Eternal Cultivation of Alchemy

Formations for alchemy. Alex had always learned these two things separately, yet now, the book was saying that there were ways to use formations for alchemy.

"I wonder how it would work," he thought as he opened the book and started reading it.

As he read it, Alex soon understood that there was nothing simple about this knowledge. Every single page contained a bit of information that would help everyone a lot.

Use formations to help your pill-making. If people in the Crimson Empire were to be told this, they would certainly be amazed.

There were a few things you could do with your formations that would be considered simple usage.

First of all, was something that many cultivators struggled with even after reaching a high cultivation base.

That was flame control. If someone was born without fire-related spiritual roots then those people would have to usually put in more effort during cultivation.

That was to say that they would have something else to worry about while keeping track of the pill and all.

There were also outside influences that would make it hard to control the flame sometimes. Alex remembered how hard it was for his master to control the fire after she had just awakened her Yin Constitution.

He too struggled while making a few pills when he had just awakened his body as well.

If at that time he had a flame-controlling formation that assisted him in changing the temperature of the flame, it would have been a lot of help.

Another thing formations could help was pill forming. Sometimes, one didn't even have to make the pills themselves. Once they reached the last portion of the pill-making process where all that was remaining was to put the powders together to make a pill, a formation could be used to automate that process.

When Alex read that, he wondered how much that could really help him. After all, pills needed to be crafted carefully to reach a high percentage of harmony.

Of course, he didn't doubt that one could reach a certain harmony level with formations. It may have been immortal grade. It may even be divine grade.

But what about after that? At some point, the powders wouldn't clump together so nicely that they allowed energy to be held. Also, formations surely wouldn't bring out every single speck of the powdered ingredient like a human's spiritual sense would.

Not to mention about the thing the Royal Alchemist had told him.

Symmetry.

If he wanted symmetry in a pill, he would likely have to do it himself and not rely on a formation.

There were still other things a formation could help with. There was one that Alex didn't find useful to himself, but would definitely help a lot of the others.

That was using defensive formations while making pills. Using defensive formations, if the alchemist was ever in a situation where the cauldron's energy destabilized to the point that it exploded the cauldron, the defensive formation would save them.

Aside from that, there were many other simple usages such as Qi gathering formation to keep you making pills for longer, or Soul Cooling formation to help you with the mental fatigue of making pills.

Given what formations could do, these truly were the simple ones of the bunch.

Alex put the book back on the shelf and went back to his task of making pills again.

When he entered the pill formation this time, he asked the aid if there were formations here to help him.

"Sir Alchemist, you can use your badge to activate any formations you may need in here. However, please know that using formation will cost you some charge based on how long you use it for," the aid said.

Alex nodded and started making pills once more. This time, however, he decided to use the Flame controlling formation to see how much it would help.

It cost him 1 True Spirit stone every 10 minutes of the formation's usage. If it worked as advertised, Alex wouldn't mind paying that every day.

He started the formation and increased the temperature to what was needed for the first ingredient.

"Hmm?" Alex had to stop putting in Qi as soon as he started. The moment he used his Qi to even increase the fire's temperature to any level, it immediately shot up the temperature.

He required what he believed to be 30% of his originally required Qi to reach the same effect, and the time it took for the fire to get hot was a bit faster as well.

Considering he had the Flame Mastery scripture which helped him control fire at a level not many could, he could see how this formation would help the other alchemists.

Alex needed to get used to the formation, so for the first few minutes, he kept track of how quickly the formation increased and decreased his time.

Once he practiced a few ingredients, he started getting used to the sped-up creation process and made the pill in just under 10 minutes.

The pill came out to be at 43%, despite him having a slightly hard time towards the start due to the change in speed.

Now that he got used to it, he would make the better and better pill.

For the next 6 hours, Alex continued making pills, spending close to 30 True spirit stones using the formation alone.

While he certainly could work without the formation, it did speed up his process by just that bit.

So, he had continued using it.

Around late afternoon, Alex left the guild to go out and visit the city. For the next 3 hours, he did nothing but roam the city.

He saw the many people going about their own life, each one as real as the next one.

He couldn't believe that at one point he had thought these to be fake people.

Not just him, millions upon millions of people from his homeworld, the fifth continent.

'I wonder if they know this world is real or not? My clone did, but maybe after not finding a way back, he already forgot about it,' Alex thought.

After all, that was what he would do.

'He most likely doesn't know he is the clone. Poor guy, living a life with a bad body, it will be tough for him,' Alex thought.

Along the way, he saw many different guards patrolling the city. Yet he didn't see the guards that had colorful clothes. The Lightsworns.

'Hopefully, they found the corpses and weapons on the ground and learned about their deaths already,' Alex thought.

Alex walked to another restaurant and sat inside, ordering some of the most nourishing food on the menu.

He also brought Pearl out to feed him a bit. Now that Pearl was a True beast, he could also devour a lot.

Not long after, the food appeared and nearly filled the entire table he was sitting on.

Some of the men and women turned their heads to watch him eat so much. A few of them even had shining eyes, as if they found something captivating.

Alex enjoyed his meal as slowly as he could and left the restaurant. When he did, it was already evening outside, and the sun had just gone down.

Lanterns, as well as light artifacts, started shining all over Silverleaf city, giving a lively appearance to the city.

Alex smiled when he saw all that, reminding him of the Hong Wu sect.

He started walking back towards the guild. Along the way, however, he had to stop.

"Would you fellows mind telling me what you are doing following a man like me in this nighttime?" Alex asked, turning around to look at 3 thugs who were trying to discreet in their following.

"I would suggest you follow a girl instead of a man like me, but that might be bad since I don't think your intentions are very good, are they?" Alex asked.

In the middle of the street, saying such a thing with such loudness had obviously started to make the crowd of people focus on them.

The three thugs immediately looked flustered. "Brother, what are you saying? We are just walking along minding our own business. We aren't following you," one of the men said.

"Oh," Alex said, giving them a light smile. "I'm sorry to have stopped you like that. Then I suppose you wouldn't mind going on your way then."

Alex didn't want to bother with these men, so he left them a way out. With their Bone Tempering realm cultivation base, it would only be bullying to do anything stupid like bait them into attacking him after going into an alleyway.

However, when Alex did give them a way out, they didn't leave at all. Instead, they started at him with their eyes wide.

It wasn't just them, even the crowd behind them had started to stare at him with wide eyes.

'What's going on?' Alex thought and looked the crowd at the side. That was when he realized that they weren't staring at him, but rather behind him.

Alex sent out his spiritual sense behind him and nearly yelped in surprise when he realized who was standing there.

He immediately turned around, and the colorful lights reflected in his light. Even at the night, those robes changed colors like a rainbow twisting itself as it moved through the sky.

The Lightsworns that he had thought had already left the city were standing in front of him and the crowd.

And for some reason, they were staring directly at him.