Eternal Cultivation of Alchemy

Alex knew what was happening. There were no other possibilities. Still, he held out hope and tried to check in the direction of the Royal School of Alchemy. Maybe one of his alchemists had been the one to make the pill.

Alas, they were not. The pill cloud was forming, and it was forming atop the Dragon Palace. 

No one around him seemed to notice what was happening at all. Everyone went about their daily life, with only Alex feeling any sort of emotion at all. That was until he noticed that they were just ignoring what was happening.

'They are already used to it,' he thought.

"Your Majesty, how is there a pill cloud when you're here?" the painter asked.

Alex stood up. "I'm sorry, brother Tian, but I must leave for now. I'll meet you a few days later for the painting. It was great seeing you again."

Before Tian Honglui could say anything, Alex was already out of the shop and rushing toward the Dragon Palace. The shadow guards that were sent after him rushed behind him as he ran back to the Dragon Palace.

Alex arrived at the Dragon Palace around the time the third lightning fell and then reached his elders during the 5th lightning that fell from the pill clouds.

"Your majesty," Yao Ning called to him the moment she saw him. "What is going on? Is this not you?"

"No," Alex said. "I think this is the Dragon Emperor. No, it most definitely is him." He didn't know how to feel about it. Seeing someone who was his enemy becoming stronger was not something Alex wanted to see.

However, he had no choice but to continue watching.

The 6th and the 7th lightning did nothing to Alex's spirit, but the 8th lightning made him hesitate and feel anxious. He could make the 8-veined pill. He could do it for a long time since he brought up his blood aura to that level.

However, the level after that was not something Alex could do. The pinnacle of what was possible with pills as a Saint realm cultivator was something Alex knew he couldn't reach for a long time.

And today, he was seeing someone who had never made a pill cloud form before making one.

The Dragon Emperor's very first pill was going to have 9 pill veins. Alex didn't know how to feel about that. 

When the 9th lightning fell from the heavens, Alex could only watch in silence as his mind tried to think through the consequences of what had occurred. As someone with nine-veined pills, the Dragon Emperor was going to be a much tougher opponent.

And he had already been the toughest one Alex had ever found. If Alex wasn't wrong, then the Dragon Emperor was already stronger than the Mad Immortal that had kidnapped him all those years ago.

Something changed in the sky that made everyone look up at once. Saint realm cultivators could easily tell what was happening, and even True realm cultivators could tell something was different, though they lacked the understanding to come to a conclusion.

"Is that… a breakthrough?" Liang Shufen couldn't help but ask. Alex was of the same thought as well, albeit he couldn't think of a reason why the Dragon Emperor would be breaking through to the Immortal realms right now.

'Did he figure out how to make pill clouds consistently?' Alex thought to himself. He himself had never really managed to make pill clouds without using the pill separating Qi, and he had yet to give that to the emperor.

The breakthrough aura disappeared all of a sudden, giving everyone a fright, and the day returned to normal once again with no clouds in the sky. To anyone who was already not used to this shenanigan happening every few minutes in the capital from time to time.

No one knew this was the Dragon EMperor doing it this time around, so they never had any inkling of exactly how big this thing was.

After waiting for a few minutes, Alex returned to his room and decided to wait for the dragon emperor to be done with it. 

It took him 3 days to meet the Dragon Emperor. 

Alex walked into the hall where the Dragon Emperor waited for him, days after he had summoned the pill clouds. Alex made his way toward the seat where the Dragon Emperor was sitting with no sense of urgency or anything.

"Congratulations on your pill cloud, Dragon Emperor," Alex said as he sat on an empty seat opposite the Dragon Emperor. "I hope our trade was what helped you do it."

"It did," the Dragon Emperor answered. "I would thank you for the knowledge had I already not paid for it."

Alex shrugged. "It doesn't hurt to say it though," he said. He hesitated a bit before asking the next question. "Did you… succeed in making a 9-veined pill?" 

The Dragon Emperor didn't answer Alex verbally. Instead, he tossed him a pill bottle that Alex swiftly grabbed from the air and opened to look inside. A pill tumbled inside the bottle, one with 9 different lightning scars on it; Alex counted it.

The blue pill gave Alex a sense of surprise and the strong smell wafting away from the pill made Alex realize just how strong the pill was.

"Incredible," he couldn't help but say. "A 9-veined Saint Cultivation pill. This should speed up your Qi cultivation nearly a hundred times if I' 'm not mistaken."

The Dragon Emperor raised an eyebrow at those words. "You are quite fast when it comes to knowing what pill it is just by looking at it," he said.

"The smell is a big part too," Alex said.

"Still surprising," the Dragon Emperor said. "Anyway, I don't believe you came here to look at that pill."

"I was," Alex said. "What did you think I was here for?"

The Dragon Emperor couldn't help but give an untrustful look toward Alex before letting go of it. "You really just came to check my pill?" he asked.

"That and ask you how you managed to do it," Alex answered. "I haven't given you everything you need to make pill clouds, so I was—"

"Oh, but you have," the Dragon Emperor said, cutting off Alex.

Alex paused. "Sorry?"

"You have given me everything I need to make pill clouds," the Dragon Emperor said. "Perfect recipes, brilliant pill-forming techniques, and then the knowledge about the mushrooms. The mushrooms were the biggest part I presume, thought it could be all three."

Alex's eyes narrowed for a long moment as he tried to find lies in the Dragon Emperor's words, but he hadn't been lying. "You really did it…" he said softly. "You managed to learn how to use the mushrooms."

"I had to search around for it," the Dragon Emperor said. "Took me a while to find an alchemist with proper knowledge about that. He was a player too. Do only players know about this?"

Alex didn't say anything.

"Now I don't even know what to trade with you for the next 2 trades," he said. "You already can make pill clouds."

"I can't," the Dragon Emperor said. "What you saw a few days ago was just a coincidence. I have made hundreds if not thousands of pills, and yours was the only information that helped me go past that final barrier, even though I would attribute my current success to luck more than anything."

"Luck?" Alex asked. "What's there to be lucky about? You put in effort and you get the result."

"Yes, but I've been doing that for a long time and will do that for a long time too, and yet I never managed to for pill clouds," the Dragon Emperor said. "It was only after your information that I managed to do anything."

Alex remained silent, blaming himself for giving the information so early. Alas, he couldn't stop it from happening. He had no choice.

"And I still need it to do anything," the Dragon Emperor continued. "I do not know for certain if what I have learned is accurate too. I didn't manage to form another pill cloud."

Alex's eyes perked up at those words. "Sorry?" he asked, surprised. "You… don't know exactly what to do?"

"I'm just guessing out here," the Dragon Emperor said. "I don't have the entire knowledge. Even if I do, I do not know about it. But I doubt it a little. After all, I couldn't make another pill cloud."

"You tried?" Alex asked.

"Why did you think I was so late to leave?" the Dragon Emperor said. "I thought I would rise the glory and form more pill clouds, but it is not as easy as I thought it would be. One needs more than just luck. You need absolute knowledge too."

"That was why I had hoped you were here for another reason."

Alex looked at the Dragon Emperor, realizing only just now what he meant. "You want information on the mushrooms that I have," he said.

"Yes," the Dragon Emperor said. "Let me see if what I found is what I need to have known. I need to learn more and make more pill clouds in the future. I cannot let it all up to chance."

Alex felt a bit of relief when he heard that, but all anxiety hadn't gone. Even if the pill clouds had been accidental, Alex was about to help him once more to make him a better alchemist.

Even though he hadn't intended it before, Alex was now going to have to do the third trade with the Dragon Emperor.