Eternal Cultivation Of Alchemy

In the two weeks since they had come to this city, Momo had gotten so much better at making pills. She wasn’t as hasty when making pills anymore, and a lot less nervous. She had gotten used to working with ingredients and elemental energy, so she was a lot more confident when making pills.

She wasn’t so good that she made no mistake. But she didn’t let the mistake ruin her flow; like a stack of dominoes toppling one after another just because of one mistake. If she made a mistake, she quickly focused on her next task to not let the mistake affect it.

She understood at this point that mistakes were inevitable. If she made one, she just had to move on instead of dwelling on it. Having that level of clear mind when making a pill was something very valuable for most Alchemists. Alex was glad to see that she was beginning to gain the mindset of a practiced alchemist.

‘Whisker has been teaching her well,’ he thought with a smile.

The pills Alex had Momo make were using commonly found ingredients and commonly found recipes. Because of that, the end result could never reach 100% harmony. At best, it could reach 90% or so. And yet, Momo consistently got over 80% in all of the pills she made, getting so close as to reach 88% with one of them. Considering the circumstances, that was damn near perfect.

“How do you feel?” Alex asked after Momo was done making the pills. He had forced her to make over 20 pills back to back to test how she handled mentally working with many pills.

Momo shrugged. “I’m running out of Qi, but I can still make 10 more pills,” she said.

Alex smiled. “So no headaches?” he asked.

“Headache? No… I don’t feel any,” she said. “Was I supposed to get a headache?”

“Not really,” Alex said. “Most would, but not you since you used the Spirit Cleansing Lily.”

“Oh…” Momo said with a curious look. “Uncle Whisker did say that using the Lily would help me make pills for much longer. Is that why?”

Alex nodded. “That is why,” he said. Making 20 pills in a row hadn’t really dropped her level of proficiency. She hadn’t gotten tired it seemed, so that was nice.

“I see you have learned Elemental Guidance quite well,” he said. “That was one of the first alchemy techniques my master gave me. It will be useful for a while longer until you can learn other better pill-forming techniques.”

Momo wasn’t using any techniques to form pills at the moment. All she did was make a sphere with the powder and force energy into it. Technically, that was how pills were formed, but techniques made it so much easier and made the results way less extreme.

“I will learn a pill-forming technique soon?” Momo asked.

“Yes,” Alex said. He planned on giving her the Profound Revolution of Myriad Combinations technique. The Vortex of Perfection was just too difficult for her to learn to make a pill out of in the next 50 years.

There were Saints who had learned this technique for decades and still hadn’t learned it. Jai Heiyun, despite her talent in Alchemy, had only recently fully learned the technique at all.

Alex didn’t want to burden his disciple with such a strong technique when it wouldn’t help her much in the competition.

For afterwards though, he was more than ready to help her.

“Give me your hand.”

Holding onto Momo’s hands, he checked her body to see how it was doing. The poison that was her body had gotten stronger now. The poison plants that Alex had left with Whisker to feed Momo seemed to have been more or less all consumed.

He would have to get some stronger poison to keep her body’s poison as strong as her cultivation base.

There was something else Alex was glad to see. Her meridians had become a lot larger now, thicker and wider, allowing for more Qi-flow. It had certainly been one of the reasons why her cultivation speed had improved.

‘As expected of the Divine Devil fruit,’ he thought. “You’ve done well,” Alex said. “Focus on your training for now. Learn the three techniques I previously gave you. I will return in a day or two and continue your training.”

“Okay, master,” Momo said.

After notifying Whisker and Pearl that he was returning back to the Whole Rose Garden for the time being, he left.

He didn’t immediately return to the Whole Rose Garden. He had to sell a few pills he had for the time being to amass a bit more money. He needed to have enough spirit stones at all times to return to God’s Domain at a moment’s notice.

For that, he needed to sell those pills. While he was there, he also checked if any of the ingredients he sought were on the market. None were.

He bought two more Spirit Cleansing Lily and made his way to the Whole Rose Garden.

His purpose in coming here wasn’t to hopefully be on time for one of the roses to blossom. Relying on luck wasn’t going to be helpful at all.

What he was instead trying to do was note down whether a rose had blossomed yet or not. If he was lucky, he would get the flower. But the higher chance was that he wasn’t and he was going to miss it.

In that instance, he wanted to note down the time when the flower had been plucked away. With that information, he could easily judge when the next flower would grow if he kept a close eye on the Voidsand Hourglass in his Soul Space.

Alex went around the garden for the whole day, checking the energy of all the plants.

All of them held varying degrees of energy in them, so it was clear to Alex that they were going to blossom at different times. At some point, these plants would lose all of the energy, pouring it all into the rose that blossoms.

Alex didn’t have to be here for that. It would be great if he was, but he couldn’t tell when it would blossom as it was. What he had to do was wait for it to blossom and get taken away.

That was what Alex was waiting for anyway. At that point, he would record the time when it happened. Then, exactly a year later, he would come to the plant and be there right on time for when the rose would bloom once again.

“I’ll have to come here every week,” Alex told himself. During this time, he couldn’t leave the city to go anywhere else as he would have to be here to check on the flowers all the time.

That wasn’t so bad when he really thought about it. He did after all need some time to stay around and teach Momo without constantly moving around.

“I guess I’ll have to stay around for a while now,” Alex thought. Since he got what he came here for, it was time to leave.

“I wonder if the rat had my eyes prepared for me,” he wondered. It may be soon, but it was time to go visit Rosemist once again.