Eternal Cultivation of Alchemy

"Ah, I'm sorry," the princess immediately apologized. "Let's go in quick."

She opened the door and entered. Fu Wen smiled and showed Ma Rong and Alex the way inside. Even as they went inside, Alex looked towards the guard, but the guard wouldn't turn to look at him at all.

Comparing her to the woman in red robes— the difference was truly immense.

Alex ignored her for the moment and walked in. The people in front of him stepped aside and went around a bed to show a woman with very black skin on the bed.

Alex knew that woman quite well. After all, he had spent the 3 days in a caravan in the same carriage as her. 'The princess' mother? No… that was probably a lie too. This woman is not the empress I saw that day,' Alex thought.

"Sect leader Ma, this is my mother," Fu Wen said, lifting up the veil of confusion from Alex's mind. "It has been a few months since she has been in this condition and I was hoping you would know something about it."

"Um… City Lord Fu, if this is your mother then… you should have already asked senior Lai, right?" Ma Rong asked.

"Yes, we did. But he couldn't come up with anything either," Fu Wen said as he shook his head.

"Then, I'm afraid I might not be able to do much either," Ma Rong said.

"To be honest, we aren't expecting any result from letting you check up on her, Sect Leader Ma," the princess said. "Our expectations will be very low from the very beginning, so freely check her without any worries."

The princess moved to the side and let Ma Rong check her.

Ma Rong went up to the sleeping woman and was slightly shocked at how black her skin was. There was nobody so black in the entirety of the Crimson Empire. She checked her wrist, temperature, breathing, eye responses, and anything else she could.

She checked for quite a while and noticed two things that were very unusual to a human body.

First, her skin was fully black. While Ma Rong had heard about such people existing, she knew for sure that the Emperor's sister-in-law was not one with such skin. So, the black in her skin was fully unnatural.

Secondly, her body was very hot, to the point that Ma Rong thought she had a fever.

She continued checking to learn more about her.

"Hm, she isn't exuding any cultivation aura at all. Do any of you know what her cultivation base is?" Ma Rong asked.

"Hm. Wuying, do you remember?" Fu Wen asked.

"Um, I think it should be somewhere between the 2nd True Emperor realm and 4th True Emperor realm. Aunt had already reached that stage when she went on the expedition to the southern forest a few years ago," Fu Wuying said.

True Emperor realm— Alex was shocked to hear that. Even his master was in True King realm. 'How talented must she have been to reach True Emperor realm at such a young age,' he thought as he looked at her face.

"Senior Lai already figured out this part right?" Ma Rong said.

Fu Wen's eyebrows suddenly perked up. "Yes, we sort of know the cause of her problem already. I was just wondering if you could find it out as well so that we know if you two are figuring out the same thing," he said.

"I think I have an idea as to what is happening," Ma Rong said. "Her body was for some reason stuck in the middle of mortal cleansing, wasn't it? The filth that should have been removed fully was stuck halfway on her skin and thus turning it black. Her filth from the meridians must also be stuck inside it since it was only removed halfway."

Fu Wen was surprised when he heard her explanation and said with wide eyes, "Yes. That's exactly the reasoning the Royal Alchemist gave too," he said with a smile.

Ma Rong nodded when she heard that. "Well, Senior Lai must've been faster than me though," Ma Rong said.

"Don't sell yourself short, Sect Leader Ma," Fu Wen said. "So, do you know what we can do?"

"Before that, how did she go through Mortal Cleansing, but only halfway? Did she… find a Divine Devil's fruit?" Ma Rong asked.

"Yes, She did," the princess answered. "When returning from her expedition to the southern forest, she apparently found a Divine Devil's fruit. Only… it wasn't ripe, and would need another few hundred years to fully ripen."

"I guess… she believed she didn't have to wait that long and ate it right there."

Ma Rong shook her head. "The only way I can think of healing her is to continue her Mortal Cleansing," Ma Rong said. "But that is impossible."

"Sigh, you're right. Senior Lai said the same thing," the princess said. "He is constantly searching for ways to make pills that can induce Mortal Cleansing, but as you said, that's impossible."

"Still, can you give it a try, Sect Leader Ma?" Fu Wen asked.

"I… I will see what I can do," Ma Rong said.

"Master…" Alex called her from behind. "Will getting the black stuff off of her skin help at all?"

"Hmm… I don't know. It would certainly be a good idea to start with that," Ma Rong said. "However, the main problem should be the filth stuck around her brain and meridians."

Alex thought for a second and took out a pill before handing it to Ma Rong. "Master, what about this pill?" he asked. He successively handed her the recipe for the pill as well.

"Sweating pill? You made this?" Ma Rong asked.

"Yeah, it's one of the more useful, but still useless pills I made. It opens the sweat glands on your skin and makes you sweat buckets load of sweat. I wondered that if we fed this to her, won't she sweat away all the filth?" he asked.

"Hmm… that's… not a bad idea. It just might work," Ma Rong thought. She then turned towards the princess and asked, "Your highness, did Senior Lai ever try to make pills that made her sweat?"

"Um, I'm pretty sure he did try to make them, but I don't think he ever succeeded in making ones that could open up her skin big enough or make her sweat enough to force the black filth out of her body."

"That's fine. My disciple's pill here can do that. I just need to improve it," Ma Rong said.

"Improve it?" the princess asked. "Can't you just feed that pill to her?"

"I'm afraid not, your highness. This is a common pill; we will need a True pill to be able to heal her to a level similar to what this pill will do to anybody below the True realms."

"Fear not, however. Since we have this recipe, it shouldn't be very hard to recreate this pill. Please send this recipe to Senior Lai as well so that he could help us as well," Ma Rong said.

"Yes, we shall do that," Fu Wen said as he took the recipe with some sense of joy. While he didn't get a cure for her mother's problem, he got hope.

"Thank you, Sect Leader Ma," he said.

"It's my pleasure to be of assistance, City Lord Fu," Ma Rong said.

"Thank you to you too, junior brother," Fu Wen said to Alex.

"Oh, you're welcome, senior," Alex said.

"If there is nothing else to do, we shall take our leave," Ma Rong said.

"Yes, let me show you the way," Fu Wen said as he went to the door and unlocked it.

"How's your formation training going on?" the princess asked from the side as she moved towards Alex.

"I… haven't had the time to continue with it, your highness," Alex replied.

"Oh, that's a shame. You seemed to be quite good at making formations too," the princess said. "Also, you don't have to call me that. Just call me Sister Wuying."

"That's…" Alex hesitated. Calling a princess his sister would imply that he was of Royal blood too, and that would be disastrous if someone found out.

"Haha, if you can't, then just call me princess. No need for the Your highness," the princess said.

Alex smiled and said, "I will do that then, princess."

"Good, let's go now," she said and walked towards the door.

Alex instinctively shot an eye towards the guard who was still looking elsewhere. The princess saw this and chuckled.

"Don't blame her for how she acted during the journey. She was under orders to be strict towards anyone that came close to me and was to keep me and Aunt under constant supervision."

"Also, she was ordered to act high and mighty so that people would not notice the lowly servant by her side as she would hog all the attention. It sort of worked," the princes said with a smile.

"I see," Alex said.

"Well, she was also quite annoyed when I told her that you noticed her that one time in the capital. She really prides herself on her ability to stay out of sight with her speed. So when you saw her that time, she was really angry."

"That was also the reason I let you get in the same carriage as me. You did something that was close to impossible," Wuying said.

"Oh," Alex said. 'That… that accident was what made her notice me? I can't even do that again even if I wanted to.'

"I wanted to know more about you during the tournament, but I never found you. Especially since I didn't know your name at the time, it was impossible to find you," the princess said.

"Plus, you changed your face for the final result, so there was no way for me to find you. If you hadn't, maybe my father would have been interested in you too," the princess said with a smile.

"The Emperor?" Alex asked in shock. 'I was that close to meeting the emperor. I don't know if that is a good idea though,' he thought.

The princess said goodbye and didn't leave the corridor. She promptly returned back to the room and would stay in that corner of the manor, away from the prying eyes of the servants.

Fu Wen brought the two of them all the way outside to see them off.

"Thank you again, Sect Leader Ma, junior brother," Fu Wen. "At least one of the problems on us is going to go away very soon," he said.

"One problem?" Ma Rong asked with confusion.

"Oh, it's nothing. It's just that Uncle has gone somewhere without notifying anyone and hasn't returned in over a  month, so people back home are worried," Fu Wen said.

"I see. If it's the High prince then who would dare do anything to him," Ma Rong said. "Anyway, We will leave now, City Lord Fu. Farewell."

With that, both Alex and Ma Rong flew back towards the Hong Wu Sect.