Eternal Cultivation of Alchemy
chapter-2177

Alex heard the rumbling sky and prepared himself for the first lightning bolt to form. He waited for it to fall, making preparations to fight back. But as he waited, he began to feel the aura that gathered up above him.

And he understood this was an attack he could not stop.

Alex tried to will the Pill Cloud to stop forming, but since the first attack hadn't landed yet, he couldn't do that. A single bolt of lightning at least had to fall before it could be stopped.

Immediately, a shield appeared from his Soul Space and landed on top of the Cauldron. The lightning bolt fell from the sky, landing on the shield, which instantly blocked it entirely.

Alex quickly made the Pill Cloud disappear once he was done protecting his pill. He fell back on the ground, breathing quickly as he felt the strength of the lightning bolt.

No doubt, the bolt just now had the strength of high Immortal Origin realm, maybe even the Immortal Transcendent realm. As Alex was, he could not have protected the pill from it by himself.

He quickly checked on both the pill and the shield. The shield was more or less fine, having used up a bit of the Qi stored inside of it. As for the pill, it had a hefty weight to it, a strong aura surrounding it, and a single pill vein on top of it.

Silvermist burst into the room. "Are you alright?" he asked quickly, checking for the damage around Alex.

"I'm fine, master," Alex said, putting the shield back into his Soul Space.

"What happened? Why was the pill lightning so strong?" Silvermist asked, quickly using his divine sense to check everything. His eyes widened when he noticed the pill. Its aura was enough to tell him what had happened.

"Were you trying to fuse pills?" Silvermist asked.

"Yes," Alex said. "I… didn't think that Pill Clouds would form during pill fusion even when the energy was overflowing. That was my bad."

Silvermist frowned. "That's weird. You really can make Pill Cloud form whenever you want, huh? Even accidentally. Is it a technique?"

Alex was confused for a second, wondering why his master asked that. It was only then he realized the mistake he had made, that no one else would have made had they been fusing pills instead.

Unlike others, Alex had a technique that helped him reach 100% pill harmony without having to work any harder. The others had good pill formation techniques, but reaching 100% with those was still a low chance for them. That was why there weren't pill clouds in the sky all the time.

However, for him, with the skill he used, it was all the time.

"Yes," Alex answered. "I do have such a skill. I see the issue now, master."

Silvermist seemed interested in Alex's technique. "What is the technique called?" he asked. "I wonder if I've heard of it before."

"You haven't, master," Alex said. "Its a nameless technique, that I later renamed to Vortex of Perfection."

"No, I have not heard of it. Interesting, where did you find this technique?" he asked.

"I… received it from someone else when I was starting my alchemy journey. As for where he got it from, I can't tell you," Alex said.

"Oh. Any chance I can learn it too?" Silvermist asked.

Alex thought for a bit and grimaced. "I… don't know, master. It's not that I do not wish to give you this technique, but rather that I will need you to swear an oath to never share it. And I do not want to do that to you. Not to my own master."

"Oh. Is it that serious that you cannot give it to someone else?" Silvermist asked.

"I do not yet know the origins of the technique, so I cannot say my life will be safe if others realize I have it," Alex said. "It would be alright if the technique was all they wanted. But if they instead get the wrong idea and think I am hiding more from them, I will be in trouble."

Silvermist nodded. "I won't ask it from you then. Give it to me if you want to. Never give it to me if you don't. You are the disciple here and I am the master. This relationship mostly functions around me giving you things, not the other way around."

Silvermist smiled. "Don't feel too bad about it. And take care not to call on stronger pill lightnings. That one earlier nearly scared me to death," he said as he patted Alex's shoulders. "Keep up the good work."

He turned around and walked away. Alex watched his master leave, feeling more cared about than he had in a long time. He decided that before he left this realm, he would give his master that technique, with or without the oath.

Alex went back to training around fusing pills but never again used his regular technique. Instead, he used his other pill-forming technique, which had a rather low chance of completely filling a pill's body with energy.

A pill's body is like a restaurant, and the energy was the customer. When the restaurant was empty, any customer could walk in and find an empty seat for themselves to sit in.

Even when it was more than halfway full, any customer who walked in would have to take no more than a cursory glance to notice the empty seats. However, when it was close to full, the open seats were not so obvious. And many customers would need precious time to find a place to sit.

In a pill, the amount of time it took energy to find the last few spots was so difficult that it was damn near impossible for them to find it in time before the technique had to be stopped. Even with the technique running, it could take minutes for the energy to find the last few spot, and that was more than enough time for the pill to be ruined.

That was why most people failed to reach 100% Pill Harmony with their pills. That was why even Prime Alchemists could only form pill clouds once a week, or even once a month.

Alex was one of the only few people who had the technique to make a pill reach 100%, the rest of whom were people to whom he had given the technique away.

Alex trained in fusing pills, getting better at understanding how much energy could fit in a regular pill. The density of the energy no longer created any false impression on him regarding its size, and Alex improved rapidly.

He still wasn't at the level where he could perfectly fit all his energy into all of the pills, but he would get there soon enough. For now, not being able to do that was more beneficial for him, so he didn't worry.

After he practiced forming pills enough, Alex began testing around to see how he could use the pill as an ingredient to make another pill. Alex found that surprisingly easy. Since he didn't want to use White Canvas Daisy, he just had to practice with the other two methods.

And whether it was using a random ingredient as a substitute for the powder, or omitting the powder from the final recipe entirely, it was super easy for Alex to do, thus making it easy for him to make the pill.