Eternal Cultivation of Alchemy

“Do you have a time limit or can I prepare some things before I start making the pills?” Alex asked.

“I would prefer if you start right away. I don’t want to spend my entire day here in this room waiting for you to prepare,” the old man said.

Alex looked at the 12 ingredients and turned towards the old man. “It will take an hour at best to prepare. An hour and a half at most to make the pill,” he said. “If you can give me that, I can make a 90% pill.”

The old man hesitated a bit. On one hand, that was a lot of time. But on the other hand, he really wanted to see if the young man in front of him could do something like that.

“Fine, go ahead. We can wait,” the old man said. Harry wanted to object to the decision. At the very least, he wanted to leave the room to go make some pills of his own. However, he too was very interested in where Alex got all of his confidence from, so he stayed behind.

Alex got to work immediately. He brought out one of the ingredients and started improving the energy inside of it. The Supreme Elemental Accord worked its magic and made the ingredient as good as it could possibly become.

The two alchemists to the side watched Alex work with confused looks on their faces. They had absolutely no idea what he was doing, but they found it awkward to just ask him.

An hour went by and Alex finally finished improving the ingredients. He brought out the Sun’s Womb and placed it on top of the burning flame.

“Oh, is that the Sun’s Womb?” the old man asked with an amused look.

“You know this cauldron, senior?” Alex asked.

“It’s a cauldron with some fame,” the old man said.

“Oh… that must be a good cauldron then,” Harry said.

“Not… really, no. I mean, it is good, but that’s not why it’s famous,” the old man said. “It is said that a couple dozen thousand years ago, one of the alchemists from that time was a massive fanatic of the Phoenixes and wanted to learn how to create and control Phoenix fire.”

“He did whatever he could for that, and even made this cauldron resemble the color of the Phoenix flames. It is said that to please the Phoenix, he vowed to make a pill that would resemble the sun itself,” the old man said. “To birth a sun, he named his cauldron the Sun’s Womb.”

“Woah! What happened to that senior? What about the pill?” Harry asked.

“He died of old age, I believe. As for his pill, he was obviously never going to be able to make one,” the old man said. “He did make a glowing pill, so that’s something I suppose.”

“I see,” Alex said and looked away. He needed to focus on the pill. His hands moved and the ingredient in it disappeared. The two Saints looked at him with shocked looks and were even more shocked when they noticed the ingredient appear inside the cauldron all of a sudden.

“A teleportation technique? Woah, that’s so useful. I should learn that,” Harry said softly.

“I… don’t think that was a technique,” the other man said softly.

“Not a technique? What do you mean?” Harry asked.

The old man turned around. “Have you learned about Dao yet?” he asked.

“I have,” Harry said before his eyes went wide. “No way! That was Dao just now?”

Unlike the Northern continent, the other continents had no easy method of learning Dao. As such, knowledge of Dao wasn’t as widespread as it should have been.

Alex put in more ingredients and followed the recipe in his mind. One after another, the ingredients turned into powder, releasing an absurd amount of energy.

“That’s bonkers. How can there be so much energy in those ingredients?” Harry asked.

“I… I don’t know. I’ve never seen anything like this,” the old man said. “It’s like he somehow got the most freshly plucked ingredients all around. That too of the best age.”

“Senior… I don’t think he was joking about it when he said he could make those high-grade pills. He might actually do it,” Harry said.

“There are still places where he could falter,” the old man said. “He could make some mistakes while trying to form the pill or when putting energy into it. For his sake, I hope he doesn’t fail.”

As the two talked, Alex moved on to the next stage.

He Qi reached out from his body and touched the powder in the cauldron. At the same time, Alex’s spiritual sense focused on the minute particles and their shape. He knew what shape he had to go for, so he quickly used the Qi he released to form a small, packed combination of particles.

Once Alex told his Qi what exactly to do, the Profound Revolution of Myriad Combination worked to find the same types of particles and combined them in the same way as well as they could.

Alex waited for the process to end on its own. Once it was over, he removed the lid of the cauldron and brought out the pill from inside.

He held the pill in his palm and smiled slightly when he sensed it.

“There we go, just as I said,” he said and looked towards the old man to the side.

The old man was extremely curious at the moment so quickly rushed up to  Alex. “Quickly, place it on the formation. I want to see just how good it is,” he said.

Alex nodded and put the pill on top of the formation. Harry got a little curious as well and came in closer to check.

When he did, the number finally showed up.

94%.

Both the old man and Harry lost their minds collectively. “That’s… just how is that possible?” the old man asked.

“I… don’t know. Can someone even be that good?” Harry asked.

The old man quickly brought out a pill tester. “Here, place your pill in here,” the old man said.

Alex nodded and placed the pill into the pill tester. The result was still the same. He had truly made a 94% pill.

“Dear lord… I can’t believe it, but it’s true,” the old man said. “You really did it.”

“I told you I could, senior,” he said as he slowly stood up. “I can register now, right?”

The old man shook his head in amazement. “If you can’t, I don’t know who can,” he said as he walked out. “Come, I will need you to register yourself.”

Harry followed behind Alex with a dumb look on his face while Alex followed the old man to the registration table.

Alex was made to fill out some information, including his Qi aura. Once done, he was now officially an Alchemist of the Alchemy Association.

“Here, can you fill this up as well?” the old man handed him a talisman.

“What’s this?” Alex asked as he read what was written inside.

“It’s a small list to curate the type of pills you want to make so that we can get you the proper customers. Here is a list of rules and regulations about the association. Let me know if you want to stay in the association, I can get you a room as well, but it will cost you,” the old man said.

“Okay, let me fill this up first,” Alex said and looked into the talisman. The talisman asked many detailed questions regarding his pill-making expertise.

For example, Alex could list out the pills he was familiar with and could make it well. It also asked him to list out the types of pills he could make or the type of energy he was most comfortable with when making a pill.

Alex ignored the rest for now and only listed out all the Saint rank pills whose recipes he had improved back in the Northern Continent.

“Here,” Alex handed the talisman back.

The old man checked the talisman and nodded. “The customers have no proof that you can make these pills, so they will be taking a risk when they reach for you to make one of these pills. Make sure you are not overestimating yourself as that would actually harm your own reputation,” he said.

“Thank you for the advice, senior, but I have indeed only listed out the pills I am good with,” he said. “As for the other pills, I might eventually learn… I can add to the lists later, right?”

“Of course, you can always change this list. But to deter alchemists from making the changes too frequently, there is a substantial fee to do so,” he said.

“I see, thank you for the information,” Alex said.

“I suggest you just make the pill itself instead of trying to manually update the information,” the old man said. “You can learn more from the talisman I gave you earlier.”

“I will do so, senior,” Alex said and clutched the talisman. “About that room, I would like one.”

“Great,” the old man said and handed Alex his room’s key. “Don’t worry about the money, I will cut it from the sales of this pill. As far as I can tell, this alone will make you a small fortune.”

“I look forward to it,” Alex said. Harry left to show Alex the way to his room while the old man placed the pill on sale for everyone to see.

When the city saw a 94% Saint rank healing pill being sold, it caused no less commotion than if the Forbidden Orchard was opening.