Eternal Cultivation of Alchemy

2200  Breakthroughs

Upon returning from God's Origin, Alex threw himself into cultivation and alchemy. He did one thing or the other every day, wasting no time on almost anything else.

And so, in just 5 years, he managed to break through once again, reaching the Immortal Ascendant 7th realm. He slowed down his cultivation only then, focusing his time on Alchemy and some other cultivation.

He needed to keep his body and spiritual energy equally strong as well.

His Alchemy improved quite a bit during that time, letting him do more. He practiced other things, but among them, he focused on making different pills in the same cauldron at once the most.

That seemed more important to him not just for the tournament but for everyday Alchemy as well.

Silvermist came to check up on him from time to time, giving him positive feedback on what he was doing. Alex was more than happy whenever he got praise from his master.

Silvermist wasn't around that often as he needed to go visit God's Domain from time to time to help with the upcoming tournament. There were less than 3 decades remaining now, so it was getting more and more important that everything was set up nice and proper.

Alex never knew what the tournament was planned as his master didn't even reveal to him what suggestions he had made to the tournament committee. All he knew was that he needed to be well-rounded by the time the tournament came around.

Alex was getting better at almost everything, especially making multiple pills at once. His master's suggestion had really come through to help him have a much easier time with it.

To make multiple different pills in a single cauldron, he would separate the space without the cauldron horizontally to make one pill above the other. The more pills there were the smaller the section would be for each pill.

That had caused him some issues in maintaining different levels of heat throughout the different sections as heat easily conducted from one section to another without him needing to do anything.

In fact, he needed to act against the transfer of heat and that was more annoying than it was helpful.

However, his master had suggested that instead of heating up the entire separated section of the cauldron, he only needed to heat up a small strip of the cauldron along with the ingredients would move along. The rest of it would act as a buffer between the many different temperature strips.

It was a bit more difficult to maintain heat in tiny strips instead of just large chucks as it needed more precise control of heat. But it also let him ignore most of his control surrounding heat transfer between the sections, so overall it was a good improvement.

It helped his pill come out better and with time, he would continue to do so to improve.

One day, Alex had been trying to make 6 different pills at the same time, separating the cauldron into 6 equal-sized vertical spaces. As he did, a thought came to his mind.

Couldn't he use this same thing for something completely different?

* * * * * *

The Alchemy God announced to the world that the Grand Alchemy Convergence, the greatest alchemy tournament of this era, would be held in exactly 25 years.

The news came about 75 years after he first announced his intention to hold the tournament, so everyone was more or less prepared for it. Still, announcing it again gave another wind to the people who had given up on finding disciples as the tournament came with a prize for the masters of the winners as well.

The masters of the winners would receive something directly from the Alchemy God that was bound to improve their alchemy by another level. No one knew what it was exactly, but since the Alchemy God had promised something, there was not a single person who didn't want it.

People went out of their way to go find young Immortal realm and Saint realm alchemists who could take part in the tournament.

Thousands arrived in the Medicine World in droves after this announcement, either to witness the tournament or to have someone participate in it. Alchemists from all around the world arrived to take part in the competition.

Even the ones that were not brought by someone from the Medicine world came on their own to participate. If they had no master, they would receive that share of the reward themselves.

One after another, people joined the competition, and it was soon certain that the tournament was truly going to be one of the greatest ones of this generation.

There were also many who had heard about the tournament the first time around and had thus begun their space travel long ago and had only begun arriving at this point.

Hence, the number of people in the Medicine World was steadily increasing day by day to the point where they had to soon start making some temporary rules and regulations. 

One of the first rules made was that no one was allowed to visit the many free Alchemy gardens around the world. The participants had been numbers in the tens of thousands, so they needed those ingredients for the tournament and couldn't afford just anyone to take them away.

Another rule was for no one in the Divine realm to be allowed to visit any of the other continents once they had left the Threeflower Continent until the end of the tournament. This was an attempt to minimize the chances of the Divine realm cultivators from even accidentally messing up with the participants who were getting ready for the tournament.

The decrees came directly from the Alchemy God, and even though his words were only regularly followed in God's Domain, this time it was followed all throughout the world.

No one wanted to go against a god after all.

Many people kept on coming to the Medicine World and the number of participants kept on growing. And so, it was all but certain that the best of the current generation of Alchemists would most certainly be found in this world. * * * * *

It was only a decade prior to the tournament that Alex broke through once more, reaching the Immortal Ascendant 8th realm. This breakthrough took a little more time than usual as he focused more on alchemy during this period and he also visited the the other continents.

He went to Pillheaven continent and the Threeflower continent. Silvermist wanted to take him to the Medicine continent and God's Domain too, but due to time constraints and the amount of work he needed to do for the upcoming tournament, he simply didn't have the time.

So, Alex had to be okay with just what he had been given.

He consolidated his breakthrough and let his master know of it.

Silvermist came to his room with a wooden box in his hand. "Since you broke through, you can now use this," he said, handing Alex the box.

Alex opened the box and smelled the familiar smell of the Fain Immortal Peach Lily, the flower that was capable of instantly sending a person to the next cultivation realm.

With this, despite his recent breakthrough, he would break through once again immediately.