Eternal Cultivation of Alchemy

Alex and the rest of the test takers weren't being told their scores before being taken to the next test. They arrived in front of a corridor with many rooms on the side.

The Supreme Alchemist Han assigned each one of them to a room and then explained what they were doing next.

"Once you go in, you'll see a list of pill names on one side and a list of ingredients on the other ones. From there, choose 5 pills you will be making, each of which has to be unique."

"Once you choose the pills, someone will bring those ingredients to you and sit with you to watch you make the pill. Any single hint of you trying to mess around with the pill you're making or change it for another one you have, you will instantly fail the test."

"We will be testing your speed at making pills for sure, but what we'll be checking mostly is the quality with which you can make them. You have 10 minutes to choose what pills you are going to be making, and you will only get to make that pill once."

"GO!"

Alex and the rest quickly walked into their room.

The inside of the room was small but not lacking in any of the necessities. There were formation after formation laid into the room, all of which were there to test him.

Looking at the room, taking another test to become a guild-certified Alchemist, reminded Alex of the first time he had done so in the Luminance empire.

There was a fun moment attached to that memory where he was forced to leave his storage bags and rings outside the room, but every time he tried to enter, the room kept giving out alarms that he was taking a storage bag with him.

Looking back now, any Immortal that had been there would've realized that he had already opened his Soul Space back then. Bai Jingshen at least had already known that around the same time.

Alex shook away his thoughts and took the talismans laid next to where he was to sit. He took the talisman and looked through the list. There were various pills listed, most of which Alex already knew.

He had improved all of the recipes he had come across by now, so he was free to choose any of the recipes.

He chose 5 pills, each one that did something else. There was a cultivation pill, a healing pill, a pill to help with breakthroughs, a pill to heal poisons, and finally a pill that improved someone's physical strength for a short time.

He let the people know what he chose through a formation in the room and not 5 minutes later, a young woman just a realm above Alex arrived inside the room and handed him a storage bag.

She gave a look of surprise after sensing his cultivation base, but she hid it quickly. She then moved to the corner of the room and let Alex freely continue making pills.

Alex placed Memory on the furnace and let it stay there while he checked the ingredients. He wanted to check the quality of the ingredients and improve it if he could, but that felt like something he couldn't do here.

At least not while the girl was watching.

All he could do was check how good they were. He took some time to deal with the ingredients, like cutting parts that were too much or adding more to one from another piece.

The girl to the side seemed amused by what Alex was doing. She was an alchemist too, but she had never gone to this level in regards to ingredients. She wanted to ask him why he was doing that, but protocol dictated that she stay quiet right now.

After finishing the preparation of his ingredients, Alex finally began making the pills.

He started with the cultivation pill called the Leaping Ivory pill, putting in the first ingredient, the petals of the White Snake Lily.

Alex didn't teleport the ingredients into the cauldron. He did not want to accidentally trip some sort of formation that was checking his moves currently. Instead, he did what every other Alchemist did, which was to move aside the lip and put the ingredients into the cauldron.

There were some alchemists that did use teleporting formations to teleport the ingredients directly into the cauldron, but that formation wasn't available in this room, or else Alex would have definitely used it.

Alex put in the next few ingredients one after another, soon forgetting that there was even someone in the room with him. The whole time he made the pill, he kept wondering how much the final result should be.

Make too little and he might not get a good enough license to attract customers. Make too much and he would attract the wrong kind of attention.

He needed to reach just the rate where he would be considered talented, but not talented enough for anyone to want to kidnap him again for his pills. Being kidnapped twice was more than enough for him.

Alex decided that 80% was the perfect Harmony he could go for. Of course, getting that exact number was difficult, but he tried his best.

He sensed the energy inside the cauldron and calculated that it was a bit more than he needed.

'Memory, absorb a bit of the energy.'

Memory did as asked and absorbed just the slightest amount of energy. After having done this for the past 2 years with the hundreds of pills Alex had made, Memory had learned exactly how much energy Alex wanted taken away from the pill each time.

Once Memory took the bit of energy away, Alex finished making the pill and took it out. As soon as it was out, a small smile appeared on his face as he saw that the pill had turned out to be an 82% pill.

He was more than satisfied with the result and moved on to make the rest of the four pills. He quickly began making the next pill without wasting a single second.

The woman who sat in the corner of the room was a little taken aback. She had been there to watch many people make pills, but this was the first time she had seen someone make pills without resting in between.

She shook a little wondering how much mental pain he would have to be in doing so.

Alex did feel some pain, but it was barely any problem for him at all. He had been making 15 pills a day regularly back when he was in the sect, so he was more than used to the mental pain one got from making Immortal pills.

Alex finished the healing pill with 81% harmony, the antidote pill with 80% harmony, and the pill to help with breakthroughs with 81% harmony.

All that was left now was the final pill, the one that gave temporary strength and that went well as well.

Memory absorbed part of the energy and Alex formed the pill in the end, bringing it out to be 83%.

Once all of the pills were done, it was time for him to leave.