Eternal Cultivation Of Alchemy

Alex raised an eyebrow in surprise. He had been waiting for the tiny creatures to turn azure, but instead they ended up turning golden.

’Golden?’ Alex thought in surprise. ’But that’s…’

If there was any dragon he knew that had golden scales, then that was definitely the Dragon Father.

“Didn’t you say you had Azure Dragon’s blood?” the Insect Sage asked. “Why is it gold?”

“I’m not sure,” Alex said. “Maybe something went wrong?”

“I can’t even think of any dragons with gold scales,” Strongclaw said from behind. “The only ones that come to mind are the descendants of the Yellow Dragon, but even those are paler and usually lean toward orange more than gold.”

The Insect Sage couldn’t figure it out, and Alex did his best to give no hints as to what was happening. A moment later, the pillbug moved, grabbing their attention.

Slowly, the bug unfolded from its guarded form, revealing the little critter that it was. As soon as it unfolded, it scuttled to life, quickly running away from the Insect Sage and climbing up Alex’s robes.

Alex couldn’t really sense it through any bonds, so none had formed just yet. But despite that, it appeared that the insect had taken a liking to him, almost as if it had imprinted on him.

Alex slowly reached toward it and pulled it onto his arm, where it climbed on and crawled over to his bleeding palm. Alex could feel it licking his palm, consuming more of his blood.

“It seems to have taken a liking to your blood,” the Insect Sage said with a fascinated expression on his face.

Alex smiled. “Then let me not waste any more of my blood and use it while I can,” he said, pouring more blood onto the remaining nine bugs. Their color changed again after a while, becoming golden.

Alex was still quite surprised that they had turned golden, not because he didn’t think the Dragon Father’s blood was superior to the Azure Dragon’s, but because he hadn’t realized he had the Dragon Father’s bloodline.

When exactly did he acquire the bloodline? Was it after his body became God-grade? Or was it after he absorbed the energy that was the Dragon Father?

Or perhaps he had always had the bloodline and just didn’t know about it. Maybe it was because of this bloodline that he could bond with Pearl and Scarlet when no one else could. Maybe it was because of it that he could acquire the ability to sense Time and Space from the two beasts.

Whatever the reason may have been, all that mattered was that he had the Dragon Father’s bloodline, and that was all the little pillbugs needed to activate—his own Grade 10 insects.

The remaining nine bugs came to life after a while, climbing onto Alex.

“Here,” the Insect Sage brought out a small storage bag. “Keep them in this.”

Alex took the bag and thanked the sage before placing the bugs into it. “Does the transaction complete with this?” he asked. “Surely I will receive some more information about these insects, right? I need to learn how to bond with them after all.”

The Insect Sage nodded. “I can give you the information we have. Whether it works or not is entirely up to that information. We can’t give you anything else since that is all we have.”

Alex could do nothing but accept that.

“Thank you. I shall work with what I get.”

The Insect Sage passed along a talisman with some information regarding how the pillbugs were raised, along with how they should not be raised—based entirely on the records left behind by the previous cultivators who had attempted to do so.

Once Alex received it, he didn’t immediately leave the Hall of Insects, but instead stuck around to learn more about how the insects were raised. The Insect Sage chose to explain it all to Alex, but Alex wanted to learn it directly by shadowing someone.

So, after some consideration, a disciple of the palace was placed under Alex’s watch.

A young woman by the name of Blueflake had come to the Hall of Insects to get a new insect for herself, and using that opportunity, she was given the task of helping Alex understand more about the insects and how they were taken care of.

The young woman’s cultivation base wasn’t that much lower than Alex’s own, so it had come as a surprise to her how formal everyone was around him. However, when she properly took a look at him, she could feel her heart skip a beat for some reason. Without a doubt, there was certainly a reason why he was getting such treatment—albeit completely unknown to her.

Alex could tell that his Half-God status was having an effect on the young woman, and frankly, he was loving it. People dared to be much less rude or dismissive of him when they felt this.

If not for this, he couldn’t imagine how his interaction with the Insect Sage might have gone. The sage might have even captured him to find out more about how his blood could awaken those insects, or maybe even forced him to awaken the rest so he could use them himself.

So, he was more than happy to make use of what he had.

The young woman had seemingly finally decided to become serious about raising insects, so she had come to the upper grades to get a good insect. After a long decision, she went with Serenading Cicadas.

The Serenading Cicadas were Grade 6 insects that were capable of using their sounds to attack someone else.

They had a lower reproduction score and an average score in Ease of Handling. In addition, they scored a 6 in Potential, placing the insect firmly in Grade 6.

Alex watched the young woman choose the insect and couldn’t help but be curious as to why.

“I am a weak fighter, so it is always helpful to have insects that can help me with that,” she explained in the end.

“I see,” Alex said with an interested look. “I can’t wait to see how you raise them.”