An Alchemist's Path to Eternity

The Alchemy Realm was steeped in the fragrance of flowers, but no bird ever sang within it, and the silence that resulted felt almost unnatural in its completeness. It was into that silence that a burst of laughter suddenly broke, ringing out and lingering for several breaths before it finally faded.

The Seagon Matriarch emerged from the room soon after, her silver hair loose over her shoulders. The exhaustion that had weighed on her for so long had been replaced by a rare look of satisfaction. Several pills rested in her palm; most of them were incomplete, but one among them shone with abundant spirit energy.

She looked down at that one and smiled. Five years... After refining the Demon Transformation Pill, I have finally succeeded with the Human Transformation Pill as well. This pill is truly remarkable. Once I leave the Land of Fallen Devils, I will refine more for the younger members of my clan. If they can take human form early, they can begin learning my alchemy arts and practicing combat techniques sooner. From this day onward, the Seagon clan will rise under my leadership!

For a moment, she stood there holding the Human Transformation Pill, letting the satisfaction settle over her. But the concerns she had pushed aside through five years of secluded refinement returned all at once.

Five years had passed. That human had advanced to the next stage long ago, and she had no idea how far he had gone since then. If he had already cleared the final trial and obtained the inheritance, what would become of everything she had worked for?

At that thought, the smile on her face slowly faded. Truthfully, her talent in the Dao of Alchemy was among the best of her generation. Refining fourth-tier pills in only five years was a feat most alchemists never managed in an entire lifetime, and it was more than enough to justify her title as a grandmaster. Yet compared to Devil Lord Azure Yang...

”He’s simply a monster!”

That a Demon Emperor would call anyone a monster said everything about the reverence she held for Luo Chen, and it was reverence she had earned the hard way. He had started two full stages behind her, closed that gap, reached her, passed her, and then cleared the fourth stage at a pace she still could not make sense of. It was a speed so far beyond her understanding that, in her own mind, she had quietly built him into something larger than life: a founder of some great alchemy sect, perhaps, or a direct inheritor of a Holy Land. She needed somewhere to put that disbelief to rest. It was not that she had fallen short; he was simply too far beyond anyone she could compare herself to.

With a sigh, she tucked away the Human Transformation Pill and decided to rest properly for two or three days. As long as she could refine the most difficult and unfamiliar Devil Transformation Pill next, she would pass the fourth stage. With it, perhaps she might still catch a glimpse of Devil Lord Azure Yang’s shadow...

The moment that thought rose in her mind, she suddenly staggered.

Hm? Am I just too tired?

That thought rose instinctively, only for her to catch herself a moment later. As a Demon Emperor, she could not have stumbled without cause, which meant something else had caused the stumble.

That something was the world itself.

Before her eyes, the distant green mountains were already fading, the earth shook beneath, and dark clouds pressed down from above. Darkness rolled in from the horizon, swallowing every trace of light across the Alchemy Realm. When it reached the stone house, the teleportation formation beneath her flared to life.

Seeing this, the Seagon Matriarch fell into thought. The Alchemy Realm was closing, just as the Formation Realm had once closed the moment Li Canghai cleared it and claimed its inheritance, sealing itself off forever after. By that logic, there could only be one explanation for these phenomena: Someone had acquired the realm’s reward.

”So in the end... I was still one step behind you, Devil Lord Azure Yang.”

As the distorted space swallowed her, unwillingness filled her heart, but beneath it was an unexpected sense of relief. At least she no longer had to wonder whether she could surpass him.

She did not know how much time had passed before she opened her eyes again. The moment she regained consciousness, however, a deep unease seized her. She clutched her head and shook it several times, but the more she tried to recall what she had learned, the more her expression changed. ”Where are my formulas? The alchemical formulas... How did they disappear? Even the ingredients....”

At this moment, she only remembered refining many pills within the Alchemy Realm. Yet no matter how hard she tried, she could not recall any of them. Whether it was the one that concerned spirit roots, the one that strengthened a demon’s divine soul, the one that tempered a devil’s body, or even the transformation pill she had hoped would become the foundation of the Seagon clan’s rise, all had vanished from her mind. It was as though an unseen hand had wiped those memories away. The harder she tried to force the memories back, the more certain she became that they were truly gone.

Soon enough, she realized this had to be a safeguard left by whoever ruled this realm, something meant to keep its most precious knowledge from ever leaving with someone who failed the trial. And if that was true here, it was probably true everywhere else. The other dozen or so realms had likely been built with the same safeguard in mind. After all, those pieces of knowledge might appear ordinary at first glance, but every one of them was incomparably precious upon deeper study. Every pill she had refined was a treasure in its own right. Any one of them could strengthen a great force or alter the fate of an entire race. Until someone became the true successor of the Monarch, there was no reason such knowledge would be allowed to leave the Land of Fallen Devils.

Thinking of this, the Seagon Matriarch’s expression darkened into gloom. She had failed to obtain the main inheritance, and now even the alchemical formulas she had hoped to bring back to her clan had been taken from her. Her only consolation was that the master of the Land of Fallen Devils had not been needlessly cruel. Though she had failed the trial, she had at least been allowed to leave alive.

Only then did she examine her surroundings. She stood in a huge plaza shrouded in clouds, where pale mist drifted beneath a boundless sky and gave the place the unreal beauty of an immortal realm. Fourteen palaces floated above the sea of clouds, each suspended high in the sky like a great star and casting its light across the empty expanse below.

Looking at those palaces, the Seagon Matriarch seemed to realize something. ”So this is the actual Heaven of Bright Illumination!”

Of the fourteen palaces, two shone brilliantly. She could just make out the words inscribed on the plaques before them: Alchemy Palace and Slave Palace.

She immediately understood what that light meant. Someone had entered these palaces and was receiving its inheritance. The person within the Alchemy Palace was most likely Devil Lord Azure Yang, but who had entered the Slave Palace?

Before she could pursue the thought, a light descended onto the plaza not far away. When it faded, a black-robed figure stood where it had fallen. He wore a regretful expression and he murmured to himself, ”What a pity... I was only one step away from refining an Ascendant-level puppet...”

Then he noticed the Seagon Matriarch. Their eyes met, and the air between them grew strangely tense.

***

Deep within the Alchemy Palace of the Heaven of Bright Illumination, a pool of milky-white spring water bubbled softly in the stillness.

A figure floated within it, drifting up and down as though unconscious. The spring water gathered gently around him, flowing over his body and seeping into him. It soothed his dry eyes, replenished his exhausted sea of qi, and restored the vitality that had nearly been drained from his body. More than that, as it washed through him, it also drew out strange impurities; with each passing moment, his body became purer and more ethereal, and his affinity with heaven and earth deepened.

Several days later, Luo Chen slowly opened his eyes. For a moment, he stared blankly ahead.

What is this...

Before the question had fully formed, he instinctively spread his divine consciousness through the surrounding area. No one else was present, and only the spring water enveloped his entire body in comforting warmth.

”What kind of liquid is this?”

He could sense a unique power within the spring water entering his body. As he was absorbing, it brought subtle changes that gradually became impossible to ignore. The root of his tongue, his sea of qi, and his testicles, the three seats of his spirit roots, were all being refined by that power. It was as though the spring water was reshaping his spirit roots and pushing them toward a pure, perfect state.

Realizing this, Luo Chen no longer bothered with it and simply settled deeper into the pool. ”I don’t know what this is, but it clearly has some remarkable transformative power. I should stay in it as long as I can.”

As he continued to absorb the power, he also turned part of his attention inward to examine his condition. Before losing consciousness, he had left the Primordial Unity Cauldron outside, yet it had somehow returned to his sea of qi and now rested there as it always had. His two cores revolved nearby, greedily drawing in the pure spirit energy that filled the space. However, when his gaze fell upon the cauldron, he noticed a golden pearl faintly tinged with crimson lying within it. It was obviously neither of his cores, so it could only be...

”The Law Scrutiny Pill!”

Gulp!

He swallowed hard as overwhelming joy surged through his chest. Memories of the final refinement returned one after another. He had exhausted every last trace of mana and origin energy, then consumed part of the Flesh Ganoderma’s main body to sustain the Qi Control Art. Only then had he endured through the final stage, and as it turned out, he had successfully refined the fifth-tier pill. In doing so, he earned the approval of that faint voice from the void and successfully cleared the fifth trial.

As the truth settled in, he felt a measure of relief. A fifth-tier pill was in no way something he should have been capable of touching at his level. His alchemical attainments were not that far off, but his cultivation realm was far too low. In the end, he had relied on his physique, the system’s assistance, and, more than anything else, the support of the entire Alchemy Realm to finally pull this feat off.

Now, as he reflected, he finally saw the true nature of the illusory realm. The Alchemy Realm was, at its core, an enormous formation built to aid alchemy, only later repurposed as a place of inheritance. That was why the refinement had drawn forth such extraordinary phenomena and why the entire realm had seemed to lend its strength to the Law Scrutiny Pill—that was the whole point of the entire place.

”If I try again in the outside world, even with a complete formula and all the necessary ingredients, I’m afraid I still won’t be able to recreate that achievement.”