Eternal Cultivation of Alchemy

The Azure Imperium had a hand in Pearl's mother's death, and it happened around the same time the Azure Dragon had died.

'Was the Azure Dragon involved? Were the humans acting under the Dragon's orders?' Alex thought. He tried to make sense of the information and that was the only thing he could come up with right away.

Given that the Heavenly Judgment had fallen in the east, it was either in the Dragon's own secret realm, or towards the Beast Paradise where Pearl must have been born.

"What do you think, your majesty?" the headmaster asked. "Amazing, isn't it?"

Alex quickly stopped thinking for now and nodded. "Yes, it's quite amazing," he said.

"Yes, he's a gem, this Honglui kid," the headmaster said. "Truly one of the most amazing individuals in the entire continent."

"He is," Alex said. "I would love to meet this person."

"I'm sure he will meet you if you request for him, your majesty," the headmaster said.

Alex nodded. "I'll think about it. Thank you for showing us the Hall of Fame. This was truly quite an experience," he said.

"Haha, it was my pleasure, your majesty," the man replied happily.

Alex left the hall along with his elders and made his way back to the palace. He had no intention of visiting any other place today as a lot of things were on his mind.

Once he was in his room, he called out to Pearl and told him what he had witnessed in the 12th painting, the one that was called The Lightning God's Anger.

"Do you think the Azure Dragon had a hand in my mother's death?" Pearl asked.

"I think so, but it's hard to tell," Alex said. "In the first place, it could also be a coincidence that these two things were happening simultaneously, but I don't think it was."

Pearl stayed quiet, not knowing what to say.

"I think we have to find your grandmother first if we want to know anything more about your parents. If all is well, she should still be in the beast's paradise, but… with your mother being attacked, I can't tell."

Pearl nodded. "Either way, we cannot ask for any sort of help from anyone that is remotely connected to the Emperor and the royal family, right?" he asked.

"Yes," Alex said. "We will have to do it all on our own. Let's see when we can go to the Beast Paradise. I will have to wait for a while so the emperor doesn't get suspicious of why I'm trying to visit that place right away."

"Where do we go next then?" Pearl asked.

"The Emerald Kingdom, as I told the Crown Prince," Alex said. "But before that… I have another school to visit, and learn some more."

Alex planned on visiting the Royal School of Artifacts.

He went there the very next day and quickly joined them. A normal person would have to take part in the test to at least reach Level 1 to become part of the school, but Alex got to join without it.

He was given a bit of an introduction to the school by the headmasters, and following that, Alex started learning how to make the artifacts.

This was the first time he was learning about making artifacts and not just about making swords and armor which was a smaller section of making artifacts.

Artifacts were a weird thing. Sometimes they were difficult to make. Sometimes they were not. It all depended on the material used to make the artifact as well as the addition made by the creator that added something onto the artifact.

The additions were usually made to allow for Qi to be accepted and then used by the artifacts in case their materials weren't able to. Such a thing could be achieved either by carving formations onto the materials that had made the artifact or by using Qi lines.

There was also an increasing number of people advocating for runes to be used instead after Scripts were made popular by the players.

They each had their own advantages and disadvantages to them and one could choose what they wanted for their artifacts based on what they needed it to do.

Qi Lines were carved directly into the object to just hold Qi. This was what was used most of the time as it was a path for Qi to enter an object and then be used as the maker wished.

It could also be deliberately made into shapes that could allow for things to happen that wouldn't require the user's intent. The shape of the Qi line was for each line, and the more complicated it was, the more things it could do.

In Midnight's case, Alex had made Qi lines inside of it with Godslayer's help such that when he poured Yin Qi into it, he could use the God-Rending Death Blade technique. If it was made into other shapes, he could probably use various other techniques.

And all it would require was for the user to pour in Qi. That was perhaps the biggest advantage of Qi lines when compared to the other two.

One did not have to worry about how they used their Qi to activate them. As long as the Qi flowed into it, it worked.

However, there was a reason why they weren't the only things used. In fact, there were 2 reasons for it.

First, the Qi lines needed to be in specific shapes, and as such you couldn't necessarily fit it all into a single object. For example, the Qi lines for armors wrapped around the armors while making various shapes.

That sort of shape just wouldn't fit on a sword. Similarly, a sword's long Qi lines wouldn't fit in armor either.

So, if one wanted their artifact to do something very specific, they needed to be aware of what sort of shape they would require and had little freedom regarding that.

Second, the Qi lines were permanent and you couldn't do anything about it. Every time you poured in Qi, the Qi lines would activate no matter what. So, if one ever needed something changed about the artifact, the only way to do it would be to break the artifact down and rebuild it.

Also, there was the fact that there wasn't that much information on Qi lines in this realm, so it couldn't be used to its full potential.

In opposition to that, there was a lot known about Formations and Scripts.

Formations could easily be replaced with another one and made to work differently if set up that way.

Scripts could do a lot more than either Formation or Qi lines could do with little material to work with.

Many items from Pill testers to flying boats used formations and scripts in them. They were widely popular for most things, but that was not to say they weren't without flaws.

Neither of those things could work on their own and always required spirit stones to activate them.

In formation's case, you couldn't even activate it if it wasn't metal. Anything else needed either careful pouring of Qi which was pretty much impossible0 or a direct connection to some other form that was connected to a spirit vein.

In the script's case, it simply couldn't be used without resonating spirit stones or veins with the object and was impossible to power up in the midst of battle if the spirit stones ran out.

Alex continued learning a lot more and very soon he started making things as well.