The mathematics are straightforward."
The man's eyes narrowed. Even dying, he was calculating. Street smart. Suspicious. "What's the catch?"
"No catch. I need information about the outer district. You provide it. Seven days from now, the contract ends. You go free."
"And if I refuse?"
"You die. I find someone else." Kael kept his tone neutral, matter-of-fact. Not cruel. Just stating reality.
The man stared at him for a long moment. His breathing was getting worse. Kael could see the exact moment when survival instinct overrode suspicion.
"Fine. Deal."
"Say it clearly. State the terms."
The man grimaced. "I accept. Seven days of service. You heal me. I give you information about the outer district."
Kael felt it immediately—the connection forming. Not like the violent explosion on the execution platform. This was subtle, gentle, a thread of shadow extending from his marked hand toward the dying man's chest. The contract manifested as knowledge in his mind: terms, conditions, enforcement mechanisms.
The marks on Kael's hand flared. Black chains—impossibly thin, barely visible—extended across the space between them and wrapped around the man's torso. Not physically restraining him. Binding something deeper.
The man gasped. Not from pain. From the sensation of something fundamental being rewritten.
"What the hell did you—"
"The contract is sealed," Kael said. "Now hold still."
He placed his hand over the wound. This part was instinctive—knowledge that came with the Pathway. He didn't heal the man. He couldn't. But he could form a second contract. This time with the wound itself.
"Close," Kael commanded. "Cease bleeding. I offer energy as payment."
The excess cultivation in his body—the unstable power from Elder Shen—rushed outward through his palm. It wasn't gentle. The man screamed as tissue knitted together, as lung reinflated, as torn vessels sealed. The process took fifteen seconds and probably felt like minutes.
When it finished, the man was whole. Panting, soaked in sweat, but alive.
And Kael felt lighter. A fraction of the pressure in his meridians had eased. Not much—maybe two percent. But measurable.
Thirty-nine contracts to go.
The man looked at his side, at the sealed wound, at Kael. "What are you?"
"Your employer for the next seven days. Now tell me—where do the outer district gangs operate? I need names, territories, hierarchies."
The man's mouth opened. He tried to refuse—Kael could see it in his eyes. But the contract forced compliance. The words came out anyway, involuntary.
"Three main gangs. Iron Fist Brotherhood controls the north docks. Silk Veil Syndicate runs the south market. Black Tooth Clan handles the smuggling routes through the eastern wall."
Information spilled out. Detailed, accurate, more than the man probably intended to share. The contract enforced truthfulness.
Kael absorbed it all, categorizing, cross-referencing with what he already knew. Gaps in his knowledge filled. Patterns emerged.
"Good," Kael said. "What's your name?"
"Chen Wei." The man paused, realizing he'd answered automatically. "What did you do to me?"
"Contract enforcement. You agreed to serve me. The agreement is binding. Literally." Kael stood, testing his body. The healing had cost him, but the exchange was net positive. "Get up. We have work to do."
"Work? I just—you just—" Chen Wei struggled to his feet, pressing his hand against where the wound had been. "I need to rest. I need—"
"You need to fulfill the contract. Seven days of service. I need you functional, not resting." Kael's tone remained flat. No cruelty, no sympathy. Just efficiency. "Take me to the Iron Fist Brotherhood's main gathering point. I need to observe their operations."
"You're insane. They'll kill you on sight. You're sect—you've got that look—"
"I'm not sect anymore. I'm a fugitive. And they won't kill me because you're going to introduce me as someone useful."
Chen Wei opened his mouth to refuse. The words wouldn't come. The contract tightened, a pressure around his chest that wasn't physical but was no less real. He could feel it—the obligation, the binding, the impossibility of disobedience.
"Fuck," he whispered. "What are you?"
Kael didn't answer. He was already walking, trusting Chen Wei would follow.
The contract ensured it.
Behind them, the Broken Moon tavern's doors opened. A woman emerged, middle-aged, scarred, carrying a bloodied knife. She looked at the alley where Chen Wei had been dying, saw the blood but no body, and frowned.
Kael noted her. Potential future contract. But not urgent.
He had thirty-nine more to complete. Twenty-nine days remaining. The mathematics were challenging but achievable.
One step at a time. One contract at a time. One piece of humanity traded for survival.
He could already feel the cost. A memory was fading—something about his childhood, a game he used to play with other children in the outer district. The details were blurring, dissolving like ink in water.
He tried to care. Found he couldn't.
The voice in his mind whispered approval. "Efficient. You're learning quickly."
Kael ignored it. He had work to do.
The Iron Fist Brotherhood's gathering point was three streets away. Chen Wei led him through increasingly narrow alleys, passing other desperate people—beggars, addicts, those who'd fallen through cultivation society's cracks.
Potential contracts. Every single one.
Kael catalogued them all.
By the time they reached the Brotherhood's door, Kael Yuan had already identified his next five targets. The plan was forming, efficient and ruthless.
He was going to survive this month.
No matter what it cost.