Eternal Cultivation of Alchemy

by Stayrr

Through an array of coincidences, Alex comes to learn that making pills is one of the best ways to earn money in the game, 'Eternal Cultivation.' So, he decides to join a sect that prioritizes the way of Alchemy. How far will he go with his incredible talents and luck? Read and Find out. Not for people who want a fully developed MC from the very first chapter.

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Eternal Cultivation of Alchemy #Chapter 33: Hunting Once More - Read Eternal Cultivation of Alchemy Chapter 33: Hunting Once More Online - All Page -

Chapter 33:Hunting Once More

Alex woke up in his cottage at nearly 7 am in morning. He had stopped training 2 hours later last night, and come back to the cottage to cultivate.

He had only cultivated for 4 or so hours, but that was enough.

[Breakthrough]

With all the Qi he had accumulated throughout the last few days, he had enough to break through to the next minor realm.

The requirement for Bone Tempering 2nd realm was 150,000 Qi now. He logged out of the game for now. He had to go hunt some monsters today, so he quickly had his breakfast and returned to the game.

He went to the disciple hall and requested leave from the sect for 3 days. Once it was approved, he walked out of the sect and went to a random tavern near the eastern gate.

He purchased a room for 3 days and logged out from there. He went to have his lunch with his roommates. Today was Sunday, and there were no classes for anyone.

Alex never asked them questions about their cultivations or talents in the game. He felt that if he was to keep secrets from them, it was only fair he didn't inquire answers from them.

After finishing their lunches, everyone returned to their room and logged into the game.

Alex opened his eyes in the tavern. He walked out of the city through the eastern gate and entered the forest on the southern side of the city.

He walked slowly in the forest trying not to miss any alchemy ingredients. Along the way, he found a few different ingredients, including a dwarf berry. This dwarf berry was quite hidden in the bushes and would be unnoticeable if not for his focus mode enhancing his senses.

He was constantly turning on and off his focus mode so as to not miss anything. He walked along a bit more, keeping any ingredients he found before he met a monster.

It was a skin tempering realm monster, so he didn't even bother using any special technique. He just lunged at it and gave it a good pounding on its head.

"Ughh. Is that an alchemy ingredient as well?" Alex wondered. To think the monster would drop urine as a loot.

After selling the corpses last time, he had come to find out that the monster cores and materials were actually alchemy ingredients. So he had decided he wouldn't sell it that easily this time.

He continued walking as he went deeper and deeper into the forest. He found many different alchemy ingredients and killed quite a few monsters as well.

Some dropped cores, some dropped materials, sometimes both. However, killing monsters never dropped weapons or armors like in other games.

Well, Eternal Cultivation wasn't 'like' other games. He walked on for quite a lot of time, but couldn't find any monsters that could make him use more than just one slash of his casual sword swing.

Finally, after searching around for the whole day, he found a Muscle Tempering 8th realm monster that didn't die to a sword swing.

"Alright. Time to try my new technique on an actual enemy." He though. The monster was a feline monster with patches of cloud-like design on its body.

With him currently at the 1st realm of Bone Tempering, this situation was the equivalent of when he fought a Muscle Tempering 3rd realm Earth Snake, as a Muscle Tempering 6th Realm cultivator.

The leopard had seen him approaching and was starting to crouch, ready to attack. Alex also got into his attack stance as well. He held the steel sword with both of his hands to the side, kept both of his feet wide, and took a deep breath.

He went into focus mode.

The leopard jumped. It was about 10 meters away from Alex, but it was going to cross the entire distance in a single jump.

The jump felt slow to Alex, but not as slow as everything else around him. He slowly moved his Qi around and started infusing it into the sword. The sword showed some resistance to his Qi, but quickly accepted it.

Just when the leopard was 2 meters away from him, Alex swung his sword. Due to both of them being at similar cultivation, their speed wasn't very far off.

However, because Alex was still ahead, his sword reached the leopard's head before the leopard's claws could reach his.

CHOP

In a single smooth sweep, the leopard's head came off its body.

Alex looked both surprised and happy. He remembered when he had such a hard time with the snake, and now he could kill this monster with just a single strike. Even though [Smiting Blade] was a mortal grade technique, it was still a battle technique nonetheless.

"I wonder how strong my attacks would be if my sword was anything but a mortal grade."

Alex was now out of focus mode. He kept the cloud leopard's body into his inventory and walked off. It was getting dark, so he returned back.

He walked into the city without having to pay 2 silvers anymore. His nameplate was now a form of identification that the city guard accepted.

He got into his tavern room and logged out. He called his parents again, waiting for his roommates to log out of the game. Once they logged out, he went to have his dinner and got back to the room.

Once again, he logged back into the game. He cultivated inside the tavern room for a few minutes to get back what Qi he had lost during the day's hunt.

Once he was ready he walked out of the city. This time, he wouldn't return until the sun came up.

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Chapter 34:Chance Meeting

Alex was inside the jungle in the dead of night. The moon was shining brightly in the sky. For some reason, the moon always shined brightly in the sky.

The moon never went past being a half-moon. It changed its states between a full moon, half-moon, and in-between. So, he never had to worry about the night being dark in the game.

He didn't know if it was an intentional change from the developers, or they just wanted to let the players know this world was not their own.

But, the moon didn't matter to him anymore. He could see a lot better at nighttime now that he was a cultivator. Especially when he went into focus mode, his vision would amplify as well, letting him see the most minute of things in bright light even in the darkest of caves.

He realized that nighttime had way more monsters than the daytime. Most of the monsters seemed to only come out during nighttime, and he had a great time hunting them.

He wasn't particularly happy about the hunt or fascinated with killing. He was just happy when he thought about how many points he could get from these monsters.

Time slowly went by while he kept finding new materials, and encountering quite a few monsters.

It was about 2 am at night when he suddenly heard something.

Rustle Rustle

He immediately went into focus mode and started looking around to see if he could find what was making the noise. Time was slowed down, so he saw a bunch of leaves hanging from a branch on a tree move unnaturally.

He kept looking as he waited for a monster to appear from behind it. As the leaves parted to show what was behind them, he was surprised.

The thing making the rustling noises was actually a pair of females. He looked at them with wide eyes, while they also seemed to be surprised to find him.

They both seemed to be around 20 years old and held a small thin sword in their hand. They were both beautiful girls, but one just seemed infinitely more beautiful than the other.

Alex was still in his focus mode. He quickly looked at the less beautiful girl. She was wearing a yellow robe with blue linings around the robe. Her thin sword looked simple and made of steel.

There was a slight shine to it, but it wasn't very much.

The other girl on the other hand was something else. She was probably the most beautiful person he had seen in real life or in-game. She was wearing a similar robe to the first girl, with yellow all over it.

However, unlike the blue linings, this robe had red linings on it. She had flowing black hair that shined with a hint of blue in the moonlight. The sword she was holding looked like a crystal sword and was shining with a blue hue to it.

Even without the focus mode, one could see the shining from the sword. Alex looked at his own steel sword in hand and felting like laughing at the dull blade.

He turned off his focus mode, still surprised at seeing peoples in the forest at 2 am.

"Hello," he greeted.

The girl with the blue linings looked at him and asked," A disciple from the Hong Wu Sect? What are you doing here?" she practically demanded the answer.

Alex frowned a little, but still chose to answer, " I'm here to hunt monsters." He said.

"What monster could you possibly want to hunt in the middle of the night?" the girl asked once more.

"Meng Meng!" the other girl said, clearly disapproving of the rude tone in her voice.

"I'm a sorry senior sister." The blue linings girl immediately apologized to her senior sister.

The senior sister looked towards Alex and asked, " Are you looking for any specific monster, fellow Daoist? Do you require our help?" she asked.

Her tone was polite as she asked her question with a smile. Alex looked at the junior sister with a bit of focus and was shocked.

[Bone Tempering 7th Realm]

The girl was already in the 7th realm of Bone Tempering. That was 6 realms higher than his own. Judging from her tone, her senior sister must be stronger than her.

He slowly looked at the senior sister. His already wide eyes became even wider.

[Mind Tempering 5th realm]

'Holy Sh*t,' he couldn't help but cuss. This was the highest cultivation he had seen on someone so young. In fact, this was the highest non-hidden cultivation he had seen yet in the game.

To reach her level, he would have to cross the entire bone tempering realm, the organ tempering realm, and the meridian tempering realm. He wondered how much Qi that took.

The girl was 5 realms away from becoming a cultivator in the true realms. The girl looked at him with a weird look, and he realized he hadn't answered her question yet.

"I am just hunting random monsters, and am not looking for anything specific. So, thank you for your offer, but I will have to decline it." He tried to say no as politely as he could. This girl could probably kill him if she wanted to.

She didn't seem that type of girl, however. "Very well then, fellow Daoist. We shall take our leave". The girl turned around and walked off. The other girl also quickly followed behind her not giving Alex another glance.

It took a while before Alex was back in his usual mindset. He walked on from where he was and started looking for the ingredients and the monsters once more.

Slowly time passed by as he hunted the monsters throughout the entire night. The first rays of sunlight were scattered through the forests from the east.

It was about time to leave the forest, and log out of the game.

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Chapter 35:Best Player In The Game

The morning had arrived, and his first day of the 3-day leave was over. Nothing of significance had happened the entire night, aside from meeting different people in the forest.

Over the course of the night, he had met a few more people after the 2 female cultivators. Most of them had the same yellow robe on them, but none had the red linings like the beautiful girl, only green or blue linings.

He did meet a few disciples from Hong Wu Sect, but they seemed to be inner sect disciples so he didn't talk a lot to them besides the casual greetings.

He realized that monsters were active during the nighttime a lot more than daytime, so most of the people that wanted to hunt the monster only visited the forest during the night.

Now that it was nearly 7 am, Alex walked out of the forest and went to the city. Once he reached his room in the tavern, he logged out.

After breakfast, he decided to study instead of going back into the game. There was nothing to do in the game at this time, so it was better to just study.

At 11 am, he went to his class. Today was a computer science class, and he really enjoyed this class.

There was only 1 course he took this semester that didn't have either of his 3 roommates, so most of these classes he just sat with them.

After the classes were over, he ate his afternoon lunch and went back to his room. Instead of going back into the game, however, he just started doing his homework from his classes.

He had wanted to do it in the morning, but there was nothing to do right now. If he went back in the game, he would have nothing to do there. He couldn't go to the forest only to return a bit more than 2 hours later just to log out.

Rather, he would do his work now, eat his dinner, and then go into the game.

After finishing the homework, he decided to watch some online videos to pass his time. The site he visited regularly was now starting to recommend 'Eternal Cultivation' videos on its own.

"I haven't even searched for anything related to the game on this site, and it's somehow recommending videos related to it? Is this because the search engine and the video site are owned by the same company?" he talked to himself.

He was about to reload the page when he saw the word 'Best' out of the corner of his eyes. He stopped, and read the title of the video.

"Exclusive Interview with The BEST player in Eternal Cultivation!!" the thumbnail was a massive 'BEST' test covering the face of the player, while the interviewer looked very shocked with comically large eyes.

"The best?" Alex was intrigued. His curiosity took the better of him as he clicked on the video.

The video opened with the interviewer talking to the viewers, hyping them up, saying how they were the first channel to find the best player in Eternal Cultivation.

"This player has been playing this game since day 0, and has remained hidden the entire time he was in the game." The interviewer said, " However, today he has agreed to have us take an interview of him, and reveal himself to the world through our channel."

The interviewer kept talking about how his channel was the best for doing this. "Now everyone, please welcome, Mister Connor Root."

The interview was going to take over a video call, so on another side, a young 20-ish years old man with bright red hair showed up on another side of the video.

"Good morning Mister Root." The interviewer said.

"Good morning, you can just call me Connor." He replied

"Alright. Hi, I'm Connor Root. I live in Black Cherry City, and I am as of yet, the player with the highest cultivation in 'Eternal Cultivation'."

The interviewer acted shocked when he heard this, "If you don't mind us asking Connor, what is your cultivation at currently?"

"It's at True King 4th Realm. I just broke through yesterday actually." Connor answered.

"Oh wow, I heard the highest know cultivation as of yet was in the True Master Realm, yours just blows that out of the water. Can you tell us how to cultivated so fast?" the interviewer asked.

"There is really just one reason why I cultivated as fast as I did, and that reason is 'Luck'. I was just lucky, that's it." Connor then looked at the camera, and pointed at it as he said, " You too can become as good as me if you just get a bit lucky."

The interviewer's face was blank for a moment. He was expecting an actual answer from the interviewee, yet he just babbled about being this good due to luck.

"Umm... Connor, I think our viewers wouldn't mind learning a bit more as to how you cultivate so fast." The interviewer tried to solve the situation.

"Ahaha. I'm sorry, I was just joking for a moment. Let me get serious then. Let's see, the reason for why I cultivated so fast, huh. Well, there are many reasons, most of them being actually just luck. But if I had to condense them down to a few then, I would say I cultivated so fast because of 3 reasons exactly."

The interviewer seemed happy with this response. He had somehow kept the interview from going into a bad turn, "Oh, 3 reasons. I wonder how good these reasons are. If you wouldn't mind, can you tell us what these 3 reasons are?"

"Yes, I can. From what I have learned off of the forums and such, the internet has no idea about this, but, you know the Body in the status of the players? There are actually grades to these bodies as well. And the first reason as to why I cultivated so fast was because the body I was given in the game was one of the best bodies anyone has ever been given."

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Chapter 36:More Interview

"The body of a cultivator is graded as well? This is the first time I have heard of this." The interviewer was shocked. This was new information he was not expecting to get in this information today. He was genuinely shocked.

Alex was shocked too. He hadn't given much thought to his body. He started to wonder what grade his body was.

"Yes. I found that out a few days ago as I searched the internet trying to learn everyone's body's name. I had my suspicions before, but the searches I made proved my theories. You see a player is given a random body. Most of the time it's just called 'Mortal body'. People think this just meant the bodies they got was a non-cultivator to start with, but they are wrong."

"Also, since the Earth grade bodies and Heaven grade bodies do not have the words 'Earth' and 'Heaven' in it doesn't help it either. Only after the heaven grade does the bodies actually start to have their names in it."

The interviewer cued in and asked," And what body do you have?"

"My body is an Immortal Grade body. It's called the 'Immortal Tyrant Body'. With this body, I can produce the strength equal to 2 realms above my own realm. Meaning, I can currently produce the strength of a True Dao 6th Realm cultivator." he replied.

"Oh wow, that's one of the reasons for your fast cultivation huh. What are the other 2 reasons?" the interviewer asked.

"The next 2 reasons can in fact be called the same reason, but since they are different I decided to call them 2 reasons. And they are the fact that I got an Immortal Grade Cultivation Method for self-tempering realm through the gift box, and somehow managed to get a Heaven Grade Cultivation Method for the True realm."

"Add onto the fact that I bought a lot of Qi providing pills using the monsters I hunted, I got to where I am right now."

The interviewer was shocked again, "Oh wow. You really had a stroke of good luck going into the game, didn't you? What about your talents? Are they any good?"

" It's just a Heaven grade talent, nothing to call home about."

The interviewer then went on to ask other questions, but none of them interested Alex. He closed the video, and just sat there thinking.

"Sun God's Divine… would that be God grade or is there a grade called Divine as well?" he was shocked again. The only thing his body could do he could tell as of now turned natural common Qi into Yang Qi. Yang Qi lasted twice if not longer than normal qi and didn't need to be used as much to get the same result.

He was already happy to get Yang Qi from his body. But, if what the person said was true, then that just wasn't good enough for a God Grade body. so was it a Divine grade?

"What else can it do then?" he wondered.

The 3 roommates soon woke up, and they went to eat their dinner. He decided to tell them about what he found out today, but it seemed they had already learned about it during the day.

Apparently, they liked to frequently visit the forum and had done just that today during the recess. They lamented that they either had Earth or Heaven-grade bodies.

Alex also lamented along with them saying his body was Earth grade too.

After dinner, they returned to their room and jumped into the game. Alex logged in his tavern room. He hadn't returned to the game since waking up this morning and was quite eager to hunt once more.

He got out of the city and went into the forest through the eastern side once more. From what he understood about the forest, the monster got stronger the deeper one went into it.

If you were on the outer edges, you would only find skin tempering realm monsters. Monsters with Muscle Tempering realm only appeared about half an hour into the forest.

And only about 2 hours away from that did Bone tempering realm monsters start to appear. He never went that far and only stayed at the edge of it.

He had met a few monsters at Bone Tempering 1st realm, but he had managed to win against them with his Smiting Blade technique. Although it did take more than 1 strike with Smiting Blade each time he fought them.

Tonight was a moonlit night as always and Alex had walked about 2 hours into the forest. The monsters he found in this area were Muscle Tempering 7th realm to Muscle Tempering 9th realm.

Changing the place he hunted was a good idea on first thought, but once he realized that many other people hunted as well, it wasn't necessary to go out of his way to find monsters.

That said, Alex still changed his path so that he could find more alchemy ingredients. The forest was a treasure trove of alchemy ingredients that no one seemed to have searched for.

Or maybe they did but didn't realize which were alchemy ingredients, and which were not.

A giant bear fell down with a massive cut running across its chest. Alex walked up to the bear and kept its corpse into his inventory. The bear was at the 7th realm of Muscle Tempering, so he had managed to kill it in one hit.

He stood up and walked on ahead, searching for more monsters.

BAM

Suddenly the monster's corpse vanished, and he finally saw what laid behind it.

There were two ladies, one a little further back than the other. The one that was right beside the monster looked up with surprised eyes, and smiled a little as she said,

"Fellow Daoist, it seems fate has brought us together again."

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Chapter 37:Helping

Alex was surprised to see it was the same two girls he met yesterday.

'Fellow Daoist? Is that what the cultivators call each other?' he wondered. He decided to reciprocate the greeting.

"It's good to see you once more, Fellow Daoist. I don't really think fate has to do anything with us meeting again," he tried to make small talk.

"Oh. Are you trying to imply that you met us here on purpose then, Fellow Daoist?" she asked with a smirk. She knew the answer, but still decided to tease him.

Alex's face changed to a brighter shade of red. "Of course not, It was just a random meeting. I just came here because I heard a sound."

"Haha, you don't need to defend yourself, Fellow Daoist. I was just joking." Her laughter made her look even more beautiful.

Alex looked a little hurt. "I shall take my leave then." He said as he started to turn around.

"Wait a minute, fellow Daoist." She called from behind.

"Since we met each other, why don't we hunt together?" she tried to invite him to the group.

Alex was surprised. 'Why would she want me to join? I'm the weakest one here and am not even that strong-looking. There must be some other reason.'

"If you want something, you should just ask it, Fellow Daoist." He tried to figure out what she wanted.

"Quite a sharp one, aren't you? Yes, to be honest, fellow Daoist, we do require something." She said as she sighed a little.

"Senior sister, you shouldn't. It's risky to tell him." The girl in the back spoke for the first time tonight. She was about to talk some more when she was interrupted by the other girl's hand gesture.

"I think we should introduce ourselves first. I am Luo Mei, and this is Meng Yun. We are disciples of the Tiger Sect." The girl introduced both herself and the girl at the back.

"I am Yu Ming. I am a disciple of the Hong Wu Sect." He decided to introduce himself as well. "So, you said you wanted something? If it's something I don't mind parting with, I can give it to you." He said. He was slightly worried they might just attack him, and take it away forcefully.

Luo Mei immediately corrected herself, " Oh no. We don't want something you have. We just want your help in something."

"Okay, what do you want my help in?" he asked.

"We are at our last leg, so we need the help of an alchemist like yourself. Please, follow us," she said as she started walking in a certain direction.

Along the way, Alex stopped a bunch of times to collect the alchemy ingredients he found. The two ladies were very surprised when they saw him pick so many things.

Meng Yun softly whispered into Luo Mei's ear as she said, " Senior sister, do you think he knows what we want him to do? He seems to be showing off by randomly picking up ingredients. I think he is a fraud."

Luo Mei frowned when she heard this. "That is a definite possibility, but it doesn't look like he is faking it. Some of the ingredients he picked were ones even I recognized. He must be a genuine alchemist who recognizes the ingredients. I hope he recognizes that one too."

Luo Mei continued to walk deeper and deeper into the forest. Alex started to get worried. They were now constantly meeting monsters that would definitely be able to kill him easily.

But to a Mind Tempering realm cultivator like her, these monsters were a piece of cake. She killed every single monster they came across and took all the drops from the monster.

Alex didn't mind her behavior as he was already getting enough benefits from the ingredients here.

After a short while, she had managed to kill over a few dozen of bone tempering realm monsters. This was an amount that Alex couldn't even hope to have achieved in all the 3 days he had taken a leave from the sect.

And this girl had somehow managed to kill them in less than 2 hours.

"We're here," Luo Mei said as she increased her walking speed a little faster. "It's right around here, somewhere."

Finally, she stopped as she saw a small opening in the forest where there were no trees and only bushes. In front of the bushes was an Ox-like monster currently sleeping.

[Meridian Tempering 3rd Realm]

This was a monster that Alex didn't doubt could kill him in a single blow. He was really scared now. He looked at Meng Yun, and she was shivering a little as well.

Luo Mei however showed no fear, only some irritation at the fact that she had to fight when her goal was so close.

She kept her sword in its scabbard on her waist and started moving her arms in a certain manner. Alex looked at her arms and saw Qi slowly seep out of her palms.

The moment the Qi left her body, however, something weird happened. All of the Qi started to change as they slowly transformed into water.

Alex had unconsciously started focus mode due to his fright, which was why the transformation looked so slow to him. In fact, the transformation happened in a split second.

A massive ball of water appeared in front of Luo Mei which she sent towards the Ox. Within seconds, the Ox opened his eyes and frantically tried to move. But it couldn't.

Luo Mei had already encased the Ox in the water ball and was slowly drowning it to death in midair. The ball started to move higher and higher as the Ox tried to breathe more and more and failed. Minutes passed by and the Ox finally stopped breathing.

It was dead.

Luo Mei then let go of the water ball, and the entire thing, water, and Ox fell to the ground with a loud bang. She then turned to Alex and said, "This is where I need your help, Daoist Yu."

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Chapter 38:Spiritual Sense

"This way, Fellow Daoist. This is where I require your help," Luo Mei said as she walked forward towards the bushes. She had already kept the Ox monster's body in her storage bag.

Meng Yun followed behind her unquestioningly. Alex decided to follow as well. Alex reached where they had stopped behind the bushes and was immediately surprised when he saw what it was.

Hidden behind the bushes was an array of multicolored flowers, thousands in number, all naturally arranged to look like a flower bed. The flowers were all normal looking individually but were a sight to behold when viewed altogether.

This, however, wasn't the most shocking thing to Alex. The thing he was much more surprised about was what was happening to himself.

'This feeling,' he was starting to feel a very intense pull towards one of the flowers. He recalled the time he had fought the 'Earth Snake'. He had had the same feeling that time as well.

'Same feeling… no way!' he looked at the flowers and focused,

[Spirit Cleansing Lily]

'It's the same flower.' To this day, Alex had covertly tried to find out what this flower was in the sect but had no result. Today, he saw one more and was reminded of his 'want' to have it.

He resisted his feeling and looked at Luo Mei. "What do you want me to do, Daoist Luo?" Meng Yun's eyes shot up as she heard him talk to her using her name.

Luo Mei however didn't give it a single thought, instead, all of her focus was on the flowerbed of Spirit Cleansing Lily.

"Do you know what this is, Daoist Yu?" she asked.

Alex just simply answered, "This? This is a flower bed of course."

Luo Mei frowned a little, and asked once more, " Do you know what this flower bed is?" she asked.

Alex saw her frowning face and got scared. He decided to answer properly this time, "I don't know what the flower bed is called, but I know one of the flowers here is the Spirit Cleansing Lily."

Hearing the name, Luo Mei's eyes got bright with excitement and hope. "So you do know the name? Does that mean you can choose the right one?" she asked.

"The right one?" 'was she talking about finding the exact flower' he wondered.

"Yes, the right one. Don't you know that picking the wrong flower makes the entire flower bed wilt?" she asked.

"I didn't," he simply answered.

"Can you pick the right one then?" she asked once more.

"Yes. I can pick the Spirit Cleansing Lily without making a mistake." He said.

Hearing his answer she got even more excited. This was the first time she was showing such expressions. Normally she was very calm and collected.

She took out a storage bag from her side and handed it to Alex. "Check it," she said gesturing the bag.

Treasure. That was the only word Alex could think of when he saw what was inside the bag. There were more monsters and cores in here than what he had collected over the course of the 2 days.

And to make things better, all of them were over Bone Tempering realm. He breathed in a little and killed his own awe. There must've been a reason why she showed him her loot, so he asked," What's the meaning of this, Daoist Luo?"

As if she was waiting for the question, she answered immediately, "If you can bring me the Spirit Cleansing Lily without wilting the entire flower bed, you can keep that bag."

Alex's eyes went wide with excitement now. He could hide his awe, but he couldn't hide his excitement. Still, he tried to keep it on the low and asked her, "Why do you want the lily so bad, Daoist Luo?"

Luo Mei frowned. She was worried if she told him the reason, he would just keep it for himself, or intentionally try to destroy it. That would be too bad for her.

Alex saw her frowning face, and said, "Don't be mistaken, Daoist Luo. I will get the flower to you. I am asking because I only know the flower by name and appearance, and never learned of its use. So I was hoping you could tell me what the use is."

Luo Mei didn't immediately believe him, but decided to explain anyway, "Spirit Cleansing Lily is a precious treasure. If you cultivate overnight with the lily on your body, you will unlock Spiritual Sense."

Meng Yun was surprised her senior sister actually told him the reason.

"Well, there is no point in hiding it anyway. You would know about it sooner or later, given your knowledge." Luo Mei continued.

Alex frowned. 'Spiritual Sense?' he had never seen or heard anyone talk about this, inside or outside the game.

"What is Spiritual Sense, Daoist Luo?" he asked.

She looked at him with a surprised face, "Has no one in Hong Wu Sect told you what it is?" she asked.

Alex laughed a little and shook his head. Luo Mei explained, "Spiritual Sense is a type of sense, or ability, that you can use to sense your surrounding using your mind. There are many abilities that you can use your spiritual sense for. The best explanation is probably that it is similar to Qi for your brain."

Alex had never heard of it, but it sounded good.

"So, can you get it then?" Luo Mei was getting agitated.

Alex immediately went to the flower bed and easily plucked the lily and returned. Luo Mei and Meng Yun were shocked to see how simple that looked.

They had been dreading this for the entire day since yesterday night when they had found it. And somehow this man managed to pick it within 5 seconds. Just how good was his ingredient recognizing skills.

Luo Mei looked at the flower bed and realized he had indeed succeeded. 'This man must be a high-ranking disciple in the Hong Wu sect,' she thought to herself.

"Here you go, Daoist Luo. I hope this fulfills what you required of me."

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Chapter 39:Outer Sect?

Luo Mei looked at the flower in her hand as tears started streaming down her eyes. He hands holding the lily were slightly shivering.

Alex was surprised to see this. He had expected to see her surprised face, or maybe even eyes bulging out of their sockets. But never had he expected her to just cry.

"Is Spiritual Sense really that good?" he couldn't help but ask.

Luo Mei wiped her tears and answered, "Of Course it's good. It's something you can only unlock after reaching the Saint realm, if that's not good then I don't know what is."

"Saint Realm??" it was his turn to get shocked now. Luo Mei took out a small jade box and kept the Spirit Cleansing Lily in there. She then kept the bag in her storage bag and thanked Alex once more.

"I will take my leave now, Daoist Yu. I hope we will meet again." She said her goodbyes and started walking back towards the city.

"Wait, Daoist Luo." He immediately cried out.

Luo Mei stopped and looked back. "What is it, Daoist Yu? Do you require something now?" she asked.

Alex looked a little embarrassed and scared as he said, "This area is too much for me to handle. Would you mind if I tag along until I got a bit out of the forest?"

Alex felt like crying at the fact that she just called him weak so nonchalantly. 'Alchemy is important, but I need to get stronger too.' He thought.

They walked back in a different direction from the previous one under Alex's request. Along the way he found many more alchemy ingredients.

By now, he had more than half the ingredients for most of the recipes he knew. For some, he even had all the ingredients. He couldn't wait to return and perform some more alchemy.

On the way back, a silver fox-like monster appeared before them. Alex read its name, [Swift Wolf: Bone Tempering 4nd Realm]. The monster was a realm higher than him.

Luo Mei casually took out her sword and slashed it horizontally. The swift wolf immediately jumped to the side but was still grazed by the incoming slash. There was a long gash on its back and was now bleeding into its silver fur.

The moment it got hurt, it ran away. It really did live up to its name and was very swift.

"Should we follow it?" Alex asked.

"No need. Unless that monster finds a monster core of a monster stronger than it, it won't survive my attack. The most it can live for now is 2 days." Luo Mei was very confident in her attack.

"What does a monster core have to do with other monsters?" he asked.

"Monsters cultivate very slowly, so one way to cultivate faster for them is to hunt down other monsters and eat their cores. Similarly, when they are hurt eating other monster's cores helps them heal as well. But the monster core should also come from a relatively high-level monster for it to work. Otherwise, it would have to eat many low cultivation monsters." Luo Mei replied

"I see," Alex was grateful for her teaching him different things.

After a while, they were nearly out of the forest when all 3 of them stopped. There was noise in front of them.

Suddenly, a green-robed young man appeared from behind the trees. He was surprised to see the 3 of them as well. He saw a single outer disciple among the two yellow-robed females.

'Are they threatening him? Is he in trouble?'

"Junior brother, do you need any help?" he tried to see if he was being forced by them or walking on his own accord.

He looked at Meng Yun's robe and was surprised to see a blue lining. 'Inner sect disciple of Tiger Sect?' he was surprised. He doubted he could take her on if the junior disciple really needed help.

He then turned to look at Luo Mei. The moment he saw her red linings, his eyes went wide.

Alex decided to answer, "Thank you but I don't need any help, senior brother. These fellow Daoists are taking me out of the forest since it was dangerous for me."

"I-Is that s-so. Th-Then I s-shall take my l-leave." He bowed towards Luo Mei a bit and ran off.

'What's up with him?' Alex was confused. Meng Yun looked at the young man running away and was surprised.

She walked up to Luo Mei and slowly whispered in her ears, "Senior Sister, that man's robes are darker in color than this guy's."

Luo Mei was surprised when she heard this. She immediately compared the robes and realized Alex's robes were lighter in shade. She knew what this meant.

"Daoist Yu, is that man a core disciple from your sect?" she asked.

"Hmm… I don't think so. He should be an inner disciple. " Alex thought of nothing when he heard this question.

Luo Mei's eyes went wider, "Then why are you calling him senior brother?"

"What else would I call an inner sect disciple? Anything else from an outer sect disciple like me would be considered disrespectful." Alex simply replied.

Luo Mei was surprised. 'An outer sect disciple? No way. He is so talented. Even in our sect, a bone tempering realm cultivator would automatically become an inner sect disciple. How is he still an outer sect with his amazing ingredients-finding ability? Should I try to rope him in?' she thought.

"Why aren't you an inner sect disciple already Daoist Yu?" she decided to tread the waters slowly.

"I haven't completed the requirements for becoming an inner sect disciple yet."

Luo Mei was surprised. " A bone tempering realm cultivator like you doesn't meet the requirement? What are the requirements then?" she asked.

"Oh, I just have to make 10 different recipes mortal grade pills, that's all." Alex didn't hide anything.

"I see… and how many have you made so far?" she asked meekly.

"Well, as of yet, only 1," Alex replied

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Chapter 40:Invitation

Luo Mei's eyes became bright as she thought of something. 'Bone Tempering realm cultivator with only 1 pill made so far? His talents in alchemy must be very bad.'

"Daoist Yu, come join the Tiger Sect. I can immediately make you a core disciple and give you heaven-grade cultivation methods, techniques, and weapons. The sect will also take care of all your other necessities as well. All you will have to do is go on a venture with our sect elders and help them find alchemy ingredients from deep in the southern forest." She said, trying to tempt him to join the Tiger Sect.

Alex was surprised at the offer that came out of nowhere. He smiled a little and said, " Thank you for the offer, Daoist Yu. But I will have to decline. I wish to learn alchemy, and I don't think I will be able to pursue it as well as I currently am if I join the Tiger Sect."

"But, look at you. You are already at Bone Tempering realm and have only managed to make a single pill. I think you should give up on making pills Daoist Yu." She tried to reason with him some more.

"It's fine. I only made a single pill so far because earning contribution points in the first week as an outer sect disciple takes a lot of time." Alex tried to decline politely.

Luo Mei thought she heard wrong. "Can you repeat that, Daoist Yu?"

"Oh, I said that my first week as an outer sect disciple took me a lot to earn points. Which is why I was only able to make a single type of pill." Alex repeated.

Luo Mei asked inquisitively, "Are you saying that it's only been a week since you joined the Hong Wu Sect?"

"Yeah. Maybe 8 days, but not more. I did make my first pills 2 days ago." He said.

Luo Mei gave a wry smile as she asked, "umm… how long have you been pursuing alchemy, Daoist Yu?"

"Hmm… let's see. I believe it was the day after I started cultivating, so 9 days now. I took the entrance test for Hong Wu Sect on the day I learned about alchemy. "

Luo Mei's eyes were wide open. Even Meng Yun on the behind couldn't keep her stoic appearance anymore. 'He entered the sect 9 days ago and managed to make a pill in 7 days. What sort of alchemy monster is this?' she thought.

She repeated what he had just said in her head and her eyes went even wider. Her voice was quivering as she hoped she had heard wrong, " Umm… Daoist Yu. Did you just imply that you started cultivating 10 days ago?" she asked.

"Yes," Alex answered without thinking. And then he realized what he had said while going in the flow of the conversation. 'Sh*t. I accidentally revealed a bit too much.' He thought.

"Now I must really ask you to join our Tiger Sect, Daoist - No, Brother Yu." She started to rope him in even more.

"We will give you everything you ask for Brother Yu. Just join our sect." She hoped he would change his mind.

Alex frowned a little. "Please stop this Daoist Luo. I will not join your sect. I joined the Hong Wu sect to learn alchemy, and I will continue doing so. Please don't embarrass yourself any further."

Luo Mei stopped talking. Not even Meng Yun said anything when she heard this, she knew Luo Mei was in the wrong this time.

Alex took this opportunity and said, " Thank you for letting me walk with you till here, I should be able to leave on my own now. Hence, I shall part with you fellow Daoists. May we meet again." He started walking away.

Luo Mei and Meng Yun stood there not knowing what to do. She really wanted to have him join her sect, but she couldn't use force as that would only worsen the situation.

"Senior Sister, what do we do now?" Meng Yun asked from the side.

"There is nothing else we can do. So, we should leave this task to someone who can do something." She said.

Luo Mei looked at the disappearing figure of Alex and said, "C'mon, Let's go. I need to tell my master about him. He should be able to convince him." Both of them then disappeared into the forest.

Alex hunted for a few more hours. Although he didn't need to hunt monsters anymore after what the 2 ladies had given him, he still wanted to find more alchemy materials.

He started ignoring skin tempering realm monsters and only fought at anything above Muscle Tempering. He was so focused on finding the ingredients, that he forgot to log out for breakfast as well.

'Doesn't matter. I will just go for lunch directly,' He thought. After a couple of hours of more hunting, he returned to his room in the tavern.

He looked at the time, and it was 10 am. He logged out and went to get a shower. He left the bathroom a little while later and decided to wait for his two roommates.

Matt had a morning class, so he was already gone. Once Logan and Eric logged out, they went to the Cafeteria together and had their lunch.

Afterward, they went to their individual classes. Alex paid as much attention as he could in the class, but the business statistics class was just too boring for him.

Finally, once the classes were over, he went to the cafeteria to get his afternoon lunch. Afterward, he did his assignments, and other works until it was time for dinner.

Once the dinner was over, he finally went into the game. He logged in to his room at the tavern.

'Do I go back to the sector hunt some more?' he wondered. It took him a while, but they finally decided to hunt some more. Since he took a 3-day leave from the sect, it would be impossible to get another one anytime soon. So, he had to make the best of his last day out of the sect.

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Chapter 41:Explosion

Alex had gone to the eastern side of the Scarlet City for 2 days straight now. So, he decided to visit the western side this time. When he walked out of the western gate, he felt a sense of deja vu as he remembered that this was the place he was first brought to when he logged in.

He started combing the outer areas of the forest for alchemy ingredients and was very happy when he realized there were a lot of them here. Unlike the eastern side where he had foraged for 2 entire nights, the western side's ingredients were pretty much in an immaculate state.

He started picking up all the ingredients he could find. He didn't know how many of them he would ever even find a use for, but he still kept them just in case.

He ignored most of the Skin tempering realm monsters unless they were too annoying to ignore, it which case he would just lift them up with his Qi and smash them into the ground. He was at least that good with his Qi.

He was fascinated with the concept of controlling his whole body with his Qi and thought it would be practically flying if he could do that.

But alas, the most he could do with himself was hover about 20 centimeters off of the ground. He had tried a few more times, but 20 cm was the best he could do.

He hadn't tried after reaching Bone Tempering 1st Realm but had assumed the result would be the same. Still, he was happy he could lift other objects as well.

He had also realized that when using Qi manipulation on anything with cultivation, it became increasingly harder to move them with Qi the higher their cultivation was.

It was as if higher cultivation monsters were resistant to lower or similar cultivation's Qi amount.

After finishing the outer part of the forest, he walked into the inner part where the Muscle Tempering realm monsters lived.

Alex kept the monkey's corpse and walked along. He didn't see a lot of cultivators on this side of the forest. He had seen quite a few Skin Tempering realm rogue cultivators on the outer edge of the forest, but there were almost none where he was.

It didn't take him long to realize why that was. He had walked for over 5 hours and had yet to see a single monster above Muscle Tempering 6th realm.

Granted he was combing more area due to his search for the materials, but it still should not have taken him this long to see a monster with cultivation close to his.

'No wonder there are no cultivators here. There are barely any monsters, to begin with, and even if there were, one would have to walk in so deep to find them.

Alex kept walking forward. The night was particularly cloudy today, but his vision was still not hampered at all. He walked a little bit further and met his first Bone Tempering realm monster.

It was a giant bird that had a particularly sharp beak. He focused on the bird and something popped up above it.

[Green Blooded Owl: Bone Tempering 1st Realm ]

The owl started flying up when it saw Alex. At first, Alex thought the bird had run away because it did not want to fight him. But soon he realized that the owl was actually just gaining some distance to create momentum. Once the owl reached the appropriate height, it turned around and fully dived towards Alex.

Alex activated Focus Mode. Time slowed down. He could see the individual feathers on the bird and could hear its silent dive even from so far away.

Alex readied his sword and started pouring his Qi into it. Every time he did that, he would feel a resistance from the sword as if it was not accepting the Qi but eventually accepted it.

He felt like he was filling a water bottle with its cap still on. Only that the cap had holes in it and could actually fill, but took a lot of time.

As the owl swooped down, he swung his sword, and the Smiting Blade did its job. With the increased penetration powers of the blade, he killed the owl in a single swing.

He kept the bird's corpse in his inventory and took out the core. He looked at it and thought,

'The first time I saw a core, I mistook it for a pill and ate it. Can I still do that?'

Without thinking for another moment, he put the pill into his mouth.

"Oh wow, that's a lot. Should I eat another one too?" he said to himself. He took another bone tempering first realm monster core and ate it.

"Hmm… that's not as much as the first one." He quickly let go of this thought and opened his status. Once he did that, he immediately broke through.

He was now Bone Tempering 2nd Realm. He decided not to eat any more core since he needed contribution points. He wandered around until sunrise, and finally turn back to return to the city.

BOOM

A massive explosion shook the very earth. Alex stumbled a bit from the shock wave he felt. The explosion happened very near to where he was.

He ran towards the sound, and within minutes saw a massive scene of destruction.

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Chapter 42:Kill? or Save?

Alex looked at the scene of destruction. Trees were uprooted by the shock wave and were on fire. Stones crumbled to dust were still in the air.

And at the center of the explosion was a massive crater. The crater had not been there previously and was made by the explosion that had just happened.

He walked up to the edge of the crater and waited for the dust to settle down. Once the air was clear, he finally saw what was inside.

The crater was about 10 meters deep and about 20 meters wide. Broken trees and bushes were on fire all over the crater. At the center of the crater was a white and red-figure.

Alex moved a little closer to see what it was. When he went closer he finally realized that the white and red-figure was a monster. Alex's first thought was to run away, but he stuck around once he noticed the monster wasn't moving at all.

'Is it dead?' He thought. He went a little closer to look at what it was. The monster was a cat-like monster with big whiskers. It was about as big as a rhinoceros, and its fur was white with red patches.

'Wait, those aren't red patches,' he thought. He walked up a little closer to see what it was and found out that what he thought were red patches were actually blood.

The cat-like monster was bloody all over. He looked at its wound and saw something sticking out from its back.

'Hmm…' Alex stopped. He thought he heard something. It was the cry of a cat, but it was very small and didn't feel like one this humongous cat could make.

Meow

He once more heard the meek little cry of a cat. He went closer to the dead cat monster when suddenly it started moving.

Alex ran to the outer edges of the crater before he could even take another breath. The cat wasn't dead. It was actually moving. He decided to check the description of the cat, so he focused on it.

[????????????]

That was all he got. He could neither see the name, nor the cultivation of the cat. 'How strong is this cat?' he thought.

'What would happen if I kill it right now? It seems to be wounded for some reason. Killing it should be easy. Given the high level of this cat, the corpse and core should sell for a lot.' Greedy thoughts started to appear in his head.

The cat was slowly starting to stand up, but could barely do it. Blood dripped from its body like it was a packet of ketchup.

The cat was standing with 3 of its legs and was holding 1 of its front limbs to its chest. At first, he thought the cat was holding onto its wound in the chest, but he was wrong.

He now realized where that small and meek 'meow' had come from. The giant cat was currently holding a small, newly born cat in its arms.

The cat stumbled once more and fell to the ground. Its wounds were too much for it to handle. Alex just stood there and watched, unsure of what to do.

Just as he was contemplating on what to do, something moved on the other side of the crater. From far away, it looked like a blob of red and white.

When Alex focused to see what it was, he realized it was a silver-colored wolf with a giant wound on its back making it red.

'That wolf…' he thought. It looked very similar. He checked its name, and he was correct. It was the Swift Wolf that Luo Mei had failed to kill.

It was at Bone Tempering 4th realm and was currently making its way towards the wounded cat. The cat made a loud growled that deterred the wolf for a few seconds, but it had more than realized that the cat was in its death bed, and couldn't do anything anymore.

He was scared. The cat couldn't move right now, so it would die to the wolf for sure. Besides, it had its child with it. Alex couldn't stand around and watch the parent and child die.

He decided to help them. He took out his sword and ran up to where the cat was. Listening to something else appear towards him, the cat made another large growl.

Alex felt his spirit grow cold as that growl left him very scared. The wolf also got scared once more. Alex took a deep breath and walked in front of the cat.

"I am not going to hurt you. I am here to save you and your child," Alex said out loud and stood with a sword in his hand. The Cat looked at him with its clear, cat eyes and closed his eyes.

'Did it understand me?' he wondered. It certainly acted like it. He turned his attention back to the wolf. He turned focus mode on and prepared his Smiting Blade technique.

The wolf was apprehensive of him. It seemed to have enough intelligence to realize that he was with Luo Mei when it got hurt. It was considering whether to attack or not.

If he was as strong as Luo Mei, that would just be asking for death. The wolf slowly walked around the cats and the human, taking its time, understanding the situation.

It wanted to delay a bit longer, but it was heavily wounded. So if it did not kill the cat and eat its monster core, he was sure to be dead by tomorrow.

It had come all the way to the western side of the jungle to get away from the stronger monsters, and now there was an opportunity for it to not only heal but get stronger in the process too.

Given that the situation was life or death, the wolf no longer hesitated and went for the attack.

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Chapter 43:Successfully Refined

The wolf's target was the cat, but it was scared of how strong the human could be, so it first decided to check the human.

Seeing the wolf come towards him, Alex immediately swung the blade. The Smiting Blade-driven sword came down at an incredible speed, and … did nothing.

The wolf had managed to dodge the attack and jump to the side. Seeing the cultivation he emitted while attacking, the wolf was sure that the human was not strong at all. In fact, he was weaker than himself.

Seeing that Alex couldn't do anything, the wolf went on the offensive. Alex got scared and started using another technique.

[Flame Mastery Scripture]

Alex had never used this technique during his fights against the monsters for one simple reason, there was no fire to manipulate. But now, thanks to the massive explosion, there was fire all around him.

With his left hand, he called a little tongue of fire towards himself, and immediately increased its size, and temperature. He shot the fire towards the incoming wolf.

BAM

The fire hit the wolf right in the face. The wolf immediately whimpered like a dog and ran backward. Its silver fur was now charred around its face.

Gurrrrrr

It started to growl a little. The cat behind him was starting to huff and puff. It was dying, but refused to. It was staying alive as long as it could for its child. It could not die as long as the wolf was still alive and wanted it and its child's life.

The wolf was a little cautious this time. It once again started circling looking for an opening. Alex had brought another piece of fire and was invigorating it with his Qi.

The wolf once again came towards him and tried to attack him. Similar to last time, Alex once more shot the fire at the wolf. But, the wolf was ready this time, it immediately side-stepped the fire.

Seeing this, Alex suddenly pulled the fire backward and attacked the wolf. The wolf however was already near Alex. With one massive swing of its paw, it hit him right in his left arm, breaking the bones underneath.

"Ahhh!!!" he shouted. This was the first time he had felt such pain in the game. The fire caught up to the wolf and slammed it in the back where the previous wound was.

He could now only move his arm from the elbow below. Everything above that was starting to swell. It was hard but, he could still use Fire Mastery.

The wolf had created a distance between them after getting hit by the fire. This time, it even got hit on its old wound, making it start to bleed again.

The wolf needed to attack again. It once more swiftly ran at him with the intention of killing if possible. Alex however couldn't use the fire very well, and instead used it to deter the wolf.

The wolf wasn't going to be fooled. It came straight at his chest. Alex blocked the strike with his sword, but the force of the strike still broke a few of his bones.

The attack made him fly backward and land on the ground. The wolf immediately came upon him and started to bite his head. With the focus mode on, he could feel the teeth of the wolf start to crack his skull.

He was afraid he was going to die.

GROWL

The wolf immediately stopped biting and ran away. The cat had used whatever remaining energy it had left to send the wolf running away.

Alex slowly stood up, his head bleeding profusely. The blood ran along the side of his face and was now dripping to the ground. Some of the blood even covering his right eye completely.

The wolf had fallen for the same bluff 3 times in a row now. It was incredibly angry. It was now preparing for one last attack to kill Alex for sure this time.

Alex was already on death's door, so he was sure if he took another attack from the wolf, he would die for sure. He pulled what little fire he could with his left hand.

He stabbed the sword on the ground and used his only usable hand remaining to wipe the blood off of his face and eye. The wolf started running towards him.

Alex wasn't going to die without one last stand. He picked up his sword, ready to give out one last attack when suddenly something happened.

Three notifications appeared in front of his eyes out of nowhere.

"What?"

The wolf was right upon him. He had lost control of the fire due to his surprise. Seeing the wolf, he immediately used Qi manipulation to stop it.

The wolf was at a higher level than him, so there was no way for him to stop it. However, it did slow down the wolf for just enough.

Alex activated 'Smiting Blade'.

SWOOSH

As if the flood gates were opened, Qi started rushing into the Steel Sword at a speed that was incomparable to the previous times. The sword started to glow in bright yellow color, with enough shine that it seemed to outshine the sun.

Alex turned to look at the wolf that was right upon him. Its right paw was ready to attack his head, but it was moving very slowly due to his Qi. Alex swung his sword and cut off the limb that was outstretched.

The wolf was about to cry out in pain when Alex's sword returned just as quickly and cut off its head.

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Chapter 44:Death

Alex slumped onto the ground once he saw the wolf die. As soon as he sat, he started to vomit out blood. It didn't look as bad on the outside, but the attack on his chest had left a hemorrhage inside.

His head was burning with intense pain, and he could barely move his left arm. The blood from his head had once more covered his eyes, but he didn't have the strength to wipe it off this time.

"Thank You," he heard a voice in his head.

'Am I hallucinating?' he thought. 'Is this what being close to death feels like. Full of pain and hallucinations.'

"Thank you for saving my child." He heard the voice once more.

His eyes immediately opened as he looked towards the cat monster. Its eyes had lost their clarity and started to get groggy, but it was still very much looking at him.

"Did you just talk?" he asked, biting through his pain.

"I have two requests. Would you mind listening to my requests?" the cat's mouth didn't move, but he could hear its voice in its head. He was now sure that it was in fact the cat talking.

"Tell me what your requests are. If I can fulfill it, I shall." He said.

"Thank you," the cat spoke in his mind and brought out its child from underneath. "This is my son. I don't know if you will survive your wounds or not, but if you do, please take care of him. His destiny is to grow up to be the strongest, and I, as his mother, can't let him die here," The cat said.

Alex stood up with what little energy, and walked up to the cat. The little kitten was weak and had wounds all over its body as well. But those wounds were mostly just minor wounds, and even without any help, it would survive.

Alex took out the Minor Healing pill from his inventory. It was the only healing pill he had and it only worked on minor injuries. He fed the pill to the little kitten without hesitation. His wounds were not one that he could heal with a meager Minor Healing Pill.

The kitten's wounds healed within seconds, and it started to stand up on its little feet. Alex smiled as he saw the little kitten jump around in his hand and jump down to the ground. It then ran towards its mother and started nudging her a little.

The cat smiled a little and brought out its tongue and started licking the little kitten. Tears started streaming down her eyes as she kept on licking the little ignorant kitten.

Alex's eyes watered a little as well. The cat then looked at him, and said, "Now, for my second request." The cat looked at him and then turned to look at its child for a few seconds, before turning back to him.

After a few seconds of silence, it finally closed its eyes and said, "Please kill me."

Alex was shocked. That was not what he had been expecting. He coughed a bit more blood as it was getting harder for him to breathe. he looked at the cat, and said,

" I don't think I can fulfill this request of yours. I myself am nearly dead. Even if you yourself are on your death bed, I don't have enough strength to kill you, even if I wanted to."

The cat looked at him and said, "That's okay. You don't have to kill me with your own strength. Just pull out the sword on my back and I will die in no time."

Alex turned to look at the thing sticking from its back. 'So that was a sword handle huh.' He thought.

He walked up to the back of the cat and tried to pull the sword off. But it was too heavily stuck in there, and he didn't have the strength to pull it.

He tried a few more times, but it was fruitless. He was about to give up when he thought of something. He looked towards the cat and said, "I am about to try something different. If it works the sword will leave your body, are you ready?"

"Yes," the cat said.

Alex looked at the handle and grabbed it. However, instead of pulling it this time, he just closed his eyes. His Qi started flowing around the surface of the sword. He felt some resistance from the remnant Qi of whoever owned the sword, but without someone to guide it, the Qi simply disappeared.

Whoosh.

MEOW

The cat purred loudly. The little kitten was scared for a moment but returned to nudging its mother. The cat slowly licked the little kitten as Alex heard it speak in its mind.

"Thank You," its tongue had stopped licking its child. The cat was dead.

This was the first time Alex felt horrible for seeing a notification appear.

"Meow?" the little kitten nudged its mother a little more but there was no response. "Meow! Meow!" it kept calling its mother to lick him some more, but Alex knew there was no way the cat was going to do anything anymore.

Tears started welling up in his eyes as he was saddened by the little kitten's cries.

Cough*

Suddenly, he vomited some more blood and got lightheaded. He couldn't keep standing anymore and fell down hard onto the ground.

"Meow?" the little kitten saw him fall down and walked up to him.

Alex's mind was starting to get hazy as he couldn't tell what was going on outside. He saw a vague silhouette of the little kitten come up to him. He thought he felt something on his forehead, but wasn't sure if it was the little kitten or just his pain.

Suddenly, white light shined bright in front of him. He closed his eyes as the light was too much for him to look at. He heard a bunch of notifications pop up, but he wasn't in the state to read them at all.

Once the light died down, he opened his eyes once more. The little kitten was there no more.

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Chapter 45:Important Figures

Everything was blurry. His head ached so hard he couldn't even think properly. He had accidentally dropped on his broken left arm, and it was starting to burn with pain as well.

His green robe was died red in most parts. The most painful part was probably his chest. Most of his ribs were broken, and he was pretty sure some of them had punctured into his organs.

Huff Huff

He was having a hard time breathing as well.

'Please, just let me die.' All he wanted now was to die. 'How was the cat able to keep staying alive for so long with so much wound. Only 3 wounds and I feel like dying.' He couldn't help but think.

He kept on wishing to die, but for some reason didn't. From time to time warm bursts of energy appeared from deep in his body, that kept him from even fainting. So he had to stay awake and endure the pain.

Whoosh Whoosh Whoosh

He heard multiple objects moving in the vicinity. 'Are these the monsters? Will, I finally die?' he thought. He tried to see what monster it was but his one open eye was too blurry to tell anything apart.

That was when he started hearing voices.

"What happened here?"

"Hey, there is a kid here."

"Ma Rong, this is a disciple from your sect."

He felt someone pick him up and place something in his mouth. He heard a lady say something,

"Young Man, if you can hear me then swallow this pill," he heard. Unquestioningly, he swallowed the pill.

The intense pain from his head, arms, and chest all disappeared as cool energy washed all over his body. He physically felt his ribs go back to normal and could feel his left arm moving again.

Once all the different feelings were gone, and he was back to normal, he opened his eyes.

There were multiple people in front of him, all high authority figures. He saw 3 sets of clothing in between these people. One was the green-robed figures from Hong Wu Sect, the second was the yellow-robed figures from the tiger sect, and the last ones were 2 people, a man and a woman both wearing purple robes.

One of the green robes-wearing figures was holding him up at the moment. It was a woman in her late 30s, but with no sign of aging. She was elegant yet authoritative.

"Are your okay, young man?" she asked. He tried to understand who she was, but couldn't. While she was wearing green robes, the linings looked yellow in the morning sunlight.

He didn't know anyone who wore yellow linings in the sect.

"Yes, I am alright. Thank you…uh, Elder" he said.

She snickered a little as her eyes turned crescent. A green robes elderly gentleman with long flowing white hair and beard walked up to him and said, "Disciple, this is the Sect Leader. Please, do not call her an elder. That is disrespectful."

Alex was shocked. 'The sect leader?' he immediately turned to the lady and saw something he had missed previously due to the morning light. Her robe did not have yellow linings. Her linings were golden.

Bronze linings in the sect belonged to the disciples. Silver linings belonged to the elders. So, accordingly, Gold linings must belong to the sect leader.

He immediately apologized, "I'm sorry, Sect leader. I only joined the sect a week ago, and know nothing about the important figures in the sect yet." He bowed down.

"See Great Elder, disciple here wasn't trying to be disrespectful. He just didn't know who we were." She said looking back at the elderly gentleman.

'Great Elder!! So he is the Great Elder of the sect.' He thought.

"You had enough of your talking, Ma Rong? We need to know what happened here. Let us ask your disciple some questions." A big, buff man in his 40s with not a single spot of white in his short hair or scruffy beard appeared behind him.

This man was wearing a yellow robe with golden linings as well. 'Sect Leader of the Tiger Sect?' he thought.

"So, is he alright?" the buff man from the Tiger sect spoke.

Ma Rong took one glance over his body and sighed as she said, "Yeah, he is alright. I would be shocked if he wasn't alright after eating a 'Body Restructuring Pill'. Okay, Disciple, let us ask you some questions."

Alex simply nodded.

"Tell us, What are you doing here? first of all?" she asked.

"The forest? I took a 3 day leave from the sect to come hunt in the forest." Alex answered.

"No, not the- What are you doing here in the crater, where an explosion occurred." She asked.

"Oh. I was nearby when the explosion occurred, so I ran to this place to check what it was. After seeing the parent and child monsters being attacked by a wolf, I came down to protect them. While fighting with the wolf I got injured and nearly died. That's when you found me." He said.

"Oh," everyone looked surprised. They all looked at the swift wolf corpse at the side with its limb and head cut off. Ma Rong turned around and asked him.

"So, you defeated the wolf. Then, what happened to the parent and child monsters?" Ma Rong asked. It was a question in everybody's mind.

"Hmm…I don't know where the little kitten went, but the mother cat is right the-" he looked around to see an empty spot in the middle of the crater. The little cat, as well as the corpse of the mother cat, had disappeared from the huge crater.

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Chapter 46:Invitation

"Huh? Where did it go? It was right here!!" he shouted.

"The white cat monster. It was right there. The white cat's corpse." He said.

Everyone looked around. While there were traces of another monster being here before, there was no corpse here. The presumed sect leader of the tiger sect asked, "Are you sure the cat was dead? Maybe you were mistaken about it dying?"

"No way!! I killed the cat myself." He shouted.

Ma Rong's eyes furrowed as she frowned as asked, "Didn't you say you were protecting the mother and child? Why are you saying you killed it now?"

"I did protect it. But the cat's wound was too much for it, and it asked me to kill it." He said.

Everyone presently listening suddenly jerked up a bit. The purple robe-wearing man walked forward and asked," Young man, you said the cat spoke to you? Can you tell us how it spoke to you?" he asked.

"Well, the cat didn't actually speak. I just heard its voice in my mind." He said.

Everyone's eyes went wide. The sect leader's eyes too were wide as she softly muttered, "Saint Realm"

"The monster was in the Saint Realm? If this is true, then this is big news for us."

"The monster must've spoken using spiritual sense. Only Saint realm and above have those according to the records."

"Wait, if the monster really was in the saint realm, then this kid could not have killed it. Either he is lying about killing the monster, or lying about the monster having spiritual sense." An elder from the Tiger Sect spoke.

Everyone immediately realized that what he had just said was true. Ma Rong looked at him and asked, " how did you say you killed the monster?"

Alex realized what was happening. he thought, 'If what they say is true, and the white cat was, in fact, a Saint Realm monster, then I can't let them see the weapon it came with. But, if I don't tell the truth, they will think I'm hiding something, and may forcefully look through my stuff. That would be very bad.'

He thought of something and pulled out a sword, and said, " The cat had this stuck to its back. It told me that if I took this out, it would die due to the wound it would leave behind."

The purple-robed man took the sword from Alex without his permission and looked at it closely. "It's a True Mortal grade sword. The cat monster must've been attacked by someone in the higher realms and didn't mind letting go of this sword to kill the monster" He came to a conclusion.

Alex had decided at the last second to bring out the Steel sword and tell the truth about everything else.

Seeing a true mortal grade sword with him, no one doubted him anymore. While a true grade sword was tempting, everyone present here already had better artifacts, so they returned the sword back to him.

"Good job, disciple," Ma Rong came from the side. "You managed to meet a saint realm monster and lived to tell the tale. What is your name?" she asked him.

"Disciple's name is Yu Ming," he said as he bowed a little.

The sect leader was about to say something when a loud voice came from someone else, "YU MING!!! Is that true, kid?" Wen Cheng, the presumed sect leader of the Tiger Sect cried out.

'What's going on? Am I in trouble?' he was surprised.

"Are you really Yu Ming?" he asked once more.

"Yes," Alex replied in a small voice.

"Where were you yesterday night?" he asked.

"Yesterday? Umm… I was in the eastern side of the forest hunting monsters." He replied simply.

"And you didn't meet anyone else?" he asked. His presence was very heavy on Yu Ming right now.

"Umm… I did meet a few people. Namely Luo Mei and Meng Yun of the Tiger Sect." He said.

"So it is you. I have been searching for you the entire night on the eastern side. To think you were out here in the west." Wen Cheng said.

'Searching for me? Why?' he couldn't understand.

"What's going on?" Ma Rong said from the side."Why is the sect leader of the Tiger Sect searching for my sect's disciple?" she asked.

"Ma Rong. I want this disciple of yours. I want him to join our sect." Wen Cheng said.

"Oh," Ma Rong got curious. "And why do you want him, exactly?"

"Uhh… My direct disciple told me that she met an outer sect disciple from your sect with great talent in cultivation. From her information, that disciple was this kid. Since you people focus on alchemy, and not cultivation, it would be a waste to let a gem get buried under the mud in your sect." Wen Cheng tried to give reasoning as to why he wanted him.

Of course, he didn't give out the fact that he knew Alex had cultivated for less than 10 days and had reached his current cultivation. Or the fact that Alex had a fantastical ability to find alchemy ingredients. Most of all, he didn't tell them of the fact that Alex was also a genius in alchemy too.

If Ma Rong were to find that, he was absolutely sure she would never let go of her disciple.

Ma Rong wasn't stupid either. She knew he was hiding something, but couldn't be sure what. There was no reason for a Sect Leader to go around searching for an outer sect disciple of Hong Wu Sect, just to invite them.

However, she couldn't stop making the choice to go to the Tiger sect either. If he was an inner sect disciple, she could have made some arguments. But, since he was an outer sect disciple, one that joined very recently as well, she couldn't keep him forcefully at all.

Ma Rong was now stuck in a dilemma, and couldn't come up with any reason why she should decline Wen Cheng.

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Chapter 47:Double Invitation

"I can give you a True Earth Grade artifact if you let me take him right now." Wen Cheng saw that Ma Rong was in contemplation, so he offered a transaction.

Seeing Wen Cheng actually offer something so expensive, Ma Rong was more than sure that there was something he wasn't revealing right now.

The other Tiger sect elders in the back started to murmur, and wonder why their sect leader would ever make such an offer. Was the kid really worth that?

Alex was stunned too. 'Did Luo Mei tell him about me? Is that why he is making such an offer?' He wanted to say something but couldn't think of what to say in front of such an important crowd.

"Sect Leader," suddenly, a voice shouted from the back. Ma Rong looked back and found it was the Great Elder who had just spoken.

"What is it, Great Elder?" she asked.

"You see, about a week ago, the Eighteenth elder came to me and talked about how fruitful that week's examination was, and that over 25 participants had passed at once." He started talking.

No one understood where this was going, so they kept listening.

"Apparently, one of those participants got a full score on the examination test. They had identified all 100 ingredients in their bag, and had managed to get a silver library token." He said.

Ma Rong seemed to know what he was alluding to, so she asked, " Are you trying to say that he is that disciple?"

Ma Rong looked at Alex and asked, " Did you get a silver library token when you entered the sect?"

"Yes, Elder lang gave me one the day I entered," Alex replied.

Ma Rong smiled. She finally had a reason to decline Wen Cheng's offer. "See, Wen Cheng, My disciple is talented in alchemy as well. Even before joining the sect, he already knew a lot about alchemy. So you should give up on trying to force him to join."

The purple robes duo were watching the ongoing drama with a little smile on their faces. Ma Rong and Wen Cheng kept going back and forth on how one wanted the disciple, and another didn't want to send him away.

The purple-robed female finally talked for the first time. "How about this then Sect Leaders? Why don't we ask the young man himself which sect he chooses?"

Ma Rong and Wen Cheng stopped arguing and thought for a second. Wen Cheng was the first to agree.

"Yes, Lady Mo is correct. We should let the disciple choose." Wen Cheng stepped forward toward Alex, who was still dazed. "Your name is Yu Ming right? If you join my sect, you will have free access to all the cultivation methods and techniques in the sect. I will also allow you to choose 1-NO, 2 artifacts from the sect treasury. And on top of that, I will make you my direct disciple."

Everyone's eyes opened wide as they heard Wen Cheng's proposition. Ma Rong was also astonished. Even the purple-robed couple's eyes were wide at what was being offered.

Amongst them all, however, nobody could top the surprise that Alex felt listening to the Tiger Sect's Sect Leader. Even though his heart said to stick with Hong Wu Sect, his brain argued that this was a brilliant chance that he could not pass.

He had joined Hong Wu Sect so he could play games and earn money, and alchemy was the best at that. But that wasn't the only way. Even by playing normally, one could earn a lot of money. If he were to join Tiger Sect right now, he could do that as well.

He was in a dilemma. Thoughts ran through his mind at a speed faster than he could understand what they were.

Ma Rong looked at Alex and saw that he was starting to get swayed. She didn't know what this disciple had aside from good talent in cultivation and the knowledge of alchemy ingredients.

From her perspective, Alex was a good disciple. Maybe even one of the better ones. But there was no way she would give out as much as Wen Cheng even for her best student.

'He definitely knows something I don't. But, what?' she couldn't understand, but she needed to do something quickly.

"Disciple, if you stay at Hong Wu Sect, I will make you my direct disciple as well, and let you live in the Sect Leader's mountain. You will have full access to both the alchemy gardens, and," she reached into her storage bag, and brought out something, "I will also give your this True-Earth Grade artifact."

The thing she took out was a large green and gold cauldron. Alex looked at the cauldron in awe. This cauldron was many times better than the one used by Kong Yuhan. It was incomparable when it came to the black cauldrons in the Alchemist Hall.

"Umm…" a new offer had arrived that left Alex speechless. Now that there was an incentive to stay at the Hong Wu Sect, he was getting more and more restless, unable to make a decision by himself.

He was close to ripping his long black hair out in frustration. Both of the offers were brilliant, so it was hard to make a choice.

Going to the Tiger sect meant being the sect leader's direct disciple, with access to 2 items from the sect treasury, and full access to all of the sect's cultivation resources.

Staying at the Hong Wu sect meant being the sect leader's direct disciple, full access to all alchemy ingredients in the 2 alchemy garden, and also get the True earth grade cauldron.

'Should I choose the Hong Wu sect since my original intent was to learn alchemy, and staying now would give me better access to the ingredients?' he thought.

He had decided. He was about to speak up when the purple-robed man walked forward and spoke.

"I don't think the young man can choose if both of you offer him something so good. So, I might have a solution to your problems, Sect leaders."

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Chapter 48:Why not...?

"What solutions do you have, City Lord Fu?" Ma Rong asked.

"I wouldn't mind listening to a suggestion from City Lord Fu." Wen Cheng spoke as well.

The man in the purple robe was the city lord of the Scarlet city. His name was Fu Wen, and along with his wife Mo An, was in charge of the Scarlet City.

"Here is my suggestion. Since both of you want this disciple so much, why don't you both accept him as your disciple? This way you can both teach him, and he can be part of both of your sects." he said to the two sect leaders.

""Hmm…"" both the sect leaders fell into deep contemplation. Ma Rong looked at Wen Cheng and asked, "Tell me the truth. Why do you really want him?" she asked.

Wen Cheng was about to lie but instead decided to just tell the truth, "Your disciple has only cultivated for 10 days to reach the cultivation he is at now. He really is a genius in cultivation."

Ma Rong stared at him, too shocked to speak. She immediately turned to Alex and asked, "Is this true?"

Alex was surprised for a second. 'How did he know?' but soon realized that it must've been Luo Mei who told him. He had let himself speak a bit too freely at that time.

"Yes," he said softly.

"Is there any way you can prove it?" she asked him. She was having doubts since there was no way a person could cultivate bone tempering 2nd realm in just 10 days. At least not without incredibly fortuitous encounters.

Alex thought for a bit. "I don't have anything to prove it, but I can do this." He said as he opened his status and hit [Breakthrough]. He could break through about 3 times if he wanted to with the Qi he got from the pill but decided to stick with a single one.

Still, that was enough to cause a stir in the crowd. The elder, the sect leaders, and even the city lord and lady duo were surprised at how casually the young man in front of them just broke through.

Ma Rong asked with her eyes still wide, "Why are you in Hong Wu Sect if you have such talents in cultivation? You are wasted in our sect." She said. Even she believed that sending him to Tiger Sect was the right choice.

Alex simply replied," That was because I am really interested in alchemy, and have some talent in it as well."

Ma Rong sighed and said, "I understand what you mean. Being able to name all the ingredients in the test is good, but it's nothing compared to your actual talent in cultivation." Ma Rong was now trying to talk sense into him.

Wen Cheng was pleasantly surprised at the change in Ma Rong.

Alex on the other hand was starting to get nervous. ' I have an alchemy skill with the word 'god' in it. If it's anything half as good as it sounds, it will be a waste to not learn alchemy properly.'

"Ever since I was young, I can name every single alchemy ingredients I come across, and have an uncanny ability to recognize them in the wild." He said. He was spilling his own beans, gambling it at the fact that he would somehow get to have the cake from both of the sects.

"Name every single alchemy ingredient and recognize them in the wild? What do you mean?" Ma Rong was slightly confused. 'He doesn't even look 20, there is no way he could have lived long enough to see and remember every single ingredient in alchemy.' She thought.

In response, Alex brought out 3 storage bags and handed them to Ma Rong, and said," These are all the ingredients I gathered from the forest in the last 3 days."

Ma Rong took a look inside one of the bags. As soon as she saw what was inside the bag, she shuddered a bit. She immediately opened the other 2 bags.

'There are just too many shocking things happening, one after another today. This amount of ingredients is what we collect on both the gardens in a week, and this kid collected it in just 3 days? That too in the southern forest.'

The Great Elder came forward after seeing the sect leader basically stop doing anything. "What is wrong sect leader?" he asked.

Ma Rong didn't speak and simply passed along the 3 bags. When the Great Elder saw the bag, he was shocked as well.

Ma Rong looked at Wen Cheng and said, "I'm sorry, but it seems I can't let you have this disciple all to yourself. How about we share him just as City Lord Fu suggested?" she asked.

Wen Cheng knew there was no way Ma Rong would accept anything less after learning the young man's talents, so he simply agreed.

"That settles it then. Young man, from today on I, will take you on as my direct disciple, do you agree?" he asked.

"Yes, and I, as the sect leader of Hong Wu Sect, will take you as my direct disciple as well, do you agree?" Ma Rong took the opportunity to ask as well.

The elders and city lord duo were watching something extraordinary unfold in front of their eyes. Alex was too shocked and forgot to answer for a second.

As soon as he realized that, he spoke out," I agree.". The two sect lords smiled.

The Great Elder spoke from the behind and said," Young man, greet your new masters."

Alex immediately realized what he had to do, " I, Yu Ming, greet both of my masters." Alex bowed towards both Wen Cheng and Ma Rong.

Both the sect leaders smiled, and Wen Cheng said, "That settles it then. Let's go to your new sect now, disciple."

Ma Rong immediately chimed in, " No, he will stay in the Hong Wu Sect for now."

The sect leaders were once more starting to quarrel with each other.

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Chapter 49:Returning back to sect

"He will stay with me. I need to teach him cultivation techniques and martial arts. They take a lot of time."

"No, he will stay with me. I need to give him my alchemy knowledge. They take more time.

The surrounding elders watched the two sect leaders quarrel with a wry smile on their faces. The two sect leaders were always like this, whenever they met.

Alex listened to the argument between the two as he too was unsure of what to do exactly. He thought for a moment and spoke.

"Master!!"

""What?"" both sect leaders looked at him together.

"Uhh…" he didn't know how to let them know who he was speaking to. " Martial Master, I have a request."

Wen Cheng realized he was talking to him, so he spoke, "Go on, tell me your request."

"My request is that master wait 2 weeks before taking me into the sect. Currently, I am in the middle of learning Alchemy, and I don't want to stop. I have a lot of alchemy ingredients, and I want to use them to make pills. I should be done with all of these in 2 weeks and after that, I will come to stay at Tiger sect for 2 weeks before returning to Hong Wu Sect, where I will stay 2 more weeks."

He stated his request.

Ma Rong spoke, "So you will stay 2 weeks with us, and then 2 weeks with Wen Cheng, huh? That's not a bad idea. Very well then, we should do that."

Wen Cheng sighed as well, and said, "Alright. I guess I can work with that. But be prepared, after you join, I will not only teach you about cultivation. You will be learning how to fight from the ground up. You will be learning many different martial arts and finally, you will learn other techniques."

"I understand, Martial Master. Thank you."

Hearing his new disciples thanks, Wen Cheng breathed a little in, and said to his elders, "Look around a little, and see if you find the cat's corpse. Also, take a little bit of this blood from where the cat landed in the crater. We might get some use out of it."

He then turned to Alex and said, "I will see you in 2 weeks, disciple." After saying that, he started to slowly hover, and fly away.

Alex was shocked. 'So you can fly with your Qi. Why is it that I am not able to then?' he wondered.

Ma Rong looked back at Great Elder and said, " Great Elder, I think we should take in some of the blood as well. They might come in handy for some alchemy research."

"I shall do as you say, sect leader." The great elder went and gathered some blood from the place where the corpse was.

"Alright, Let's return," Ma Rong said as she took out a small boat-like artifact, and jumped on it. She turned back to look at Alex, whose eyes showed awe towards the artifact, and said, "Come on up. I will fly us back to the sect."

Alex got out of his stupor and jumped up onto the boat. The other elders simply started flying on their own without any artifacts, similar to what Wen Cheng did.

'Is the sect leader not capable of flying on her own?' he thought. The boat started flying at a faster speed than the other people.

"We will take our leave now, City Lord and Lady," she said and flew away.

The speed at which the boat flew reminded him of the bullet train he took to get to Oakleaf city. 'Does flying in a plane feel the same?' he wondered.

He looked around and saw that the other elders were now flying faster and catching up to the boat. So, he decided to ask.

"Master, why are we using this boat to fly when the other elders are flying on their own with equal speed?"

Ma Rong looked back and answered, "Flying alone is easy, but when you have multiple people to take with you, it's hard to split your attention to the different people. So, instead of flying all the different people individually, flying a single boat with people on top of it is easier."

"As for the reason why we aren't faster than the other elders is because I am choosing not to go that fast. You are only at bone tempering realm, if you were to fall at the full speed of this boat, you would fall, and not be able to handle the impact of your fall."

Ma Rong's eyes widened as she heard what he had just said, " You can hover with your current cultivation?" she asked.

"Yes. I mean last I tried was before I entered the Bone Tempering realm about 3 days ago. I haven't tried with my current cultivation." He said.

Ma Rong turned towards the other elders and said with a serious face, "Everyone, I'm going to go first. Take your time coming back." She then looked towards Alex and said, "Hold on"

Alex didn't know what was going on, but he gripped the boat on both sides. As soon as he did that, he felt a massive whiplash as the boat sped through the forest, and within 5 minutes reached Hong Wu Sect.

Ma Rong didn't stop there and flew the boat directly to the sect leader's mountain and stopped it only after getting to the peak. She got off the boat, and Alex followed right behind.

His legs shook a little as he landed on the ground. The speed was a bit too much for him to handle.

'It took me an entire night to reach that place in the forest, and she brought me back in less than 6 minutes?' he was shocked beyond belief.

Ma Rong was a little out of breath as well. It seemed she had to use a little too much Qi to speed up the boat by this amount.

'Why did she do that?' he thought.

"Yu Ming, you said you could hover? Show me." She said simply.

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Chapter 50:"Science" Behind Flying

He had assumed he would stop at around 20 cm, or maybe a little more since he broke through a bit. However, he started floating continuously without stopping. The speed at which he was rising was very slow, but he was rising nonetheless.

When he got to about a meter high, Ma Rong told him to stop. He landed on the ground.

"So you can do it." Ma Rong was in disbelief once more. 'How is a bone tempering realm cultivator able to carry so much weight with his Qi?' she questioned.

She looked at Alex, who was looking at her expectantly for an answer. She sighed and asked," Do you know how cultivators normally fly without artifacts?"

Alex thought for a second, and said, "isn't it by wrapping themselves with their Qi?"

"Yes, but what I'm asking is, do you know why that works for the cultivators? But doesn't work much for you?" she asked.

Alex simply shook his head. Ma Rong answered, "You see, our Qi increases in quantity when we breakthrough. It keeps getting thicker and thicker as we keep on breaking through the realms. At some point, it gets so thick that we can physically pick objects off using it like a rope or a stick."

"The thicker they get, the heavier the object they can carry. Imagine Qi as balloons. Once the balloons have more air in them, they become able to carry objects. The more air there is, the heavier the objects they carry."

"What do you think would happen if I tie a balloon light enough to carry 50 kilograms of weight, on a 50 kg rock?" she asked.

" It will carry the rock?" he said.

"No. The balloon will stay stationary. Since the balloon is tied to a 50kg rock, it is now effectively able to carry 0 weight, so it doesn't fly away. Now, what if I were to break off a small piece of the rock, what would happen?"

"The rock will now start to fly." He answered confidently.

"Yes, but between the balloon carrying the rock, and another balloon of the same capability carrying a 25 kg weight, which do you think would rise faster?" she asked.

"The one with the less weighing rock." He answered.

"Yes, Exactly. Qi is similar. When you were not in the bone tempering realm, your Qi was thick enough to only carry your weight. But once your broke through, it is now able to slowly lift you higher. Since you couldn't change the weight of the rock, you made the balloon even lighter."

"So, you are able to float up every so slightly. Once you are at a higher realm, your Qi will get thicker, and you will be able to fly faster." She explained.

Alex felt like he learned something important today. 'So, I can fly once my Qi is able to carry more weight, huh?' he thought.

But then he thought of something, " But master, I was able to carry monsters up easily when I was at the 1st realm of Bone Tempering. My Qi shouldn't have been so thick at the time."

Ma Rong chuckled a little, " That is simple. Take the balloon and the rock for example again. Since they have 0 weight effectively, any outside influence from you is able to lift them up easily."

"But when you are tied to the balloon, that doesn't work. You can't push the balloon to carry you higher, since the balloon and you are one entity. You were probably hovering above the ground at all because you lifted your feet in anticipation of flying."

Alex seemed to have understood a bit. 'There is a lot more science involved in this than I previously knew' he thought.

Ma Rong then said, "I know you may be excited to fly soon, so you might try to break through a lot, but don't. You need to stay a bit in each cultivation base to understand the intricacies of it. If you keep on breaking through without stabilizing your cultivation, your foundation will be bad for the future, and you will be sure to end up in Qi deviation, and might lose your entire cultivation as well as your life. "

Alex was a little surprised. 'Stabilizing my cultivation? I haven't heard that before. Is leveling up too fast really that bad,' he wondered. Still, the threat of death was enough for him to accept it.

'Alright, come with me," Ma Rong said as she walked down the peak. In less than a few minutes, they reached a large, but simple-looking house.

A step below the house were other several houses with their own courtyard. "Choose any of the houses. Since you are my disciple you will be staying here for now. Starting tomorrow, every morning I will teach you about alchemy. You will take what you learn and use it to try out alchemy. While you are my student, you are still an outer sect disciple. Quickly make pills to become an inner sect disciple."

"Also, there is an alchemy room in each of these houses, so you won't have to go to the alchemy hall to practice alchemy. However, I suggest you don't do any alchemy today and finish other business. It's better if you wait until I teach you some basics tomorrow morning."

"Now go and take a rest. You nearly died today, and are still full of blood and dirt. Go clean yourself."

Alex nodded and said his farewell as he left for the left-most house below the sect leader's house. Once he entered, he looked at the massive interior of the house, with its own backyard and a pond.

This had been a long night and day now. He looked at the time and realized it was nearly 10 am. He had unintentionally missed his breakfast today. He sighed and walked into a random room, and then logged out.

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Chapter 51:House with a Courtyard

Alex got up from his bed. He was feeling terrible right now. All the pain he had to suffer today was so real, that he started to wonder if he was even playing a game.

He went and took a cold bath, washing away all the fatigue he felt until now. The near-death experience had traumatized him to some extent, yet somehow he didn't think of it as a bad thing.

He went to have his lunch with his roommates and went to his classes.

In Deva corporation, a bald man in his late 40s was sitting in a meeting room apparently waiting for someone. He seemed to be both nervous and excited about who he was about to meet.

"Welcome miss Hao, I hope you are doing well." He said with a smile that was incapable of hiding his excitement. The girl felt disgusted but didn't say anything as she walked ahead and sat down at the table.

"Is it ready?" she asked.

The man practically ran towards her to bring her a stack of papers in a neat binding. "Here are the records from the Eternal Cultivation miss. We have prepared them just as you asked."

The young lady briefly looked through the papers and nodded to herself. "Good, I'm leaving." She stood up and started walking away.

"Miss Hao," the man immediately called her, stopping her in her tracks. "Is it possible for us to meet the genius that made this game?" he asked.

The lady simply turned around and said, "You aren't worthy to meet him. Just sit back and hope something new comes along your way. That is all you deserve." She then walked away.

The company had made billions from the game the lady Hao had given to the Deva Corporation, and he as the president would get most of the profits. So, he happily took the woman's insults without any annoyance.

He was now starting to hope the lady would bring along something else from the game's creator. He could only hope that much.

Alex returned from his classes. He didn't learn much today as he was mostly distracted by the thoughts of what had happened this morning.

He returned to his room after having his afternoon lunch. As soon as he was done changing his clothes, he jumped back into the game.

He opened his eyes inside the random room he had walked into when he logged out this morning. He walked around the house to check it out. The house had about 5 rooms in it, with 4 of them being normal rooms, and the last one being an alchemy room with a fire pit in the middle.

Behind the house was a small courtyard with an artificial-looking, small pond in it. He walked up to the pond and took a look at it.

What he saw was an unrecognizable man with long black hair and blue eyes. The man was wearing a light green robe with red all over it.

'Is that… me?' he thought. He had only seen his in-game appearance once when he first made the character. That was a 5-second glance that he checked no further after that. Looking at it now after nearly 2 weeks. He was surprised at how different he looked from real life.

He decided to take a bath right here with the water in the pond. He took off his clothes and looked at his well-built body. 'I wouldn't mind having this body for real.' He thought.

He used Qi manipulation to carry some water from the pond and poured it over himself. He started washing away the hardened blood in his hairs and skins.

The water running down his body turned red as they washed away all the blood. As he was rubbing away more blood, he noticed something.

On his left arm, where the wolf had first hit him, there was a red scar. The scar was in the shape of a monster's paw.

'Did the wolf hit me so hard that it left a paw mark even after healing the wound?' he thought. He slowly touched the tattoo-like scar, wondering if it would ever heal.

"Hmm…" he thought he felt something from the scar. Something like a vibration from a sound. He touched it once more, but nothing happened. So, he went back to cleaning himself.

After he was done bathing, he took out his remaining clean robe and wore it. After that was done, It was time to go down to the sect valley for the multitude of things he had to do.

He walked down the sect leader's mountain and quickly reached the bottom. As he was walking out, an elder he had never seen before, came up to him and asked, "Are you, Yu Ming?"

"Yes," he said skeptically, not knowing what the elder wanted.

"Give me your nameplate," he asked. Alex took out his nameplate and handed it to this elder. The elder took out a medallion and held it as he placed Alex's nameplate on his forehead.

Soon after, he handed back the nameplate and said, "With this, you have the freedom to go to the alchemy garden, and can take out anything you want from there without charge. But make sure not to go overboard with what you take. While you may have the right to take the ingredients from there, you do not have the right to waste those ingredients for your own selfish reasons, understand."

The elder seemed a little too stern. Alex agreed without question. Besides, he didn't intend to use that many resources from the gardens anyway. He would only use them when he couldn't find the items elsewhere.

After the elder let him go, he started walking straight to the Disciple Hall. He had taken a 3-day leave and needed to tell them that he was back.

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Chapter 52:Testing His New Strength

It didn't take long for Alex to reach Disciple Hall. He looked at the ranking board in front of the hall and realized, he had gone down in ranking.

'I was gone away for 3 days, and I am already down by 200 ranking spots?' he thought. He walked back to the Alchemy Achievements and realized he was down on that side too.

He laughed wryly and didn't think much of it. He had returned now, and with the number of stuff he had got back, he could easily get those rankings back and more.

He went into the disciple hall and let them know of his return. After that, he walked towards the sect market. It was around 4 pm and the sect valley was at the peak of crowdedness.

He walked into the sect market and went straight to the elder's stall. He had to wait a while before his time came up eventually.

The elder looked at him, and asked, "Are you here to buy or sell?"

"Both," Alex simply answered. He then reached into his robes and took out 2 storage bags. He checked the storage bags one more time and handed them to the elder.

The elder was surprised someone actually initiated to hand him a storage bag of their own. He then diverted his attention to the storage bag.

The elder's eyes started to widen. The more he looked, the wider it got. He snapped his head as he looked at Alex.

'Bone Tempering 3rd realm. So how are the corpses here so strong?' he wondered.

"Are you selling these in the place of someone else?" he asked.

"No, those are for me." Alex simply answered.

"Young man, if these belong to someone else, and you stole this, you must confess. Lying will not get you anywhere." The elder got more vocal about it.

Alex didn't know what else to say, so he simply insisted on it being his. "Those belong to me, and me alone elder. I did not steal them from anybody." He said.

The elder was starting to get irritated. "Are you saying you killed this organ tempering realm bird monster?" he asked, mentioning one of the monsters inside the bag.

"No, I didn't. Someone else did. But they gave me the monster corpses, so it's mine." He said.

The elder finally felt like he was getting the truth out of him. "See, these don't belong to you. Tell the core disciple who killed these monsters to come to sell these monsters on their own. "

The elder believed that only a core disciple could possibly be strong enough to kill all of these monsters. He handed the bag back to Alex.

Alex frowned a little but said nothing. 'Whatever, I will ask master tomorrow to sell these in my stead. I will like to see how he will refuse master.' Although he was the sect leader's direct disciple, aside from a handful of elders who were there, and the elder below the mountain, nobody else had the information.

Alex didn't like flaunting his master's name around, and also didn't have anything to prove he was her disciple. So, he simply took out the strong monster corpses and handed the bag back to the elder.

The elder frowned as he looked at the bag once more. This time, only Bone tempering 3rd realm and fewer monster corpses were there.

"Are you saying you killed these?" the elder asked.

Alex simply nodded. There was no way the elder could prove this claim false, so he simply started counting the points. The bag only had corpses and not cores or materials. Alex had learned that both of those latter were extremely useful for pill making.

After a while, the elder spoke out, "52 points for skin tempering realm corpses, 360 points for muscle tempering realm monsters, 220 points for bone tempering realm monsters— for a total of 632 points."

Alex handed him his nameplate and got the points. For buying, he bought some of the ingredients he lacked for making a [Spirit Enhancing Pill].

After getting those ingredients, he walked to the library. He was here just to return the Smiting Blade book. Once he did, he left. He had wanted to get some recipes for new pills but lacked the points right now.

'I will wait until tomorrow when I meet the master.' He thought. Since he still had some time to spare before having to log out for dinner, he decided to visit the Training Hall.

'I wonder how strong a True Mortal grade sword is,' he was really curious about his newfound strength. He placed his nameplate in a wooden post inside the training hall, and a wooden puppet jumped up.

He took out the steel sword and held it in his hand. Even without doing anything, he could feel a sense of connection to it as it started to passively suck in his Qi to glow a bit.

While the amount of Qi it sucked wasn't a lot, it was substantial enough to increase its strength for sure.

Previously, without using a technique, the steel sword did exactly 1 realm lower than his cultivation in damage. Now that he had refined it, he was looking forward to the new damage.

He held his sword in an attacking stance and jumped forward. As soon as he reached the puppet, he simply swung the sword onto the wooden puppet.

BAM

He could tell the damage was much higher than what he could do with his own fists. He turned back to look at the information on the post.

2 realms higher. That was how good a refined True Mortal grade sword was. If simply using this sword without any technique already resulted in such damage, then how much more damage can using a technique give him.

The thought of this was starting to excite Alex.

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Chapter 53:Ebony Corundum Stiletto

Alex got ready to attack once more. He picked up his sword and started channeling his Qi around his body as per the Smiting Blade technique.

His qi was flowing into the sword at an incredible speed. He had been in a half-dead state when this first happened, so he didn't have to luxury to fully experience what it felt like. But now that he did, it was glorious.

Feeling the Qi slide into the blade with zero resistance was such a cathartic experience. Once the blade was filled to the brim with his Qi, he moved.

The sound the hit made was actually quieter than the last time, yet he could tell the damage was much higher. The penetration power of the sword was much higher with the technique, so it didn't hit enough of the wooden puppet to make much sound.

Alex turned around to look at the damage value.

'4 realms higher?' he was shocked. 'That's much higher than I had expected.' He looked at the puppet which had a deep, almost invisible cut going from its left shoulder to its right waist. It took a few moments for the puppet to heal back.

Now that he was done checking his damage with his 'new' sword, he decided to leave. But just then, he remembered. 'Wait, what about the other sword?'

He decided to check that one as well. He opened his inventory to see the new sword. Once he found it, he brought it out.

BANG

The moment the sword left his inventory, it fell onto the ground with a loud sound. This sound was larger than when he first hit the puppet with his sword.

Thankfully, this was the Training hall, so nobody checked what had just happened.

The sword had been inside the mother cat when he put it into his inventory, so he hadn't seen what the sword looked like and only the hilt. Now that he was looking at the actual sword, he was in awe.

Despite how big the hilt gave the impression of the sword being, the sword was actually tall, but a thin two-sided sword. It looked like it had some sort of marking or words on it at first glance, but looking at it more carefully, it was just the texture of the metal itself.

The blade itself had a brownish color to it with some gold hue to it. The crossguard was quite long for such a thin sword and made purely of silver-like metal. The hilt was wrapped in red leather, probably from some high-level monster.

He focused on the blade a bit, and a panel appeared.

[Ebony Corundum Stiletto

Grade: Earth

]

'It's not giving me any information aside from the grade,' he thought. He checked the steel sword.

[Steel Sword: Refined

Grade: True Mortal

Elemental Alignment: None

Weight: 10 KG]

'Okay, the steel sword is giving a few more information now. Is it because I refined it?' he wondered. He tried to recall back to how the refinement actually happened.

'Didn't it say something about the sword accepting my essence?' he thought. 'What is essence though? Essence, I have heard of that word somewhere else… That's right.' He immediately opened his inventory.

There was an item in there that he got after killing the cat monster.

[????????'s Blood Essence]

'So does essence mean blood?' he wondered. He remembered that he had never before been bled in the game. The only time he did was the fight against the wolf. So, if that was the exact time the sword was refined, then blood would make sense to be the essence.

'Do I have to cut myself now?' he didn't want to intentionally bleed. Still, he braced himself and cut his fingertip. Blood started pooling on top of his finger.

He looked at his finger and was actually surprised. His finger was actually starting to close up a bit. 'Is this because I am a cultivator?' he wondered.

He dropped the pooled-up blood into the sword. The drop of blood fell onto the blade, but it just slipped off the surface of the blade and fell into the soil below.

He was curious about what had just happened, so he bent down to grab the sword. Surprisingly the sword was heavy. In fact, it was so heavy that he was unable to move it even a single centimeter.

'How is such a small sword, so heavy,' he wondered. He tried a couple more times to no avail. 'What if I try to put my Qi into it? Will that make it better?' he thought.

He grabbed the hilt of the blade, and slowly started to pour in his Qi. The resistance he felt was massive. The sword absolutely didn't want his Qi and was vehemently refusing it.

He started using more force to put in the Qi, and suddenly massive energy started pouring into him from the sword. His body started to hurt and he immediately stopped forcing in the Qi.

'Any longer and I would've been seriously hurt.' He thought. The sword refused his Qi so much that it nearly wounded him in return. He looked at the sword with a little bit of dread in his eyes.

'The sword is too strong for me right now. I should try again once my cultivation base is higher.' He thought.

He hadn't been here for more than 10 minutes, but the nameplate still took 5 points. He didn't care though. He took his nameplate and walked out of the training hall.

Now that he could think of nothing else to do, he decided to go back to his residence in the sect leader's mountain. Nobody stopped him this time, so his way to his residence was smooth. Once he was in the house, he looked at the time and realized it was about time for dinner.

So, he logged out.

Chapter 54:Unlocking...

After dinner, Alex logged back into the game. The evening had turned into night, and his new house was lit with lanterns. There were multiple lanterns all around the house for light.

He took a lantern and walked out into the courtyard. The lantern wasn't bright enough to light up the giant courtyard, and only dimly lit it. But that was enough for a cultivator like Alex who could see well even without lights.

He sat down on the grass near the pond and took off the lanterns covering. He was going to practice Flame Mastery Scripture for now. For 2 hours straight, he did nothing but manipulate the fire. By now, he didn't require a lot of Qi to manipulate the fire.

He was worried that his speed at cultivating would be bad for him, and he would start to lose proper control over his qi. Thankfully, 3 nights of hunting monsters had greatly stabilized his fast-growing cultivation.

Now, he just had to stabilize the cultivation he was in, and he could breakthrough once more. He hadn't met a single bottleneck as of yet, which he was unsure was related to his talent or not. The number next to the required Qi amount never dropped below 100%.

After he was done with practicing Flame Mastery Scripture, he started practicing to fly. While he only moved upwards very slowly, he could still learn how to move from side to side.

He brought out his qi and started wrapping it around himself. Once he made the Qi lift him, he slowly started to rise up. At around 1 meter off the ground, he stopped his Qi from lifting him up any further and started to hover there.

After that, he took some more Qi and started to move with it. It was only due to gravity that he had problems moving upwards. Since there was nothing keeping him from moving sideways, he started to freely float around. His speed at moving sideways was a little faster than moving normally.

He dropped to the floor once more and thought of something. Ma Rong mentioned something about him only being able to hover because he unconsciously lifted himself off of the ground before trying to fly.

'What will happen if I jump first, before trying to fly?' he wondered. Once more, he wrapped himself with Qi and jumped really hard. With his current cultivation, he could easily jump 4-5 meters of height. At the highest height, he suddenly used the Qi to keep him afloat. Finally, it started feeling like flying to him.

At this high, he started to look at the night sky, the open mountain range, and the light scattering into the atmosphere from the sect valley. It all looked so fantastical to him. He realized, at some point while playing this game, he had stopped wanting to play it for the money, and instead wanted to play it for himself.

He practiced flying for a while. Every once in a while, he would try floating some small stones from nearby with him. Splitting his attention between himself and the other things was hard, and that was exactly why he was practicing.

Manipulating his entire body with his Qi to keep it afloat was a very draining task. Before he knew it, he had used up all his Qi. So, he sat down to cultivate.

But, before he started, he had one more thing he had to do. He quickly opened his inventory and took out something. He looked at the thing in his hand, something that he had been looking forward to for the last 2 days.

It was a small flower with 5 yellow petals. The Spirit Cleansing Lily. According to Luo Mei, if he were to hold this flower while he cultivated overnight, he would unlock the spiritual sense that only someone in the saint realm could do.

He took a deep breath and started cultivating. Very soon, his Starry Sky Qi Absorption method was activated and he fell into a deep trance.

At first, it was a normal night of cultivation. Nothing happened with the flower in his hand. But after a while, the yellow flower was faintly glowing with yellow light.

It would light up for a moment, and then die down. Light up once more, and die down again. The rhythm at which it did that was erratic at first. But slowly, after some time, it started to harmonize with Alex's breathing. Every time he took a breath in the flower lit up. Every time he let go of his breath, the flower got dark again.

Every single breath, the flower was starting to light up more and more until at one point it lit up so much that some of its lights started breaking off of the flower and floating up.

They slowly reached Alex's face, and he breathed them in. Every single breath, the flower broke more and more into light ember-like fragments that were breathed in by Alex.

After some time, the entirety of the flower was devoured by Alex's breathing. Once they well all inside him, his body started glowing slightly as well. The flowers had reached his lungs. From there, they got into his bloodstream and made their way up to his brain.

The water was turbulent for a while as it grew. After it reached a massive size, it stopped growing and became still. Suddenly, a notification appeared in front of the unconscious Alex.

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Chapter 55:Spiritual Sense

The early dawn brought in rays of light that lit up Alex's courtyard where he was currently cultivating. Alex slowly opened his eyes as he got out of what he considered was basically sleeping.

Every time he cultivated, he would always fall asleep. But somehow never wake up later than the morning. He would always wake up at some time between 6 and 7 am for some reason.

He had gotten used to that by now. He looked at the rays of light coming in from the front of his house. It seemed his house was facing east. At the same time, he saw the walls of the house, the trees in the courtyard, the multitude of blades of grasses in the ground, as well as the pond that was currently behind him.

'Wait a second. What is going on?' he thought. He could currently see things he wasn't even looking at. The pond was currently behind him, so how could he possibly see it?

The blades of grasses were too many for him to be able to 'see' at the same time. He closed his eyes to clear all of the visions he was seeing right now, but that didn't help.

He could still see everything clearly. Well, almost everything. He could no longer see the rays of light coming from afar, or anything that wasn't in his courtyard.

He could see the walls of his house, and also see beyond those walls, but not far off. He could see the pond, and also everything in it. He could see the many fishes swimming in the pond.

Once he started focusing on specific things, everything else stopped overwhelming him. While he could still see everything, he started to ignore them. Yet even when he focused on something, he could still feel the thing he was looking at had multiple things in it that he was looking at once.

For example, when he looked at the pond, he could see all the fishes at once, and individually at the same time. He felt that he could keep track of all the fishes even though there were hundreds of them in there.

He looked at the multitudes of grass blades on the ground. Since there were easily more than a hundred grasses, he was having trouble focusing on them all at the same time. He had to section off about a hundred or two hundred of the grass blades to see them all at the same time as well as individually.

He could clearly feel his mental strength had improved a lot more. He kept looking around at the different things with his eyes still closed. He kept wondering what was happening, why he could see so much.

Then he looked at his own self and realized something—The yellow flower was gone. Only then did he understand what happened.

'Wait, so this is the 'spiritual sense' that Luo Mei was talking about?' he thought. He used the spiritual sense to look at himself. He finally saw what the other people would see when they looked at him. No more reflected image in the water, this was the true him.

He quietly admired how he looked. He started looking at the different things with his spiritual sense. Slowly, he realized that 'seeing' was not all there was to the spiritual sense.

He could also 'feel' the objects he was looking at. He could tell whether an object was smooth or rough. He could tell whether something was hot or cold. He could even tell apart which objects weighed more, and which weighed less.

As he was looking at the different things, he realized something was being drained in his mind, and before he knew it, he stopped seeing anything. He was now in the dark.

'Did I deplete my spiritual sense already?' he thought

He opened his eyes to look properly once more. Looking with his eyes felt like a degrade now that he had spiritual sense. Still, due to his increased mental power, his eyes could keep track of a lot of different things now.

While the amount wasn't as large as when he was using his spiritual sense, it was still a lot.

He decided to check if he could handle multiple objects with Qi manipulation now that he was able to track multiple things at once. He started floating a small stone. Then, he started to do the same to another stone. And another. Soon, he was individually keeping 5 stones afloat.

He tried some more. At around 8 stones, he started feeling some mental strain, and at 10 he had reached his limits. After moving them all separately for a while, he dropped the stone.

'Hmm… I have an alchemy lesson with master today. I should go and come back to the game as soon as I can,' he thought. He quickly logged out and did all of his morning business. Once he ate his breakfast, he returned back to the room and logged into the game.

He had returned to the game in about 15 minutes, so decided to go to the sect leader's abode as soon as he could. He opened his eyes and started to stand up, but suddenly he noticed something.

The first thing he noticed was that quite a lot of his Spiritual Sense had come back. But that was not what surprised him the most.

He slowly looked around, using both his eyes and spiritual sense. He was no longer where he had logged out and had in fact logged in a room somewhere else.

'Where am I?' he thought. Just as he thought that the door to the room opened, and he looked up to see who it was. He looked at the person who had just entered and said in surprise, "Master?"

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Chapter 56:Spiritual Sea

"Are you alright?" Ma Rong asked as soon as she entered.

Alex was a little perplexed as to what she meant. So, he simply answered, "Yes. I am alright."

"What were you doing sleeping in the courtyard? I was worried you were sick or something." She said with a concerned look on her face.

"Oh, uhh… I was cultivating over the course of last night, and must've fallen asleep outside in the courtyard," He said.

'Damn. Does the game not remove your character from the world while you log out?' he thought. Until now he had assumed that whenever someone logged out of the game, the game would remove their bodies from the play so that it didn't hinder anything else.

'I shouldn't log out in dangerous places from now on,' he said to himself.

"Fall asleep while cultivating? Why would you fall asleep while cultivating?" she asked.

"Huh? Do you not fall asleep while cultivating? I have never been awake when I cultivated," he answered simply.

Ma Rong looked at him like she had just heard something very absurd. "What sort of cultivator falls asleep while cultivating? What if you get attacked while you were cultivating? What would you do then? Simply die?" she asked.

Alex thought for a moment and couldn't come up with an answer. 'That's right. What would I do if something life-threatening happened while I was cultivating? Would I get woken up by the threat? Or would I simply die?' His master's worries made sense.

He followed his master to the alchemy room in his house. There was no need for paying contribution points to use alchemy rooms here.

She sat down on one side of the room and told him to sit on the other side. Once they were both seated, they were both on either side of the fire.

She took out a cauldron and placed it on top of the fire. The cauldron was made up of green material, with gold objects attached to it.

"I promised to give you this cauldron, didn't I? This cauldron is called the 'Golden Jade cauldron'. It was given to me by my master when I surpassed him in alchemy. It's a True Mortal Grade cauldron, and from today on, it is yours." Ma Rong spoke with a bit of emotion in her voice.

"Alright. We will start now. You don't have anything to do before we start right?" she asked.

Alex thought for a bit and decided he should ask her something. He took a deep breath and said, "Master, I unlocked my spiritual sense today."

"Okay. If that is all then we can sta— " Ma Rong stopped as she was talking. "What did you just say?" she looked at him as if she misheard what he had just said.

"I unlocked my spiritual sense today," he repeated once more.

"No way, you are a bone tempering realm cultivator. You cannot unlock spiritual sense until the saint realm. You must've mistaken your normal Qi sense as spiritual sense. Although even Qi sense is only supposed to unlock once you reach True realm," she refused to believe it.

"Master, I used a Spirit Cleansing Lily to unlock my spiritual sense." He told her.

Ma Rong's eyes were wide with shock. "How do you know about the spirit cleansing lily? No, where did you even get it from? They are incredibly expensive," she was still refusing to accept the fact that he had unlocked.

"Did you forget master? I can recognize every alchemy ingredient I see in the wild. I got mine in the western forest, outside of the city," he said whatever he could to make her believe him.

Ma Rong thought for a second. "Does that mean you have a spiritual sea now?" she asked.

"Sea? What's a spiritual sea?" he asked.

"If you really did unlock your spiritual sense, then you must've unlocked your spiritual sea. The Spiritual Sea is where your sense is located. According to the records, the sea is in your mind that you can feel with your spiritual sense. The larger your sea, the more powerful the spiritual sense." She explained.

Alex quieted for a second . 'A sea? Do I have one?' he thought. He quickly started probing into himself with his spiritual sense. He felt no resistance as he looked inside his mind.

Somewhere on his head was a small bubble of spiritual energy. Once he looked at what was inside, he saw a massive, but quiet sea with some occasional waves. The sea looked a bit dried up but was constantly getting back to its previous state.

"Yes, Master. There is something in my head. It's like a bubble of spiritual energy, and inside the bubble is a vast body of water, just like a sea." He said.

Ma Rong was shocked, "So you really did unlock your spiritual sense. That-that is too fast." He was looking at him like she was looking at a monster.

"But-but wait, you said you found a spirit cleansing lily? How did you choose the right one? Do you know that choosing the wrong flower destroys the entire flower bed?" she asked.

"Ah yes. I just know which flower is the right one. I have picked 2 lilies by now. One by myself, and another for Luo Mei of Tiger sect, who I met during my hunt." He said.

"So are you saying, you can pick the right flower out of the entire bed of flowers?" she asked once more. Alex simply nodded. Ma Rong's eyes seemed to light up with excitement.

She abruptly stood up and walked outside. She almost forgot about Alex in her excitement and left by herself. She turned back to look at Alex, who by now had a curious look on his face.

Ma Rong's eyes lit up as she said, "Follow me. If you really can tell apart a spirit cleansing lily from the normal lilies, then you have a job to do."

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Chapter 57:Third Lily

Alex followed Ma Rong down the mountain. The time was late morning so a lot of people were already in the sect valley going about their own business.

As soon as she left the mountain, she took a sharp right turn and walked towards another mountain.

'One of the alchemy gardens?' he thought. This was Alex's first time entering the alchemy garden, so when he finally got to see what the mountain was like, he was extremely surprised.

When he first heard the word 'garden', he had expected a well-organized and well-kept botanical landscape. But it was anything but that. This looked more like a jungle that no one had visited in over a century.

There was no proper walking path, plants grew wherever they wanted, and there was no way to tell what was required in alchemy and what was just useless weeds.

"Hmm… is this your first time? The garden is always like this. We try not to interfere with how the plants grow and only take what we need. Although sometimes it's hard to find exactly what you are looking for." She said

Alex looked around a bit more. He was ignoring the feeling he had when he saw an alchemy ingredient. He was jaded to the feeling and could control himself now.

He used his spiritual sense to look at the different plants. Various information flooded into him, even telling him what the ingredients were. He didn't even have to focus to know now.

As he went forward, he stopped when he saw his master had stopped as well. He tried to look at what was in front of her. When he saw the flowers, he was surprised.

"A Spirit Cleansing Lily?" he asked.

"Yes. It has been in this garden for years now. It's highly regulated by the elders, so nobody gets to even look at it under normal circumstances."

She turned towards Alex and asked, "Can you tell me which one is the real one?"

Alex looked at the flower bed and walked towards it. After reaching it, he simply pointed to a blue flower in the midst of the flower bed.

Ma Rong looked at him nervously, "Are you absolutely sure?" she asked. He nodded confidently. Ma Rong took a deep breath and grabbed the blue flower with a nervous hand.

"Here goes nothing." She picked the flower. She half expected all the rest of the flowers to wilt, but they didn't.

"I did it. I did it. Haha, I finally got a Spirit Cleansing Lily." She was so excited that she nearly jumped up and down. After she settled down from her excitement, she looked at Alex like he was a gem. "So, you really have the talent to tell apart the alchemy ingredients huh. That is gonna come in handy very much."

"Give me your nameplate." She said. Alex took out his nameplate and handed it to her. She was about to change something in the nameplate when she noticed he already had a pill registered under his name.

"You have already made pills? Didn't you join less than 2 weeks ago?" She asked.

"Yeah. I made it the day before I left to hunt." He answered.

'Monster,' was all she could think.

"When did you start making pills?" she couldn't help but ask.

"Oh, I started the same day." He replied

"Oh, is this the only pill you were able to make that day?"

"No, I made 8 of those pills. I had sev- Nine batches of ingredients and failed the first time. After that, I succeeded in all the other attempts. I gave the 10% harmony one to the disciple hall, and sold the remaining 7 for points." He answered.

'Monster. He can't be called a genius any longer. Monster is the only word that fits him.' She was shaking internally hearing his success rate. 8 out of 9 success rates was something normal alchemists would only hope for.

A beginner making a single mistake and succeeding the rest of the attempts was unheard of.

"You gave them 10% one? What was your highest harmony level?"

"Hmm… if I remember correctly, it was 16%."

Ma Rong's eyes were wider than the flower she was holding. "Monster," she said out loud.

"What?" Alex asked. 'Did she just call me a monster?'

"Nothing," she said as she focused back on his nameplate. She did something to the nameplate and returned it. And then she said something that shocked Alex, unlike anything he had felt before.

She said, "You are now a core disciple of the Hong Wu Sect, with the privileges of an elder."

Alex had a problem grasping at the concept of what had just happened. "But I haven't completed any tests. How can I be a core disciple?" he asked.

Ma Rong simply said, "Of course you can. I am the sect leader. If anyone had problems with that, they can come to talk to me. I will go tell the elders about what you did, and not even they will argue against me."

She took out a medallion from her storage bag and started talking into it. "Great Elder and all the numbered elders. Please come gather in the Elders hall within the next hour. I need an emergency meeting with you all to talk about some important topic."

All around the sect, the great elder and the different numbered elders, namely first elder to 18th elder heard the announcement and started preparing to go to the Elders Hall. It was not always that the sect leader herself called for a meeting.

Once she was done making the announcement, she turned towards Alex and said, "Thank you. Thanks to you, I can also unlock my Spiritual Sea and Spiritual Sense. Go back and do what you want, for now, I need to go to the meeting. I will come to meet you tonight."

Alex watched as she left the garden. He looked at the time and it wasn't even 9. He decided to look around the garden a bit longer.

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Chapter 58:Misuse of Authority

While Alex was going around the garden looking at everything, while the elders were convening in the elder's hall.

Some elders arrived before even 15 minutes had passed after the sect leader's message had been sent out. There were 20 seats in the meeting chamber inside the Elders Hall.

3 of them were on top of a small podium, while the rest of them were on either side of the room. Elders started to enter the room and seating in their respective numbered seats.

"Oh seventh elder, you came rather early." A young man walked into the room. He was in his late 20s but didn't look that old.

"Oh, Elder Lang congratulations on making into the numbered elders rank. Your father and master must be proud. Oh, I should probably start calling you eighteenth elder so that I don't confuse you between you and your father." The seventh elder laughed as he said this.

"I don't think that is even possible, Seventh elder. My father won't respond to anything you call him other than the first elder. he is way too used to it now." Elder Lang laughed as well.

Lang Shun was the son of the first elder, Lang Luoyang, and a direct disciple of the Great elder, Chang Peng. He had shown great progress in both alchemy and cultivation and had recently been granted the title of Eighteenth Elder.

As the Eighteenth elder, his primary task was to filter the disciples entering the sect. This was how he had come to learn about Alex's incredible test results and had given him a Silver library token.

Time passed slowly, and more and more elders entered the room. The seats on either side of the room started to slowly fill up. The seats on the podium however remained empty.

Sometimes later, the sect leader finally entered the meeting hall. Following behind her was a white-haired, and white-bearded old gentleman, who was the Great Elder.

Slightly behind them was a man that looked young, but wasn't, based on the whites in his hair and beard. He looked an older image of the eighteenth elder. This was the first elder, Lang Luoyang.

The sect leader walked up the podium and sat on the middle seat. The great elder sat to her left, and the first elder sat to her right.

Ma Rong looked at the elders in the hall and was about to start the meeting when she noticed two of the seats nearest to the podium empty.

"Have the 2nd and 3rd Elder not returned from the capital?" she asked the group.

"Hopefully they didn't forget to get back the information about the upcoming competition. Since we are all here, let's start the meeting." Ma Rong said.

"I am holding this meeting to talk about 2 things, both regarding my disciple."

Many of the elders that heard her were confused. "Sect leader has a disciple? Why have I not heard this before?" some of the elders started discussing amongst themselves.

"The first reason is I am going to make my disciple a core disciple" The sect leader simply said.

Most of the elders didn't say anything. If the sect leader had a disciple, then the disciple must be a high leveled alchemist. Only the fifth elder, the ninth elder, and the Great elder looked at the sect leader in surprise.

They were there on that crater where the saint realm cat monster had landed, and they had firsthand seen that the disciple was only an outer sect disciple. Even if he became a direct disciple, he would still have to go through the normal procedures to become a core disciple.

"Sect leader, are you sure that's alright?" the great elder asked from the side.

"I will go into the reason soon, great elder," she reassured the elder about her decisions.

"The second reason is I am here to authorize my disciple to have free access to everything in the sect. " This decision was a lot more controversial than the first one.

Nearly every elder chimed in to give their piece of opinion on the matter. Giving a disciple free access to everything in the sect, was a massive deal to the elders. While an elder may have more authority than such a disciple, they would still be bounded by rules in the sect, and not be able to access everything freely.

Ma Rong had expected the cries of refusal, so she was ready. She brought forth her palm in the air to stop them from talking. Once they saw it, the elders all quieted down.

The 6th elder spoke, "I am sorry but this feels like a blatant misuse of your authority, sect leader."

"Yes, sect leader. Can you tell us why you are doing this?" the 12th elder asked.

In response, Ma Rong simply took out a 5 petaled blue flower. "Does anyone recognize what this is?" she asked the crowd.

The first elder and the great elder immediately got more attentive to the flower in her hand. They recognized what it was, and understood what it meant for the sect. This flower was a major deal for the progress of the sect.

As for the other elders, they were stumped. The flower was too… normal for them to recognize what it was. They turned around to look at each other in the hope of finding an answer.

Ma Rong looked at them and understood that not everyone could recognize this flower without reading its description in the records. She looked towards the first elder and said, "First elder, could you please tell the other elders what the name of this flower is?" she had seen his reaction and knew he recognized it.

The First elder slowly spoke, " Sect leader, is that really it? Is that the Spirit Cleansing Lily?"

As soon as the crowd heard the name, they were in absolute disbelief as well.

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Chapter 59:Granted

"What? That's the Spirit Cleansing Lily?"

"No way. That is the flower that gives you spiritual sea and sense?"

Ma Rong looked at the elders' incoherent noises and waited for them to quiet down. Once the voices stopped talking, she spoke,

"Yes, this is the Spirit Cleansing Lily, and the one who got this is my disciple." She continued, " What do you think is the contribution to finding one of these for the sect?"

The crowd was stumped on that question. No one had ever been able to pick out a Spirit Cleansing Lily without harming it as far as they knew. There were only the occasional lucky people who did pick them, but that was more luck than technique.

"Did your disciple get lucky, sect leader?" one of the elders asked.

"No, this was the third lily he picked from what he has told me. He has already used one for himself, and found another for someone he met during one of his hunts."

The Great Elder himself was curious, "Is this about what he said back in that forest, sect leader? About him being able to find any ingredients?" The Great Elder had also seen the bag full of ingredients that Alex had gathered in the forest.

The sect leader simply nodded.

"Then the contribution to the sect is beyond imagination. An alchemist with a spiritual sense can is dozens of times better than an alchemist without one. If sect leader were to gain one now, it would increase your ability by a lot. You might actually be able to make heaven-grade True pills." The Great Elder said in shock.

The first elder spoke, "how about this, sect leader. Since your disciple's contribution is unimaginable, we can give him free access to everything in the sect, but he must still go through the normal procedure to become a core disciple. How long will it take him to make the 20 different high-tier mortal grade pills?"

The sect leader chuckled a little when she heard this. The Great Elder and the other 2 elders smiled wryly too.

The sect leader looked at the others and asked, "What do you guys think about the first elder's suggestion?"

The elders felt that was the correct choice. While his contribution was unimaginable, one didn't become a core disciple on contribution alone. If the sect leader's disciple was made one, based on it, then it would be unfair to the other disciple who was learning alchemy day and night.

So, all the elders started voicing their agreement to the first elder's words. Ma Rong thought for a bit and realized they were right.

'I got hasty in my excitement,' she thought. "Very well, then. We will do what you guys say. From now on, my disciple, Yu Ming will have unobstructed access to everything in the sect, aside from the sect treasure of course."

"Now, there is another thing I wanted to talk to you guys about. It's regarding the alchemy gardens." She said. "I am thinking of changing how we work in the alchemy garden for 2 weeks."

"Tell all the elders working in the garden itself to stop. Only keep elders for guarding the garden and maintaining it, and not picking the ingredients."

The elders were confused. "Huh, then who will pick up the ingredients, sect leader?" they asked.

"My disciple will. He has an unearthly ability to recognize alchemy ingredients, and now that he has spiritual sense, it would be much faster for him to do the searching, than the other elders and disciples." She said.

"Have you thought of how we will go about it, sect leader?" the Great elder asked.

"Yes," Ma Rong replied, "Every day, we will ask the disciples to request what they need, and put it in a list. And that night, my disciple will go around the garden looking for the ingredients. This is only for 2 weeks because I want to see how good my disciple's ability really is."

The elders stopped for a second and then accepted it. If a disciple could find a Spirit Enhancing lily, then it would be better to let that disciple do all the alchemy picking. Besides, he had a spiritual sense.

He would already be better than most elders at locating ingredients just based on that.

"Alright then. The meeting is over. You can all go now." Ma Rong said. All the elders slowly started to bid farewells to her and left the room.

"I will take my leave as well, sect leader." The first elder left as well. Only the sect leader and great elder were left in the room.

The great elder took a big sigh and spoke, "What are you doing Ma Rong? You will antagonize the elders if you decide to randomly make decisions like that. They will view it as you giving priority over your disciple compared to others. They already think you made Lang Shun an elder just because he is your junior disciple brother but doesn't dare to voice it."

Ma Rong was silent for a bit and then spoke, "But master, Wen Cheng wasn't lying when he said Yu Ming is a genius. He has already made a 16% harmony pill on the first day he tried alchemy. That was 7 days after he joined the sect."

The great elder's eyes widened, "are you sure he isn't just lying?" he asked.

"No, he isn't. I checked his sales records, and he really did sell 7 Spirit Enhancing pills ranging from 12% to 16% harmony the day after he bought the ingredients. He is a genius in alchemy that comes once in a thousand years. Now that he has unlocked spiritual sense this morning, he should be much better."

"I will properly teach him starting tomorrow, and I am sure he will rise very fast." Ma Rong said.

"Ho... If my grand disciple really is that talented, then I can't wait to see what he can do in the future."

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Chapter 60:Work

Ma Rong left the hall and went back to her mountain. The other elders had already been informed of the decision and the disciples were let known that they could request an ingredient from the elders in either garden.

The elders usually kept a list of what they could find in the gardens so that they could pick it later if needed. The students could also use that list as a sort of menu to order for it using their contribution points.

Ma Rong quickly reached Alex's place in the mountain and looked for him.

'Is he back or not?' she wondered.

She checked the house and found him asleep in one of the rooms. So she decided to leave him alone for now.

Around 4 hours later, Alex opened his eyes. He had gone to his classes and come back online just now. He stood up and suddenly noticed something, there was some sort of vibration from one of his storage bags.

He instinctively checked what it was using his spiritual sense. He was a mental image of his nameplate slightly flashing with light as it vibrated inside his storage bag.

'Wow, I can check the items in my bag with a spiritual sense too? So, I don't even need the inventory anymore,' he thought. He thought of taking the nameplate out, and suddenly it came out on its own.

'Wha- do I not need to take it out on my own? Does it come out as soon as I think?' he tried a bit more with a few more items and turned out he was right.

He looked at his nameplate to see why it was shining and realized he could read the plate with his spiritual sense. He was learning some very important things with his senses.

The nameplate read, "You are still an outer sect disciple, but you now have free access to anything you want in the sect. In exchange, you will have to gather ingredients from the alchemy garden per a list given by the elder at around 8 pm. I will continue your alchemy lessons tomorrow morning at 8 am."

"Oh, I have work now, huh?" he got out of his courtyard and walked down the valley. He thought of what he could do now that he had free access to everything.

There was so much he could do now, so he had a hard time choosing what he could do. He thought for a bit and walked to the sect market.

He walked up to an elder and asked, "Greetings elder, Can I get all the recipes in the sect?"

The elder looked at him with a blank expression. "Do you have the points for that?" the elder asked.

Alex passed along his nameplate. As soon as the elder scanned the nameplate, he understood what he meant. "So you are the sect leader's disciple huh. I didn't expect you to be an outer sect disciple still." The elder was surprised, and he continued, "You don't need to buy the recipes here. Since you have free access to everything, you can go read the recipes stored on the top floor of the library."

"You can't take them away, like normal techniques, and will have to stay there and read. But, since you are allowed to stay there as long as you want, it's not really a problem." The elder explained to him quite a few things.

Alex thanked the elder and walked to the library. He had thought of learning some new techniques but ignored that thought right now. First, he had to learn some recipes, and then make some pills. It had been a long time since he had done anything alchemy-related.

He greeted the elder at the front door and walked straight to the 4th floor. He showed his nameplate to the elder on the 6th floor. He knew he would get distracted if he started looking at the techniques now, so he rushed to the 9th floor.

He had to show his nameplate once more on the 8th floor. Apparently, only elders were allowed on the 9th floor, and there were no techniques there, only old records and pill recipes.

There were only 2 shelves on the top floor. One was filled with normal pages of paper that held records that were either very important or very old. The other shelf was filled with all types of pill recipes.

This was different from instinctively knowing what to use, and when to use it. It was more like his memory power had upgraded several times. He tried to think of what else he could remember, and realized, he actually remembered every single thing he had experienced from this morning till now.

He was genuinely surprised. 'Do I have eidetic memory now?' he wondered.

It took him around an hour to fully read every single recipe in there. In total there were about 200 recipes in the room. About 140 of those were for common pills and the rest for true pills.

Although he read a lot of recipes, once he reviewed them in his mind, he realized that most of them were actually just worse or better versions of other pills. Or they did just the same thing but targeted a different part.

He spent a bit more time in there basically trying to learn what he had memorized. His genius memory once more came in very handy. With his spiritual sea already so big, he had no problem understanding the process of the alchemy behind the recipes.

His master had now given him a task, to gather ingredients at the alchemy garden, that he had to do every night, and it was about time for that. So, at 6 pm, he got out of the library and went back to his residence to log out.

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Chapter 61:That Was Quick

After dinner, Alex logged back into the game. He walked out of his home filled with the light of the lanterns. He slowly walked down the mountain and to the sect valley.

The sect valley was ever the same. Lit with lantern and festival-like atmosphere. The moon was hidden in the clouds today, but it didn't look like it would rain.

He walked to the right alchemy garden and saw an elder waiting in front of the path to the garden.

"Greetings elder," he said as he reached the place.

"Hmm… " he looked at the outer disciple clothing of Alex, and said, " If you are here to request for alchemy ingredients, then you better have contribution points, otherwise you will just be wasting our time."

Alex chuckled a little and said nothing. Instead, he just handed the elder his nameplate. When the elder read the nameplate, his eyes were wide with shock.

"I will be honest. I can't tell if the sect leader likes you or hates you. She gave you free access to everything, yet she is tasking you to this job that usually takes over 10 elders overnight." The elder said.

"Oh wow, really?" he said. Alex didn't worry a lot, however. He had the [Alchemy God's Knowledge] and spiritual sense, so he was sure he would be just fine.

Many disciples came to the elder and requested different ingredients. At exactly 8, they stopped accepting any more requests for the day. An elder arrived about 5 minutes later from the other alchemy garden gate.

Together, the two elders combined their list and tallied the ingredients. Once everything was set, they handed the list to Alex.

"Here is the list, disciple Yu. You can start looking for the ingredients now. Please take care not to make any unnecessary damage while you are completing your punishment," the elders gave their sincere intentions towards him.

Alex bade them farewell and walked into the garden. He took a look at the talisman on which the list was written in. He used his spiritual sense to look at the paper and easily remembered all the ingredients in there. It was amazing.

He immediately started matching the ingredients in the list to some of the ingredients he found while walking around the garden this morning.

He expanded his spiritual sense to its maximum 20 meters radius and started scanning everything for a potential match. He immediately started using his Qi to pick up the ingredients and bring them to him.

"One down." He saw a few others as well and started gathering them too. He walked around the mountain looking at the different ingredients. The mountain was quite vast, and it took him a lot of time to just travel through it.

With his spiritual sense and Qi manipulation, he was easily collecting all the ingredients in the alchemy garden that was on the list. After about, 2 hours, he was done collecting everything on the list that was available in this mountain.

He had managed to find about 60% of the total ingredients on the list in this mountain. Before getting out, however, he sat down and just waited.

He didn't cultivate, but rather just took some time to restore his spiritual sea that had dried up quite a bit. After he was ready, he walked out.

The two elders were still outside. When they saw him come, they frowned.

"Is something wrong, Disciple Yu?" one of the elders asked.

"No," Alex gave a single one-word answer and started walking away from them. The elders were confused. They looked at each other and immediately stopped Alex.

"Disciple Yu, Stop!! Where are you going? You can't leave your job." The elder said.

"Hmm… I'm going to the other garden. There is nothing in here that is in the list anymore." He said and started walking once more."

"What?" they were surprised. "Disciple Yu, can you please show us your collection until now?" one of the elders asked.

Alex simply tossed him a bag. When the elders saw that he had really collected all the ingredients, they were shocked.

Alex took back the bag and walked straight to the other garden. This garden was the same as the first one as well. The elders had let the plant life grow however it felt right.

Alex once more got to collecting the ingredients. With his spiritual sense and robust Qi, he was very quick at collecting the rest of the ingredients.

Something that Alex found fascinating while collecting these ingredients was the method with how they had to be collected. Most of the ingredients could be just plucked straight out of the plant like it were a normal flower or fruit.

But for some ingredients, his instinct didn't allow him to simply pluck them. He had to perform some weird operation to obtain the ingredients.

For example, one of the fruit growing required him to twist the fruit's branch 5 times before it plucked by itself. Otherwise, it was near impossible to rip it off.

Once he was done collecting the ingredients, he handed the bag back to the elder and walked off. The elders looked at the ingredients in the bag. Over 90% of the ingredients had been collected.

The remaining less than 10% ingredients were rare ingredients that even the elders knew couldn't be found in the garden. They looked at the time and were shocked.

Alex walked back to his residence by himself too. He looked at the time and realized he had collected the ingredients before 12 am. If it had been 2 days ago, it would've probably taken him all night to collect them all.

But with his new spiritual sense, and a better understanding of manipulating objects with Qi, the task of collecting the ingredients had been way too quick.

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Chapter 62:Alchemy Lesson

Alex woke up sometime after 6 am. He was inside a room in his residence. After coming back from his new work of collecting ingredients in the alchemy garden, he had decided to train a bit more with his spiritual sense and see what else he could do.

He had made a few different discoveries.

First of all, his spiritual sense could expand beyond the 20 meters normal radius. However, doing so caused his spiritual sea to massively dry up, and the maximum he could expand to was 30 meters anyway.

The next thing he found out was that he could use his spiritual sense to move around objects similar to his Qi manipulation as well. However, his spiritual sense wasn't powerful enough to pick up even the smallest stones, and could only sway the blades of grasses in the ground for now.

The final thing he realized was that getting an item out of his storage was way faster than using the inventory. His superior memory now allowed him to remember where everything in his storage bag was, so the inventory was basically useless now.

He had nearly a million Qi now, but since his master told him breaking through too many times at once was harmful to one's cultivation, he decided to not breakthrough right now, and wait until his current cultivation was stabilized. Which he felt was done or very close to being done.

He logged out to get some breakfast. After breakfast, he logged back in once more. Today was Friday, one of the three days when he didn't have any classes.

He waited in the courtyard for a while unsure whether to go find his master for the morning lesson or wait for her in his house. Thankfully, Ma Rong came by herself just like yesterday.

"Oh, you are awake today. Come to the alchemy room." He heard a voice from far away. He felt something wash over his body, and quickly retract back.

He was surprised. Then he walked to the alchemy room and said, " Congratulations master, on unlocking spiritual sense."

"It's all thanks to you. Now sit, we skipped our lesson yesterday, so we can't waste any more time. Bring out your cauldron." Alex immediately brought out his cauldron and placed it on the fire.

"Tell me, what are the most vital things during a pill-making process?" Ma Rong asked.

Alex thought for a second, and answered, "Temperature of the fire, method of burning the ingredients, and timing of everything." He answered confidently. He had made his pills before and knew the answer.

"Wrong!" she said. Alex was taken aback. "Aren't those the most important things to remember and keep track of when making a pill, master?" he asked.

"Those are important, but not the most important thing during a pill-making process." She looked straight into his eyes, and said, "The most important things are the cauldron, the ingredients, and the elemental synergy."

Alex's full attention was on her words now. She continued, "Tell me, why did you say the temperature was important?"

Alex answered, "Because the recipes tell you that you need to burn certain ingredients at a certain temperature. Also, you have to constantly change the temperature throughout the entire pill-making process according to the recipe. So, having the fire at accurate temperature is necessary."

Ma Rong smiled and said," That is correct. Having an accurate temperature is important. But tell me, what burns the ingredients? The fire or the cauldron?"

"Uhh… the cauldron?"

"Yes. So, it doesn't matter if the temperature of the fire is accurate or not, if the temperature of the cauldron isn't accurate at all. However, we can prevent this from happening. We can make the transition of heat from the fire to cauldron very fast if we use the right type of cauldron."

"So, it doesn't matter how well your fire manipulation is if your cauldron itself is garbage. This just leads to a bad pill."

Ma Rong then proceeded to the next topic. "Next on the list is the ingredients. This is pretty simple. If you have good ingredients, you end up with good pills. If you have bad ingredients, you end up with bad pills. However, while the concept itself may be simple, applying it not very much."

"There are 3 things in an ingredient that determines whether it's good or not. The first one is age. The older the ingredient is, the more energy it contains, making it better in general. The second is the time from when it was obtained, to the time it was made into a pill. The third one is the elemental affinity of the ingredient."

"Age is pretty easy to determine based on how much energy it has. Once an alchemist has been used to the ingredients, they can usually tell its age just by feeling the energy in it."

"The second point about the time can be fixed using some wooden or jade boxes that don't leak the ingredients aura. This way you can conserve the energy inside the box, and have it be more useful during your alchemy process."

"As for the third part, the elements are a way vaster topic that I am not able to teach you fully, because I myself do not know a lot about it. However, I still do know quite a bit, and knowing about this topic is absolutely crucial if you ever want to be an earth grade or a heaven grade alchemist."

"The third point is about an ingredient's element also is in part the third most important thing to remember when making a pill, the elemental synergies. This basically means that every element has a certain elemental energy in it, and based on the different elements in the ingredients you can either make an incredible pill or end up with your cauldron exploding."

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Chapter 63:The 7 Elements

Ma Rong started explaining the different elements and the elemental synergy between them.

"So, the first thing you need to know is the 5 normal elements and the 2 higher elements."

Alex was listening to her very intently, his eyes focused on what she said.

"The two higher elements are Yin and Yang. Yin is the element associated with dark, cold, or moon. Yang is the element associated with light, heat, or sun. These two elements on their own are quite powerful, and maybe dangerous if not taken care of properly."

"When together, based on what the alchemist can do, the Yin and Yang can cancel each other out, and make a pill neutral, or help each other to become even stronger, and make a pill with highly volatile energy. You should always think twice if you have to deal with either of these elements in a pill, especially if they are together."

Ma Rong was teaching Alex about the elemental affinity and alignment of an alchemy ingredient and how that would make or break a pill.

"The 5 normal elements are Wood, Fire, Water, Earth, and Metal. These, similar to the 2 higher elements, can cancel overwhelm another element or make it stronger. These are the hardest thing to keep track of in a pill-making process. You have to know how each ingredient's element interact with each other."

"For example, if you put an ingredient with the fire element in it and another ingredient with the water element in it, then the resulting pill will either be a low fire elemental strength, or a low water elemental strength. This is because when water and fire elements mix together, they fight each other, and the stronger enemy remains. The water seeks to extinguish the fire, while the fire seeks to evaporate the water."

"On another example, if you put an ingredient with the fire element in it and another ingredient with the wood element in it, then the resulting pill will always be of a higher fire elemental strength. This is because when wood comes in contact with the fire, it feeds the fire, making it stronger."

"There are 5 ways these elements can interact with each other. They can either 'Empower' the other element, 'Control' the other element, 'Overwhelm' the other element, 'Weaken' the other element, or 'Ruin' the other element."

"Just like wood 'Empowers' fire by feeding it, water can 'Empower' wood to make it grow. Earth can 'Control' water by absorbing it. Metal can 'Ruin' fire by taking its heat away and de-energizing it."

"All 5 elements do something to one of the other elements, in all of the 5 different categories. Knowing what does what, and which ones you can use is very important when making pills with higher harmony."

Ma Rong reached into her bag and took out a piece of paper. It was a small talisman, which she then handed over to Alex. Alex caught the talisman and quickly scanned it with his spiritual sense. He soon realized what it was.

Ma Rong continued, "That paper has all the knowledge I know of about the different elements and their interaction with each other. Make sure to read that when you have free time."

"Just remember, there will sometimes be ingredients with no elements, but those are incredibly rare, and the easiest to deal with. They get along with every other ingredient.

She then moved on from the current topic and started going into the original one.

"Now, on to the main topic of our lesson. The 3 things I mentioned to you cauldron, ingredients, and elemental synergy, while they are important for making pills, they aren't controllable."

"Even two different ingredients picked out from the same plant can differ in terms of age, energy level, and sometimes even in their elemental affinity."

Alex looked at his own new cauldron wondering how good it was to use.

"Sometimes, the recipes itself may be flawed. Maybe the alchemist who made the pill wrote something wrong, which is why the pill never reaches 100% harmony."

"What I am trying to say is, even though you might do everything right just as the recipe dictated, and still end up with only an earth-grade pill. And that is the very first lesson you need to learn when you are trying to make pills. You will never make the perfect pills. The reasons are beyond your control and you need to be satisfied with what you end up with."

"Now, let's talk about recipes. How many recipes do you know?" she asked.

Alex thought for a second, and said, "more than 200". Ma Rong was surprised to hear that. "Where did you learn so much?" she asked.

"The library's top floor." He simply answered.

"And you were able to remember all of the 200 recipes in the library? You should have only had a night to remember all that." She was still surprised.

Alex smiled a bit and said, "Master, with the spiritual sea, we also get eidetic memory. So, I pretty much remembered everything I read."

"Do we?" Ma Rong tried to see if she could remember things and realized he was correct. She too had eidetic memory now.

"Okay, what pill was it that you made before?" she asked.

"Uh, the Qi Improving Pill?" he asked. That was the first and only pill he had made till now.

"Yes, take out the ingredients for it, and make a pill. I will see what you do," Ma Rong walked over to his side and sat down beside him.

Alex looked into his bags and quickly found all the ingredients required for the Qi improving pill. He had already made this pill before and was super familiar with it.

This time, since he had spiritual sense, he decided he didn't need to go into focus mode to get more time for handling the ingredients. Now, he could split his attention between 5-6 tasks. If he were to do that to the different aspects of making pills, he was sure he could most certainly end up as an earth-grade alchemist by the time he had to go to the Tiger Sect.

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Chapter 64:Shocking Advancements

Alex took a deep breath and prepared himself. Once the cauldron was at the right temperature, he put in the first ingredient. Thanks to his spiritual sense, he could see what was happening inside the cauldron to a frighteningly accurate degree.

As he moved the ingredient around, slowly burning it, he felt the ingredient release some energy from within it. He felt some of the released energy move back into the now powder ingredient while some hung about in the air inside the cauldron. Some energy even flew out of the cauldron.

He tried to catch them with his Qi, but the energy seemed to just phase through it. Ma Rong watched every step of his. She could see how accurate his Qi manipulation was and how accurate his temperature changing ability was.

Alex put in the second ingredient. The same thing happened with this one as well. Energy release out of the second ingredient as well. However, somehow the energy from the first ingredient immediately moved towards the newly released energy and 'devoured' it. He could feel the energy was still there, but somehow the 'feeling' the energy gave off was changed.

'Am I feeling the elements in the energy?' he thought.

He continued with the pill formation. Due to his increased mental capacity and being able to handle more than 5 things at once, he was able to easily handle the pill-making process.

From the first ingredient to the last ingredient, he felt like he made little to no mistake. A lot of the energy skipped out of the cauldron, but that wasn't something he could control.

By this time, the ingredients had turned to powder, and the energy behind them had harmonized to some level. Now it was time to form the pill.

He slowly started to condense the powders into a pill. There were 2 sets of energies inside the cauldron now. The ones in the powder, and the ones in the air.

As he started to condense the powder to form a pill, the energy in the air started to skip out of the cauldron. Almost half the energy from the ingredients was in the air, and somehow it had been lost now.

He stopped caring about that and started focusing on the pill formation. Soon, a pill was finally done being formed. Alex slowly took it out and looked at it,

[Qi Improving Pill: 26%

Improved Cultivation speed by 26% for 18 hours]

Alex couldn't process what he was seeing. '26%… that- that's an earth grade pill, right?' he thought. Suddenly, the pill started floating and landed on Ma Rong's hand.

"An earth grade pill!!" she somehow had a shocked face as well as a face of understanding. "I had expected you to do good, but I didn't think you would improve so much." She said.

"Having a Saint realm cultivator's sense as a self-tempering realm alchemist is practically just cheating." She said with a blank look. She was starting to wonder how much she had improved now that she too had spiritual sense.

She reached into her bag and took out another piece of talisman and handed it to Alex. She then said, "This talisman has information about some of the widely available ingredients. Burn a few of them to release some energies, and try to feel their elements. The better you become at recognizing elements and understanding their relationship, the more you grow as an alchemist."

"Also, Refine the cauldron and you can make better pills." She said

"Master, how do I refine an artifact?" he asked. This was the perfect opportunity. He had tried refining the Ebony Corundum Stiletto but had nearly gotten hurt instead. So he wondered if his idea of refining was wrong.

"Refining is easy. Just pour your Qi into the item, and continuously wash it from the inside. At some point, it will be easier to pour in the Qi, and at that moment, you drop some of your blood to it. The blood must be blood with your essence in it, meaning it must originate in your forehead. "

"We can communicate using this communication talisman." She said and left.

Alex stayed there looking at the talisman. It looked similar to another normal talisman, but instead of storing some text, this talisman helped with communications.

Alex looked inside using his spiritual sense. Ever since unlocking his spiritual sense, he hadn't had to use the system at all. He could do almost everything with his spiritual sense.

The talisman seemed to connect to another talisman only. That talisman was probably on his master. He put the talisman in his bag and looked at the two other information talismans he had acquired.

One of them explained the relationship between the five elements. It didn't talk about the other 2 higher elements Yin and Yang. The other talisman talked about the different ingredients and their elemental affinity.

He read the first talisman for about half an hour and understood the concept behind it. He then read the second talisman and tried to memorize it.

Once he was done, he was shocked at what he had just learned.

'So that's why!!' he thought.

The first ingredient in the recipe for Qi Improving Pill had water energy in it. The second ingredient he put in had fire energy in it. The water energy was vastly stronger in power and amount in this case and had destroyed the fire element behind the second ingredient. Which left the cauldron with a lot of energy but very low water energy in it.

This then played into the next ingredients and so on. Alex decided to try making the same pill once more.

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