Eternal Cultivation of Alchemy

Just as the Dragon had mentioned, the pill would grant one a fake Immortal cultivation realm that could give them the strength of a newly ascended Immortal. However, when used, the backlash alone would wreck one's body and soul.

Alex wasn't worried about having his body wrecked as much, but if his soul was hurt as well, that could be problematic.

'Well, it's a worst-case scenario pill in the end,' he thought. 'A forbidden pill, only to be eaten when you're about to die. There's no point in worrying about my body and soul at that point.'

He looked through the ingredients in the list and frowned a little. Most of the ingredients were fine, nothing hard to obtain even if they were considered rare.

But the main ingredient that made up the pill was something called a Fire Coral. Alex knew about the ingredient simply based on the name and what he had in his mind, nothing else.

He had never seen this ingredient in real life as it grew only in the deepest parts of the ocean, on top of a fire spirit vein.

Alex grimaced a little when reading that. The chances of making the pill had suddenly become minuscule. "I might have to ask Bai Jingshen for some help once I return," he thought to himself.

That was the only way he could think of acquiring it as he was now. The deep ocean was a scary place after all.

After some time, Alex was given another trial as well. In this one, he had to make a pill recipe using the ingredients listed and get as close as he could to telling what the pill would do.

This wasn't as hard for Alex, and he easily completed the task in a quarter of the hours allocated. When he passed the trial, the color around his wall changed once again, growing lighter.

The dark blue walls had changed to a shade of a lighter blue that could still go a shade or two lighter. When they were fully rid of all the colors, the wall would become entirely white, which was what the Dragon had wished him good luck on.

When the walls became white, it meant that the trial was over and that he had passed it all.

The next trial came earlier than the allocated time was entirely over. Either the participants had all left or had all passed. There was no in-between here.

The next trial was rather simple. It asked one to make multiple pills in the same cauldron. One would have to change recipes ever so slightly to deal with this, but Alex had gotten used to this for so long that he didn't even think about it at this point and just did it.

The speed at which he finished this one surprised the Dragon. Thankfully, Alex hadn't bothered to make pill clouds so he didn't show off a lot.

Once the pills were made, his walls became a light shade of blue that had nearly lost its color.

One more trial and he would be done.

Only, this was going to be the hardest one yet.

The trials were never made with the intention that there would be someone amongst the saints who could make pill clouds. It was never even made with the intention that someone could reach Immortal grade with their pills.

The quality of the pill was never the concern of the trials. Only the knowledge and skill to make them good enough.

So, it was true that even people without any skill to make the best pills had a chance at passing all the trials.

Still, there was a reason why barely anyone passed through all the trials. In the 75-thousand-year-old history of the secret realm, there was a reason why only a handful of people ever reached white.

And that had to do with the final trial that Alex was being given.

Alex's eyes widened in shock when he heard that final trial. He was asked to do something he wasn't even sure was possible. After all, he had never even thought of doing such a thing.

The trial demanded that he make two pills. That would be simple enough if he wasn't supposed to make two different pills, at the same time, and in the same cauldron.

Alex frowned at the thought of what he was going to have to do for this trial.

2 different pills in the same cauldron. What sort of maniac would do such a thing? The entire point of making a pill was to weave together the energies of different ingredients in one place so they produced different effects.

If you tried to make two pills at the same time, the energies would mix together, rendering a failure for both pills. So then why was it that the Dragon put this as the last challenge? Was it really possible?

Alex had 2 whole days to complete the challenge. He had already been in this place for nearly 3 days, so now having 2 days meant that he would be here for 5 days.

5 days each in 6 different trial rooms of the Realm of Trial meant that a single person could complete it all in a month at best. Given that the trial was supposed to run for only a month, one was never meant to go through it all.

'2 pills at once?' Alex asked himself. 'How do I do it?'

His heart was telling him to use pills that didn't need as many ingredients and were thus not as complicated. However, for some reason, his pride stopped him from choosing the pills for such a reason.

If such a thing was possible to be done, then he would do it with an everyday pill. He randomly chose a simple healing pill and a pill to improve one's cultivation speed.

Once he chose them, he looked through the two ingredients trying to find conflict between the two. But that didn't feel right again.

Alex saw two possibilities here.

The first possibility was that you were not supposed to be able to do this. In which case, the trial here was to know that it was impossible and thus not do anything. Alex didn't believe that was the case.

Then the second possibility would be that you were supposed to be able to do this, and you were supposed to be able to do it with any recipe you had.

"I will have to try with these two then," Alex spoke softly. Memory was on the furnace in front of him, ready to accept whatever ingredient he was to put in.

However, Alex couldn't bring himself to put in any of the ingredients. What did he put in first anyway? The Hanging pillar vine for the healing pill or the Silver Rite citrus peel for the cultivation pill?

Did it even matter?

He stayed there for a good half hour before coming to a conclusion.

"It doesn't matter," he thought. "My task right now is not to do it correctly, but to do it wrong and learn from it. There is no point in trying to do it correctly from the start when I've never done this before."

Thinking as such, Alex took the Hanging Pillar vine and put it into Memory to begin.