Eternal Cultivation Of Alchemy

“Why is he taking so long? He needs to make those pills in time!” Silvermist said in a grumbling tone next to Grimsight as they watched Alex’s performance together.

Silvermist might not have been this particularly angry in most cases, but he had just watched the red-haired disciple of his lifelong rival effortlessly make 10 pills, 6 times in a row, and was making the last group of them. Silvermist couldn’t tell much from where he was watching, but it was clear that Aethersage was much faster when it came to making pills. That combined with Alex’s unusual slowness had caused him to get rather irritated.

“It’s not the young man’s fault,” Grimsight suggested. “Something happened to him earlier. You saw how he switched the ingredients to a different pill.”

“I know,” Silvermist said, sitting back on the seat with an annoyed look on his face. “Something must’ve gone wrong that threw his whole rhythm astray. Now he’s struggling to get back.”

He watched Alex pull the 6th set of pills out of the ingredients. “Finally, he’s starting to make the last pill,” he said as he looked up at the sky. “But with barely 9 minutes remaining, can he do anything? This was the same set of ingredients he didn’t work with earlier. Something must be wrong with it.”

As Silvermist said that, he saw Alex separate the ingredients, putting aside a few to the side. “See! There is something definitely wrong with it. Damn it! Someone is trying to mess with my disciple. I’ll kill them.”

Silvermist got up from his seat, ready to go talk to the staff about this when suddenly he heard a gasp from behind him. He turned around to see Grimsight, who stared at the stage with his single eyes opened wide in shock.

Silvermist mist turned toward the stage, but he couldn’t see anything that weird there at all. “What? What is going on?” Silvermist asked, sitting back in his seat. If anything could shock Grimsight, then it couldn’t be something ordinary.

“Look at your disciple,” Grimsight said. “Can’t you see it?”

“See what? I don’t have your eyes,” Silvermist said, desperately trying to see anything.

“Look closely at your disciple,” Grimsight said.

Silvermist did and watched. For a while, he saw nothing different at all. But as he watched, he began noticing the very subtle difference that was nearly imperceptible to anyone else not focusing on him because Alex was seated and not moving as much as he had earlier.

“He’s faster,” Silvermist said softly. “How?”

“Time manipulation,” Grimsight answered through his spiritual sense. Direct speech was too dangerous for this sort of thing.

Silvermist’s eyes widened in surprise. “What? How can he? An artifact?” he asked.

“No,” Grimsight said, continuing to stare at Alex.

Silvermist’s eyes widened slightly. “No way. Not Dao,” he said.

“No, just Intent,” Grimsight said. “It’s very inefficient and weak, but it’s doing the job. Your disciple is slowing down time around himself just enough so that he can make the pills much faster.”

Silvermist took in a deep breath, feeling both surprise and pride fill him at the same time. He smiled brightly and laughed. “That’s my disciple for you.”

* * * * * * *

Alex felt the strain on his mental facilities pretty much get pushed to the maximum in one fell sweep. He stopped when it reached the most it could, even though he could push it much further. But if he did that, he would most likely fall unconscious right there, unable to complete all the pills.

Alex could tell Time was being slowed down. It wasn’t that much slower, just a fraction at best. But that was all the time he needed right now. With the time slowed in a small space around him, he could now make all of the 3 groups of pills much faster than earlier.

Alex was pretty much at the edge the entire time as he made the rest of the pills, unable to think of a single other thing he was going to do. He even made a few mistakes when making the pills in the other cauldrons, but thankfully not enough where the pills could come out ruined. They would be alright, so he didn’t give them any mind. Not that he could with how much he was focused on making 29 different pills at once. The first moment of relief came when Alex finished making the first set of pills. When the Luminous Harmony pills were done, Alex still had 3 minutes remaining for the other pills.

The sudden lack of spiritual strain that came with not having to focus on an entire cauldron full of pills was exhilarating, but the sensation didn’t last for long. What free spiritual energy he had, he immediately forced it into slowing down time even further.

His method of slowing down time was very inefficient, and that had to do with him not understanding the Dao of Temporal Stagnation. To reach 100% efficiency, he would have to learn the Dao and he was still far from it.

Even with that, because he understood just enough to give himself more time. As time slowed further, he had more time to make the remaining two groups of pills which Alex focused on with all that he could spare.

His Spiritual energy was depleting very quickly, but it didn’t matter at the moment. There was enough for him to make these pills anyway.

The second last group of pills was done. The Sapphire Desire pills were completed with 2 minutes remaining on the clock now, which was more or less equivalent to 2 minutes and 15 seconds. And now, that was going to become even slower.

Alex placed all of the spare Spiritual energy and Intent he could afford at the moment into slowing down time while making the 9th and final set of pills.

To Alex, time passed at a normal rate, but no people from the outside could see him moving much faster if they were only paying attention.

And then, there came the time to complete the 9 final pills. Alex let go of his Intent to slow down time, feeling relief. And with that relief came an idea.