Eternal Cultivation of Alchemy

The dark clouds caught everyone's attention almost immediately. Be it Silvermist in the audience, or Whitesong in the chamber of gods, or Alex back in the ball; no one had foreseen the arrival of the Pill Clouds.

The Disciple's test was merely a way to test an alchemist's capability in sharing their knowledge with others; to rear new alchemists. No one ever expected such a simple matter to produce an alchemist in just 50 years who could make Pill Clouds form in the sky.

Momo looked at the dark clouds, stunned at their arrival. Was it supposed to look this terrifying?

This was new territory for her, so she began breathing faster to calm herself. Her master had explained to her the details of what she had to do during this portion, but since she had never done this before, she still had much reason to worry.

The sky crackled suddenly, scaring Momo. She was unable to tell when the lightning bolt would fall. She had watched it happen with her master, so she knew she had to protect the pill, but when?

Momo prepared for the first pill lightning to strike down, taking no chances. She could feel her fingers tremble a little out of nervousness, her entire body growing jittery as a result.

The lightning bolt struck down from the sky suddenly, falling onto her cauldron. Momo put in additional protection in the end just because she wasn't aware of how much it would need.

Thankfully, the lightning was easily stopped. It was quite a bit weaker than her current self, so defending the pill had been easy.

Momo felt the intense energy surrounding the pill all of a sudden, confusing her for the moment. However, when she saw that energy push itself into the pill and form the signature lightning scar on the surface, she realized that it was the formation of the pill vein in progress.

Momo was fascinated by this. The way the pill just absorbed all of that energy was surprising since she hadn't done anything to help there at all. It was all done by itself.

Having sensed it for the first time, Momo was quite curious to understand how that happened. The way the energy pushed itself into the pill, was there a way to use that in her own understanding of Alchemy? Was that something she could learn perhaps?

She needed to ask her master if he had any idea of this. Her master was a learned man after all, so he must have some thoughts.

'If we can learn the way the pill absorbs this energy despite filling to the brim already, maybe we can do something more?' she thought.

Despite her nervousness at the moment, Momo was quite excited about her thoughts. She felt jubilant thanks to her ideas as she wondered about the result this would bring. If she could just find a way to force a pill to absorb the energy the same way as it had just now, then forming Pill Clouds wouldn't be up to chance at all.

If she mixed any findings there with her other knowledge, then she could create something new. It would take a long time, yes, but she had a long time. Once it was all put together, then she would be the proud owner of an incredible technique.

At that point, she could form as many Pill Clouds as she could possibly—

The second pill lightning struck down at once, catching Momo off guard.

"NO!"

She hurriedly sent her Qi to protect the pill, but it was far too late. Lost in her own thoughts and infinite fascinations about what she had discovered, Momo forgot to prepare for the next pill lightning that was bound to strike from the heavens. Discover hidden content at My Virtual Library Empire

The next thing Momo experienced was a massive explosion that threw her back, knocking her out at that very moment.

* * * * * *

Momo opened her eyes, feeling a sense of numbness through her entire body. She tried thinking about where she was and what she was doing, which was when she realized what was happening. Her hazy mind immediately sharpened as she remembered what she had been doing moments ago.

She got up, ready to check for her cauldron, only to be faced with a blank white wall before her. She was no longer on stage. She looked around and realized that she was back in the hall where they had been staying before.

Her senses spread around her at once, and she noticed someone sitting behind her. She turned around to find a mildly smiling Alex on the floor, looking at her.

"Master?" she called out inquisitively. "Where am I?"

"In the waiting hall for disciples, I assume," Alex answered.

"Wasn't I on the stage?" she asked. "I was… I was…"

The memory returned to her. "The Pill Cloud!" she shouted. "Master, I called the Pill Cloud and… and… I failed." Her heart sank as she finally remembered the end: the second lightning strike and her unpreparedness.

She looked toward him. "Is it over?" she asked.

"Has been for a few minutes now," Alex said.

"And my pill?"

"The lightning destroyed it," Alex said. "Pill lightning tends to do that when you don't protect your pill against it."

Momo's face fell at that moment. "I… I'm sorry, Master. I shouldn't have been distracted," she said.

Alex chuckled silently. "I remember the first time I called my Pill Cloud. I didn't know what I was doing. I didn't even know it existed, and I ended up destroying my cauldron."

Alex remembered the cauldron that was gifted to him by Ma Rong, the green and gold artifact that was shattered into dozens of pieces. He had reformed it afterward, making it stronger, and he had later given it to Ronron to use for her Alchemy uses.

"But I knew what I was doing," Momo said. "You told me all about it, and I still failed to do it."

"Just a lesson for you to learn, nothing more," Alex said. "It's better that it happened on the second lightning bolt. Had it been the latter ones, you might have been seriously hurt."

"What exactly happened?" Momo asked. "You said that Pill Lightnings get stronger by 5 realms, right? The second one couldn't have been stronger than Saint Foundation 1st realm, so how was I wounded?"

"It wasn't just the lightning bolt," Alex said. "It was that and the pill. The pill was enhanced thanks to the single pill vein it received, and experiencing damage from the second lightning strike, it exploded, releasing its stronger energy. That's how you were knocked out."

"I see," Momo said, slowly understanding her problem. "If I hadn't done that, I would've had two lightning veins on my pill. Maybe more if I continued."

Tears began filling up Momo's eyes at that moment. "I'm sorry, Master. I was so close to winning, and I… I failed you." The loss of the pill meant she had failed in this test, and with that, she had no way of ranking 1st at all.

Alex watched Momo cry and wondered what he should say. Should he tell her the truth? She believed that she had only failed this test, but the truth was, because her pill ended up getting destroyed, she had now failed her entire competition.