Eternal Cultivation of Alchemy

Alex returned back to the Sunborn Sanctuary through the teleportation formations. He still had his other face, one that no one recognized, but his aura wasn't something that he could change.

So, the moment he was back in the city, the elders were immediately alerted to his presence. Before he could even walk out of the formation, several spiritual senses landed on him, some of them furiously asking him to return to the palace.

Alex sighed. What else could he do but agree with these people? After all, they were the ones that were trying to keep him safe.

He returned back to the palace, of course concealing himself as well as he could, and was confronted with all 10 of the council members.

"Uh… greetings, seniors," he said as he ate a pill that stripped away his made-up face.

"Is that all you have to say?" Liang Shufen asked with a frown on her face. She did not look as pretty when she was frowning.

"Umm… I'm sorry for leaving so suddenly?" Alex questioned if that was what they wanted to hear.

"Where have you been all this time?" Gong Liuxian asked.

"Somewhere without any humans," Alex said. "I made sure to not be seen by anyone, so I went to one of the islands off the coast of the continent."

"You went into the ocean?" one of them suddenly shouted. "Why not just give yourself to the assassins if you are so willing to die?"

Alex did not know what to say. They weren't wrong about the danger of that place, but they weren't aware of his power either. Hell, they probably didn't even know that he could fight people an entire minor realm above his own.

He wanted it to stay that way, so he didn't bother explaining.

"I have ways of staying safe, senior," he replied.

That did nothing to quench their rage at all. He was given an earful by each and every one of the elders on why what he did had been so stupid.

Alex knew that too, but he had his reasons to leave, so he didn't feel bad afterward. Besides, he was kind enough to leave a note before he left, which reduced his feeling of guilt by a lot.

"Do you plan on escaping anymore?" Yao Ning asked.

Against this old woman, the oldest of everyone here, Alex couldn't help but feel like a child. Even though he was his own independent man, somehow being asked such a thing by someone that was thousands of years old made him feel like he was talking to his own mother.

That made him feel like he was still under her care. While most would feel angry at being treated like a child, Alex felt a warmth in his heart.

He gave a wide smile and said, "unless it is absolutely necessary, I don't plan on doing anything reckless anytime soon," he said.

"Good," the old woman said. "Now, come on in. You must have been on a long journey. You look tired."

Alex nodded and entered the palace.

"By the way, what are you all doing out here? I would've assumed that you would be cultivating. Surely you didn't divine that I would be arriving here today, did you?" he asked.

"Why are we all not cultivating? Why do you think?" one of them asked in an annoyed tone.

Alex thought for a bit. "Wait, did you guys run out of pills?" he asked.

"Of course we did," another one said. "You didn't make that many once you started working on that water-improving pill, and once you finished it, you ran away."

"Oh… right," Alex said as he finally remembered. The days from when he had made so many of those pills were mixed together, so he didn't realize it had been earlier on that he had made those pills for them.

"Right, how were those water pills?" he asked. "Senior Lei, you should be the one that was the most excited about it, right?"

"Ahem, I would say sister Liang here was more excited than me," the old man said. "But that is not to say I wasn't very excited either. Our spiritual roots have improved a significant amount, so you have our thanks for that."

Alex nodded. He knew about the improvement they spoke of. Oh, he knew it way better than they did.

Wood and Water were Alex's worst spiritual roots, so when he ate the 6 veined pills, his Water spiritual root suddenly jumped up in quality, going from inferior to superior in a matter of minutes.

It had easily surpassed his Earth spiritual root, placing itself quite high, but still below his Fire spiritual root, which itself was below Yin, which was below the supreme roots of Yang and Metal.

Of course, once he ate the Earth pill, his Earth Spiritual root had become better than his water one. That was to be expected.

He ate multiple of those pills, but more than one wasn't necessary.

"Why don't you seniors give me 3 days? I will make those cultivation pills for you all and you can go back to cultivating," he said.

The group didn't argue and simply nodded. As much as they wanted to punish him for leaving, they couldn't argue that they needed his pills.

"Fine, you get off the hook this time around," one of them said. "But if you leave us again, expect us to remain friendly. We will imprison you if that's what it takes to keep you safe."

Alex chuckled a bit and thanked them before going back to the room that he couldn't help but find familiar.

He rested a bit and immediately got to work on those pills.

Making those pills didn't take very long. With 4 pills in a single cauldron, the only thing that took him too long was to improve the ingredients of those pills.

He could have used his World Defying mushrooms for them to add to the lack of energy, but he wanted to keep it for a time when he needed the energy immediately.

He finished making the pills not long after and handed them off to the elders.

Everyone was excited to get a new set of pills, so they thanked him and handed him two talismans.

"What are these?" Alex asked as he looked into the storage bags. The first one was full of spirit stones, which confused him slightly.

"That one contains the money you made from selling the water pill. You left too early to get your money back," Qiu Jianhong explained. "As for the other one, that is what was sent for you while you were gone. To keep up the appearance of you being here, we took it all without question."

Alex nodded and looked into the second bag. It was all full of talismans from the Insight pavilion. It seemed that they were still sending those talismans for him.

Although, It did look like there were quite a bit less. Did he need to repay the Insight pavilion? He was sure he bought a 2-year package after he had made those earth pills. But that was definitely over 2 years ago.

'I must go renew that. No wonder I didn't get as much,' he thought. His eyes fell on something in the storage bag that wasn't a talisman at all.

'What's that?' he wondered and pulled it out. The moment it was out of the storage bag, his body grew tense. He looked at what was inside and that made him even tenser.

He involuntarily moved away from it and that caught the elders' attention.

"What is it?" they asked.

"Poison… maybe?" Alex said with some hesitation.

The others immediately got serious as well.

"Are you sure?" they asked, ready to destroy it. But Alex suddenly shook his head. He let go of the momentary fear that took over him and pulled the package back towards him.

It was the same type of box as the one he had received from Jade Assassin, the one that had poison in it. So, he had assumed that this one might have poison in it as well.

But the Jade-Faced assassin was dead, so this was most likely not it.

'What if it's an explosive,' Alex thought. He knew one of the remaining 5 assassins was an old man that liked using explosives.

"I'll take this outside in case it is something dangerous," Alex said and flew out of the palace into the sky.

He floated away from the box as he used his Qi to open it. When the box opened, nothing happened at all. Except, a single piece of talisman that was slightly wrapped in a thread flew out of it.

Alex checked the box with his spiritual sense and then burned it just in case. Then, he took the talisman and unwrapped it as he flew down to the elders.

"How did you get this box?" he asked as the talisman was unraveled.

"It was sent to you by your association leader," one of them said. "We saw that it was a one-use talisman inside, so we didn't check it.

Alex nodded and took the talisman to his forehead as he looked into it to see what was written.

However, this was not a text talisman. This was one that could record stuff, and it had a recording.

A big, buff man sat on a chair inside a dark room. His face was rough and old, and he didn't seem to be in the best of mood, but that face was all that was needed to shake Alex to his core.

The elders saw Alex's face drain in color as he softly muttered a word.

"Father?"