Eternal Cultivation of Alchemy

TING TONG TING

The doorbell rang at around 10 am. Alex and Hannah were in the kitchen and had just started to cook. They had finished making a few side dishes but the main dishes were still remaining.

"Who is that?" Alex asked.

"I… don't know. It's barely 10 am. There's still an hour before the guests should be arriving. I wonder who it is," Hannah said and walked to the door.

She looked at the footage from outside of her door and after seeing who it was, she quickly opened the door.

"Hey, Hannah!!" Sarah said with a big smile and immediately hugged her with a few bags in her hand.

"Hello." Emily walked in from behind Sarah.

"Hey! Why are you guys so early? Did I give the wrong time on my message?" Hannah asked.

"Oh no. We thought that you guys might need some hand in getting everything ready, so we came to help," Sarah said.

"Oh thank you so much. I don't know if we need it, but a few extra hands never hurt anybody," Hannah said with a smile and looked at Emily as she said, " Thanks for coming too, Emily. Both Alex and I really appreciate it."

Emily made a meek little nod and said nothing.

"Haha, it was Emily's idea to come help in the first place. I was fully ready to come on time, but she made me come help," Sarah said.

"Oh," Hannah said with a surprise.

Emily quickly pinched Sarah on the side, clearly not enjoying the attention. Sarah just said 'ow' a few times and jumped to the side.

"Haha, here. We brought you guys a housewarming gift," Sarah said as she handed Hannah the bags.

Hannah smiled and took it as she said, "Thank you, we really appreciate the both of you coming here today. Come on in." Hannah took them inside their home.

Sarah and Emily walked in and were immediately shocked at the utter size of the place. "Woah," Sarah said as she looked at the place that looked like it was meant to house a millionaire.

"Damn, you guys own this place or rent it?" Sarah asked.

"We rent it. My parents are from the North and Alex is from the south, so we are here temporarily for at least a while," Hannah said.

"Still, this is an amazing crib. How much does it cost monthly? I assume it's something like 4000 dollars right?" Sarah asked.

Emily was a little surprised when she heard the price.

Hannah gave a smug smile and said, "It costs 10,000 dollars a month."

Both Sarah and Emily's jaw dropped in surprise. "Wait wait wait, you are pulling my leg, right? We have the exact same amount of space back in our place and it costs 2000$."

"I know this is better furnished and in a better building, but… isn't 10,000 dollars a lot?" Sarah asked.

"Oh, that's probably because we don't have the same space," Hannah said.

"What do you mean?" she asked. Hannah simply pointed to the staircase at the side and said, "The upper floor is ours too."

"Wait? You guys are taking up 2 floors?" Sarah asked in surprise.

"Yeah. Come let me show you guys," Hannah said and took them both upstairs. Alex was left alone to do all the current cooking and simply just waited for them to come down.

"Damn, if that is truly what you get for rent then… I can see why it would be worth it. Wow, I thought I hit the jackpot in apartments, you guys are something else," Sarah said.

Emily was still silently carrying the look of shock.

"Hello, Alex." Sarah and Emily made their way into the kitchen and started helping. An hour quickly passed and they managed to finish making the dishes 15 minutes before the guests were to arrive.

Most of them were friends of Hannah from her classes, some were Sarah's friends. Alex hadn't invited anyone since he didn't have the time to.

So, the guests who arrived were all girls. Alex talked to a few of them out of courtesy, but it seemed they talked back to him out of courtesy too.

He even secretly asked her once.

"Sister, you don't have a guy friend?"

"I do, but I decided not to. I didn't know who was coming, so I only brought the girls," she had said.

The foods and drinks were soon distributed and Alex was simply surprised at just how much these girls drank alcohol.

The party was for the release of the capsules, so they eventually ended up talking about the game. Alex sat there listening to the different things they were saying.

Only one of the girls there was from the western continent but not from the crimson empire, so he couldn't even ask her anything.

In the end, after a couple of hours, the party was over and people started leaving. Soon, everyone but Sarah and Emily was gone.

"You guys should return too," Hannah said.

" No, we will help you with the cleanup," Sarah said. Hannah simply smiled and said nothing. She really needed the help.

Soon everyone was helping with the cleanup. Alex picked up the paper plates and started stuffing them down the trash bag, Sarah vacuumed the floor, Emily cleaned the tables and furniture while Hannah washed the remaining dishes.

After 15 minutes, they finally finished it and sat down in the living room to rest.

"That was a nice celebration party," Sarah said.

"Thank god everything went as planned," Hannah said with a laugh.

"So many people kept commenting on how nice your place is haha. To be honest, I can understand their feeling. It really is a nice place," Sarah said.

"Yeah, it's a nice place. I got it with 3 of my other friends, but they all left after their studies ended. So now, only Alex and I stay here. Honestly, the extra rooms are wasted on us," Hannah said. But then, she thought of something and slowly turned and asked.

"Sarah, Emily, would you guys be willing to move into the spare rooms?"