Eternal Cultivation of Alchemy

1 week later.

Alex sat in an alchemy room in the guild and focused as well as he could while making the pill.

For the pill that improved one's Earth spiritual roots, Alex still had 4 more ingredients to gather. So, in the last week, he only had two ingredients to work with, which he did easily in a single day.

The rest of the week, he had worked on the other ingredients for the other pill he was making.

He had finished it finally last night and had spent the rest of the night thinking of the perfect combination for it.

Now, it was time to make that pill.

Remembering the combination, Alex sent his spiritual sense into the cauldron and started using his new technique to combine the individual particles.

Once his Qi knew what to do, it started working on its own. Soon, his cauldron was full of the combined powder and all that was left was putting the energy into the powder.

This was the part Alex had to be very careful with. The resulting element of this pill was very, very volatile and could explode on his face if he wasn't careful.

The balance between the elements could be disturbed by the slightest fluctuation, so he very slowly started to push the energy into the powder.

Alex found this to be one of the most frustrating pills to make all because of the volatility of the pill.

After what felt like a very long time, Alex finally managed to put all the energy into the powder without making it explode.

Then, all that was left was to use the final technique and form the pill.

Alex opened the lid and pulled out the pill from inside. However, he didn't look at the pill's quality at all. The very first thing he checked was how it worked.

He closed his eyes and used his senses to surround the pill and feel the subtle changes in the air around it.

Even as he held it, the pill was reacting to the slight yang aura that was coming out of it and making it disappear.

The fire Qi from the furnace was also slowly mixing with the constantly escaping energy of the pill and disappearing.

Alex took the pill and walked out into the hallway. The guild staff walked by, but no one bothered him at all.

Alex sensed the Qi in the surrounding suddenly change from only Fire and Yang to any and all. One by one, as they gathered around the pill, they would also disappear from it.

Alex smiled when he sensed that. "It's working," he thought and walked out to the front hall to sense the pill some more.

People watched curiously as he walked out, but Alex didn't give them any thought. His attention was only on the pill and being in a new environment to check the pill's reaction to the environment.

Slowly, the reactions started to get weaker and weaker. Alex was now watching how long it would last.

"Alchemist Yu," someone spoke from the corner of the hall, but Alex didn't hear it.

"ALCHEMIST YU!" another person shouted, jolting Alex awake. He turned around and saw Han Daiyu with her hands next to her mouth as she was ready to shout again.

Next to her was Liang Qiu. Both of them looked ever so elegant, only that Han Daiyu also had a hint of barbaric tendencies.

"Sister Han, Sister Liang, what are you two doing here? Do you need a pill?" Alex asked as he walked over.

"No, we're here to talk to you about the progress on the pill," Liang Qiu asked.

"Oh, it's going alright. I'm just waiting for the last 4 ingredients. I have about 40 each, but I should be able to start today or tomorrow for it," Alex said.

"Oh, and what's this pill?" she asked, looking at the white pill in his hand.

"Oh, it's something I made just now. It's an important pill," Alex said, not explaining much.

"Should you keep a pill out in the open like that? Won't the customer get angry at you?" she asked.

Alex's attention slowly went back to his pill to see if the energy in it was gone or not. "It's not for the customer. I made it for myself," he said.

"Then why not eat it?" she asked.

"This is the first time I made it. It took over a week to get here, so I want to see how the pill works outside," he said in an absentminded tone.

"What? You've been working on this pill for over a week? What about ours?" she asked.

"I'm working on that. Still need that 4 ingredients," he said.

"How long has it been since you worked on it?" Han Daiyu asked.

"Almost a week," Alex said without thinking much as all of his attention was on the very faint aura of the pill that was close to disappearing.

"WHAT?!" Liang Qiu shouted, garnering looks from everyone in the hall. "You haven't worked on our pills for a week? Alchemist Yu, we trusted you to make our pills," she said.

Alex's attention nearly wavered, but he kept it on the pill. "I know, but this pill is important as well," he said as he finally saw the last little aura of the pill dissipate away.

"How is your pill more important than ours?" Liang Qiu got mad. "We gave you a job, that means you do our work. Alchemist Yu, please don't neglect our work, or we will be forced to go elsewhere with the work."

Alex clutched his pill and finally looked up at the fuming face of Liang Qiu. "Sister Liang, I can assure you, I have not neglected your pill for a single moment," he said.

"Oh yeah? Then what is this pill?" she said, pointing to his palm.

"As I said, this is important," Alex said.

"Doesn't matter if it is important," Liang Qiu said. "Only thing that matters is you neglected our pill for the sake of making yours."

Alex's face frowned a little as she finally got on his nerve.

So, he reached into his storage bag and brought out a pill bottle with a single pill inside of it.

He handed the pill over to Liang Qiu and waited.

The fuming Liang Qiu looked confused now. "What is this?" she asked.

"An almost Immortal grade True pill. That's for you to eat," Alex said.

Liang Qiu opened up the stopper and looked inside. "What does it do?" she asked.

"I don't know. Can be a good pill or a bad one. Can be a healing pill or a poison pill. Can make you the most beautiful woman in the whole world, or can turn you into a man," Alex said. "Eat it and find out."

Liang Qiu hesitated, as anyone would. "I'm not eating this," she said.

"Why not?" Alex asked.

"Because I don't know what this does," she said.

"Ah, I see. Well let me make something up then," Alex said as he gave a thinking expression. "Yes, this pill helps improve your Wood Spiritual root."

Liang Qiu frowned. "Are you mocking me, Alchemist Yu?" she asked.

"No. Do you not trust me?" Alex asked.

"Of course not," she said.

Alex took one step forward. "Then why do you trust the words of a demon that lived thousands of years ago, and wanted nothing but to destroy humans? Why do you trust the words of someone that doesn't even know how pills work?" he asked.

"That… I…" Liang Qiu couldn't speak. "Are you saying the recipe is false?"

"No," Alex said. "I'm saying there's a possibility it is false. The pill does seem to do what it says it does, but if there's the slightest chance it does something else, I cannot let you or anyone else take it."

"So? What are we supposed to do? Find a scapegoat for us and feed it?" Liang Qiu asked.

"Yes," Alex said with a smile. "Except I'm not a horrible person to test a random pill on another human being."

"Then?" she asked.

"Then I am going to test it on myself," Alex said.

"What?" Han Daiyu finally spoke from the side. She had been watching Liang Qiu get angry and had let her handle it, but this tangent of the conversation made her speak up.

"You will test on yourself? Didn't you just say it was dangerous?" she asked.

"Yes, it is," Alex said. "But I have a way to make it less dangerous."

"How?" Liang Qiu asked.

"This," Alex finally opened his closed fist and showed the white pill to her again.

"What is this?" she asked.

"True Nullifying Pill. If taken immediately after eating a pill, it can revert the effects of the pill."

"Only caveat is that you must eat this pill within the first five minutes of making this. I made this nearly 7 minutes ago, so this pill is a dud now. But, I will make a better one later," he said to her.

Liang Qiu looked at him with a shocked expression. "You are going that far for the job?" she asked.

"Sister Liang, I told you from the very beginning, that the only thing holding me up is the lack of ingredients. As soon as I get them, I will make your pill."

"And for the sake of making sure the pill is in fact safe, I also worked on the True Nullifying pill," he said.

Then he looked Liang Qiu straight in the eye with a confident look in his own.

"As I said, I have not neglected your pill even once. Everything I did for the past 2 weeks, and everything I do for the next week, all of it is going to be for your pill."