Eternal Cultivation of Alchemy
chapter-1999

Alex opened his eyes on a bed, staring at a wide ceiling high above. He quickly got up and looked around at where he was, and saw a man that stood in front of him.

"Senior Lan?" Alex called out.

"Junior Dawnblade, how are you feeling?" the man asked.

"I'm… feeling fine," Alex said. He truly was feeling fine, which felt odd to him. He looked around, trying to figure out where he was.

"You're in one of our infirmaries," Lan Douhan explained. "Do you remember what happened?" Alex thought back to what he had done. "A little," he explained. "I was running up the steps and I must have used up too much of my spiritual energy without realizing it. I must have lost consciousness then."

"Lost consciousness and broke a lot of bones in your body. You went far beyond your body was ready to go," the man said. "But thankfully, there wasn't anything that could not be healed with a single pill. Your body didn't even need a pill somehow. Did you eat a pill beforehand?"

Alex did not answer. He simply sighed. He looked back at Lan Douhan and asked, "What are you doing here, senior Lan? Is this a coincidence… or?"

"No, I came to meet you," the man said. "I was notified that you were taking the entrance test and was called because… well, you caused a bit of a stir among a few of the elders."

"I did?" Alex asked.

"Yes. Everything they learned about you, it made them curious to see just what sort of person you were," Lan Douhan said.

"Oh…" Alex thought, lowering his head. Had he really caused a lot of people to be curious about him while he had been trying to hide? 'Maybe I shouldn't have tried so hard during the climb,' Alex thought.

"Yeah, a lot of them were disappointed to find out that they wouldn't see you take the test," Lan Douhan said.

Alex paused what he was thinking and turned toward Lan Douhan. "Why wouldn't they see me take the test?" he asked.

Lan Douhan slowly raised both his eyebrows as he realized what he had skipped out on. "I'm so sorry. I should've mentioned this earlier. You've been in the infirmary for the past 2 days. The tests are already over, and 2 new disciples have already been chosen."

Alex's face went blank for a second. "I'm sorry, what?" he asked. "I missed the test?"

"Yes," Lan Douhan said. "Don't worry though. The elders were impressed by your performance on the stairs alone. They may even be willing to directly let you take the test next year without having to go through the whole ordeal all over again. I'll talk to them and see what they plan on doing."

Alex fell silent. Did he have to wait another year to find out if he could join the sect or not?

"Don't be sad," Lan Douhan said. "It's just a year."

Alex sighed and nodded. He remembered something and brought out the shield that belonged to Lan Douhan. "Your shield, senior," he said as he handed it over. "You dropped it when you had to leave."

Lan Douhan took the shield with an awkward smile on his face and looked at it. He caressed the surface of the shield and shook his head, handing the thing back to Alex.

Alex took the shield with a weird look on his face. "You don't want it?" he asked.

Lan Douhanpulled out another shield, one that was almost identical, and showed it to Alex. "I already have another one. You can keep that and make use of it. It can come in handy."

Alex slowly nodded, looking at the shield in his hand. For the past 2 years, whenever he saw the shield, his first instinct had been to refine it as soon as he could so that he could use it.

He had seen what the shield could do against the two sect masters and was more than willing to make use of the shield. Alas, it belonged to someone else and he didn't feel right refining it without at least trying to return to it to its rightful owner.

However, now he had no such inhibition keeping him away from refining it. As soon as he got away from this place, he would begin refining the shield.

Alex couldn't wait.

"So I should leave now?" he asked the man before him. "Since I'm healed, I wonder if I'm still welcome."

"Oh, you can't leave just yet," Lan Douhan said. "The elders wish to speak to you. Let me go message them."

"That's alright," a voice spoke right next to them, manifesting in the air out of nothing. It didn't speak directly in their mind at all, and yet there was no formation or talisman to make that sound. How had someone spoken from nothing? Was this some sort of technique? Dao?

"You can bring our young friend to the courtyard where we are all gathered."

Alex could tell that the person who just spoke was male, but beyond that, he had no idea. Lan Douhan got up and gestured for Alex to walk with him.

Alex looked around at the infirmary as he walked out, realizing that it wasn't so large. Either there were many infirmaries in the sect, or people simply didn't get injured often enough to require it.

As he walked out, Alex smelled the fresh scent of a mid-afternoon breeze, flowing past a vast garden of fruits and flowers. His eyes widened in shock as he looked at the plants surrounding the infirmary, all of which were at least in the Immortal realm.

He even recognized a few that his Alchemy God's Knowledge told him to be in the Divine realm. Alex had never before seen Divine realm ingredients.

There was a pathway created through the alchemy garden and Lan Douhan began walking through it. Alex followed, looking around at the different plants that were gathered here.

He even saw a section of the garden that was entirely allocated to growing just the Spirit Cleansing Lily, Divine Devil's fruit, and World Defying Mushrooms.

These mushrooms had absorbed only Immortal and Divine Qi and thus were of a much higher quality than the ones Alex had with him at the moment. The alchemist in him wanted to run into those fields and start gathering those ingredients.

He could only wonder what sort of punishment he would have to suffer if he actually did that.

The small alchemy garden he saw turned out to actually be a massive one that spanned multiple mountains. It had only appeared small from where he had been, but walking through it, he got to realize just how massive it was.

"Are all infirmaries surrounded by such massive alchemy gardens?" Alex asked Lan Douhan.

"This?" the man looked around at the garden they were passing. He smiled and asked, "Do you find it great?" Alex nodded. "They are indeed great."

The man shook his head. "They are considered tiny by the sect actually. It's too much trouble to go to the real alchemy fields when someone is injured, so they decided to plant a small garden around the infirmaries itself."

The man said those words so very simply, and yet they rang like giant gongs in Alex's mind.