Eternal Cultivation of Alchemy

Alex handed the five pills to the woman who came to take them. Once she confirmed that she had received the exact pills that Alex had made, she asked him to leave the room.

Alex walked out of the door and the woman followed behind him.

The Alchemist Han gave a surprised look when he saw Alex walk out. He looked toward the woman, wondering if she had been the one to call off the alchemy process, but instead, she only shook her head.

She handed over the pills to Alchemist Han and said, "These are the pills this fellow Alchemist made."

"Thank you," Alchemist Han said.

He put the pills away. "Your test is complete. Your results should be available for you to view in 2 days. Come back with the registration slip you have."

Alex smiled. "Thank you senior."

The woman moved close to Alex to show him the way out. Alex nodded and followed her. As they left, the woman couldn't help but ask some questions.

"Why did you cut the ingredients at the start?" she asked. "You added some too."

"The ingredients?" Alex asked with a confused look. "That was to match the ratio of the ingredients. The best results happen when the ratio of the ingredients is correct."

"Oh!" the girl said, surprised by his answers. "How do you know what the ratio is?"

"That's… a little difficult to answer. It's mostly based on the weight of the ingredient's powdered form and how much of it is needed. In general, you can just go off of the ratio written in the recipe."

"I see," the woman said.

Alex looked at the woman and finally noticed the leaf-shaped pendant hanging from her neck. On it was the words 'Superior Saint Alchemist'.

"May I ask, what the rankings of alchemists are in this guild?" Alex asked.

"It's Regular, Superior, and Supreme," the woman said. "Did you not know?"

Alex was a little surprised. "May I ask what determines what rank you get? What do you believe I would get today with mostly 80% pills?" he asked.

The girl's eyes widened slightly. "Your pills were all 80%?" she asked in shock. It took Alex a moment to realize that this woman hadn't seen what pill Harmony had acquired with the pills he had made.

Knowing what Harmony a pill had was something ingrained in him by now by just looking at the pill.

"80%… hmm." She touched her chin as she fell into thought. After a while, she answered. "If you did well in your ingredients exam, then you will most definitely reach the Superior rank. Anything above 80% is superior, usually only brought down by the other tests."

"Then I can be certain that I will have a Superior rank too?" Alex asked.

"Pretty much, I guess. I should congratulate you for that," the woman said.

Alex smiled. "May I ask what the requirements for the other two categories are?" he asked.

The woman nodded. "Assuming you have excellent knowledge of ingredients, anything above 50 makes you a regular Alchemist. Superior is anything above 80."

"And Supreme?" Alex asked.

"Supreme… is a little weird. To reach Supreme, you need to make 10 pills in a row, all of which have over 90% Harmony. Not only that, you also need to recognize every single ingredient exactly. I believe there are more smaller requirements, but I'm not sure. I've never been part of that exam, and most of its requirements are kept hidden from regular Alchemists."

"Hmm…" Alex didn't say much. "You know, I come from a lower realm, and we have a different system for Alchemists there. The ranks there are Mortal, Earth, Heaven, and Immortal. Is that not the case here?"

"No," the woman said. "I don't see why you would make such a rank anyway. What would you call an Immortal realm Alchemist who can make Immortal rank pills in the Immortal grade?"

Alex smiled. "We don't have Immortals," he said. "But I get what you mean. It would indeed be hard to understand in the Immortal realms."

Alex thought about another thing at that moment and asked, "Oh right, there was also another place where the Alchemists and most other professions were ranked by Level. Such as a Level 5 Alchemist or a Level 6 Formation maker. From what I had heard, it was something copied from the Immortal world down to ours, but that doesn't seem to be the case here at all."

"Oh, no, that is still the case in most places," the woman said. "Go to any old sect and you will still find older Immortals ranking themselves by Level instead of the one we use."

"Oh!" Alex got curious. "Why did you change it then?"

"I'm not really sure," the woman said. "I just know that the rank we use is a recent system of ranking. We borrowed it from the Medicine world who began using it first."

Alex raised an eyebrow. "The Medicine World?" he asked.

He had heard that name before in the Silkstone Alchemy store. Their formation to improve the quality of an ingredient had been brought over from the Medicine world as well.

"Why would you change it based on what another realm does?" Alex asked.

"Because it's the Medicine world," the woman answered. "You must not know. At the moment, the Medicine world is at the forefront of Alchemy. Their entire world is filled with alchemists and people of other professions that will make you rethink how talented you are. They have thousands and thousands of Supreme Alchemists and from what I hear, Alchemist that rank even beyond that."

Alex got more and more curious by the minute. "Is the Medicine World that good?" he asked.

"Of course," the woman said. "After all, it is the birthplace of the first Alchemy God. His teachings remain in that world and thus the alchemists of that world are the greatest. Every other world simply copies what they do. We also simply began copying their method of ranking too."

Alex had stopped listening to the woman at some point, only reeling in his own shock.

'What?' he thought. The Medicine World he had been hearing so much about was the birthplace of the Alchemy God.

'The first Alchemy God, that's him right?' Alex thought. It had to be. That was what senior Yang had told him.

'I should go there, learn more about him,' Alex thought. But… he couldn't. The Medicine World was one step away in his journey to find his family.

If he took a detour to go to the Medicine World, it would add another leg to his journey, which he honestly couldn't afford right now.

At the moment, he had to find 3 sources of fortune, which was already impossible. Adding another impossibility on top of that was not something he could do right now.

"Is everything alright?" the woman asked, seeing him not saying anything.

"Oh yes, I'm alright," Alex answered. "Thank you for answering my silly questions. If you don't mind, can you tell me where I need to go to wait for my physician's test?"

"Oh, uhhh… it's near here. Let me take you there."

The woman left in one direction and Alex followed her.