Eternal Cultivation of Alchemy

"I can get a discount?" Alex asked curiously. While he had enough money, for now, to buy the ingredients 10 times over and not worry about it, he wasn't going to go around spending the most for it.

Every single spirit stone he didn't have to pay, was a spirit stone he could use to buy something else. Perhaps, something more important.

"Yes, Fellow Daoist. If you have an Alchemist badge, you can get a discount," the woman said.

"Oh," Alex's hopes got crushed. "I'm afraid I have nothing like that."

He brought out the 12 spirit stones as asked for and handed them to the woman.

The woman looked into her metal plate again, and suddenly, on top of the counter where Alex hadn't noticed a formation before, two wooden boxes appeared out of nowhere.

"Here you go, Fellow Daoist," she said.

Alex took the box and looked into it to see 3 sets of each of the two ingredients. The poppy and the feather made the same names pop up in his head as well as the age of the ingredients.

The poppy was about 49 years old, while the feather was about 88 years old. They had most likely come from the same plant and bird.

Alex fell into thought as he saw that information. He knew that ingredients with greater age had a higher potency, but he wasn't sure how useful age was in Alchemy beyond that.

He would have to look up information on that later.

"Do you need anything else, Fellow Daoist?" the lady asked.

"Um, yes. Can you please explain to me about this… Alchemist badge?" Alex asked.

The lady nodded and got to explain.

The alchemist badge was something an alchemist would gain after joining the Alchemist guild. With it, the Alchemists would gain a lot of different benefits that a normal Alchemist would just dream of.

For one, Alchemists could forget about gathering ingredients, worrying about finding customers or finding a place to sell their pills.

It would all be handled by the guild. All an alchemist would have to do is take on missions and make the pills.

The other benefit that alchemists would get was less price while buying ingredients. Since the Alchemist guild was the main source of ingredients, aside from the occasional auctions. Alchemists benefited from this a lot.

There was also the factor of security. Hurting or offending one alchemist usually meant offending all alchemists in the guild. If an Alchemist complained about a customer, it was likely that the customer could never get another pill made from any alchemist that was part of the guild.

Alex found all of these benefits to be quite amazing. But…

"I'm planning on leaving this place soon. Will that… create problems at all?" he asked.

"Oh, no Fellow Daoist. Alchemist guild is available in all regions of the land. Where ever there is a city or town, we are available."

Alex nodded. "I see."

'So it's like a bank huh? I won't have to worry about being stuck to a single alchemist guild then,' he thought.

"I would like to become an Alchemist of the Alchemist guild then," he said.

The lady nodded and brought out a talisman for him to fill. "It will cost you 20 True spirit stones," the lady said.

"I have to pay, huh?" he thought and casually brought out another 20 True spirit stones. The benefits of getting in were enough for the price.

Alex took it talisman and moved to the side. He put his spiritual sense to fill the first thing and…

Name.

Alex froze. The first thing it had asked for was a name. What name should he give?

If it was right after he had gained freedom, he would've put in the name Alex without any hesitation.

However, now he wasn't sure if giving out his real name to the world, announcing that he was a player was a good idea or not.

Players were supposed to have lost knowledge of who they were, knowing nothing of cultivation to an extent. If he suddenly showed up like an alchemist that could make high-grade pills, the people would get really suspicious.

He couldn't imagine how many people would come to talk to him. Some may even try to kidnap him if they realize that a lot of the players had above-average body and spirit roots.

"No, I can not put in Alex," he thought and put in 'Yu Ming' as his name. The better he hid, the better his chances of survival.

Besides, he was already used to the name.

He then went on to the rest of the information. It was normal information the guild wanted, like your age, your cultivation base, your affiliations, and your highest pill level.

Alex filled almost everything truthfully. He put 19 for age, True Disciple 3rd realm for cultivation base, and None for affiliations.

However, for the highest pill, he decided to go with a safer choice. While he had made a heaven-grade True pill before, it was more luck than anything.

Still, the best would be above 40%. For a young man that didn't even hit 20, this would likely be an amazing feat even in the Luminance empire.

So, he went with 27% harmony. He would have to make some intentional mistakes, but that would be necessary to stay under the radar.

Once Alex was done with the talisman, he returned back to the reception and handed it over to the lady, along with the payment.

The lady scanned it and showed a hint of surprise on her face. She reached into her storage bag and brought out another talisman.

"This will be the pill you will have to make in the test, senior. You will be given 3 sets to make the pills. Please memorize it by 3 days when the test takes place," the lady said.

'Senior?' Alex was a little surprised to see the lady go from 'fellow Daoist to 'senior'.

'Did she not realize my cultivation base before this?' he chuckled a little.

Once he got what he wanted from the Alchemy guild, he took off towards the Library once more, where he would learn about various other things.

Three days later, on the morning of the day when his Alchemist guild's test was to take place, Alex sat in his room, having just been done with absorbing the threads in his spiritual sea and clearing the black sludge around the crystal.

Once he was done, he went onto the final part of his cultivation, which was the training part.

Pearl was moving around the room, having finally started cultivating with Alex after his Yang energy had significantly died down.

Alex focused on his right hand as energy slowly released from his mind as a formless misty white substance that was only visible to him.

It had taken him a while to realize that the only reason he could even see it was because he was using his spiritual sense to control it.

Pearl had asked him what he was doing the other day, and that was what had led him to this discovery. At the same time, he had also discovered that others could see this energy if they used their spiritual sense as well.

Alex took a deep breath and concentrated. Within a matter of seconds, the formless misty-white energy took the shape of the steel sword he used to own.

He looked at the sword with a wry smile on his face. He had tried to grab it again, but as usual, it wouldn't work.

He tried with Qi as well, but that didn't work either. He was still stumped on how to get it to—

"Wait," he thought as he thought of something. "No way it's that easy."

If it were, he would be a fool to not have thought of it before today.

Alex slowly closed his hand around the handle of the newly made sword, but he made no effort to grab it.

Instead, he moved his hand as if he were holding a real sword. At the same time, he imagined the sword moving along with his hand.

His hand moved away towards the right, while the sword remained where it was. However, as if it was lagging a bit, the sword moved as well and arrived at the place where his hands had come to just a second later.

"Holy Shit! I'm an idiot!" Alex cursed himself. All this time, he had tried using physical and elemental effort to move the sword, but not a single time had he thought of moving it with his mind.

He had been expecting it to be an actual weapon, but he should have known.

He tried moving the sword around for a few minutes, but it was hard. His body wasn't used to thinking of moving something instead of actually doing it.

His hands always ended up moving before the sword did. He tried moving it without using his hands, but that was beyond hard.

Not having something like his hand to guide the sword, he had a hard time visualizing the sword's movement.

Finally, after failing at it for a while, he resorted to using his hand to guide again.

Then, he stopped.

It was about time to go back to the Alchemist guild for his test today. He vaguely remembered the time he had taken the test for the Hong Wu sect.

Was that him or the other guy? The memories had started to become so vivid that it was hard to tell now.

He felt like it was still him for a day or two during the early days. So, he might have been the one that actually took the test there.

A smile appeared on Alex's face. He was looking forward to this examination.