Eternal Cultivation Of Alchemy

Aethersage’s performance was certainly a surprise to many, but no one discounted Alex’s victory just yet. The fact was, Pill Clouds meant nothing in the end. What one truly needed were Pill Veins.

Aethersage could make seven pills at once, but if they only had five Pill Veins each, that was 35 in total. If Alex managed to handle six Pill Lightnings for all six of his pills, that was 36 Pill Veins in total.

Even if he failed somehow, there was still an hour of time to do better next time. Neither of them were truly out of the competition yet.

By the time Aethersage reached his fifth burst of Pill Lightnings, Alex had only just managed to finish refining his ingredients. The length of the recipe alone made it difficult to complete the pill as quickly as possible, but the fact that Alex had to be careful with each step of the process meant he had to go as slow as he could.

He could imagine millions cheering for Aethersage for what he was doing, but he couldn’t let that distract him.

As Alex began forming the pill, Aethersage was already moving on to the next Pill Lightning. With this being the sixth, the audience had grown wild at the fact that he was about to create seven pills, each with six Pill Veins.

As the large burst of lightning fell before Aethersage, the clouds above grew darker as Alex, too, formed Pill Clouds. However, it wasn’t possible to tell just how many different Pill Clouds there were, as they all looked the same.

The audience expected Alex to be successful with each of the six pills. Otherwise, he had no chance of winning this match at all.

Six thick Pill Lightnings fell for all six of Alex’s cauldrons, and he protected all of them. People paid little attention to it, however, since the first few bolts were obviously going to be stopped. They would rather watch Aethersage and see what he would do next.

To their utter shock, Aethersage continued past the sixth Pill Lightning. He was going for more. He had always stopped at the sixth Pill Lightning until now, so the fact that he was continuing on worried many. Given his cultivation base in the early Immortal Transcendent realm, they couldn’t imagine how he was going to block the next bolts of lightning.

The seventh Pill Lightning did have the power of the Immortal Spirit 1st realm. That was far beyond what Aethersage’s current cultivation base could achieve.

Just as everyone wondered that, Aethersage reached into his Soul Space and brought out 15 formation rods. With a wave of his hands, the rods extended out from him in a circle, hovering half a meter above the stage.

Tens of thousands of Immortal Spirit Stones appeared around the space at the same time as the formation rods began to activate. Upon activation, they drew in the Qi from the surroundings at a slow speed. However, that speed picked up when they caught onto the Spirit Stones.

Once that happened, the speed was now incredibly quick.

Alex faced his second wave of Pill Lightning at the same time, but few people seemed to care about watching that—they were way too interested in Aethersage’s performance.

The formation rods activated after that, creating a large golden fist above Moonshard, as it punched upward. A massive bolt of lightning, comprising seven lightning bolts in total, struck down from the sky, and to everyone’s pure shock, was destroyed by the golden fist.

The golden fist didn’t even appear to have faced any obstacle at all. It was so powerful that even seven Immortal Spirit 1st realm Pill Lightnings had managed to do not a single thing to it.

Aethersage sat comfortably, now sure that he would not face any danger at all. He was confident in his formations and how they would completely protect him from the remaining two waves of lightning bolts.

Spending thousands of Immortal Spirit Stones wasn’t necessarily a good investment in what he would have achieved had it been a regular pill-making session. But considering this was the final battle of the greatest alchemy tournament, Aethersage was ready to spend millions more.

Aethersage awaited the next Pill Lightning to fall, and in the meantime, looked toward Alex. He could afford this much lack of focus.

Alex was fully engaged in his own pills, seemingly lacking a single iota of attention to waste on anything but the pills.

Aethersage hadn’t had the chance to watch Alex make his pills, so he wondered why Alex had chosen to make the pills in separate cauldrons instead of a single one. Was he perhaps not confident in using a single cauldron to make multiple pills that could summon Pill Clouds?

The sky growled, and the next set of Pill Lightnings was ready to come down from the sky. Aethersage brought his focus back from Alex’s situation and onto his own.

Alex was hit first with the Pill Lightnings, and almost immediately afterward, Aethersage was hit as well. However, the formation he had placed around him protected him from the seven Pill Lightnings, each with the strength of an Immortal Spirit 5th realm cultivation base.

Aethersage looked around and noticed how much energy had been spent from the many Spirit Stones he had brought out. Thankfully, he had done his calculations correctly, and the Spirit Stones he had brought out were enough to protect him one more time against the Immortal Spirit 9th realm Pill Lightnings.

Aethersage felt a little dejected at the fact that, despite soon making nine Pill Veins, it wasn’t going to count. Only when he made it using no outside help, not even from artifacts, would he finally gain the great pill-forming technique.

Still, at the rate he was going, it wouldn’t take much longer.

The audience waited with bated breath as the final set of Pill Lightnings fell from the sky. The golden fist formation struck out one more time against the Pill Lightnings, and after using all the remaining power in the Spirit Stones that were around it, the fist destroyed the Pill Lightnings.