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 65: Amazing Results - Read Eternal Cultivation of Alchemy Chapter 65: Amazing Results Online - All Page -

Chapter 65:Amazing Results

Alex had spent quite a while reading the two talismans and had managed to remember it all. At the same time, he had also recovered much of his spiritual sea.

He had realized that currently, his spiritual sea was actually very small, despite the massive spiritual sea he could see inside his head. If he just let the spiritual sense be used normally, it recovered fast enough that he felt like he had a lot of it. But if he had to use it excessively, it actually disappeared in less than half an hour.

This also meant that it didn't take long for his spiritual sea to recover as well.

He had decided to make the pill once more, so he cleaned the cauldron of any remaining byproducts from the previous pill. He then waited for the cauldron to reach the right temperature and poured in his first ingredient.

Once again, he could feel the energy released from the first ingredient.

'So, this is what a water elemental energy feels like huh,' he thought.

After a while, he put in the second ingredient. When the ingredient started burning into powder and its energy getting released, he realized the energy behind it was actually weaker when compared to the first energy.

He watched as the water-energy quickly envelope the fire energy, and destroy it completely— or so he thought was what happened.

'Wait for a second, while the water-energy did get weaker after suppressing the fire energy, neither of the energy has decreased at all.' He was surprised.

He could feel that after coming into contact, the water and fire had tried to attack together, which he thought would destroy each other and only the remaining water energy will be left.

But now that he could tell the energies apart by feeling, he could see that both the water and fire energy that he thought had destroyed each other were actually hidden inside the neutral remaining energy.

The new energy was in an equilibrium between the two energies. Almost as if they had—

"Harmony. When the elemental energies mix together they create harmony with each other. Is that what making pills is truly about?" he couldn't help but shout out loud.

He took out another ingredient and put it in. Soon that ingredient produced different energy too. Based on the talisman his master gave him, this ingredient produced metal elemental energy.

Now the little water elemental energy that remained in the mixed with the mental energy, and suddenly the water energy started getting stronger once more. The metal energy was now harmonized with the water energy such that, the metal energy was 'Empowering' the water energy.

Similar things kept happening, some elements empowered other elements. Some elements overpowered the others. Some weakened the other elements, while some simply controlled the other elements.

He also came to recognize the elements by their energy. As more and more energy got into the mix, the harmony between the elements was getting more and more complicated.

Once the final ingredient was put in., it controlled the remaining elemental energy in the cauldron and the entire energy came to a neutral state with many elemental energies in harmony with each other inside that neutral energy.

Finally, it was time to turn the powder into the pills. Following the recipe, he slowly started collecting the powder to shape it. Suddenly, his Qi started to move on its own.

'Is it happening?' he thought.

Slowly the Qi moved through his entire meridian system and released out of his palm. It moved into the cauldron and started separating the powder into two portions. The separated portions somehow started to shape it into spheres of about the same size as the original sphere.

'Isn't the energy in the pills going to be lower this way? After all, it's one pill split into two, right?' he thought.

From his logical perspective, he should be correct. So he started wondering how the pill is going to overcome that problem. It was then he realized the answer.

Suddenly, his Qi worked on its own to create vortexes that started sucking the energy that we're in the air.

'What sort of technique is this?' he wondered. He couldn't tell how it worked, or how his Qi was even able to manipulate the energy to get into the pill.

It took about 2 minutes for the pills to completely suck in the energies in the air and finally, the 2 pills were ready. He took both the pills out of the cauldron and looked at them.

He first focused on the one on the left.

[Qi Improving Pill: 24%

Improves cultivation speed by 24%]

He was surprised. The pill had separated into two different parts and it was still above 20%. He then checked the second pill.

[Qi Improving Pill: 28%

Improves cultivation speed by 28%]

"Holy S*T," he couldn't help but cuss. He had somehow managed to create two pills, both over 20% harmony, and one of them even near 30% of harmony.

He started thinking, 'If I discount the energies that got away from the cauldron's mouth, does it mean that the total harmony I could have obtained if this became a single pill. Was over 60%?'

He was stunned at that thought.

'What if I keep the energies that got away as well? But I can't control the energies…' He thought. Suddenly, he got an idea.

He looked to the side of the cauldron, where he had kept the lid for the cauldron, and thought, 'I may not be able to stop the energies from going out, but the lid surely can. And now that I have a spiritual sense, I don't even need to keep the cauldron open to look inside.'

He got excited once and decided to try out this new technique at once.

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Chapter 66:Put a lid on it

Ma Rong had just succeeded in making a pill. She took a pill tester out of her bag and put her pill inside it. She looked at the pill tester with full attention, hoping for the fog that slowly rose up the side of the glass to never stop.

As the fog kept on going, her eyes got wider as well. It kept going on and on and on until it finally stopped. Her hands started trembling as she looked at the number next to the black line where the fog had stopped.

45%. She had a massive smile on her face as she took the pill out of the pill tester and kept it in a pill bottle.

45% wasn't that high when one thought about it. A sect leader of an alchemy sect only being able to make 45% harmony pills would usually lead to ridicule.

However, these weren't just any pills. These were True pills. Unlike Common pills, True pills were ridiculously hard to make. Just the amount of energy one had to keep in control and make sure they didn't violently explode every single second was incredibly high.

Even making a 25% Earth Grade True pill as an alchemist meant one was a rather talented person. Ma Rong had just managed to make a 45% Earth Grade True pill.

This meant she was beyond talented and very much deserving of the sect leader title.

'This is all thanks to the spiritual sense, which is all thanks to Yu Ming,' she thought. She was about to start another batch when she realized something was making noise in her bag.

She quickly took out a medallion which she immediately scanned with her spiritual sense. She read the message that had been sent to her.

'Oh, the elders are back from the trip, huh. I should go and learn what they got back about the upcoming competition,' she thought.

She stored her cauldron back into her bag and walked out of her residency. She started walking down the mountain towards the sect valley when she realized Alex was still in his home.

She walked in and scanned the house with her spiritual sense. For some reason, her spiritual sense could expand to about 50 meters. 30 meters more than Alex's.

'Oh, is he still making pills?' she thought. The time was well past noon, so if he really was still making pills, then he would've been going on at it for about 5 hours now. That was some dedication.

She walked into his alchemy room making as little noise as possible to not disturb him. When she got in, she was surprised.

Alex was in front of the cauldron, moving his hands in the air, presumably controlling the ingredients inside the cauldron. But the thing that she was surprised by the most was that the cauldron had its lid on top of it.

She knew of absolutely no one that performed alchemy with their cauldron's lid closed.

'How can he see if— Oh, that's right. Spiritual sense. But why put a lid on it at all ?' She couldn't understand the reasoning behind it. She did nothing but stand by the door and watch.

Alex had already noticed her entering his room and had decided to ignore her for now. He was in the final stages of forming the pill. Thankfully, the pill-splitting Qi did not rise from inside him. Otherwise, he wouldn't know how to explain her.

As soon as he finished making the pill, he opened the lid. He could feel the strong energies in the cauldron leak away as soon as he opened it.

'I should quickly learn some method to do something with those energies,' he thought.

He was about to take out his pill when suddenly, it flew off on its own. He looked to the side and saw his master holding it. He hadn't looked at the pill himself and was waiting to learn what its harmony level was.

Ma Rong took out her pill tester and put the pill inside it. She watched as the fog started rising from the metal plate and go up the glass beaker.

The fog steadily rose along the outside of the glass. The fog ended up stopping quite a bit higher than what she had been expecting which surprised her a lot.

'33%? From an outer disciple? did unlocking spiritual sense help him or is he just that talented?' her jaw dropped as she saw the harmony level of the pill he had just created.

She took the pill out and looked at it carefully. It was a slight blue pill around the size of her thumbnail.

'A 33% harmony Swift Feet pill? How did he even reach to be this good at making this pill, when this is his first day of making this pill?' she was amazed.

Alex stood from the side with a wide grin. He had seen the 33% harmony level on the pill tester as well.

"Master, I discovered something amazing." He said.

"Did you know that using a cauldron with a lid always makes your pill come out with higher harmony levels? I saw the energy always leaked from the cauldron, and tried to keep it in with the lid, and it worked. When the pill is formed, it gets a little bit more energy overall and has higher harmony." He said

Ma Rong stood there dumbfounded. She had just realized a few hours ago that most of the energy leaked out of the cauldron. She had some idea as to how to redirect energy and keep it inside the cauldron.

But that was still not a very efficient method, as redirecting energies wasn't the same as controlling them and keeping them inside the cauldron.

Now that she heard Alex's discovery, she felt stupid for not using a lid. She could've increased the harmony of her most recent pill, and maybe even end up with a Heaven Grade True pill.

That would've been something glorious.

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Chapter 67:Auction House

After Ma Rong left, Alex still stayed behind and made quite a few more pills. He made 3 different types of pills after the Qi Improving pills.

They were,

Swift Feet pill: this pill decreased a person's weight for a limited time and made them move around faster.

Qi Enhancing pill: this pill helped people in the self-tempering realm overcome their bottleneck when trying to break through from one realm to another. This was the same pill that Kong Yuhan made when he first met him. He had also learned the recipe for this pill thanks to Kong Yuhan himself.

The final pill that Alex made was probably one that Alex was surprised the most with himself. He didn't think such a pill even existed. Now that he did, he started wondering what other wondrous things you can do with pills.

The pill was called Face Changing pill. If you ate the pill, depending on the harmony levels of the pill, the pill would randomly change your face to a completely new one.

Alex had made 2 of these pills and had managed to make one with 26% harmony that changed a face for 26 hours, and another 35% harmony that changed a face for 35 hours. Both of the pills were above the threshold of an Earth Grade pill.

In fact, none of the pills he had made after obtaining the spiritual sense had been lower than 20%.

In total he had about 12 Qi Improving pills, 5 Swift Feet pills, 4 Qi Enhancing pills, and 2 Face Changing pills. If he kept on going like this, it wouldn't take him more than a few days to earn the title of a Common Earth Alchemist.

Finally, it was time to do the one thing he had been looking forward to since the first day since he started playing the game. It was time to go earn some money.

He logged out to get some food and returned after a while. He walked down the mountain and reached the sect valley. He went past the valley and walked up the outer sect mountain.

He reached his previous cottage and realized someone was already staying there now.

'That was fast,' he thought.

He walked out of the sect gate. Thanks to his new status and authority, he no longer required permission from the disciple hall to leave the sect.

He walked toward the center of the city, looking for an auction house. From his understanding, you could sell your pills in an auction house and get some silver, or gold, or even spirit stones.

He finally found a small auction house that looked not too fancy, yet not too simple either. He walked up the stairs and a girl in a mask came out from inside.

"The auction takes place tomorrow at noon dear customer. If you are here for it, please return." The girl simply said.

"Uh… no, I am here to sell some stuff," he said.

"Please follow me then," she said as she took Alex through a long hallway to an open room with multiple doors leading to multiple rooms. She walked up to someone and whispered something in their air.

The person turned around to look at Alex. Alex saw a beautiful middle-aged woman with long black hair in dark red cloth with white ribbons on it.

She was almost a head taller than him when she came and stood right in front of him. The women quickly scanned his outfit to guess what sort of customer he was.

'Light green robe… Hong Wu outer sect, huh. They usually don't sell outside. I wonder how this one came to be here,' she wondered.

"I heard you are here to sell something, the customer. Can you tell me what they are?" she asked respectfully despite his standing. She respected money, and if a dog could bring her money, she would respect it too.

"Oh, I am here to sell some pills. Uhh… do you also take monster corpses?" he asked.

"We only auction monster corpses that costs over 10 golds. Anything else, we don't accept. Same with pills." She said.

'How much are 10 golds again? That's like 1000 silver coins right?' he wasn't accustomed to the currency of this world as he didn't have much interaction in the marketplace aside from the occasional taverns and food stores he visited.

"Um, what realm of monsters sell for over 10 golds?" he asked.

The women thought for a bit, and said, " It's a little hard to tell exactly what cultivation. It depends more on how good or bad the corpse is. But, usually, if the monster's body isn't destroyed a lot, anything at organ tempering and above will do." She said.

Alex took out a bag full of monster corpses and handed it over to her. "Can you tell me how many of these are useful?" he asked.

The woman opened the bag, and immediately got shocked. 'So many. And one of them is even at Meridian tempering.'

She tried to reel in her shock and looked through the different monsters. There were quite a few monsters in there, and almost all of them were either cleanly cut off, or still had their bodies intact with zero injuries.

She took out an empty storage bag and transferred most of the corpses to that bag. She handed the original bag back to Alex.

Alex looked into the bag and realized there were only a few monsters, all of which were lower than Bone Tempering 6th realm.

'She accepted Bone Tempering 7th realm? Didn't she say she didn't accept anything lower than Organ Tempering realm?' he thought. Still, this was good for him, so he didn't complain.

He then took out 6 different pill bottles, each containing 5 or fewer pills in them.

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Chapter 68:Rich

Alex slowly handed the bottles to the lady and said, "Here are the pills. These 3 bottles have 12 Qi improving pills in total. This one has 5 Swift Feet pills., this one has 4 Qi Enhancing pills, and this last one has 2 Face-changing pills."

The woman took the pills and opened the cork to look at the pills inside. As soon as she opened it, an amazing medicinal smell wafted out of the bottle, making the entire room smell like it.

She was stunned. She quickly looked inside the bottle hoping for something good based on the smells, and when she actually saw them, her jaw nearly dropped.

Every single one of the pills inside was definitely in the Earth grade. She quickly brought out a pill tester and put the pills in one at a time.

The numbers she got from them ranged from 24% to 36% harmony. She quickly kept the pills back into the pill bottles so as to not lose any of their effects.

She looked back at Alex and asked, "Are you sure you want to sell these?" she had rarely seen such high harmony levels from the pills brought into the auction in a while.

Most alchemists were the aloof kind. They thought of themselves as somebody very important, which they were, but it made working with them nearly impossible. Most of them had horrible personalities from their overinflated ego, and also take an exorbitant amount of money for their work.

Or at least that was the impression she had gotten from the few rogue alchemists that had come to sell their works.

Alchemists from the Hong Wu sect rarely sold to auctions, and this was the first time she had personally dealt with one herself. Her impression of alchemists was slowly changing.

Alex nodded to her question and told her he wanted to sell everything. She quickly tallied the items and gave him a rough estimate of 80 common spirit stones post deduction. She told him how the auction house took 10% of the money the item was sold for.

After confirming the items being sold, she took Alex through one of the rooms through the many doors. Inside, she picked up one of the many talismans laid out on the ground.

She wrote down everything he was selling on the talisman and imprinted it with her Qi.

"This will be our contract to make sure neither of the parties make any wrong attempts to harm the other party," she said as he handed it to Alex.

After everything was done, Alex left the auction house. The entire way back to the sect there was one thing that he kept thinking about but couldn't come up with an answer to.

'How does selling my items in a normal auction house reach the other players? Do they come to the auction house to buy as well? Or can they buy it from wherever they are?'

This was the first time he had sold anything, and from what he learned on the internet, it just told him to go and auction it in any auction house.

He scanned the talisman in his bag and thought, 'So her name was Cai Ping huh. Wonder why she didn't introduce herself normally.'

Well, he hadn't introduced himself either, so he didn't think about it for too long. After reaching the sect, he logged out to check about the auctions.

It didn't take him long to learn how auctions worked in Eternal Cultivation.

'Wait. So my items won't get sold to the other players but the NPCs?' that was quite an unexpected piece of knowledge he had learned.

'Hmm… so how do Deva corporation make money at all?' he was confused. If players could sell in-game items to NPC and make money off of them, then the company should have gone bankrupt by now.

He researched a bit longer, and only then did he find out that players could convert the money in their banks to in-game currency. Of which, Deva Corporation took 10% charge.

Similarly, they also took 10% commission off what you converted back to real-world money.

'So they do what they can to take your money, and also do what they can to not give you your money,' he found it quite funny.

'Oh, that's right. Let's see what the conversion rate for the in-game currency is. Hopefully, I can make a few bucks with the items I'm selling.' He quickly searched up the current conversion rate for the game.

When he finally found it, he was shocked.

'That can't be right,' he looked at it again on a different site, but it showed the same result.

'Huh?? How can it be 10 dollars per common spirit stone?? Doesn't that mean I make uhh… 720 dollars after the deduction from the 80 spirits stones I will get?' he was truly flabbergasted.

He was expecting to make some 20~ dollars at best. But to think his items were valued at such a high price.

'They did say pills and artifacts sold the highest, didn't they?' he thought to himself.

After learning he could make quite a few amounts of money, his eagerness to practice alchemy and make more pills got reinvigorated. He tried to look at what prices which pills were being sold so he could make those exact pills, but unfortunately, the public had no information on most pills.

Regretfully, Alex closed his phone and went to go get his dinner along with Logan, Matt, and Eric. He was looking forward to getting back into the game, so he finished his dinner very fast and had to wait for the other 3 to complete.

Once he returned back to his room, he immediately logged back into the game to make some more pills. But then he remembered, He had work to do now that was assigned to him by his master.

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Chapter 69:Elemental Guidance

Alex went down to the sect valley a little earlier than required and went to a restaurant to eat something. Somehow just eating in the real world didn't affect his appetite in the game.

He checked his nameplate and saw that he had around 200 contribution points.

'I wonder if I need to pay to eat or not,' Although he had full authority over everything in the sect, he didn't know if the restaurant counted in that authority.

He walked in and check out what was being served today. Unlike the last time he had visited the restaurant, he wasn't broke today, so he decided to order one of the finer dishes.

Soon his order came back. It was a slow-roasted monster bird leg, with some fried vegetables on the side. He used his hand to pick the giant monster bird leg and took a massive bite.

The meat slid off the bone and dissolved in his mouth. He couldn't help but moan with pleasure as the sweet taste of meat filled his mouth. He took some vegetables with Qi on the side and ate them too.

Together with the freshness of the vegetables and the meaty flavor of the monster bird, he ate what he assumed to be the best food he had eaten in his entire life.

He took his time with the food and paid 20 contribution points at the end. He was hoping to not have to pay, but alas those were just hopes.

He walked towards the alchemy garden where the elders were tallying the requests by the disciples. Once they were done, they handed the list to Alex, who went into the garden to look for the ingredients.

Thanks to his amazing eidetic memory, he knew where every single one of the ingredients was, so he didn't need to spend a lot of time this time around.

Within half an hour, to the utter shock of the two elders, Alex came out of the garden and went to the other one. It took him a little more than half an hour on this site, but that was still a very unbelievable time.

He handed the collected ingredients back to the elders whose expression was just shock and amazement. After return back to his residence, he rested a bit and started trying out new pills.

He started with a pill called Hundred Poisons Antidote. It was a pill that could cure almost any poison so long as it was produced by a plant or monster in the self tempering realm.

He followed the recipe and made the pill with the cauldron's lid closing the escape. The energies would run out of the cauldron every time he had to put in a new ingredient, but it still helped a lot to keep most of the energies in.

He managed to successfully create the Hundred Poisons Antidote on the very first try. That too with a whopping 28% Harmony.

He tried some more and managed to make 5 more pills out of the remaining 3 sets of ingredients. All of those pills ranged from 30% to 36%.

He was really happy with the result. He was mentally fatigued by the 4th time, so he decided to take some rest, and recharge himself.

He felt like he had stabilized his cultivation enough and decided to break through once more. He opened his status and hit a breakthrough.

He had enough Qi right now, so he didn't want to cultivate. So, he decided to just quit for the day, and sleep. He logged out of the game for the first time in a while during the night and just fell asleep.

"Alex!! Alex!!" he heard someone calling his name. He slowly opened his eyes and saw Logan calling him.

"What's up?" he asked in a hoarse voice.

"It's 7 am. Wake up. We are going to get some breakfast." Logan said.

"You guys go ahead, I will go soon." He said and walked into the bathroom.

He washed his face with cold water and started brushing his teeth. 'How come I wake up so accurately in the game, yet someone else had to wake me up in here?' he wondered.

He went to get some breakfast too and returned back soon. He logged back in to learn some more from his master.

Just like yesterday, Ma Rong came at around 8 am and taught him for 2 hours. She asked him a few questions to see how much he had understood but soon realized how redundant that was since he had opened up his spiritual sea and now had an eidetic memory.

"How many pills did you make yesterday?" she asked him.

"I made around 23 pills during the day and 6 during the night," he replied confidently.

"Show me," she said, asking him to bring out the pills.

"Master, I already sold all the pills I made during the day. I only have the ones I made last night."

"What? Why would you sell them? Never mind. Those are your pills and you are free to do with them whatever you please. But remember, keep some pills above 20% harmony. You need to register them to become a core disciple." She reminded.

"Oh, that's right. I almost forgot master. I will keep that in mind."

They focused back on the alchemy. Ma Rong watched him make pills and realized he was extremely talented at it. Perhaps, if he had the same cultivation as her, he would have surpassed her long ago.

She took out a talisman and handed it to him. Alex wondered what this talisman did. The first two talismans he got had high-level information on alchemy, and the third one was a communication talisman.

He quickly scanned the talisman and found out he couldn't understand a single word in it. Still, he read it all the way through and when he got to the end, suddenly something popped up in front of him.

He had just learned a new technique.

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Chapter 70:Elemental Guidance Usage

'Did I just learn a technique?' Alex was surprised by the sudden notification. He quickly opened up the notification to look at the description of the newly learned technique called 'Elemental Guidance'.

————

[Elemental Guidance: Level 1

Grade: Earth (Max)

Level 1:

Unlocked: Able to somewhat control the openly moving elements.

]

————

'Oh, an Earth grade technique. But why does it have Max next to the grade? Is that like growth? Also, it says Level 1 unlocked, but there seems to be no sign of level 2. What a weird technique,' he thought.

The technique made him quite curious. According to the technique, he can now control the elements while making pills. Or at least show some semblance of control.

He looked at the technique description once more and wondered if Max instead of Growth meant that this ability was already at its highest level. If that was the case then what was the point of letting someone know Level 1 was unlocked when that was literally all that was that could be used.

Ma Rong looked at his blank face and said, "That is an Earth Grade technique called 'Elemental Guidance' it is a simple technique that guides elements inside the cauldron. "

"Although you can guide the elements, that doesn't necessarily mean you can tell them what they do. It is like opening a small waterway near a river, and hoping the water flows there."

"The purpose of this technique is to keep as much elemental energy inside the cauldron as possible, and not leak a lot. Plus, you guide the energy towards the power, although that doesn't mean the powder will observe it all."

" Still, you will lose quite a bit of energy since the technique isn't full proof. However, you should be able to greatly decrease your losses and increase your pill's harmony levels."

"Learn this technique by tomorrow, and I will test you on how well you have gotten. Also, make sure to register at least 2 20% harmony pills by the end of the day."

Ma Rong left after saying this. Alex's lesson hadn't been as intense today as it was yesterday. Still, it was quite fruitful, to say the least.

The technique worked worse than his pill separating Qi that randomly started. The pill separating Qi controlled all of the energies while this technique only guided it a bit.

Still, after using it in a couple of pills, he realized that his pills were getting about a 5% bump in harmony levels. Every single pill he made now was above the 25% harmony levels.

This technique also helped him in a way he didn't know he needed. Since the technique kept the energies from running away from the cauldron, whenever his second pill would form inside the cauldron, both of the pills showed a massive increase in harmony as well.

He logged out for a bit to get some food and came back to start making some pills again. He still had over 80% of his original batch of ingredients. If he counted in terms of sets of ingredients, then he had about a bit less than 100 sets of different ingredients.

Aside from the sets of ingredients, he also had a bunch of extra ingredients that didn't go together on any pills. He made a few more pills until a bit past noon. Each of the pills an actual Earth Grade pill.

After he was done making pills, he took the cauldron and started refining it. It had only been a day, so he had a bit of a problem pouring in his Qi, so he didn't bother dropping in his blood yet. He would wait for a few more days when his Qi would more easily pour into the cauldron.

He walked outside and saw the clouds hanging in the sky. 'Is it finally gonna rain today?' he thought. He walked among the shades down the mountain.

He decided not to register the pills for now, but rather when he had all 20 of the pills at once.

He assumed the auction would be over by now, so he went to the auction house to get his money. It took him about half an hour to reach there.

He walked up the stairs and a lady came up to him. This lady was different from the one that took him inside yesterday.

"The auction is already in session so entering is no longer allowed now, please come back in a week if you want to take part in the auction." The lady spoke with a respectful tone.

"Oh, the auction is still going on? I thought it would be over by now. I came back to take my money. Do you know how much longer the auction would go on for?" he asked the lady.

The lady was surprised to see someone so young selling something. But once she saw the robe, she realized he must be an alchemist from the Hong Wu sect.

"Can I see the contract to verify your claims, Daoist?" she spoke.

"The contract?… oh the talisman. Here it is," he took out the talisman the woman named Cai Ping gave him yesterday and handed it to the lady in front of him.

Once she verified that he was in fact a seller, she took him to one of the rooms he had seen inside.

"Please wait here. The auction's end time usually varies depending on how many items are being sold, but it shouldn't last more than half an hour from now." The lady said and bowed a little. She then walked out of the door before Alex could even reply.

He had to wait upwards of 45 minutes in the room before the door to the room opened up, and Cai Ping walked in.

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Chapter 71:Auction Sales

"Greetings, Daoist. I am so sorry you had to wait so long." Cai Ping apologized as she walked it. She constantly bowed and kept saying how sorry she was. For some reason, she had started calling him Daoist as well.

"Oh, it's ok. I don't mind waiting," Alex got a little nervous seeing her bowing towards her so much.

Cai Ping smiled a little and sat down on the couch opposite to where Alex was currently sitting. She seemed a little tired and distraught for some reason.

"Are you okay, Miss Cai? You seem a little tired," he said.

Cai Ping immediately straightened her posture and looked a little more active as she said, "I'm so sorry for showing you such a terrible sight."

"Is working in an auction house that hard?" he asked.

"Oh no, it's usually really easy. But today was different. The auction was a bit hectic and to be honest, mentally exhausting," she laughed a bit and continued, " Your pills were actually the most problematic of all. Most alchemists don't auction their pills, so when so many pills showed up at once, people kept bidding for it one after another. Those took a lot of time."

"Does that mean all of my pills sold then?" he asked expectantly. He was really hoping to get the 80 spirit stones today.

"Ah, yes. All of them sold. I believe the after-auction transactions are being completed right now, and someone will bring your total here."

"Oh, okay," he said and waited for a bit longer.

About 5 minutes or so later, a knock sounded from the door to the room. "Come in," Cai Ping spoke from inside. A middle-aged man walked in and bowed to Cai Ping. He then turned to Alex and bowed once again.

Alex wasn't used to being bowed at so much, so he just nodded.

The man walked up to Cai Ping and handed her a bag. Cai Ping looked at the bag for a bit and nodded to the man, who then walked away.

"Your money after the reduction is here, Daoist," she spoke. "Your monster corpse sold for a bit more than expected and brought in 15 common spirit stones. After reduction, you get 13 common spirit stones and 50 gold coins."

Alex was surprised when he heard that. '13 common spirit stones are about 120 dollars right?' he thought.

Cai Ping then continued, " Your pills, however… I have never been so wrong on my estimate before."

Alex frowned. 'Wrong on her estimate? Does that mean I am not getting the full 80 spirit stones she said?' he started to get disheartened. He was hoping for quite a bit of money, but from her talk, it seemed like the pills didn't do as well.

Then, Cai Ping said, "I can't believe they sold for so much more."

"Huh? They didn't do badly?" he asked.

"Badly? Of course not. They did amazing in the auction. Far better than I had anticipated." She took out a talisman and started reading something.

"We sold all of your pills separately, which was why the auction took so much longer than usual. First off, we sold your Qi improving pill. We started from the ones with the lowest harmony to the highest."

"These were commonly found pills, so they didn't sell for a lot. Still, the 12 pills in total brought us about 42 common spirit stones."

"The next pills we sold were the swift feet pills. While uncommon, people didn't require them a lot so it didn't get a lot of bids, but still somehow managed to be sold for 32 spirit stones for the 5 pills."

"Next we sold the 2 face-changing pills. These pills sold quite a bit as they were very rare. These pills had quite a few bids compared to others. The 26% harmony face changing pill sold for 15 spirit stones, and the 35% harmony face changing pill sold for 28 spirit stones. I had no idea this was how receptive the audience would be to these pills."

"Lastly, the 4 Qi Enhancing pills. We sold them last because people really cared about pills that helped them break through their bottlenecks and helped them increase their cultivation. As expected, they did really well. Perhaps, too well."

"It seemed due to the rarity of one of the ingredients for this pill, people hadn't been able to get this pill made by the alchemists at all. So, when they heard we were auctioning Earth grade Qi Enhancing pills, they really bid in droves to get it."

"Similar to the other pills, we started with the one that had the lowest harmony and moved our way to the highest. In total, the 4 different pills actually ended up selling for 83 common spirit stones."

Alex had stopped converting the spirit stones to dollars long ago as he heard the number of spirit stones grow higher and higher. Cai Ping looked at his shocked eyes and found some mutual feelings in them. She too had been similarly shocked when she presented the pills to the audience.

He really did get 194 common spirit stones. That was really a lot.

"When is your next auction?" he asked Cai Ping.

She didn't think much about the question and answered, "It the next Saturday. Though that will be a rather big auction since it's our bi-annual auction, where only items above 5 spirit stones are sold and the auction itself lasts longer than usual."

Alex stayed quiet and thought for a bit. 'I should be able to finish making the pills by the next Wednesday, maybe even Tuesday if I really tried.'

"Can I come back next Friday to put more items in auction?" he asked.

Cai Ping looked at him with a confused look and asked, "Do you have something else to sell, Daoist?"

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Chapter 72:Another Rock

Alex heard her ask the question and answered, "Oh, yes. I was thinking about selling some more pills. Is that alright? It did cause a bit of a problem from what I heard."

"Oh absolutely. But, we can only take in items by Wednesday. We will be getting a large number of items to sell for the bi-annual auction and will have to tally the items and send out information about the items we will be auctioning. So, if you have more pills to sell, you will have to get it in by Wednesday."

Alex thought for a while. 'I should be able to complete the pills by Wednesday right? Especially if I make them throughout the night as well,' he speculated.

"Alright then, I will bring some more pills by Wednesday. Thank you for selling my pills," he said and started walking out of the door.

"Wait for a second, Daoist," Cai Ping hurriedly stopped him.

"What is it?"

"Umm… can you tell me who you are?" she really wanted to know his name now.

"Oh, I haven't introduced myself, have I? I am so sorry about that. My name is Yu Ming, and I am a disciple of Hong Wu Sect." He nodded and walked out before she could say anything.

Alex went straight back to the sect. There was nothing as of yet that he had to do, so he decided to go back to his residence.

He walked along the way when suddenly he sensed something.

'This feeling…' he walked towards where he felt the thing. Somehow, unlocking his spiritual sense had far sharpened his senses, so he could feel it from quite far away.

Following the feeling brought him close to the sect market. He walked into the market and went to one of the disciples who was setting up a vendor there.

"Hello brother, How much do you want for this stone here?" he asked the male disciple setting up the vendor.

The thing Alex was pointing to was a small stone that was slightly yellow in color. This was the same type of stone that he had found in the sect market that one time, the same stone that had turned his Qi to Yang Qi.

"This stone? You can take it for 80 points brother." The disciple said.

Alex paid the amount and took the stone. Then he asked, "Can you tell me where you found this stone, brother?"

The man thought for a while and said, "I think I found in on the ground in the forbidden fields while I was suspended."

"Forbidden fields? What's that?" he asked.

"Don't you know about the Forbidden Fields? It a place where disciples are sent for a period of time as punishment. You have to survive in that treacherous place on your own." The man said.

"Punishment? Does that mean there are a lot of monsters in there? It must've been dangerous," Alex sympathized with the man.

"What? No. There are no monsters. In fact, there are no plants or animals either. The worst part is there is no Qi either. You have you survive on your own in that place with no Qi, and since your Qi gets used up, you start to get hungry and don't have anything to eat either."

"Plus, it's mostly just grassland, followed by an unending desert. It's truly one of the worst places you can be in." The man said with a scared face remembering what it had been like.

'I should ask master about it. If I can find more of these, that would be awesome.' He thought and left the sect market.

He was walking towards his residence, lost in his own thoughts when suddenly he heard someone calling for him.

"Hmm…" he quickly sent out his spiritual sense to see who was calling him and saw a certain man walking towards him.

"Oh hey, Brother Kong. Long time no see." He said as he waved towards Kong Yuhan who was steadily approaching him along with a few different people with him.

"Long time no see? What a weird way to greet you have there, Brother Yu," Kong Yuhan arrived and stood in front of him.

'Do they not say long time to see in this game? I should probably stop saying that,' he thought.

"What are you doing here, Brother Kong?" Alex looked at the 3 people behind Kong Yuhan, who had a curious expression behind him.

"Hopefully same thing you are here for, Brother Yu," Kong Yuhan pointed behind Alex.

Alex looked back and saw the Alchemy hall behind him. 'Does he think I am here for Alchemy?' he thought.

"You are quite chummy with an outer sect disciple, huh Kong?" one of the men standing behind him said.

"Of course. You don't know how much he helped me the past week. He brought me the very rare Dwarf Fruit, and also aided me with creating a Qi Enhancing Pill. It isn't much of a stretch to say I broke through to Meridian Tempering only because of him. " Kong Yuhan was quite genuine when he said that.

Alex checked the 3 people behind Kong Yuhan and realized they all had Organ Tempering realm power. The man that just spoke had an organ tempering 5th realm, while the other man had Organ Tempering 4th realm. The girl on the other hand was higher than the 2 and had an Organ Tempering 9th realm cultivation.

Kong Yuhan saw Alex looking at the three behind him and finally remembered to introduce them. "Oh, I forgot to introduce you guys. This is brother Yu Ming. Brother Yu, this is Wei Xun," he pointed at the man who had talked, " This is Jia Fen, " he pointed at the other man, "and finally this is Zhou Mi."

Alex nodded to them and greeted them. Both the males reciprocated with their own greetings, while the lady only nodded a little. She didn't seem to be the talking type.

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Chapter 73:Ascension

"Ascend? What do you mean?" Alex was a little confused by the statement. He had never heard of someone 'ascending' in-game or out of the game.

'Does this have something to do with alchemists?' he wondered. He didn't have any friends he talked to regularly, so he didn't know a lot about the practices in the sect. Even Kong Yuhan was merely just an acquaintance to him.

Kong Yuhan looked like he had realized something when he saw Alex's confused face and said, "Ah, I forgot it hasn't been long since you got here. Ascending means going from being an outer sect disciple to an inner sect disciple or an inner sect disciple to a core disciple."

" In my case, I am one step away from being a core disciple. I have brought a few sets of ingredients with me today, and if I made to make a single pill with over 20% harmony, I can take the exam to become a core disciple."

"Ah" Alex made a sound of understanding. But then he thought of something,

"Brother Kong! If you have to take an exam after creating this pill, then why not call the exam the Ascension. Why call it this one?"

"Well that's because it's a tradition," the silent man name Jia Fen finally spoke.

"You know the reason, brother Jia?" Kong Yuhan turned around to ask the man.

"Yes. Going back a couple dozens of years ago when the sect wasn't as big as it is now, you could promote from being an outer sect disciple or inner sect disciple just by making the required amount of pills, and didn't have to take any tests back then."

"So, when it came to the final pill before promotion, the disciples started calling it 'The Ascension'. But, once the sect got more popular and started getting more and more disciples, they found out that disciples had started to sneakily promote themselves by using pills made by others."

"The elders couldn't keep track of everyone's pills back then, so they started making the disciples take tests for it. They should have stopped after creating the sect running formation a few years back, but the exam was just an extra layer of security that they didn't want to get rid of."

The man named Jia Fen spoke quite a bit and explained it quite well.

"Is that so… anyway, Brother Yu, do you want to come to watch? I brought these 3 to watch as well." Kong Yuhan asked quite expectantly.

Alex thought for a bit and decided to skip the afternoon lunch today. "Sure brother Kong, I can probably learn something from it as well"

Together the 5 walked into the Alchemy hall. It didn't take Kong Yuhan long to find an empty room and immediately entered it. Alex and the other 3 also followed behind him to the room.

"Do you want me to aid, Brother Kong?" the girl finally spoke and walked forward.

"Ah, thank you for your kind intentions, Sister Zhou. But I will have to refuse. In the exam, I will have to make the pills on my own, so I should start making pills on my own, without any aids."

Kong Yuhan started preparing by keeping aside the black cauldron and taking out his own cauldron. He started heating his cauldron and took a deep breath as he started meditating.

Alex didn't know what pills he was going to make, or what ingredients he was going to use. He waited in anticipation to find out.

After a bit of time had passed, and the cauldron was finally heated, Kong Yuhan took out the first ingredient and put it in.

Alex saw the ingredient and thought, ' A Slim Bane Treeleaf huh, that means he must be making one of 4 different pills.'

After a while, Kong Yuhan took out a second ingredient and put it in. This one gave Alex no information, as this ingredient followed the first one in every single one of his recipes.

'His cauldron isn't transferring the heat fast enough. The energy in the second ingredient isn't controlling the first one as quickly as it should.'

Alex could see the minute errors in Kong Yuhan's alchemy process thanks to his spiritual sense. Even while standing so far away, he could see the happenings in the cauldron very clearly.

Then Kong Yuhan put his third ingredient and put it in.

'Huh?' Alex was surprised. 'That's not one of the ingredients from a recipe I know. Did he get a recipe somewhere out of the sect?'

Alex watched as Kong Yuhan put in more and more ingredients to make a pill that he had absolutely no idea about.

Finally, after a while, the pill came out. Kong Yuhan frowned a little after seeing the pill's harmony. He took out a pill tester and tested the harmony of his new pill.

As soon as the pill touched the base of the glass, the fog appeared from the metal base and started crawling along the side of the tester, until it stopped.

Kong Yuhan looked at the number as sighed.

"Only 16%. Not having an aid really does make it hard. Especially when it's a new pill like mine." Kong Yuhan cleaned the cauldron in preparation for another batch.

"Don't fret brother. You still have quite a few sets left. You can do it." Jia Fen encouraged from the side.

"Yes, Brother Kong. You don't have to get disheartened." Zhou Mi encouraged as well.

Alex and the other man stayed quiet but gave encouraging nods towards him.

Kong Yuhan smiled a little.

"You guys are right. This won't stop me at all. This was only my first time so I failed. The next times will be different." Kong Yuhan switched his attention back to the cauldron and prepared for the second batch of ingredients.

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Chapter 74:Unstable Concoction

Kong Yuhan held a pill inside a pill tester. The fog slowly rose up from the bottom of the glass and started going upwards.

Everyone in the room watched as the fog reached the number 16. They watched with bated breaths as the fog slowly rose up to the number 17.

"Go up. Go up," they slowly chanted wanting the pill fog to keep on going up.

18.

"Just 2 more. Go. Go." Kong Yuhan was full of sweat watching it.

19.

"Just once more," Kong Yuahn shouted with his voice full of hope. Alas, the fog didn't rise up.

"No!!! I was so close." Kong Yuhan got dejected. This was his third try at making the pill. The second one had ended up being an 18% harmony pill, so he had wished to make this one have 20% harmony. But his wish remained just that, a wish.

"Alright, I will surely make the next one be it." He got back to making the pill once more without anyone's encouragement.

Kong Yuhan had never focused this much in his life before as he did on the 4th pill. He focused from the start to the very end, careful at every turn, and made as few mistakes as possible.

'This turn has quite a few amounts of mistakes. Maybe he will succeed now.' Alex was constantly checking the inside with his spiritual sense. As long he didn't try to strain his senses, his spiritual sense would last for a while.

After Kong Yuhan finished making the pill and took it out to put it in the pill tester.

Once more the crowd watched as the fog started to rise up. The fog quickly rose up to 16% before slowing down.

17%. 18%. 19%.

The pill tester started to shake a little as Kong Yuhan's had started trembling with nervousness.

20%.

"YES!" Kong Yuhan shouted.

"Congratulations, Brother Kong. You are now eligible to become a Core disciple." Everyone started congratulating him one after another.

"Hehe," Kong Yuhan embarrassed a little over the bombardment of congratulations. His large physical build with an embarrassed face was something you didn't see every day.

"How long has it been since we came here?" Kong Yuhan asked the group.

"I think it's been about an hour and a half. Definitely more than an hour for sure." Wei Xun spoke from the back. Everyone else nodded.

"Oh. That means the room already took my contribution points. Might as well finish the final pill." Kong Yuhan started preparing for the next batch of ingredients.

The others also waited for him to make the last pill. Kong Yuhan wiped away his sweat and started once more. He had already ascended so he had no worries for this particular.

He was already tired from making 4 different pills, especially the last one. Plus, he had no need to do everything perfectly, so he was a bit too relaxed while making the pill.

He ended up making more mistakes than usual. Alex caught all of those mistakes.

'He is not getting the timing right. He keeps dropping the ingredients a bit too late, so the energies aren't getting properly harmonized.'

If only the ingredients were burnt and charred instead of turning to powder, the energy could have escaped from the cauldron. But, since they were all powder, the unstable energies were getting taken in by the powder making the powder itself massively unstable.

"Oh no," Kong Yuhan lost control of the situation.

'It's going to blow up!' Alex immediately shot out forwards and used Qi manipulation to throw away the entire cauldron to the corner of the room.

BOOM

A massive explosion rang out from the corner, throwing heaps and heaps of energies towards their direction. Almost instinctively, Alex brought forth his hands and used Elemental Guidance to steer away as much energy from the explosion as possible.

Everyone in the room had a disheveled look as the ringing from the explosion still rung in their ears.

"What the hell are you doing?" Jia Fen immediately cried out.

Alex turned around to see Jia Fen charging at him with the intention to harm. Alex didn't understand why he would do that but immediately used his Qi manipulation to stop him.

Due to their massive gap in cultivation, he was only able to stop his for a few seconds before Jia Fen got free from his clutches and came for him once more.

"Wait brother Jia, It was my fault." Kong Yuhan got out of his stupor and stopped the fight.

"What?" It wasn't just Jia Fen who was confused by the statement. Wei Xun also came forward looking for an answer.

"I was too relaxed and ended up making the ingredients unstable. If brother Yu didn't throw it away in time, I would have been seriously injured right now."

"So, he didn't do it on purpose?" Jia Fen was still quite skeptical about it.

"No. In fact, I had already lost control of the ingredients. It was brother Yu's quick thinking that saved us." Kong Yuhan looked towards the wall. The wall itself had no problems, but the cauldron was now in pieces.

"Aww… I will have to pay quite a few points for this." Kong Yuhan turned around to look at the other 4, focusing especially on Zhou Mi, and said, "Thankfully, none of you were hurt."

"I'm sorry for assuming you did it on purpose, Brother Yu." Jia Fen apologized when he got the chance.

"It's okay." Alex understood why he was mad. He would probably get mad himself if he saw what had just happened.

They all left the Alchemy hall and said their goodbyes. Kong Yuhan kept thanking him for saving him. Alex split from the group and went back to his residence.

He looked at the time and saw it was 5 pm. 'I should be able to squeeze out 4 or 5 pills before it's time for dinner.'

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Chapter 75:Wednesday

Alex logged out to get some food after making 6 pills before dinner. He hadn't skipped the lunch today so he was feeling unusually peckish.

After dinner, he logged back to the game and went to the sect valley for his daily work. He took his time and only reached the valley around half past 8.

It didn't even take him an hour in total to pick up all the ingredients. After he was done, he immediately ran back up the mountain to make some more pills.

Throughout the entire night, he managed to make around 22 pills. Today was a free day too, so he decided to make pills once more. He spent the entire day in the alchemy room, making pills whenever possible.

In fact, his next three days went the same way. Every morning, he would have a lesson with his master, and afterward, he would make pills whenever possible.

Finally, on Wednesday, he managed to make a total of 135 different pills. Surprisingly, all of the pills were in the Earth Grade, not one pill below 25%.

He looked at the remaining ingredients he had in his bag.

'Hmm… if I get some ingredients from the alchemy garden, I should be able to make a few more pills than I can register.'

He still had the 194 spirit stones he got from the auction house. He wanted to transfer it immediately to his bank account but didn't since he wanted to see if there were anything important in the auction.

He wanted to buy something himself too. Still, he wouldn't waste much of the spirit stones and together with what he would get from the auction house after selling the current pills, he would transfer them all at once.

Once he was ready, he left the sect leader's mountain at some time around 4 am.

It took him about half an hour to reach the auction house. The path felt quite short this time around for him.

"Yes," Alex let the new lady take him to one of the waiting rooms inside the auction house. After waiting for a while, Cai Ping walked in through the door.

"Ah, good to see you, Madam Cai. I am surprised I only meet you when I come to the auction house." He jokingly greeted the sitting Cai Ping.

"You jest, Daoist Yu. You only see me because I ordered the juniors to let me know when you came." Cai Ping properly seated herself on the couch opposite Alex.

"So, what do you have for us to Auction, Daoist Yu? More pills, I presume." Cai Ping looked at Alex expectantly, waiting for him to take out the batch of pills.

"Yes, Of course. I am an alchemist after all." Alex said with a smile as he reached into his bag and carefully took out 5 bottles, so as to not harm the pills inside.

Cai Ping's eyes lit up as she saw that the 5 newly arrived bottles were all filled with 5 different pills.

'25 pills?' she was happy to see that. Then something weird happened. Alex reached back into his bag and took out 5 more pill bottles, each filled with 5 pills.

"Umm… Daoist Yu? This is?" she asked.

"These are pills of course." Alex reached back into his bag and took 5 more bottles.

Cai Ping started to breathe faster as she saw the 5 new bottles. 'How many pills does he have?' she looked at the 15 different pill bottles and counted 75 pills in total. That was an enormous amount.

But then, Alex reached into his bag and took out 5 more bottles.

"What!!" she freaked out. The newly brought-out bottles were filled with 5 pills each as well.

"What's wrong madam Cai?" Alex was surprised at her loud exclamation.

"Oh, I'm sorry. I showed you something unsightly. I was just surprised that you brought forth so many pills. Did the Hong Wu sect send you as an ambassador for this time's auction, Daoist Yu?" Cai Ping was still calming down from the sight in front of her, but every time she saw the pill bottles laid out in front of her, her eyes would get wide and she would start breathing faster.

"Hong Wu Sect sends ambassadors? I didn't know that. Unfortunately, I am not that. I just wanted to earn some money from my sold pills, so I came here."

He then reached into his bag and brought out another 5 bottles.

This time, however, they weren't completely filled and had about 3 or 4 pills each. He reached back into his bag and took out 5 more bottles with less amount.

Cai Ping just wasn't used to this many pills being taken out at once by a single person.

'And he said he made all the pills by himself? Impossible.' It really was a very hard thing to believe.

Alex finally took out 10 more bottles, each with a single pill inside. Alex looked at 2 of the bottles with a single pill each. There were some pills in other bottles too, but these 2, in particular, were his best alchemy result to date.

The first one was a Hundred Poison Antidote that had a shockingly high harmony of 40%. The next one was a different pill, something he made just this morning.

It was a pill called the Healing Lotus pill. Its main ingredient was a Lotus that grew on earth. It was something he had found in the southern forest.

The Healing Lotus pill itself was one of the best pills he knew of. The pill was regarded as the number one healing pill below the True pills. There was no other healing pill that could rival its healing power.

And somehow, he had managed to make this pill with a harmony of 45%. This pill was also to this day, the pill with the highest harmony level he had made.

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Chapter 76:White...

"There are a total of 135 pills in here. All of them are Earth Grade pills. You can check them as you please."

Alex then showed the two pills in his hand and said, "These 2 are my best pills yet. This is a Hundred Poisons Antidote with 40% harmony, and this is a Healing Lotus pill with 45% harmony. Please be careful with them."

He let Cai Ping take everything into her own bag. Cai Ping, however, was still in her shock and didn't manage to get out of it in time. Only after a while did she realize that she was dazed and hurriedly took out a pill tester to check the pills.

28%, 32%, 27%, 29%, 38% … 26%, 40%, and 45%.

Cai Ping reeled in her shock as she carefully tested each of the pills. In total, there were about 8 total types of pills here.

"Do you have anything else to sell?" Cai Ping asked him, but she didn't expect him to bring out anything.

"Oh, no. These are the only ones I have, unfortunately. If I had more ingredients, I might have been able to squeeze in 4 or 5 pills, but that's it. Making so many pills in 4 days took a lot of physical and mental effort"

Cai Ping suddenly stopped what she was doing and looked back at Alex. With a peculiar smile, she asked, "Umm… Daoist Yu, did I mishear, or did you just say you made all of these pills in 4 days?"

"Hmm… oh yeah. Well, I made some on Saturday night, but others I made in the last 4 days." Alex didn't mind clarifying her confusion.

Cai Ping had a really hard time believing it. She already didn't believe it was him who made the pills, but hearing him say he made them in 4 days just made it even more unbelievable.

She decided to inquire a bit. "Daoist Yu, from what I have heard of Hong Wu sect, they say you guys have to make 10 pills with 10% harmony to become an inner sect, and 20 pills with 20% harmony to become a core disciple, is that true?"

"Yes, that's true." Alex got confused. 'Why would she ask me this?'

"Then why is Daoist Yu still an outer sect disciple, if you don't mind me asking."

"Well, things are kind of complicated in the sect regarding me." Alex scratched his head with a bit of embarrassment.

"Shouldn't you be a Core disciple by now, with all of these pills you have made?" Cai Ping thought she was getting closer and closer to getting him to slip and fess up who really made the pills.

"Oh no. I am a long way from being a core disciple. To become one, We have to give away the pills to the sect for the pills to count. Also, each pill has to be from a different recipe. Since I wanted to sell my pills instead of giving it away, I still haven't been able to become a core disciple. Although I hope to become one in the near future."

Alex was quite confident in his answer. Cai Ping on the other hand got dejected that she couldn't make him tell who really made the pills.

'I can almost guarantee that he is just an errand boy for someone more important. But still, on the off chance he is a genuine golden goose, I cannot offend him.'

"Why don't we set up the contract now?" Cai Ping said as she took one of the talismans laying on the ground and wrote it will everything Alex had brought to her.

She then signed the paper with a signature using her Qi and handed it to Alex.

"By the way, Daoist Yu. We will have to use a name to represent the pills here. Do you mind if we use your real name or do you want to use some other names?"

Alex thought for a bit. 'A different name? Like a nickname huh, what should I name myself?' He couldn't think of anything to call himself. He thought of calling himself 'Alchemy God', but immediately erased the idea since that was way too pretentious and most definitely a lie.

He looked around the room hoping for inspiration. He looked at his own body as well looking for just anything that can help provide him with an idea for his name.

Suddenly, he stopped. He slowly brought up his right hand to touch his left arm. More accurately, He touched the scar on his left arm.

Then, he suddenly remembered back to the wolf that gave him this wound, and he also remembered the cats that were there. The cats that he fought the wolf to protect.

He remembered the giant mother cat with its bright white fur covered in blood.

'White… White Wolf.' Alex smiled. That wasn't a bad name if he said so himself.

"White Wolf, You can use the name White Wolf for me."

Cai Ping smiled as well. "White Wolf, huh. I quite like that name. I shall refer to you as White Wolf from now on in the stage, Daoist Yu."

"By the way, Madam Cai is it okay if I come to the auction. I don't know if I can buy anything, but I just wanted to see what an auction was like."

Cai Ping laughed a little, "You are more than welcomed to be in the auction, Daoist Yu. We shall prepare a VIP room for you."

"Oh, no. That's not necessary. I can manage in a normal room as well. Please give your VIP room to the guests who can actually buy something."

Cai Ping smiled and complied. Alex took the contract and bid farewell to Cai Ping. He walked out of the auction house and reached his residence back in the sect in about half an hour.

He had made it in time for dinner, so he logged out.

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Chapter 77:Missing Ingredients

"Good Evening, Elder Wang. Is the list ready yet?" Alex arrived at the foot of the alchemy garden late at night. He had purposefully waited as much as he could without doing anything before coming here.

"Oh, you are here, Disciple Yu. Yes, Elder Zhan has prepared the list. Here you go." He handed Alex the list of ingredients.

Over the last couple of days, Alex had come to know the elders quite well. He respected them as elders and they respected him as someone with talent.

They would still be surprised every time he walked out of the garden within an hour.

"How do you do it, Disciple Yu? The mountain is quite huge, so how do you manage to find the ingredients so fast." The elders asked.

"Oh, hehe… that's a secret. I can tell you that it's because I know where every single ingredient is already. So I just go and take it. I don't have to waste time searching for it."

Ma Rong had told him not to reveal anyone about his Spiritual sense yet, so he tried to work around the question and answer them without really answering the question.

"I'll be off then, Elder Wang." Alex walked into the valley in search of the ingredients. He quickly scanned the list and thought of where all the ingredients were.

'There are 2 there, 3 next to that, only 1 near the top…' he revised the locations in his mind and walked off.

Ingredients started to fly on their own and landed inside his storage bag. His Qi manipulation and Spiritual sense coordination had gotten just that good.

One after another, he started finding all the ingredients in the list. It took him half an hour to finish it all, so he walked out.

"Always so punctual, aren't you? Disciple Yu. " Elder Wang spoke as he saw Alex coming out of the garden.

Alex just smiled and said, "I will head to the other garden." He walked across the valley to the other garden and entered.

He once again started looking for the ingredients.

"Hmm… it's missing." Alex knew for sure there was an ingredient here yesterday, but there wasn't one anymore. 'Did some animal take it?' he wondered.

He kept on looking for the other ingredients. Once more he found another ingredient missing.

"That's the second time. Is there really some animal in here?"

He searched for more ingredients. By the end, he found about 4 different ingredients missing. And those were just ones he searched for because of the list.

'Let's check everything.' He immediately sent out his spiritual sense and looked at all of the different ingredients growing in the valley. He found out more than 20 ingredients had been stolen by now.

He quickly thought of the materials and realized they were ingredients for the pill [Heart Stopping pill]. It was a common-grade pill that would kill anyone below the Mind Tempering realm by solidifying their blood and stopping their heart from pumping blood.

The only thing that could possibly save a person that had taken a Heart Stopping pill was either the Healing Lotus pill or a True Grade healing pill. He didn't know of any pills other than that, that could possibly save a person.

Of course, this was with his limited knowledge of 200 pills. There were many other pills out there that he had no idea about.

"Master, I thought I was the only one allowed to pick from the gardens for now. Someone else is taking ingredients for a Heart Stopping pill in the alchemy garden." He sent out a message using the communication talisman Ma Rong gave him.

He walked out of the valley and gave the ingredients to elder Wang and elder Zhan.

"You took quite some time today, Disciple Yu? Were the ingredients hard to find this time around?" Elder Wang asked.

"Oh, no. I just found some ingredients missing from where they should have been. So I looked around for a while and realized that a lot of ingredients had been taken in the last few days. Are elders allowed to take away ingredients nowadays? I thought I was the only one."

Elder Wang and Zhan lost their joking smiles and immediately got serious. "Someone took away ingredients? Are you sure you didn't make any mistake?"

"No. I counted and realized about 20 ingredients were missing. All ingredients required for a Heart Stopping pill are missing."

Elder Wang contemplated a little. "If that is true then we need to call the sect leader."

"No need. I am already here." Ma Rong flew down to where Alex and the elders were.

"You said somebody took ingredients for a Heart Stopping pill? " She asked Alex.

"Yes. I don't know when they were taken as I only found out about them missing today, but I can guarantee they were there 3 days ago, and I did not pick them."

Ma Rong knew about the amazing memory of someone with a spiritual sea so she believed him instantly.

"Who had entered aside from my disciple?" Ma Rong looked to the elders.

The elders only stood outside every day and took requests from the disciples so they didn't know. Ma Rong immediately sent out a sect-wide message for every elder who had to enter the garden within the last 5 days to gather here.

Within 10 minutes, a group of about 10 elders was standing in front of Ma Rong.

"Did anyone of you take out ingredients from the garden in the last 5 days?" Everybody denied having taken any ingredients. At least not since the sect leader took away their authority too.

Ma Rong frowned and took out 2 pill bottles, and 10 pills flew out of them to the elders' hand.

The elders had a confused look as they looked at the pill. Immediately, their eyes went wide with shock. All of the elders knew what the pill was.

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Chapter 78:Questioning

"Eat it," Ma Rong said as they looked at the elders standing in front of her. Her cold eyes and voice made all the elders shiver.

The majority of the elders ate it at once, while a few reluctantly followed. Suddenly, their eyes started to get lazy and their arms limped a little. Their entire body posture slumped and they have no emotions on their face.

"Now, Answer me again. Did anyone of you take away ingredients from the alchemy garden in the last 5 days?"

""" No"""" A collective answer came out of all the elders.

The elders once again all denied it. Ma Rong looked confused. There was no way someone below the saint realm could possibly lie after eating a Truth-Seeking Pill.

She dismissed the elders. After they started recovering once again, they left. Ma Rong got to thinking once more.

If it was not one of them, then it would be near impossible to catch the culprit unless they were stupid enough to make a transaction with the ingredients or the pill.

Ma Rong immediately took out her medallion to check the records, and she found someone selling a Heart-Stopping pill.

'5 hours ago? By an outer sect disciple, no less.' She checked the buying records of the disciple and found no ingredients for the pill.

"Come, we are going somewhere." She grabbed Alex by the arm and started flying away. The two elders just stood there and watched them leave.

Soon the sect leader and Alex were in the outer sect mountain, and Alex slowly flew down to one of the cottages.

"You do the talking." His master's voice rang inside his mind.

'Wow. She can already talk to my head? I forgot that was even possible with a spiritual sense.' He simply nodded to his master and walked up to the cottage.

Knock. Knock.

A female disciple slowly opened the door and looked at Alex confusedly.

"What do you want?" she asked in a very unfriendly tone.

"I am here on behalf of the sect to ask you a question. You sold a Heart-Stopping pill with 22% harmony today. Did you make the pill by yourself?" Alex asked the girl.

The girl was somewhere in her early 20s. As soon as she heard his words, she frowned.

"How do you know that?" She started getting a little apprehensive.

The girl started to get a little scared and answered, "I only sold the pill, I didn't make it myself."

'Now we're getting somewhere.'

"Can you tell us where you got the pill from?" he asked

"Someone found me and asked me to sell the pill for them."

Alex frowned a little. "Ask who it is." Ma Rong's voice came to his head.

"Who is it that asked you to do that?"

" I don't know. I only met the person today. They were wearing a black hood over his head, and said that if I sold the pill, I would get 10% of the contribution points from it."

Alex fell into contemplation.

"Do you remember how the person looked like? How did they act? Maybe their gender or even the fact about if they are disciples or elders?"

The girl fell into thought. "I can't tell if they were a disciple or elder, but they wore a really dark green robe underneath, so they must've either a core disciple or an elder. As for the gender, I think they are a male. They tried to hide it but my instinct said they were a male. Aside from that, I don't know."

"I only met them about 6 hours ago so I don't know a lot about them. But, there was something weird about them. The person felt like a completely mortal person with no Qi. I can't tell if that is helpful, but that's all I have got."

Alex nodded. "Oh right. I am supposed to get the ingredients I bought with the remaining 90% of the contribution pill to them in the sect market tonight at midnight." The girl suddenly shouted.

"I see." Suddenly, a talisman fell from above. "Tell her to carry this with her." Ma Rong spoke to him.

"Keep this on your person when you go to the sect valley tonight, just in case."

Alex left the outer sect mountain. For a while, the walk to the sect valley was really silent.

"This person is smart." Ma Rong spoke from above. "Not only are they making other people sell the pills made out of stolen ingredients, but they are also even making the other disciples buy the ingredients for them. They are doing absolutely nothing to get tracked by the sect running formation."

"You are right, master. Who knows how many such stolen pills they have sold already." Alex was shocked that someone was deceiving the sect in such a manner.

"I don't have any hiding abilities, so everyone will see me if I keep flying in the sky like this, especially in the sect valley with all the light. And I can't show up in the sect valley itself, since that might deter away from the culprit."

She turned towards Alex and said, "So you will have to be the one to find this culprit. As soon as you see him, call me. Before that, I can't be seen. "

Ma Rong immediately flew away. 'What did I get myself into?' Alex wondered as he got back to the sect valley. Thankfully, he was done making for the auction or he would have regretted finding out about the missing ingredients.

He decided to wait for the culprit in the sect market, so he went and looked around the market as if he was looking through the different vendors.

About 2 hours later, midnight arrived. And so did the female disciple. He stayed about 15 meters away, hidden in the crowd, constantly surveying the area around the lady, waiting for the culprit to arrive.

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Chapter 79:Song Zun

Alex made sure he didn't stand out in the crowd, so he split his attention keeping most of it on the woman and around her, and some of it on acting like he was there to buy something.

He had his master's communication talisman in his hands, ready to call her any moment.

The female outer sect disciple seemed to not know where to find the person, so she looked around hoping the person would instead find her.

Minutes passed by and nothing happened. Still, it was the only midnight now, so both Alex and the female disciple stayed there. The female disciple especially was in a jumpy mood.

From her understanding, she had gotten involved with something bad and wanted to get out of it as soon as possible. If even the sect was after this person, then he must be really bad.

Alex watched the woman's nervousness increase as she started getting fidgety. She was still walking around the market, unsure if the person would even come.

Suddenly, she turned stiff.

"Have you brought the ingredients?" a voice entered the woman's ears that made her jump.

Alex had his spiritual sense on the woman, so he heard the voice too. 'It's a man for sure. But where is he?' he looked through the crowd towards the female disciple but saw nobody standing around her.

'This is weird.' He immediately sent out his spiritual sense and found a figure in a cloak standing beside the woman.

'He's invisible. And it's just like she said, he has no aura or Qi. It's almost like he is a mortal.' Alex finally understood why he couldn't see the man at all.

Thankfully, he had a spiritual sense. The man's techniques could hide his aura and Qi, and hide his body, but it couldn't hide his figure from being seen with his spiritual sense.

He looked at the man and was shocked. 'So young!' the man didn't look a day over 20. Alex looked at the robe linings and realized he was a core disciple.

He immediately sent out a message. "Master, he's here. It's a core disciple. But be careful, he is invisible and has no qi or aura. Only your spiritual sense works on him."

The man was giving off no qi so he couldn't guess or see what his cultivation base was.

"Give me the damn ingredients." The man demanded in the woman's ears. The woman slowly took out a storage bag which the man immediately snatched. As soon as the bag left the woman's hand, it vanished as well.

The man started leaving and Alex started following. Suddenly, Ma Rong flew down from above. The man stopped and looked up to see the sect leader was landing nearby.

But he didn't seem to care much about it. He started walking away, still invisible.

Most of the disciples at night were outer sect disciples who had never seen the sect leader, so when she dropped they only assumed an elder was flying.

The elders from the stalls stopped what they were doing and walked out. "Sect leader, is something wrong? Why are you here?" they started wondering if they did something wrong during the sales today.

Ma Rong ignored everyone and looked towards Alex.

"Where?" She asked as soon as she flew down. Alex immediately pointed to the invisible man walking away, "There."

The invisible man turned back to see Alex point directly towards him, his eyes staring right at him. Ma Rong looked in his direction as well and within seconds her eyes that were looking everywhere else suddenly locked onto him.

"Not good." The man started to immediately run away, but there was no way he was going to be faster than the sect leader herself.

Ma Rong caught up to him in what felt like a blink of an eye and immediately pushed him down to the ground by just releasing her cultivation base on him.

The man stopped using his techniques and instead flared his cultivation base to struggle against the sect leader's power. His figure was finally visible to all.

Ma Rong saw the face and exclaimed with surprise. She immediately took him and flew off. Alex followed in their direction as well.

Ma Rong landed in front of the elder's hall surprising the many elders that were standing nearby. She had just been here a moment ago, and flew off with no indication, and came back just as quick.

Now, she even had a core disciple with her.

"What is going on, sect leader?" the elders asked.

"Nothing. I just found a thief who has been stealing from the alchemy gardens." She said as she tossed him down. Alex arrived just in time to see the man look up to the numerous elders with fear creeping up in his eyes.

"Song Zun?" the elders were surprised. "Are you sure there is no mistake here, sect leader? Song Zun is one of our best students. There is no way he could be a thief."

Ma Rong sighed and said, "I know. But a thief is a thief. And we don't look away from someone's crime just because they are good."

Alex looked at the man. 'Song Zun… I've heard of that name somewhere before.' He thought. He tried to remember, but couldn't think of where he had heard of him.

"What exactly did he do, sect leader? Couldn't we pardon him with a little punishment if the crime isn't that big?" one of the elders said.

"Let's see how big his crime is then, shall we?" Ma Rong pulled out a pill bottle and took out a single pill from it. It was the same Truth-seeking pill that she had given to the elders.

She force-fed it to Song Zun, who immediately got passive with no emotion in his face.

"Did steal the ingredients from the alchemy garden to make a Heart-Stopping pill?" she went directly for the question.

Song Zun couldn't lie or say anything other than the truth, so he simply said, "Yes."

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Chapter 80: Immortal Concealment Technique

"Yes."

As soon as the elders heard him confess to stealing something from the alchemy garden, they gasped.

The alchemy garden was one of the forbidden lands in the sect that not everyone was given permission to enter. Only elders were allowed in it to pick the ingredients previously, but even that had changed.

Now the elders were only allowed to care for the garden, and not pick up anything. That task was apparently given to the sect leader's new disciple. The elders didn't know if that was the right choice, but they heard nothing but praise from Elder Wang and Elder Zhan who took care of it now.

So, when they heard that Song Zun had entered the alchemy garden to steal ingredients from it, they knew there was no pardoning him.

Ma Rong was starting to get angry. "Why did you steal the ingredients and not buy it?" she asked.

"I am not going to do these menial tasks just to buy something I can easily steal. All I want to do is make pills and nothing more" Song Zun said with a blank face.

"Why do you want to make the pills so bad?" she asked.

Alex was surprised to hear that as well. ' First in Alchemy Achievement…Alchemy Achievement…" suddenly he remembered something.

'That's right. Song Zun is the name of the third-ranking disciple in Alchemy Achievement. He is the anomaly in the black rock who has a high alchemy achievement with a very poor contribution ranking. Does that mean he didn't do many contributions to the sect at all?' he suddenly thought of something.

"How long ago did you join the sect?" he walked forward and asked Song Zun.

"Hey who are you?" the elders cried out.

"Go away disciple, this is not a place for you."

Ma Rong suddenly shouted "Quiet!" and all the elders quietened down. She waited for Song Zun to reply.

"4 years." He said.

"Where are you going with this?" she asked Alex.

Alex gestured her to wait and see and asked another question. "How long ago did you become a core disciple?"

"1 year ago." Song Zun was still under the effect of the pill, and it didn't look like it was going to go away soon.

"And how many contribution points have you earned after becoming a core disciple?" he asked. Ma Rong started getting curious as to why he was asking such unrelated questions.

"I make the weekly required 100 contribution points." Song Zun replied.

"Then, where do you get the ingredients for your pills to rank third in the Alchemy Achievement?" as soon as she heard this question, Ma Rong's eyes turned wide as she finally thought of a possibility that she had forgotten in the heat of the situation.

She looked back at Song Zun, and the answer she dreaded came out of his mouth. "I steal all my ingredients from the alchemy gardens."

Ma Rong immediately questioned "How many ingredients have you stolen so far?" the revelations were getting too much for her, but she still had to ask the question.

Song Zun stayed quiet for this question. The deafening silence lasted for a few too many seconds before he opened his mouth to say, "I don't know."

Ma Rong was shocked. She changed the question, "Since when did you start stealing the ingredients?"

This question he didn't think at all and said, "3 and a half years."

The pill's effect ran out with the answer and Song Zun realized what he had just said. "No! No! That was a lie. That was wrong. I wasn't thinking straight. Sect Master, please give me a chance. Elders, please help me. I am one of your best students. I am so close to becoming an Earth Grade alchemist. Please don't punish me. I can change. Please."

Ma Rong felt disgusted looking at his face. She scanned his body with her spiritual sense and pulled out 3 storage bags. She threw them each towards Alex and said, "This is your reward for your contribution tonight. If not for you, this criminal would have gone unnoticed by us."

The elders were looking in shock as Alex took all 3 bags. Alex quickly scanned the bag and found most of the items inside were just alchemy materials, pills, and a few dozen spirit stones.

There were also 2 books that he quickly scanned the cover of. One of them was called [Veiled light technique]. It was an Earth Grade technique that used Qi to cover one's body with refracted light to make them invisible to the surrounding.

This was what Song Zun was using to hide in the sect valley.

The second book was perhaps the best book Alex had found as of yet. It was called the [Immortal Concealment Technique]. It was a technique that ran on its own and hid people's cultivation base from others as well as their aura and Qi.

To anyone that is not at least a major realm higher than the user, the user would appear to be a simple mortal with no cultivation. To top it all of, it was an Immortal grade technique. The first one he had ever seen.

"Thank you, master."

Ma Rong nodded and looked back at Song Zun, whose eyes were glaring daggers at Alex, who had been the one to find him. He was the one that had pointed at him back in the market and had asked those questions that got him to where he was.

And now, he also had all of his items.

Ma Rong closed her eyes and said, "Throw him into the forbidden fields for 2 months. That shall be his punishment."

A few elders with a badge on their robe that said 'Protect' walked out and carried Song Zun to take him to the forbidden fields.

"Go back and rest." Ma Rong said towards Alex and went along with the elders, leaving Alex alone.

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Chapter 81: Learning The Techniques

Alex walked up to his residence in the middle of the night. The last few days had been tiring, with all the nonstop pill-making, especially today.

'Or should I call it yesterday since it's already past midnight' he thought.

Alex walked straight to the courtyard as soon as he returned. It was time to learn some books. He quickly took out the Earth Grade [Veiled Light technique] and started reading it.

As soon as he finished, he got the notification.

Congratulations. You have successfully learned [Veiled Light Technique]

"Alright then, let's try it." He started using the technique. His Qi started flowing across his body and slowly seeped out of his entire body. As it touched the air, the Qi started to move on the surface of his body, slowly warping the lights around him.

The Qi would take the light coming from one direction, move it across his body and send it out of the other direction. To anyone looking from the outside, it looked like there was nothing between the viewer and the source of the light.

This worked omnidirectionally and always kept the light moving towards its original destination. Alex slowly looked down at his hand and realized, they weren't there anymore.

In fact, his entire body was gone. He tried to use his spiritual sense and found out that there was no problem while looking at his hands through the spiritual sense.

He tried walking around with the veil active and trained to keep the veil even under difficult situations. He tried flying with the veil active and realized he could do that as well.

'Oh… I'm flying faster now,' He thought. Getting to the 4th Bone Tempering realm had made him just a tiny bit faster at flying now.

He got back down, still invisible, and took out the next book. He started flipping through the book. This book was about the same length as the first one, but somehow it took him double the time to finish reading.

Congratulations, You have successfully learned [Immortal Concealment Technique]

Suddenly, all his Qi inside his body started to stop giving out an aura and stayed inside all the time. His cultivation base started to keep in its aura as well, and he started becoming more and more like a mortal human.

"Woah, that's quite good." He didn't have to do anything for this book, it worked by itself. He opened the description to check.

[Immortal Concealment Technique

Grade: Immortal

Hides your cultivation base and Qi from cultivators that are not at least a major realm higher than you]

'Hmm… so only someone in the True realms can truly know what cultivation I have. And even then, it's hard for them to instantly figure out. Add that to the invisibility, no wonder Song Zun got away with so much theft.'

'Just being invisible meant anyone without a Spiritual sense could not find them when they had the Immortal Concealment technique.'

Alex finally realized how Song Zun had managed to keep his actions hidden from the different elders.

'What else do I need to do?' he thought. 'I still need to absorb that yellow stone. I kept it aside since I had to make the pills, but now that it's over, I should do it… maybe tomorrow.'

He practiced with the technique a little longer and started cultivating.

At exactly 6 am, he woke up. He logged out and got back into the game about an hour later. He waited for Ma Rong to arrive, and learned alchemy from her for a bit.

"Give me your nameplate." Ma Rong said after the classes were done. Alex took out his nameplate and handed it to her. Ma Rong quickly scanned the nameplate and frowned.

"Why haven't you registered a single pill? You should have made at least 5 different ones by now." She got a little irritated at how slow Alex was with becoming a Core disciple.

"Uhh… I will, master. I will start making pills today onward exclusively for registering." Alex got a little embarrassed. He didn't think his master would ask him for the pills so soon.

"That reminds me, master. Here." He handed the 2 books he got from Song Zun to her. "It's the techniques Song Zun was using to sneak around in the alchemy gardens."

Ma Rong took the books and flipped one to the front page. She read the page and said, "It makes you invisible, huh?"

Alex was surprised she was able to tell what the book did from the front page alone. 'Can she actually understand the unintelligible words?' he could only read the letters but was never able to tell what anything meant.

The only thing helping him was the fact that at the end of the book, he would somehow thankfully learn it.

Ma Rong checked the next book and was surprised. "An immortal grade technique? There is only one of those in the sect. Where did that thief get this?"

"There is an immortal grade technique in the sect?" Alex got surprised when he heard this.

"You don't know? You have full access to the library, haven't you checked yet?" she said.

"Uhh… I was so focused on making pills, I forgot about learning new techniques." Alex said with a bashful face.

"Anyway. Keep these books, they are yours now. You can give them to me after you've learned them." Ma Rong said as he gave back the book.

But Alex didn't take them and instead just said, "Oh, I've already learned them, master. That's why I am giving you these."

"You already learned them? But you only got it last night. It hasn't even been 8 hours since you got these." She was surprised.

"I learned it last night at around 2 am. I stayed up late instead of cultivating."

"WHAT? You learned it in less than 2 hours?" Ma Rong was getting more and more shocked. "Show me," she said.

Alex had simply stopped the technique from automatically working, so when he let it work again, all of his presence, cultivation base, and aura disappeared in a flash— All Ma Rong could see in front of her was a mortal Alex.

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Chapter 82: Teaching

Ma Rong looked at the complete non-existence of Alex in front of her and was surprised. "So he got past the elders using this and the invisibility technique?" she asked.

"Yes. It's quite a good combination actually." Alex said as he used the Veiled Light technique as well.

Suddenly, he was out of sight as well. Ma Rong immediately sent out her spiritual sense, and only then did she manage to find him.

"You learned this technique already too?" she asked.

Alex stopped using the invisibility technique, and also stopped concealing himself. "Yeah."

"Have you already learned the Elemental Guidance technique I gave you?" She asked.

Alex couldn't understand why she was asking all of these questions, so he simply answered, "Of course. I learned it the moment you gave it to me."

'Heavens! Is he even more of a genius than I thought he was?' Ma Rong couldn't comprehend how he could learn everything so fast.

"Listen to me. If anyone asks you how long it took you to learn the techniques, tell them it took you a few days or a week at least. If it is heaven grade or higher, tell them it took you about a month. Never tell anyone you learned it in a few hours."

Ma Rong was very stern about it. Alex didn't understand what she was talking about.

'Why can't I learn it so fast? I'm already using up so much time by not using the system's learn function.'

"Is learning in a few hours good?" he couldn't help but ask.

"It's beyond good. Most normal people take about 2 to 5 days to learn a mortal grade technique. Earth grade techniques take them a little over a week. They can't learn a Heaven Grade technique without studying the book for about a fortnight or more. While Immortal grade techniques may take the cultivators anywhere from a few months to a few years to completely learn."

"I myself was called a genius and it took me about 2 months to learn the [Flickering Shadows] technique. If someone with malicious intent finds out that you have so much talent, they might harm you out of envy and pettiness."

"So, make sure you do not let anyone know about your talents. Doesn't matter if it's in cultivating, learning techniques, or alchemy. Always learn to be modest, and never reveal your true talents. Not even to your closest friends."

Hearing the serious tone in Ma Rong's voice, Alex got serious as well. "I understand, master." He said.

"Good. Go and learn the technique from the library later. It's a movement technique that should help you a lot. Most of the alchemy techniques in the library should be useless to you now that you are so practiced at Qi manipulation and have spiritual sense. As for the battle techniques, don't even bother learning them."

"Since you will go to the Tiger sect in a few days, you can learn the techniques from there. They have a far better collection of battle techniques than we do." Ma Rong advised him.

She taught him alchemy a bit longer, but there was no longer anything left to teach him. Not unless he got into the True Realm.

"I will stop coming here from tomorrow. I don't have anything else to teach you until at least 50% of your Qi turns to True Qi. After that, I will give you advice on how to make True pills." Ma Rong said.

"Turn Qi to True Qi? Don't you just acquire True Qi after you enter the True realm?" Alex got a bit confused.

"No. It's the other way around. Only after turning all of your Qi to True Qi do you finally enter the True realm. Even then you have to break through to the True Realm. Most people with low talent will forever be stuck in the self tempering realm. Few pills help to elevate the chances, but even then it mostly depends on your base talent itself."

"Have you ever felt a bottleneck before?" she suddenly asked.

"Bottleneck? Like the one that stops you from breaking through to a higher realm? No." He said.

"I thought so. Then, you don't have to worry about it much. Just cultivate normally, you will definitely enter the True realm." Ma Rong stood up and started preparing to leave when she suddenly remembered something.

"Oh, and there is something you should know about. In less than a month, there will be an Annual Sect competition that will take place in the Cardinal city. Many different types of competitions will take place there. I want you to take part in Alchemy-related competitions, so prepare for it."

"If we win in the alchemy competitions and we somehow do well in other competitions as well, we might get enough points to become a first-grade sect. The Tiger sect is already ridiculously close to becoming one. We need about a few hundred points to become one. Hopefully, we can do it this year."

Ma Rong seemed hopeful about the competition.

"Master, what's a sect grade?" Alex was a bit confused. He didn't think he had ever heard about those before.

"It's just an arbitrary term made by the Crimson empire to let the various cultivators know how good a sect is or how well it can train its disciples. "

"Every year the various sects from around the empire come together to take part in the competition, and those that win get points. As the points accumulate, their grade increases. We managed to get to the second grade almost a decade ago. Only now are we finally reaching the point where we may reach the first grade."

"Of the many competitions, we can win in maybe 2. The alchemy ingredients recognition competition. And the pill-making competition. We always did well on those. If we somehow do good on a few more, we will surely get the 1st grade."

"So, I am counting on you to do good on those two. As for the others… we will see when the time comes." Ma Rong left after saying this. Alex got into thinking for a while before logging out to go to classes.

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Chapter 83: Qi, Records, and Shadows

At 3 pm, Alex logged back into the game. He had 3 tasks to do today. Make pills for the disciple hall, use the yellow rock, and learn the immortal technique.

He could make the pills a bit later, and he could also go learn the technique when he had to go to the sect valley for his work. So he decided to start with the yellow rock.

"This is going to hurt once more, isn't it?" He could still remember the pain the first yellow rock put him through. The result from using the rock was amazing, but the process itself, not so much.

Thankfully, he had been through worse pain, so he was okay with the pain he would feel now. He took out the yellow rock and took a deep breath. Then, he swallowed it.

The rock immediately melted in his mouth and turned into a smooth-flowing liquid that slid down his throat. The liquid was still the same scalding hot one, but he still felt nothing.

However, he started feeling the pain when the liquid reached his stomach once more.

You have ingested a 'Yang Jade'

Sun God's Divine Yang Body is turning the yang energy in the yang jade to Yang Qi

Purifying the Yang Qi in your body… 2%

Purifying the Yang Qi in your body… 3%

Purifying the Yang Qi in your body… 4%

The already hot and vigorous Yang Qi in his body started to feel more hot and vigorous.

The pain wasn't as bad as he remembered and it disappeared in a few minutes.

Purifying the Yang Qi in your body… 98%

Purifying the Yang Qi in your body… 99%

Purifying the Yang Qi in your body… 100%

Congratulation, the Yang Qi in your body has been purified and condensed

Yang purity at 20%

The change wasn't as intense as he had expected it to be. All the Qi he had in his body had been condensed to about 90% of the original size, yet it did the same amount of work as the previous 100%. Meaning, when his body was full of Qi, he could now do more.

"Hmm… will my Qi last about 10% longer now? That is more substantial than I had previously guessed."

He tried his new 20% purity Yang Qi on different things. He used Flame Mastery Scripture and found it more manageable. Qi manipulation could carry heavier things now, meaning he could also fly a bit faster. His Smiting Blade was probably more powerful now as well, though he didn't dare use it here.

After he was done testing with his techniques, he decided to try making some pills. Unfortunately, his alchemy skills didn't get any better from having a better Qi.

"So my previous Qi was already good enough for it, it seems." He made about 6 different pills using the ingredients he had left, mixed with the new ingredients he got from Song Zun's storage bag.

He logged out to get some food and came back in. He decided to learn the new technique before going to do his work, so he walked down to the sect valley.

He had about an hour before he had to go to work, so he walked to the library. He showed his nameplate through the different floors and reached the 8th floor.

He had an hour to spend, and taking back the book only took a minute, so he decided to go up a floor and read all the records on the 9th floor that he had previously skipped.

Since everything on the 9th floor had to stay there, he started picking the records one by one and started reading them. He read one after another record and realized something.

"Hmm… most of these aren't even alchemy related."

Most of them were just historical records, some about the sect and some about other things. It seemed the sect only went as far back as 50 years, so it didn't have a lot of history in this place.

Some of the records also talked about cultivation rumors and rare monsters. Very few records had anything to do with alchemy, talking about pills with no recipes or ingredients that were very rare and hard to find.

He saw a record of Spirit Cleansing Lily talking about how hard it was to actually pick it. The person who wrote the record had no idea what to do when one actually found it and only talked about how to recognize it.

Alex read through all the records and quickly memorized them. After finishing the records, he looked at the time and realized it was time to leave. He walked down to the 8th floor and quickly found the immortal technique with his spiritual sense.

He took the book down to the ground floor, where the attending elder at the gate unlocked the seal on the book. Every book had these seals to stop the disciples from reading the books inside the library, and the seal could only be removed by an elder with a corresponding medallion.

After the book was unsealed, Alex walked towards the alchemy garden while constantly reading the book in his bag using his spiritual sense.

Before he could even reach the garden, he got a notification.

Congratulations. You have successfully learned [Flickering Shadows]

'Hmm… that took about the same time as the Immortal Concealing technique. I wonder how it compares to that technique. Master did say it was a movement technique so maybe comparing those two isn't the best idea.'

He immediately opened the techniques panel and looked at the description of the technique.

[Flickering Shadows

Grade: Immortal

Teleport to any shadow with a larger area than your palm within 10 meters. You can also travel to where ever your own shadow is. Qi used to teleport depends on the distance.]

"Huh?? Teleport?" he was expecting some techniques that allowed him to move really fast when he heard the word 'Movement Technique', but somehow this was on a whole other level.

'If I can teleport to anywhere with a shadow then… isn't that pretty overpowered? No wonder it's an Immortal grade technique.'

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Chapter 84: Teleportation

Alex practically ran to reach the garden after learning the new technique. He couldn't wait to learn the technique, so needed to finish his work fast.

'Is it really teleportation?' he was getting a little excited.

He greeted the two elders and was handed the lists to the ingredients. He immediately walked in to start looking for the ingredients. He was looking around with his spiritual sense when he stopped.

There were absolutely no lanterns in the alchemy garden as anyone allowed to enter there was usually elders or other people with authority who already had great eyesight and could see everything in the garden clearly, even at night.

But just because someone could see at night, didn't mean there was light there. Which meant,

"It's all shadows!!" Alex got excited and decided to try out the technique right now.

The Immortal Concealing technique was one that worked on its own and he himself didn't have to do anything. So, this was the first time he was truly using an Immortal grade technique.

The alchemy gardens were forbidden grounds in the sect as they were too precious to let just about anyone in it. So, in order to not make some stupid mistakes and accidentally destroy some plants, he decided to use Focus mode.

Ever since he learned spiritual sense, he had no longer required Focus mode. His mind was just that quick at processing the information he obtained. Especially during alchemy, Spiritual sense had made focus mode pretty much redundant.

Still, Focus mode was amazing at amplifying the 6 senses of a cultivator and elevating their entire state of awareness to another level.

As soon as he activated Focus mode, Alex felt like he had breathed in a new life. Everything started looking so vibrant again. The numerous smells of the alchemy ingredients fragrantly drifting in the air made his nose tingle a little.

The cool air of night made his skin refreshed and he could hear the rustling of leaves and plants from far away.

Although everything was bright to his eyes, he knew they were all dark in reality. So, he started activating his technique. He looked inside of him with his senses and saw a flash of multicolored light before it vanished and he saw his qi.

The yellow in his Qi reminded him of the Yang jade he intakes just a few hours ago. Slowly, the Qi started moving around his body. His Qi moved along the familiar meridians taking a different path.

It moved towards his eyes and brain, and suddenly spots around him started to light up. The spots closer to him had less light, while the ones further had more. The furthest spot was no more than 10 meters away from him.

He used his spiritual sense and realized similar things were happening all around him even without his vision. The Qi suddenly stopped moving when it reached his head, and the light stayed lit up all around him.

'What's happening? Am I supposed to choose a spot right now?' he focused and looked at a spot that was open and not near any ingredients. Suddenly, the Qi started flowing once more, and he felt as if his entire world disappeared.

The world appeared once more, but he was no longer where he had been before. He had teleported to the spot he thought of. The juxtaposition of the previous senses followed by the instant shift to the new senses caused him to not realize what was happening for a brief moment.

He collected himself and looked where he was. He was facing the same direction he had been before and had teleported to the exact spot he thought of. He felt his Qi and found almost none of it had been used.

'I can do this for a long time.' He started moving his qi once more and spots of light started appearing in his vision. This time he chose one that was the furthest away.

The Qi started moving once more from his head, but it took a while before his teleportation activated. Once more, the sudden change was too much for even his spiritual sea enhanced brain to handle.

'I need to practice more.'

He teleported around the place while picking the ingredients at the same time. It took him quite a while to finish picking up the ingredients on this alchemy garden.

He walked out of the garden after a while and met the agitated faces of the two elders.

"Disciple Yu, is something going on inside? We were worried about you. You took so long." Elder Zhan said.

"That's right. We thought you might have fainted or something. Or did you find another set of ingredients missing?" Elder Wang seemed pretty worried too.

'Why are they so worried about me? It's not like I took a lot of ti— ' he looked at the clock on the top right corner of his vision and realized it was nearly midnight.

"What? It's been 3 hours?" he was shocked. Elder Wang and Elder Zhan got a little startled seeing his sudden shouting. Alex looked back at the elders and said,

"I'm so sorry elder. I learned a new technique today and was practicing it inside while picking the ingredients. I somehow completely lost the track of time. I will go and pick the ingredients from the next garden immediately."

He said and ran off towards the other garden. He didn't practice his technique in this garden so it only took him about half an hour to finish.

"Here you go, Elders." He handed the ingredients and bid them farewell for the day.

He was near the second garden, which was close to the disciple's hall, so he decided to go register the pills he had made today. He looked towards the direction he needed to go and thought about using the technique.

He started moving his Qi to teleport a bit away, but when the time came for the spots to light up, not a single light appeared near him, aside from a few near the bases of the different buildings. Everything else was lit up like the day.

Since he had nowhere to teleport to, he decided not to, except…

"Wait… how do I stop this?"

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Chapter 85: Registering Pills

The Qi was now stuck in his head and wasn't moving anywhere. So he constantly saw the places light up in his vision. He looked around didn't see a single place he could properly teleport to.

The places he could were either near a building or in the midst of multiple disciples.

'Wait, let's check with my spiritual sense.'

He sent out his spiritual sense in a 10-meter radius and found more places he could teleport to. Some of them were inside the buildings, some on the roof of the buildings.

But one spot he hadn't thought of had also lit up. It was the underside of everything that touched the ground. From barrels to the lanterns to the numerous people walking, the underside of all of those was lit up.

'Of course, those places are always in the shadows. So, I can teleport there, huh?'

He couldn't think of a good place to teleport for now other than his own shadow under his foot, so he chose that. The Qi moved and vanished.

'Huh? Did I even teleport?' the senses never changed so he didn't know if he actually teleported at all or not. But the Qi started moving so he stopped caring about it.

He walked the rest of the way to the disciple hall. He looked at the ranking stone in front of the hall and realized his spot on the stone had fallen down quite a lot.

'Well, I don't think I should even care about the rankings anymore. It's difficult to compare me with the normal disciples.'

He walked towards the back and looked at the rankings there too. The alchemy achievements ranking no longer had Song Zun in the third place like it used to. in fact, Song Zun was no longer on the list.

He walked into the disciple hall and got into a line. When his time came, he walked in and saw an inner sect disciple on the desk. He took out 6 different pill bottles with a single pill in each of them and placed them on the desk.

"I'm registering these pills."

The inner sect disciple was one step away from falling asleep. He wanted to go back to his cottage, but because he hadn't gotten enough contribution points for this week, he was stuck here working through the night.

He said nothing and took one of the pill bottles and took out the pill inside. His lazy eyes immediately got serious as he felt the quality of the pill.

He took out a pill tester and put the pill inside. He watched the fog slowly rise up and stop at 33%. His eyes were wider than they had ever been. Same with his jaw.

He looked up at Alex and checked his appearance closely. Alex had the face of someone who hadn't even reached 20 years old and was wearing an outer sect disciple's clothing.

'Is this a joke?' he thought.

"You are registering this?" the disciple asked.

"Yes," Alex didn't think much of the question.

The inner disciple frowned. "Did you make this?" he asked.

"Of course. Why else would I bring it here to register?" Alex found the line of questioning weird but thought that it probably was the first time the inner sect disciple had seen an outer sect disciple bring a pill that even the core disciples would be jealous of.

The inner sect disciple's frown remained as he took out a medallion to check the latest sales info about Alex. The only info he got was that Alex had bought ingredients on only 2 occasions. Once about 12 days ago, and once about a week ago. Other than that, there was no transaction history between him and the sect.

Furthermore, the ingredients he bought both of the times did not match the pills in his hands, so he started to get more suspicious.

If it had been a normal scenario, he might have sent Alex away saying that wrongly claiming someone else's pill as his own was a crime that was punishable in the sect. But the pill he was holding was one that even the majority of the core disciples couldn't make with their best effort.

So, he immediately notified an elder that someone was trying to falsely register a 33% harmony pill.

"Stay here, I have called an elder." The inner sect disciple said while keeping the 6 pill bottles with himself and went on to do his task starting with the next one in line.

After 10 or so disciples in the line were done, someone wearing an elder's robe walked in. As soon as the inner sect disciple saw the elder, he stood up and greeted him.

"Greeting, Eighteenth Elder."

Alex turned around to see who had just come in and saw the elder's face too.

"Greetings, Elder Lang." This was the same person that had taken his entrance exam and brought him into the sect.

Lang Shun walked in and saw Alex standing to the side and was surprised.

'Did he do something wrong?' he walked up to the inner disciple and asked, "What's going on?"

The inner sect disciple immediately took out the 6 different pill bottles and put the pill back on the pill tester. Lang Shun found the action weird but said nothing. He slowly watched the fog rise up the side of the glass.

He thought of nothing as it reached 10%. When it reached 15%, he was impressed. He was surprised when he saw it reach 20%. But the fog still kept on going and reached 25%— this got him really astonished.

But the fog still kept on going and reached 30% and it was showing no signs of stopping. Lang Shun watched the fog slowly creep up more and only stopped at 33%.

He immediately walked forward and took the pill tester and looked at it closely to absolutely make sure he was reading it right.

"What is this? Who brought this pill?" he asked.

The inner sect disciple simply pointed at Alex and said, "That outer sect disciple over there. He says he made it himself, but there is no proof."

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Chapter 86: Just register them

Lang Shun looked at the direction the inner sect disciple was pointing and realized the one being pointed at was Alex. He took the 6 pill bottles and walked to Alex while the inner sect disciple got back to his work.

"Martial nephew, did you bring in these pills?" he asked.

"Yes, elder." Alex simply answered.

Lang Shun smiled a little and said, "Don't call me an elder. Call me martial uncle. You master and I are disciples of the same master."

Alex was surprised. Ma Rong had never mentioned anything about it. "Yes, martial uncle. I brought those pills."

"The disciple says you claim to have made these pills yourself, is that true?" he asked.

"Yes. I made these pills today by myself." Alex answered.

"You know that you shouldn't lie about these things, right martial nephew? Even if you are the sect leader's disciple, you can get punished for these sort of things." Lang Shun tried to be gentle with the approach.

Alex found it funny, and said, "You don't have to worry about that, martial uncle. I didn't steal them or anything. I made them on my own."

Lang Shun felt a problem coming. He turned back towards the inner sect disciple and asked, "You said there was no proof or something. What did you mean?"

The inner sect disciple who was busy dealing with something immediately stopped his work, and said, "Elder, there is no sales information regarding the ingredients to his pills." The inner sect disciple said.

Lang Shun got curious and asked, "Where did you find the ingredients from then?"

"From the southern forest. I spend 3 days searching day and night for the ingredients before being found by master in a near-death situation." Alex answered without hesitation.

Lang Shun got a little surprised. 'Searching for alchemy ingredients in the southern forest? And what is this about him being in a near-death situation?"

Lang Shun thought for a bit and said, "Alright. You can go. I will take these pills and see what I can do about registering them." He assured Alex, so Alex went back.

Lang Shun also walked out with the pills and called Ma Rong in her communication talisman.

"Sister, can you come to the elder hall for a bit. Your disciple did something that is creating a little sticky situation."

He himself walked to the elder hall and waited for Ma Rong in a private meeting room. Ma Rong flew down and immediately found Lang Shun with her spiritual sense.

The elder around her almost expected to see a disciple get thrown to the ground like yesterday. But alas, she was alone.

Without batting an eye to anyone's greeting, she walked straight to the room with Lang Shun.

"What's going on? Is something wrong with Yu Ming?" she started asking the moment she walked through the door.

Lang Shun wasn't expecting her to be so stirred up. He tried to calm her down by saying, "Nothing is wrong with your disciple. He is fine. It's more like he might have done something wrong."

Ma Rong got a little confused, "What do you mean?"

Lang Shun took out a pill bottle and put the pill inside it to a pill tester. Ma Rong watched the pill tester fog up to 36 to signify that the pill had a 36% harmony.

But she still couldn't understand what was going on. "Did you make the pills? Why are you showing me this?"

"No, I didn't. But, your disciple claims he did, and he got caught at the disciple hall today while registering these."

Ma Rong heard that and said, "Oh, he finally started registering, did he? Took him long enough. So? What is wrong here? I still don't understand."

"Sister, your disciple obviously didn't make these. He joined the sect 2 weeks ago. It's impossible for him to have made these." Lang Shun tried to reason.

Ma Rong just found that funny. She forgot that she was one of the only ones who knew about Alex's talent.

"Check the other pills." She said.

Lang Shun complied and tested all the different pills. 33%, 35%, 34%, 43%, and 39%. Together with the previous 36%, the 6 pills all had a ridiculous amount of harmony. Something impossible for even someone in the top 10 list of Alchemy Achievements ranking.

"Hmm… he is getting better than I thought. Alright, register those pills under my disciple's name. If that is all, I'm leaving." She started walking out.

"Wait, sister." Lang Shun was shocked at how little she cared about the situation. She should have been showing more interest in this situation since her disciple was involved.

"What is it now? If you won't register it then make the elder who called you register it." Ma Rong started to get irritated.

"Why are you giving this situation so little care, sister? Your disciple is trying to cheat here. So blatantly, as well."

Ma Rong just laughed it off now. "He is not. He made those pills. I've watched him make similar pills every morning. Just go register those pills. And also tell the elder who 'caught' him to stop thinking about it."

Lang Shun was surprised to hear that Alex had really made this. He still found it unbelievable, but if his sister was saying that, then he had no choice but to believe.

"Alright then, I'll register them and tell the inner sect disciple who stopped him to forget about it." Lang Shun said sluggishly.

Ma Rong stopped in her step, and turned back, "Inner sect disciple? Why would an inner sect disciple stop him instead of an elder?"

Lang Shun cocked his head and said, "Of course an inner sect disciple would stop him. Do you even know how the disciple hall works, sister?"

Ma Rong was taken aback a bit. "Of course I know how the disciple hall works. I'm just asking why an inner sect disciple would …" suddenly she realized something and sighed,

"Don't tell me that idiot tried to register in the outer sect portion of the disciple hall?"

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Chapter 87: Evaluating the Pros and Cons

"Of course, he would register in the outer sect section of the disciple hall. He is after all still an outer sect disciple. Where else would he register then?"

Ma Rong felt a headache coming. "I should have told him to go to the elders directly. I can't believe he tried to register such important pills through an inner sect disciple. I can see now why you were called."

"Honestly, I don't understand how someone can be so talented in cultivation and alchemy, yet so dumb when it comes to having the most basic of sense. It's almost like he was born a month ago, or at least was born in a place where cultivation isn't a thing at all."

Lang Shun was stunned at his senior sister pretty much bashing on her disciple. Still, something she said caught his attention.

"Is he really that talented? I knew he was good from the entrance exam, but I didn't think he would be so talented to make 30% harmony pills in less than a month." He said.

"You don't even know the half of it. If he were to break through to the True Qi realm right now, he would best you in making True grade pills in less than a month, and best me in a month after that. That's how good he is."

Ma Rong immediately changed from bashing on her disciple to praising him.

Lang Shun didn't know what to say, but the praise felt a little too unbelievable. "Do you really believe that?" he asked.

Ma Rong simply said, "You will see in a few months after he reaches True realm. Maybe it won't even take that long since I will start teaching him when half of his Qi transforms to True Qi."

Ma Rong left after that. Lang Shun just stayed there stunned as only one question ran through his mind. 'Bone tempering to True realm in a few months... Is that even possible?'

Alex, in the meanwhile, had finally returned to his residence. The entire way through, he kept practicing the Flickering Shadows technique. He didn't walk a single step from the base of the mountain to his residence. He teleported the entire way through.

He was starting to get the hang of it but still had some trouble mentally processing the instant change of environment.

'I wonder if I would be better at it if my spiritual sea were to get larger.' Gaining spiritual sea had vastly increased his mental capability, so it would go without question that he would start thinking this way.

He went to his courtyard to train some more. He learned quite a few things while practicing the technique.

The technique had features he didn't expect, but also had a multitude of limitations he hadn't even thought of.

The technique was best used during the nighttime when everything was in the shadows. He could teleport to walls, trees, or even the shadow on some things underside, and would always appear to the side or upon it depending on which was closer without harming the cultivator.

The next thing was that the teleportation was pretty much instantaneous. He threw a rock towards the pond and waited for the rock to just touch the surface. He then instantly teleported to the rock and managed to graze it with a few fingers before it sank to the bottom.

While his aim was still a little off, he did learn that there was no time between moving from one spot to another.

Another thing he learned was that there was almost no downtime between his teleports. He could teleport to one spot and immediately teleport to another spot. Theoretically, he could go around the entire city and return to this spot within a dozen seconds.

However, life wasn't always so easy. Along with those incredible abilities, the technique also came with a lot of limitations that stopped him from doing what he wanted to do.

The first and most obvious thing was that his mental ability wasn't strong enough to process where he was and where he needed to go fast enough for him to teleport without stops.

The second most obvious problem was that the ability was useless during the day, in an open ground like the training areas or desserts, or other flat surfaces where there were not a lot of shadows in general.

The more he thought about this problem, the more he found how annoying the problem was. If he were to someday fight while flying, the technique was pretty much useless as there would be no shadows in the sky.

Also, while the amount of Qi used during the teleports wasn't substantial, it would still accumulate after a while to become a moderately big factor for getting low on Qi.

Another thing that bugged him was that while it was called a 'movement technique', it more so focused on dodging and getting surprise attacks on the enemies. It would also help him to get out of traps or another enclosing.

'They should have instead called it an escaping technique, instead of movement technique. I should probably get an actual movement technique when I go to the Tiger sect.'

Still, despite all its flaws, it was an amazing technique befitting of its immortal grade. The next day, he split his day between practicing the Veiled Light technique, the Flickering Shadows technique, and making some pills to register.

His master had messaged him and explicitly mentioned that he should only find an elder in the core disciple section of the disciple hall if he wanted to register the pills.

His night went similarly as well. He started his evening going down the mountain to complete his job in the alchemy garden. Then he went to the disciple hall's second floor amongst the confused and curious eyes to register the 4 new pills he had made, each above 30% in harmony.

Then he went back to his residence to practice the Flickering Shadows technique once more. He had made massive progression in it with just days worth of practice. He couldn't wait to see how good it would be when he used it to its fullest potential.

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Chapter 88: Experience for a Cultivator

Alex had practiced the entire night without stop. His Qi was enough for him to practice more than 8 hours before his Qi ran dry.

Still, he cultivated after three-quarters of his Qi was gone so that he could recover it for now. He decided to check where he was with his status.

"Status"

————————

[Player Name: Yu Ming

Cultivation: Bone Tempering 4th Realm (300,000 Qi : 100%) [Breakthrough]

Body: Sun God's Divine Yang Body

Talent: God

Spiritual Roots: 5 elements Yin-Yang roots

Cultivation Method: Starry Sky Qi Absorption Method

Qi: 1,825,388

]

—————————

He had managed to accumulate a lot of Qi, but if he were to breakthrough right now, it probably wouldn't be enough to even reach Bone Tempering 9th realm.

'I should have stabilized my cultivation base enough, right? It has been a few days since I broke through,' he thought and pushed the breakthrough button once.

Congratulations. You have broken through to 'Bone Tempering: 5th Realm'

"Alright, let's go get some food." He decided to log out to get some breakfast when suddenly, he sensed his master coming.

'Hmm… didn't she say she would no longer teach me? Why is she here then?'

He walked out to greet her. "Good morning, Master. Do we have alchemy lessons today?" he asked.

"No, I was on my way down to the sect valley when I remembered something. Do you have anything going on today?" she asked.

He didn't have to think to know that today was the day his pills were getting auctioned off, so he was looking forward to going to the auction to check out how it was. "Yes, Master." He simply told her.

"Cancel that then. Today you and I are going somewhere else." She said.

Alex got a little surprised. "Umm… master, does it have to be today? I was quite looking forward to my thing today." He said.

Ma Rong frowned, and asked, "Do you need to do your thing, or want to do your thing?"

Alex thought for a bit. 'I don't really need to be in the auction for my pills to sell. I only wanted to check them out, that was all.'

He sighed and said, "I just wanted to, master."

Ma Rong looked proud like she had just won, and said, "Good. I will come to get you in a few hours, and we will leave then."

She then left.

Alex got a little disappointed at the fact that he wouldn't be able to view the auction. He finally accepted the fact and logged out to get some breakfast.

He went back to the game to make a few more pills before logging out once more for lunch. He went back to the game after lunch once more.

He decided to stabilize his cultivation base while he was waiting for his master. He started using the various different techniques he knew, aside from the Immortal Concealing technique.

Otherwise, his master might actually miss his existence and not find him. He was in the middle of flying when his master walked into the courtyard.

Her eyes widened a little as she saw him freely, albeit slowly, flying through the air. 'His Qi can already carry his weight so much? How thick is his Qi?' she wondered.

Alex looked at his master and realized she was weaker than before. 'Did something happen to her?'

"Master, is something wrong?" he asked.

Ma Rong got a little confused, so she asked, "No, why do you ask?"

"Oh, it's just that you felt weaker to me." He said.

Ma Rong laughed a little and said, "That means it's somewhat working. I have started learning the Immortal Concealing technique. I can somewhat use it right now, but it only hides a fraction of my Qi, not all. That's why you thought I was weaker."

"Oh. I should have known that. How long do you think it will take you to completely learn it?" he asked.

"Hmm… I can't tell right now. Although it's going smoothly right now, I might hit a bottleneck somewhere. However, it shouldn't take more than a few months as most. I am quite confident about that." She said.

She then thought of something and asked," Did you learn the Flickering Shadows technique?"

Alex immediately got more attentive and said, "Yes, master. It's such a good technique."

He then activated the technique and started randomly teleporting to different shadows. Some of the walls, some of the trees, and some even of the hidden side of the rocks near the pond.

Ma Rong looked his with a bunch of envious eyes. 'How can he be so talented. When I first started teleporting, I had to vomit because I couldn't handle the sudden change in scenery. Is it because of his spiritual sense?' she wondered.

"Alright, stop," she said and watched Alex teleport to a shadow next to her.

She looked at him and asked, "Is that your best robe? It looks a little dirty." Alex looked at his robe and realized it had a lot of dust on it, and needed to be washed. He had been wearing this robe for almost 10 days now.

"I have a new robe I haven't worn yet," he said. He had gotten a replacement robe after he had notified that his first one had been torn apart from the fight in the forest. Fortunately, thanks to his full access to everything, he was able to get the robe without giving a single thing in return.

"Alright, go and change into those." She said and waited for him to change.

Alex came back out within minutes in his clean, new robes. "Are we leaving now, master? Is it okay if I ask where we are going?" he asked.

Ma Rong simply said, "As a cultivator, you lack a surprising amount of common sense. It might be because you are new to cultivation and don't know much about it. But now that you are a cultivator, there are things you need to be experienced on if you want to be successful in cultivation."

"One of those is to find appropriate cultivation methods, techniques, artifacts, and pills for yourself. So, today we are going to the best place to get these things, which is an auction house."

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Chapter 89: Pink Cloud Auction House

"Huh… did you just say auction house, master?" Alex thought he heard her wrong.

"Yes. Auction house. You need to learn how to search for items in auctions as well as have the proper etiquette in there." Ma Rong repeated.

'Oh, so we are going to an auction after all. I wonder if it's the same auction house as the one I was going to. I should have checked if there were others.'

"Alright, master. Let's leave." He said as he started walking outside.

"Where are you going?" Ma Rong asked him.

"Uhh… to the auction house?" why would she ask him this?

Ma Rong chuckled a little and said, "get back here." She then proceeded to take out her boat-like artifact. "We aren't going to walk all the way there. It's too inefficient. We are going to fly there."

She jumped and got onto the boat. "Oh, right. Make sure to not use the Immortal Concealment technique today. It's not good to show other people that you can hide your cultivation from them." She also canceled her technique and her cultivation base started giving off the same strong aura as before.

Alex wasn't using his technique so he just nodded and told her he won't use it today. He got onto the boat without asking and settled himself on the back of the boat.

After seeing everything was ready, Ma Rong flew off. Ma Rong hadn't sped up or anything. She just flew at her normal flying speed that just made Alex feel a cool breeze on his face.

Still, they ended up reaching the auction house in less than 10 minutes. 'Not having to go up and down the mountains or walk jagged path really does help trim down your travel time a lot,' he thought. He couldn't wait for the time when his flying speed would be faster than his walking speed.

Ma Rong flew down in front of the auction house and jumped down. Alex followed behind her as well. He was happy to find out that this was the same auction house as he wanted to go to. Somehow fate had taken away his chance and gave it back to him.

"This is the Pink Cloud Auction house. This is their secondary branch, while their main branch is in the capital of the empire, Cardinal city. There are only these 2 branches. Today, they will sell quite a lot of things, so I brought you here to check it out."

Alex hadn't even come during the auction time so he was quite shocked at the number of people waiting outside. "Come," Ma Rong said as she walked towards something she seemed to have noticed.

"Greetings, City lord, lady," Ma Rong greeted a purple-robed couple that just flew down. These were Fu Wen and Mo An, the husband-wife pair that ruled the Scarlet City under the authority of the crimson empire.

"Ah, Sect leader, you are here early." Fu Wen said with a big smile. Mo An greeted from the side as well.

Fu Wen then saw Alex to her side. "Oh, isn't this our little friend from back then? Hello." He said with a smiling face.

"Greet the city lord," Ma Rong's voice sounded in his head.

"Greetings, City lord, lady," he used the same greetings as his master.

"Let's go inside," he said and started walking towards the door. Alex looked around and saw the many people still standing outside. There still sometime before the auction started, and seeing the many people standing outside, he wondered if he would even be allowed inside so early.

But, he seemed to be overthinking things. The people he was with were some of the VVIPs in the city. The auction house wasn't going to offend the City and one of the only 2 sects that was in the city, just because they arrived early.

He had just walked inside the door when he saw a girl walk up to his master— No, she was walking up to him. He looked at her face and realized who it was.

"Hello, sect leader Ma, little brother. It's good to see you here." Luo Mei had arrived in front of them.

"Hello, Lady Luo," Ma Rong greeted her.

"Hello, Daoist Luo," Alex greeted her as well.

Both Ma Rong and Luo Mei looked at him weirdly. Both of them suddenly started chuckling. Alex got weirded out as he couldn't understand why they were laughing.

"Why are you acting so distant towards her?" Ma Rong asked.

"Yeah, little brother. You should call me sister now that we have the same master." Luo Mei said as well.

Alex was a little surprised. Then he understood what was going on. "Oh, I didn't know that. In that case, I should call you senior sister."

Ma Rong looked towards Luo Mei and asked, "Lady Luo, are you here with your master?"

"Oh no. I'm here with my friends. Master should be arriving anytime soon by himself. I came early." She said.

"Oh, my friends seem to be restless, I will see you guys later." She left towards her friends somewhere deeper in the hall.

"Hmm… did she try to run away from us?" Ma Rong got a little taken aback.

"I don't think so, she probably saw her friends and went back." Alex simply said.

"Can't be. She didn't even turn around." Ma Rong said.

"Oh, did you forget master? She has a spiritual sense too. I told you I only learned about spiritual sense after she asked me to pick up a Spirit Cleansing Lily for her."

Ma Rong didn't remember much from that day. The whole day had gone by in a flash because of how unbelievable that day was.

She cleared her thoughts and started walking down the hall once more. "Come on, let's go. The auction should start anytime now." They finally reached the end of the hall where a lot of staff members, both high and low ranking of the auction house were standing there waiting to guide the newly arrived guests to their rooms.

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Chapter 90: Auction Starts

Alex looked around and didn't find Cai Ping anywhere in the hall at all. 'Is she somewhere else, busy preparing the auction?' he wondered.

A girl walked up to them and took them to a VIP room from where you could see the stage, but nobody else could see you.

There was an array of seats inside spread among the almost 10 by 10 meters big room. Alex sat on a random seat near the window at the front where the view was the best. Ma Rong sat where she could only see the stage.

The girl who came with them also stayed in the room but remained standing next to the door.

There was time to spare, so Alex decided to ask his master something. He made sure he wasn't loud enough for the girl to listen.

"Master, how do I speak into someone's head?"

Ma Rong wasn't expecting such a question in an environment like this. Still, she answered. "It's easy. Just send out your spiritual sense to someone's head and say things in your mind. They will be able to hear it in their head."

Alex heard it in his head and decided to try. He sent out his spiritual sense towards Ma Rong and asked, "Can you hear me?"

"Yes," an answer came to his head. He was happy learning it had worked. Now he didn't have to worry about communicating in secret if the need ever arises.

Time passed by as more and more people came and sat at the seats in the open down below.

"Oh, he's here too." Ma Rong seemed to be quite surprised by someone's arrival. Alex looked below the window but didn't recognize anyone. So he asked, "Who are you talking about master?"

"The man with the black hat, 5 rooms to our left. He is the sect leader of Honor sect from Rosewood city." Ma Rong said.

He tried to look who it was, but his spiritual sense couldn't reach so far away. 5 rooms were about 50 meters in total length, even when stretched to the maximum, he could only cover a radius of 30 meters with his spiritual sense. So, he couldn't see who his master was talking about.

"You can see that far master? What is your radius on your spiritual sense?" he couldn't help but ask.

"My radius? It's about 50 or so meters. I can do about 75 at best. I need to eat more spirit-enriching pills to be able to increase it more." She said.

'Wow, so far,' he was amazed at how far she could send out her spiritual sense. 'But what's a spirit-enriching pill? I don't remember any pill like that in the recipes I got from the library. Nor did the records have anything about them.'

"Do you have a recipe for that pill, master?" he asked.

"Yes, I do. It's a personal recipe my master handed down to me. I will give you the recipe when you have True Qi. Since it's a True pill, giving it to you now would be useless." She said.

Alex accepted the reasoning and sat back. He watched as the entire room filled up. There weren't a lot of people he recognized here if any. He saw some disciples from both of his sects, most of whom seemed to be a core disciples.

He sent out his spiritual sense to the 2 different rooms on either side of his room and realized he didn't know any of them either. The world was big, and he hadn't lived in it for long. So it was obvious that he wouldn't recognize them.

There was one thing that surprised him, however. There was a person in a room next to the room adjacent to his left. The thing that surprised him regarding this person was that he was fat, extremely fat.

It looked like he could barely walk, especially with all the jewelry he was wearing. There seemed to be 4 people next to him all fit and seemed to be very alert.

"Master, who is the fat guy 2 rooms over?" he asked through his spiritual sense.

Ma Rong checked the room and said, "That is Huo Zemin, he is the head of the Victorious Snow merchant group originating in our Scarlet city. They are the third richest merchant group in all of the Crimson Empire."

'Third richest? I wonder how many spirit stones he has.'

Alex moved his attentions elsewhere waiting for the auction to start. He looked at the talisman on the table. He had already scanned it and realized it was the list of items that would be auctioned off today.

He wanted to be completely in the unknown so didn't read it at all.

Finally, once everyone had arrived and the seats on the base were full, the lights in the room and the hall started to dim, while the lights on the stage started to shine brighter.

Everyone waited with bated breath as the curtain on the stage finally started to move and a woman walked from the inside.

"Good afternoon, everyone. I hope you are all settled and ready for the auction. Welcome to the bi-annual mega auction of the Pink Cloud auction house, presented to you by myself, Cai Ping." Cai Ping had finally appeared in a beautiful blue dress. She swiped her hands and a large desk along with a wooden hammer appeared out of nowhere.

"If you are all prepared. We will bring out the first item." She said, and a few people walked up with a square-shaped box with a cloth on top of it. They placed it on the desk and walked away.

Cai Ping walked ahead of the box with exaggerated theatrics in her motion and held a corner of the cloth.

"And for our first item of the day, we have…" She paused for a moment to increase the suspense and finally lifted the cloth to show a small uneven ball of yellow color with a bunch of white patches all over it.

"A Clouded Tiger Cub."

Chapter 91: Beast Companion

"A Clouded Tiger cub."

Cai Ping proudly showed off the first item at the auction. It was a newly born monster that they had somehow captured and brought to the auction.

'What is the point of selling a cub? Why not just capture an adult and sell them. Is this for some rich people's amusement? It certainly can't be for the ingredients or even the meat.' he wondered.

"As many of you may know, a Clouded Tiger has an almost guaranteed chance to reach the True realms, and even a very little chance of reaching the Saint realms."

"The cub is 4 weeks old and perfectly healthy. We have checked and found him to have no physical problems as well. We will start the bid at 5 common spirit stones, with 10 gold of minimum increment."

"510 gold"

"520 gold"

530 gold"

.

.

.

The auction house suddenly started thundering with the sound of the numerous bid. Cai Ping's smile got wider each time she heard a bit. She would get about 2% of the revenue from each of these sales, so the more it sold for, the richer she got.

Within the first 20 seconds, the bid had crossed 10 spirit stones. Alex got surprised seeing this. This behavior was completely different from what he had expected. He thought only a few people would bid for the cub; but seeing so many people bid for it, he realized his idea of what the cub was used for must be mistaken.

Ma Rong looked at his interested eyes and got a little surprised. "Do you want the cub?" she asked him.

Alex was startled as he was focused on the happenings below. He looked towards his master and said, "No, master. I was just curious why so many people would want a tiger cub and not just get an adult tiger?"

"Of course, that's because they want to raise the cub themselves. A monster trained from birth is so much easier to make a companion out of than a normal adult monster." She said to him explaining why so many people were bidding for the cub.

"A companion? What's that? Do you make friends with monsters? Why would you?" he got so very confused hearing his master's explanation. They only brought forth more questions than answers.

Ma Rong suddenly remembered how much common knowledge her disciple was lacking. She laughed a little to herself and started explaining.

"Beast companions are an important aspect of a cultivator's life. Cultivators can make a bond with a beast and control them. They can make the beasts fight for them, or just have them as a friend through their journey as a cultivator. Overall, the beasts can help you in a lot of places."

"That cub right there is a newborn monster. Those are somewhat rare to come by. A young monster is very naive and gullible, so after a few weeks or months of getting treated well by the other party, they happily bond to them. That is why the people down there are so excited to bid for it. "

"If they manage to get it and raise it to the True realms. It can be a true powerhouse that can deter their foes and help them gain fame, money, and status in life. Even if they themselves happen to be weak or untalented in cultivation, having such a beast companion would offset everything."

"In fact, even I am a little tempted to get the cub. But I won't as I am quite satisfied with my beast for now." Ma Rong said.

Alex got surprised to hear that, "You have a beast companion, master? How come I haven't seen it yet? Does it not live in the mountain?"

"Oh, I forgot to mention. Beast companions are a little unique, in that they don't live in the physical world after they bond with a cultivator. Look," she said as she swept aside a bit of her long hair to show her beautiful white skin on her neck.

On the neck was a small circular pattern that looked like it was a long beast coiling. "This is where my beast lives. I can call her anytime I want, and she would fight for me."

Ma Rong let go of her hair and asked, "So, do you want to get the cub?"

Alex gave the question serious thought. From what his master had just said, a beast companion would be an amazing help for him if he wanted to become a stronger cultivator. However, he didn't want that. He just wanted to cultivate normally, and see where life went in the game.

His main focus was on Alchemy, which he both liked and had a great talent in. He had gotten lucky with the technique, and now he was incredibly happy with it. So, he didn't think getting a beast companion could make that any better.

"No, master." He simply shook his head. Ma Rong nodded, seemingly thinking that was the correct choice for him. Distracting himself with a beast right now might hinder his progress in alchemy.

By the time the master-disciple pair's conversation had come to a stop, the bidding war for the tiger cub was also ending.

"13 spirit stones." Someone shouted.

"13 spirit stones, is anyone else bidding." Cai Ping asked the crowd.

"13 spirit stones and 50 golds." Someone else shouted from the crowd.

"13 spirit stones and 50 gold, does anyone else have a higher bid?" Cai Ping asked once more. She waited for a few seconds and heard back nothing from the crowd. So, she took the gavel and started saying,

"13 spirit stones and 50 golds going once." Nobody talked.

"13 spirit stones and 50 golds going twice." Still silence.

"13 spirit stones and 50 golds going thrice, Sold!!" Cai Ping hit the gavel on the table with a loud bang.

"The first item of the day, the Clouded Tiger cub, has been sold to the lady on seat 45 for 13 spirit stones and 50 gold coins. Congratulations."

A few staff members came and took the cub away, and replaced it with another box hidden with a cloth.

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Chapter 92: Small Money Talk

The next items on the list sold at a similar rate. People started bidding as soon as it was allowed, and mostly the ones who bid were from the lower hall.

The prices of the items were slowly getting higher and higher as the bid price for the latest sold sword started with 18 spirit stones.

Once again, after the sword was taken away, another box arrived with a cloth on top of it. Cai Ping acted exaggeratedly and pulled down the cloth.

The item was an armor artifact. It was in a shiny blue color and looked very thin. "This is an armor made by using the incredibly defensive Blue rhino's hide as the main ingredient. It's a Common Earth-grade armor artifact that is both tough and flexible. Let us show you how strong it is."

Cai Ping gestured as 2 people walked onto the stage. One was a middle-aged man in the Mind Tempering 8th realm, while the other was at the True Lord realm.

The True lord realm wore the armor and retracted his Qi so as to have it not protect the armor. The Mind Tempering 8th realm man lunged and hit the armor without using any techniques. The armor suffered no damage at all.

"Woah," the crowd was surprised.

"As you can see, the armor is able to defend against even someone at the Mind Tempering 8th realm. From our measurements, It can defend against a fully charged earth grade technique of a Mind Tempering 6th realm cultivator."

"So, the starting bid is going to be 20 spirit stones, with at least 1 spirit stone minimum bid"

As soon as Cai Ping finished saying that, the audience exploded with bids. Before Alex could even comprehend how good the armor was, the bid had already reached over 40 spirit stones.

Even the people in the VVIP rooms were starting to bid. Everyone whose voice came out of the rooms on the upper floors was heavily distorted and no longer sounded like their original voices.

Alex could easily hear the fat merchant head's voice through his spiritual sense, yet when he heard it through his own ears, he was shocked at how different the voices were.

'I assume they do that for privacy reasons. I wonder if they are using formations for this as well,' he thought.

"50 spirit stones," his master voiced in her bid as well.

"Master, do you required that artifact? It should be useless to you, right?" he asked.

"Of course it's not for me you stupid disciple, it's for you." She said.

"For me?" he was shocked. "I don't need that master. You don't have to spend so many spirit stones for me." He said.

"So many? It's just 50 spirit stones. That's not much at all," she said.

"Huh?? 50 spirit stones is not a lot? But that's like 50 months' worth of spirit stones for the outer sect disciples master." He said, shocked at how little she thought of so many spirit stones.

"What are you talking about? That's only because they are outer sect disciples and we give it to them. If they were to make pills and sell them, they could make it in well under 3 months. Inner sect disciples get 10 spirit stones every month, so even if they do nothing, they can get 50 spirit stones in 5 months. If they went ahead and made pills, I'm pretty sure they can collect that much amount in less than a month."

"Let's not forget about the core disciples who get 50 spirit stones monthly. If they were to try, they could actually make a dozen of really rare or useful pills with decent harmony and sell them for 50 spirit stones. It wouldn't even take them a week if they tried."

Alex was shocked at what he had just heard. He didn't know about the different monthly spirit stones allowances of the different tiered disciples. But what shocked him more was how little the others valued what he assumed was a rare commodity.

'50 spirit stones are 500 dollars though. So the core disciples get 500 dollars every month.' He thought for a bit and realized where he was wrong.

'This is not the real world. I shouldn't bring my countryside common sense to this place. It's a land of cultivators, it should be no surprise if they are rich. I should stop comparing everything to the real world.'

"55 spirit stones," Ma Rong bid once more. The bidding war slowly shifted from the people at the lower hall to ones at the upper rooms.

There were 3 people left. His master, the fat merchant head, and someone in a faraway room whose identity he couldn't tell because of the voice changes.

All 3 of them kept bidding for a while until the fat merchant took away the armor at 85 spirit stones.

"The gentleman at room B3 has won the Common Earth Grade armor, congratulations." Cai Ping said as a bunch of staff came along and replaced the armor with another item hidden under a cloth.

"Hmm…" everyone suddenly got more attentive as they saw the item that had just been brought to the table was actually really small. The cloth was almost flat on the plate the object was brought on.

If not for the small bump at the middle of the cloth, the people would surely assume that the next item had been accidentally left behind by the staff members.

Cai Ping saw the people's confusion and smiled. She walked to the front and lifted the cloth to reveal a round small green pellet-like object.

'A Pill? But it's not in a pill bottle?' Alex got surprised to see the small round object. A small feeling spawned inside him, one that spawned whenever he saw an alchemy ingredient. But this feeling was very unnoticeable, so he doubted the item was an alchemy ingredient on its own.

Cai Ping started speaking, "Dear ladies and gentlemen, the next item on the list is this seed."

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Chapter 93: Yin Gathering Tree

Cai Ping smiled as everyone looked at the seed, and didn't recognize it. These were the times she liked the most when she would reveal what the item was and everyone would be shocked.

"This seed comes from a tree that all of you most certainly know about. This is a seed for the ever famous, Yin Gathering Tree." She glanced at the audience as she made the dramatic reveal.

"Yin Gathering Tree? I think I've heard of it before. But where?" someone said.

"Wait! Is this the same Yin Gathering Tree as the one in the Capital?" another person exclaimed.

"Wow, that's an extremely rare seed."

Sounds of awe and surprise rang out from the entire crowd.

In room B1, Ma Rong who was slumping in her seat suddenly stood up straight and alert. Her eyes burning with desire. Alex had never seen his master in that state. Not even when she had gotten the Spirit Cleansing Lily.

'Can it be that the seed is of greater importance than even the Spirit Cleansing Lily?' he wondered.

Cai Ping once again started talking.

"Please quiet down." She said trying to proceed with the auction.

"Can you tell us who is selling such a precious seed?" someone screamed from the back of the hall.

"The seller has told us that they want to be remained unnamed, so we will not be revealing any information regarding them. Now, let us proceed with the auction for the Yin Gathering Tree seed. The bid will begin at 30 spirit stones, with a minimum of 1 spirit stone increase."

As soon as Cai Ping said that, the people in the hall started bidding one after another.

Before Alex could even ask his master why the seed was so important, the bidding war down below had reached a height never seen before.

"Master, what is the Yin Gathering Tree? Is it good?" he asked.

"It's good for disciples that have Yin-related body, spiritual root, or just a regular Yin-aligned cultivation method. It is very beneficial for them. It gathers Yin energy from the surrounding and makes a certain area around it filled with high-quality Yin Qi."

"52 spirit stones," Ma Rong bid as she answered his question.

"Is it better or rarer than a Spirit Cleansing Lily?" he couldn't help but ask.

"In terms of which is better, it depends from person to person. If I were to look at it from the perspective of a normal cultivator, the Spirit Cleansing Lily is infinitely better than the Yin Gathering Tree. However, If I were to look at it from the perspective of a sect leader, the Yin Gathering Tree can bring benefits to the sect that a single Spirit Cleansing Lily could never."

"As for rarity, The tree itself is not rare, as there are more than dozens of them around the Crimson empire. However, the fruit the tree bears is very rare. And to add to that, even the fruits themselves very rarely have a seed in them. So, the seed is considered very rare. It is for sure rarer than the Spirit Cleansing Lily." She said.

"Hmm… master, then why is it being sold for so less?" he asked.

"Well, the seed isn't guaranteed to sprout. Especially if the environment has a lot of yang energy. So, most sellers sell it at a low price of around 50 spirit stones. The auction house probably decided to lower its initial price to gather more bidders to eventually get the price through the ceiling."

As Ma Rong explained this, the bid for the seed kept on going up. It had now reached the 90s.

"1 True Spirit Stone" Ma Rong suddenly bid.

"101 Common spirit stone" a bid came from a room far away from them.

"Damn him. He wants the seed for his honor sect as well." She said out loud. The sect leader of the honor sect that had come to the auction decided to bid against Ma Rong.

"105 common spirit stone," another voice came from a room some distance away. Ma Rong's spiritual sense didn't extend that far, so she couldn't tell who the bidder was.

"110 common spirit stone," Ma Rong didn't back down.

'Master really wants this seed huh,' he thought.

The raging bid kept on continuing. The other bidder had stopped and now it was only the sect leader of the Honor sect versus Ma Rong.

"182 Common Spirit Stones," the Honor sect's sect leader said after some deliberation. He didn't seem like he wanted to spend so many spirit stones on a seed that had less than a percent chance of growing.

Ma Rong fell into contemplation as well. While 180 spirit stones weren't that expensive in her eyes, it definitely was for the Yin Gathering Tree.

"182 Common spirit stones is the higher bid. Anyone who wants to bid higher?" Cai Ping asked.

"182 common spirit stones going once"

"182 common spirit stones going twice"

"182 comm— "

"2 True spirit stones" Ma Rong bid just as the bidding was ending.

Cai Ping smiled. She was always happy to see more bids, as 2 percent of the bid always went to her pockets. The honor sect's sect master didn't bid after that and the seed went to Ma Rong easily after the increased bid.

The next item was brought to the table. It was a large table that was wheeled in with a massive cloth hiding what was inside.

"For our next items, we have—" Cai Ping took off the cloth to show a bunch of pill bottles.

"Wow, so many pill bottles!" the people were shocked.

"Did the auction house accidentally bring out all the pills they needed to sell for today?" someone asked.

Alex looked at the newly revealed items and was surprised. 'I'm up next huh,' he thought.

For some reason, he was starting to get nervous and excited. He couldn't wait to see how much the 135 pills would bring him. He very much looked forward to the next bidding war.

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Chapter 94: Pill Sales

After the crowd quietened down a bit, Cai Ping started speaking.

"Anyone who came to the last week's auction surely remembers the many pills that were sold towards the end of the show. The alchemist who made the pill had decided to sell the pills with us back then for the first time. At that time, we weren't able to reveal who the alchemist was, not because they wanted to rename unknown, but because the auction house didn't dare ask them for their name."

"However, after last week's sale, the alchemist was happy towards our auction house and decided to give us their nickname. The alchemist from last week will henceforth be known as 'White Wolf'."

"After last week's success, Senior White Wolf has brought us many pills to sell once more. To be exact, there are 135 pills in front of you folks right now."

Cai Ping stopped talking to listen to the crowd.

"Wait, that's all from one alchemist? Madam Cai, is that true?"

"No way! I thought they accidentally brought out their entire pills for today. That's just one person?"

"This White Wolf senior must have taken months to make these pills. The last week's sales was probably him just treading waters."

"Has anyone heard of an alchemist named White Wolf?"

The crowd kept on talking until someone said something that silenced the crowd for a while.

"Madam Cai, how are you going to sell those pills? It can't be you will auction each pill on its own, right? That would take forever." A person from a VIP room spoke.

Cai Ping smiled, "Yes, we have given some thought to that. Instead of selling the pills separately. We will be selling multiple pills as a batch."

"For the first batch, we have a Hundred Poisons Antidote, Minor Healing Pill, Qi Improving Pill, Swift Feet pill, and Body Warming pill. Each of these pills has exactly 32% Harmony. The bid will start at 40 spirit stones with 1 minimum spirit stone bid as increment."

"41 spirit stones"

"42 spirit stones"

People started bidding right away.

"Hmm… those are all common pills, but they are quite good. Someone must've really been preparing for months to sell them at this auction," Ma Rong commented from the side.

"No," Alex unknowingly blurted out while looking at the crowd below.

"What do you mean no?" Ma Rong turned around to look at him after hearing his remark.

Alex realized a little too late what he had accidentally blurted out and turned around to face his Master's eyes.

"I'm sorry for not telling you master, but I decided to auction the pills I made. Those are my pills," He said with his spiritual sense.

"Yours?" Ma Rong was shocked.

Since they started talking using spiritual sense, the girl behind them didn't know what was going on.

"Are you telling the truth?" She asked inquisitively.

"Of course, master. Why would I lie to you?" he simply said.

Ma Rong squinted her eyes and asked, "You made all those pills? when did you do that? the auction house stopped accepting items after Wednesday."

"I'm not stupid master. Of course, I submitted the items on Wednesday. " Alex acted as if he was being wronged.

Ma Rong then slowly asked, "So... how many days did it take you to make these? 8? 10?"

"Uhh… 4."

"What?" Ma Rong blurted out in her real voice. thankfully, the soundproof design of the room stopped other people from listening to him.

"You finished all of these in 4 days?" she then thought of something else and asked, " So, the reason you didn't register any pills was..."

"Uh, yes. I was collecting them to sell in the auction. I really wanted the spirit stones, so I decided to sell them." He let her know.

"It's your pills, so you can do what you want, but, Why do you want the spirit stones so badly? Do you want to buy something?" she asked.

"Uhh… " he didn't know how to answer that. 'Do I tell her I'm doing this for money? probably shouldn't.'

"Something like that." He simply sidestepped the entire question.

Slowly, the bid down in the hall started to die down and the batch of pills was sold for a total of 88 spirit stones. Alex felt that was quite good.

However, there was one thing that kept bugging him for the last few days, and it had been enhanced right now.

"Master, how much does a pill usually cost someone?" he asked.

" Well, that depends on the pill and its ingredients. When it's not in the auction, one would have to gather the ingredients by themselves. If you give the alchemist the ingredients, that would cost you as little as 5 spirit stones."

"However, if the alchemist finds ingredients on his own, that costs the buyer a lot. Just like how your auction for the pills is getting a lot of spirit stones."

The next batch of pills was being sold right now, and the bid had reached as high as 60 spirit stones already. Every single batch of pills had pills with higher harmony, so the bids were also getting higher now.

Soon almost all of the pills on the table were auctioned off. Only two pill bottles were remaining. The audience watched with anticipation as they knew whatever was in the pill was definitely something of high harmony.

Ma Rong always knew her disciple was talented, but getting a first-hand experience like this was a very surreal feeling. Alex on the other hand, had a big smile plastered across his face as he realized he had managed to gather about 27 True spirit stones by now. That was about 2700 common spirit stones.

Or in his real-life terms, he had just earned over 25 thousand dollars. And the final 2 pills were still yet to be sold.

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Chapter 95: Priceless and Worthless

The staff members had taken away all but 2 pill bottles. Cai Ping picked up a bottle and said, "This pill bottle contains the Hundred Poisons Antidote. While we did auction off a few Hundred Poisons Antidote just now, this one gets to have its own time in the spotlight, because, it has a harmony of 40%."

A bunch of incoherent noises started appearing from the crowd as they whispered amongst themselves. Cai Ping waited for the noise to die down a bit before she started speaking once more.

"This pill is able to cure any poison below the True grade. So, the starting bid for this pill will start at 30 spirit stones, with 1 spirit stone minimum increase in bid."

The crowd started bidding for the pill. Even after this many pills, their enthusiasm for the pills had barely died a little.

Ma Rong looked at Alex and asked, "Did you make the 43% harmony Tiger strength pill after this pill? " she asked.

Alex was surprised. "You know about that pill, master? Oh wait, you must've seen what I registered. That was a pill I made 2 days ago. While this one, I made it on Sunday, so 6 days ago."

"Good. You are improving a lot. Make sure you don't get overconfident from just this and change your personality. While you are naive, people like naive fellows more than snobby ones."

Alex was relieved she didn't get angry.

The bidding ended with a person buying the pill for 63 spirit stones. Alex was quite happy about this. Managing to get 63 spirit stones just for a single pill was beyond his dream right now.

Then Cai Ping revealed his next pill. "This is the second-best pill we have today. However, the other one is a True grade pill, so I don't know if it even makes sense to compare them."

"This pill is a Healing Lotus pill. Anyone who knows about pills knows that this is one of the best healing pills of all the common pills, maybe even the best. This pill can even bring you back from death as long as you have a little life left in you. Diseases heal just like that if you take this peal."

"And senior White Wolf has not only provided us with such an impressive pill, but They have also managed to make this pill with an incredible 45% harmony."

Cai Ping made sure everyone heard that.

"45%? Did she just say 45%?"

"Oh lord. That is 5% away from becoming a Heaven grade pill."

"Can it be that this Senior White Wolf is a True Earth Grade alchemist, and he simply decided to grace us with some common grade pills?"

The shock the crowd showed towards the pill was way more than Alex had expected. They were acting as if 45% was a hundred times better than the 40% pill they just saw beforehand.

He looked back at his master, who was also slightly surprised.

"You keep on surprising me these days. You even managed to make a 45% pill?"

"Is it really that impressive when you already know I made 43% pill?" he asked.

"Of course. It gets harder and harder to increase the pill's harmony. A difference between 43% and 45% is about the same increase in difficulty as 10% to 18%. The higher the pill's harmony, the higher the difficulty. This just goes to show how talented you are."

Ma Rong cleared his confusion. 'No wonder the people are so shocked about it.'

The heated bidding war slowly came to an end as Alex's eyes widened by the final bid.

"139 spirit stones, going once."

"139 spirit stones, going twice."

"139 spirit stones, going thrice. Sold." Cai Ping slammed the gavel on the table. A staff member came out and took away the pill. Another staff came out with a small plate, hiding something rectangular, going by the shape of the silhouette.

"The next item on the auction is this book." Cai Ping unfurled the cloth to reveal an old, dusty, almost rotting book. The outer cover looked a little torn but overall the book seemed to be without damage.

Cai Ping held the book and showed it to the audience. The outside of the book had something written on it, that was visible even though the book itself was very dirty.

The letters seemed black in color but shined like they were made of gold. Cai Ping started by saying, "This book has the potential to be the best item we have ever sold in our auction house. However, it might also be the worst item we have sold as of yet."

Cai Ping stopped talking to create some suspense.

"Best item, yet worst item? What are you talking about, Madam Cai?"

"Yes, please explain, Madam Cai."

Cai Ping started talking once more. "This book was given to us by somebody who wished to remain unknown. This book is the family heirloom that they have guarded for thousands of years. According to their ancestors, one day, people flew down from the heavens and stayed in their tavern."

"Those heavenly folks didn't have money with them at the time, so they gave the tavern owner this book instead, and left back to the heavens."

"Within those thousands of years, many cultivators came and went in their family, yet not a single one could comprehend this book."

"Given to them, by what could only be immortals of the legends, yet unable to even read the book. This book is truly both Worthless and Priceless. If your customers can't read it either, It's the worst item we have sold yet. However, if you can read it, it's the best item we have sold yet."

"As such, we will first let you people check the book for yourself." A staff lady came out and took the book.

"We will pass it along to you all, so you can check. The people in the hall will have only 10 seconds to see if you can read the book. The people in the VIP will have 30 seconds to see if they can read the book. As for the ones in the VVIP, they will have a whole minute to check the book."

Cai Ping nodded to the female staff, and the lady walked down the hall passing along the book to the various people.

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Chapter 96: Heaven's Impact

Cai Ping sold quite a few items as the dusty old book traveled from one person's arm to another's. Slowly, more than an hour had passed. Alex realized while he had probably earned the most from this auction in general if he counted individual prices, his pills came nowhere close.

The latest items were being sold at 5 True spirit stones at starting bids alone. By the end, most of them crossed 10 true spirit stones.

Cai Ping showed off the third to the last item for the auction today. She unfurled the cloth to reveal that it was a pill bottle.

"This pill is a Soul Reuniting pill, that was made by Hong Wu Sect's sect leader, Ma Rong. In case you do not know, the Soul reuniting pill is a True grade pill that can increase your chances of breakthroughs in the True realm by at least 3 fold at Mortal grade.

"At earth grade, it can increase your chances by at least 10 fold. "

"And at heaven grade, it can pretty much guarantee your success at breakthrough."

"This pill on my hand has a harmony of 48%. That means, whoever gets this pill, is guaranteed to move forward in their journey as a cultivator. For the starting bid, we will start with 20 True spirit stones, with a minimum increase of 10 common spirit stones. "

The crowd started speaking so loudly that Cai Ping didn't even manage to comprehend what the first few bids were.

"21 Spi…."

"21 spi…"

"22 spi.."

Someone would be half finished with their bids before the other one started. Alex on the other hand was just stunned at the harmony of the pill.

He turned around and said, "Master, You are more talented than me. You made a 48% harmony true grade pill."

"It's not talent. It's experience. Once you get enough experience, you will be able to do that as well." She said.

Alex simply nodded and turned around to look at the people climb over each other to bid for the pill. He finally saw how much people cared about their cultivation and how far they would go to increase it.

'Do people really have a lot of trouble for a breakthrough?' he wondered. He himself had never cared for it, as he always had a 100% chance of breaking through. In fact, he had to slow down, cause he was too good at it.

His master's pill was still being bid, and it didn't seem like it was going to stop anytime soon.

KNOCK KNOCK

The staff lady inside opened the door to let more of the staff in. Another lady appeared with a book on a tray. "Here you go, sect leader Ma," the girl spoke respectfully.

The dusty old book had finally arrived at the VVIP rooms. Ma Rong picked up the book and started reading it. At first, she had hoped to understand just a few sentences to see what the book was called and what it could do, but to her surprise, she couldn't even read a word of it.

The language was just too foreign for her. She flipped through the entire book, which was filled with words, to see if there was anything she could read. On the last page, she finally found something she could read, only to be disappointed by the fact that it was the family's message saying that it was their heirloom.

A minute had passed, so she gave back the book to the staff, who bowed and swiftly left the room.

She sighed and turned back to see how the auction for the pill was going. Suddenly, she saw Alex who was concentrating on something. He wasn't looking at the auction, that was for sure.

"Yu Ming? What's wrong? You seem serious." She asked.

Alex got out of his stupor and smiled as he said, "Oh, it's nothing master. I was just surprised that one could even use spiritual sense to attack other people. That was truly eye-opening."

"Use spiritual sense to attack other people? What do you mean? There is no way anyone can do that." Ma Rong said, wondering just where he got such an absurd idea from.

"Huh? But that's what Heaven's Impact does, right?" he said.

"Heaven's Impact? What's that?" she had never heard of such a thing. This just brought more confusion to Alex's face.

Alex smiled a little and said, "What are you talking about master? It's obviously the book we read just now."

"The book?" Ma Rong got confused for a split second before her eyes started opening wide. "Did you read the book just now?"

"Oh, was I not supposed to? I'm sorry. I only read the introduction page though, so I didn't really read it all." He said.

Ma Rong was shocked. "You read it. You can read that book?" she practically shouted at this point. Thankfully, the room was entirely soundproof other than when one was bidding.

"Of course I can, master. Can't you?" Alex was surprised now.

"No! Didn't you hear what the auctioneer said? No one can read the book?" she said.

"I mean, isn't that how all higher grade books are, master? Even you said it took you about 2 months to read the immortal technique. Maybe, the family members weren't as talented, so they took forever to read it."

Ma Rong was stupefied. Her disciple had completely misunderstood the difficulty of the situation here and done something seemingly impossible in her eyes.

"Yu Ming, Can you read that book?" she asked once more.

"Yes," Alex answered seriously, hearing the tone in her voice.

"Then you can read that language?" she asked.

"Language? What language?" he asked.

"Obviously the language the book was written in," Ma Rong started to get angry now.

Alex was surprised. "That book was written in a language? Aren't those just scribbled lines that are supposed to put information into your brain?" he asked.

"Of course not. Those are words you are meant to read and comprehend. That's how you learn a technique in the first place."

Alex was stunned. He quickly took out the Flickering Shadows book he had with him and showed it to his master. "Master, are you telling me these lines are a language too? And that you can understand them?"

Ma Rong was even more stunned as she said, "Of course that's a language. Are you telling me you learned the book without knowing the language?"

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