Eternal Cultivation Of Alchemy

Helen walked through the crowd and climbed up onto the platform as the barrier allowed her in. Her face held a thoughtful expression as she considered her options.

What was it that she could say or do that would surprise this man?

There were a couple of things she could say about her son that would do the trick, but about herself, there was little. Maybe she could talk about being a Prime Alchemist, one who could make pill clouds in one out of every three pills she made.

Although, she didn’t feel like that was worth boasting about, since Alex could do that with every pill, and the Divinity might not be as surprised by her information.

She was also a talented talisman maker, now even more so after learning from Battlesage for some time, but humans hardly ever seemed to care about talismans as much as they did formations. The actual people who learned runes and scripts had great respect for it, but to regular people, it was just something they could buy from someone else.

”Sit,” the Divinity said in a gentle voice as Helen finally arrived before him.

Up close, she saw the headband around his forehead even better, as well as the tiny white gems embedded in it. They looked to be the same color as the crystal beside him. She understood then that the headband was what recognized the change in his emotions.

The crystal was likely there to show it to others instead.

”Here, hold this.”

The man handed her a piece of rock with an intricate carving on it. Helen took it and found it had some runes atop it. Her eyes scanned the runes quickly, formulating an answer as to what the script could do.

”Is this for detecting truths?” she asked without thinking.

The crystal glowed red, moving into a dull orange. She looked at the crystal before turning toward the man, who held a somewhat surprised expression on his face.

”Yes, it’s a Lie Detecting Rod. You can only speak truths to try and surprise me. Should you say anything that is a lie, you will be disqualified,” the man said, the color of the crystal fading back to white.

Helen nodded with a thoughtful look. ”Do I have just one chance, or...?”

”You may try however many times you need, so long as you can do it all within the two minutes. Speaking of which...”

The man took a small hourglass to the side and flipped it.

”You have two minutes.”

Helen took a few seconds to decide what she was going to tell the man. It couldn’t just be surprising on its own. It also had to be something the man could understand, as well as something that wouldn’t get her or her family in trouble in any way.

Saying she had cultivated under the World Tree within the past year alone would easily suffice if the purpose was only to surprise him, but that sort of truth would be the wrong thing to say.

After considering her options, she spoke up.

”Have you been to the Sky God’s palace by any chance?” she asked him.

The man raised an eyebrow, intrigued by the question. ”I have a few times with Her Boldness,” he said.

”Would that be... the Stone God?” she asked.

The man nodded. ”I am indeed under her banner.”

Helen’s eyes sparked a little. If he was someone from one of the Half-Gods’ cults, then he would understand what she was going to say a lot better.

”Then you must know about the Talent Testing Pillar in there,” Helen said.

The crystal’s color changed slightly, nearly reaching yellow just then.

”Not just anyone knows about that pillar,” he said. ”How do you know about it?”

”I’ve tested myself there,” Helen said.

The man looked at the rod in her hand, and seeing there was no sort of response from it, he could only believe that to be the truth.

”Would you mind telling me what your score there was, senior?” she asked.

The man seemed to hesitate a little. ”I did well there. I received a score of 72.”

Helen nodded. For a regular person, that was indeed a great result. He was talented.

”What was the score of Her Boldness? Do you know by any chance?” Helen asked.

”82,” the man answered. ”I remember people telling me I was exactly 10 points lower than Her Boldness. Why do you ask?”

Helen gave the truth she hoped to win with.

”My score was 93.”

Her eyes went to the crystal to see the change in color, but it remained white. Confused, she looked back at the man, who held a similarly confused expression on his face.

”Repeat that again.”

”My score was 93,” Helen repeated.

”That’s impossible,” the man said.

There was no shock or surprise in his voice. Only extreme doubt.

”It’s the truth,” Helen said. ”My score was 93.”

The man couldn’t believe her. It was just not something one could easily believe, especially when they knew about the Talent Testing Pillar.

But then, he looked down at the rod she held and the complete lack of response from it.

The part of him that struggled to believe her words began clashing with the part of him that began to register that she had, in fact, told the truth.

There was a visible struggle in his mind at that moment to decide whether what she had told him was indeed the truth or not, his emotions fluctuating quite intensely.

The gems on his headband flashed, changing in color. They immediately jumped to green, but then went back down to red before jumping back up to yellow.

”Are you telling the truth?” he asked. ”93 is... it’s not... How?”

Helen shrugged, holding up the rod. ”Isn’t this proof I’m telling the truth?” she asked.

The man stared at the rod for a long time before all hints of doubt in his mind were replaced by shock.

The colors changed, going from yellow, to green, to blue, to indigo, finally settling at the highest rank it could reach.

Violet.