An Alchemist's Path to Eternity

Luo Chen accepted the box from Tao Yisheng and immediately lifted the lid. Inside lay ten mid-grade pills, three top-grade ones, and even a single supreme-grade Rainbow Chrysanthemum pill, its surface glowing faintly with six and a half cloud patterns.

Luo Chen was utterly astonished. “All the grades?”

Tao Yisheng sat across from him, pouring tea with casual familiarity. He rubbed his brow and said, “These were left behind by the Tao family’s Grand Elder. After all, he personally developed this alchemical formula and once pushed it to the supreme grade. Unfortunately, due to limitations in raw materials, the medicinal potency never quite reached expectations and couldn’t compare to our sect’s Ascending Dragon pill. Actually, I didn’t find them in the family vault. My sister went straight to the patriarch for them.”

While Yisheng spoke, Luo Chen examined the pills with unwavering focus. To him, they were not mere medicine but milestones that could determine the pace of his future cultivation. He had already expected that their potency would fall short of the Ascending Dragon pill. But now, what he needed to find out was whether the top-grade Rainbow Chrysanthemum pills could outperform the Ascending Dragon pills.

Tao Yisheng frowned and said, “That old man had quite a few demands. Just for a few pills, he still tried to set terms. The most frustrating part is my sister actually agreed to that so-called marriage alliance...”

Luo Chen raised his head and looked at Tao Yisheng in shock. “Hm? Just for these few pills? A marriage alliance?”

Tao Yisheng realized he had slipped something, and quickly waved his hand. “It’s not really because of the pills. Tao Daonan just used them as an excuse. I didn’t expect my sister to actually go along with it.”

Luo Chen frowned slightly, staring at him and waiting silently for more.

Tao Yisheng sighed and slumped into the back of his chair, visibly weary. “The marriage candidate is Fu Li of the Fu family. If my sister wins the Dao Scion competition, the marriage proposal will be nullified. In that case, the Fu family will marry off one of their women to me instead. If Fu Li succeeds or if both sides fail, then the marriage goes through, and my sister will marry into the Fu family.”

How convoluted. Luo Chen mulled over the implications and concluded, “This must have been a joint decision between your sister and the patriarch. As far as I know, the Fu family has a Golden Core Adept backing them, but their lifespan is nearly exhausted. Regardless of who succeeds or if neither does, this marriage benefits both sides.”

Tao Yisheng nodded gloomily. “That’s exactly it. By competing for the Dao Scion position, my sister has properly offended quite a few people in Green Pill Valley. The marriage is meant as a precaution against future reprisals. For now, though, we’ve secured the patriarch’s full support. His people will do everything they can to help me grow into a capable family head. And in the first round of the duel, the patriarch himself will step in to help my sister secure one of the Nine True Inheritor spots.”

Hearing all this, Luo Chen couldn’t help but click his tongue. So this is what life in a cultivation family looks like: constant bargaining, compromise, and strategy. Everyone gives in a little and demands something in return. In the end, all these negotiations are for the sake of the family’s survival and prosperity.

Not long ago, they had been at each other’s throats. Now, they were bound together tighter than ever. Even that old man Tao Daonan, already half a step into the grave, would personally step in for Tao Wan’s sake.

“Brother Luo, I’ve only been leading the Tao family for a month, yet I already feel overwhelmed and lacking in ability. I truly cannot imagine how you managed to build the Luo Tian Society from scratch. Do you have any experience or advice you can share with me?” Tao Yisheng asked, his eyes burning with both confusion and hope as he looked at Luo Chen.

Luo Chen said casually, “That’s how it is in the beginning. Once you’re familiar with how the family operates, things will get better.”

The response failed to ease Tao Yisheng’s worries. His lips pressed tightly together, and his expression was filled with bitterness. “Some things can’t be solved by familiarity alone. These are just internal matters, and I’m already struggling. I needed my sister to compromise with the patriarch to get full support. If in the future I have to deal with external conflicts... how will I manage?”

A faint tremor ran through his voice. The weight of responsibility pressed down on him, heavy with the burden of the family’s future.

Only then did Luo Chen truly realize the change in him. Tao Yisheng had matured. The once-reckless youth had been replaced by a young man shouldering the burden of leadership. He was now the family head.

Luo Chen had originally intended to brush it off and steer the conversation elsewhere. But seeing the earnestness in Tao Yisheng’s eyes, he found he could not. The way Tao Yisheng addressed him had changed over time. From “Fellow Daoist Luo” back in Yuanzhao, to the more respectful “Dan Chenzi,” and then “Brother Luo” after Luo Chen guided him in alchemy for a year. The evolution in address made it clear that his trust in Luo Chen had steadily deepened. To act casually now would be wrong.

Luo Chen sighed quietly; his expression grew solemn as he finally spoke with true gravity. “Every situation is different. How you act depends on the specific moment. The only advice I can truly give you when facing problems is, don’t let your viewpoint be confined to yourself alone.”

Tao Yisheng furrowed his brow, sincerely seeking guidance. “Brother Luo, could you explain that more clearly?”

Luo Chen adjusted his robe, sat upright, and adopted a solemn expression. “Until your cultivation reaches the heights of true power, your personal strength will never compare to the resources of a family or a sect. You are only at the early stage of Foundation Establishment. Of course, you feel powerless when faced with the burden of internal and external affairs.

“But you must widen your perspective. You are a descendant of a Golden Core cultivator. The Tao family has more than a dozen Foundation Establishment cultivators, including powerful late-stage experts such as your sister and Tao Daonan. And you yourself carry the title of a True Inheritor of Green Pill Valley. Often, these external things can be used as leverage. When facing enemies, you don’t always have to act personally. You can leverage the power on your side or form new alliances.

“That’s the big picture. On a smaller scale, you need to weigh various interest groups. On a smaller scale, within the family, you must weigh the different factions. Consider what you can provide, what others can offer, and how you can trade or redistribute resources to balance interests. To put it plainly, learn to let others struggle among themselves while you hold the leverage. What they fight over is not you; it is the prize in your hands.

“And one more thing...”

The “Mohe Exchange” lasted the entire afternoon.

What Luo Chen imparted wasn’t some profound wisdom, merely a set of relatively rudimentary principles. He himself had never received formal instruction in such matters. Everything he knew had been hard-won, pieced together from theoretical knowledge in his past life and forged into practical lessons by trial and error in this one.

It was not a lofty lecture, but a conversation grounded in experience. As for how to apply those insights in the real world, that would depend entirely on the circumstances. Luo Chen made that very clear. He had warned Tao Yisheng repeatedly not to imitate anyone blindly. Every decision had to be weighed, measured, and made with one’s own judgment.

Even so, by the end of the afternoon, Tao Yisheng had gained at least a rough framework. With time and practice, as he handled more of the Tao family’s affairs, those ideas would gradually settle into instinct.

That was simply how the cultivation world worked. For those born with exceptional talent, their upbringing focused entirely on cultivation, on mastering the myriad techniques and disciplines of immortal ascension. Rarely did anyone teach them how to govern, how to lead, or how to navigate the web of interpersonal power. Once one’s cultivation was high enough, everything could be suppressed by sheer force. Yet not everyone could reach the highest cultivation in this world.

Now, standing as an outsider, Luo Chen had instilled a few key concepts into Tao Yisheng’s mind. With his natural intelligence, the young man would certainly benefit from it in the future. The only regret was that his budding talent for alchemy might end up buried beneath the endless weight of administration.

In one’s lifetime, energy was limited. It was impossible to master everything and become a true all-rounder in the cultivation world. Luo Chen himself had learned this back in his Qi Refinement days: that his role in many aspects was simply to decide the direction, and the actual work had to be done by those under him.

Tao Yisheng eventually took his leave. His mind was packed with new ideas, and he departed Mohe Garden filled with hope for the future.

After a simple yet hearty dinner, Luo Chen entered his cultivation chamber. He took out a mid-grade Rainbow Chrysanthemum pill and swallowed it without hesitation. Ever since reaching the fifth stage of Foundation Establishment, the amount of spirit energy required for his next breakthrough had grown exponentially. Compared to the fourth stage, the demand had more than doubled. Had he not unblocked his hundred meridians and relied solely on second-tier, low-grade pills for support, it would have taken at least ten years to achieve a breakthrough.

With the help of the Blood Fiend pill, Luo Chen had fully opened all his meridians and, having the Eternal Youth Evergreen Sutra as his main cultivation technique, he was confident he could reach the sixth stage of Foundation Establishment within six years, provided he cultivated in a top-grade cave residence. That confidence came from the explosive speed of cultivation granted by fully opened meridians.

Yet he knew he could never be satisfied with just that. Green Pill Valley alone housed more than a hundred late-stage Foundation Establishment cultivators. Many were stuck at the seventh or eighth stage, unable to advance. Some, like Tao Daonan, were stagnant in the ninth stage, with little hope of reaching the Golden Core Realm.

Was it that they didn’t wish to reach Perfected Mastery? No! It was simply that the further one progressed in cultivation, the slower the pace became. Each stage turned into a chasm almost impossible to cross.

Even this modest fifth stage would cost Luo Chen five to six years. He could already imagine how much longer it would take once he reached the late stages.

Fifty years? A hundred?

He had no intention of waiting till he was over two hundred years old, like Tao Daonan, to make a push for the Golden Core Realm. His goal was to match sect prodigies like Tao Wan and Shangguan Yan! Barely 150, and already at the ninth stage of Foundation Establishment. With plenty of time to reach Perfected Mastery in Foundation Establishment and charge toward the Golden Core Realm.

My goals have long since surpassed those of mere sect disciples. These geniuses... they are the ones I must pursue!

With that thought, his mind finally settled. Luo Chen focused entirely on refining the medicinal potency of the mid-grade Rainbow Chrysanthemum pill. His current cultivation could no longer satisfy him, and third-tier spirit lands were too rare to come by. If he wished to accelerate his cultivation speed, he had to rely on pills. Fortunately, the Dao of Alchemy happened to be the one art in which he held the utmost confidence.

***

Three days later, Luo Chen stepped out of his cultivation chamber, his expression shifting between gloom and uncertainty. He had already tested the medicinal potency of the Rainbow Chrysanthemum pills across all its grades.

The low-grade Rainbow Chrysanthemum pill possessed only half the potency of a low-grade Ascending Dragon pill. The mid-grade Rainbow Chrysanthemum pill barely matched one. The top-grade Rainbow Chrysanthemum pill exceeded the low-grade Ascending Dragon pill, but was still inferior to the mid-grade one. Only the supreme-grade Rainbow Chrysanthemum pill slightly surpassed the mid-grade Ascending Dragon pill.

Such a result would have thrilled him in the early stages of Foundation Establishment. After all, the medicinal potency of a mid-grade Ascending Dragon pill matched the result of cultivating in a top-grade cave residence. One pill equaled half a day’s worth of arduous cultivation. By all accounts, that was a good deal.

But matters were no longer the same. At the fifth stage of Foundation Establishment, Luo Chen sought only spirit medicines comparable to top-grade Ascending Dragon pills. Mid-grade potency was merely acceptable, nothing more.

He had already studied the Rainbow Chrysanthemum pill formula in detail. Though he had yet to refine it himself, his years of experience allowed him to roughly calculate the cost of its ingredients. A single batch demanded at least one hundred spirit stones, equal to the Jade Dew pill. If he attempted a supreme-grade refinement, even setting aside the inevitable waste while building proficiency, the chance of success would hover around ten percent. That meant each successful supreme-grade Rainbow Chrysanthemum pill would cost him one thousand spirit stones!

One thousand spirit stones for a bottle of second-tier, mid-grade pills—that was reasonable! What was unreasonable was that the yield per furnace of Rainbow Chrysanthemum pills was likely quite low.

Tao Yisheng had only produced three pills at the time. If it were Luo Chen refining, he could double that, maybe seven or eight pills. Yet even then, it still wasn’t as cost-effective as directly buying second-tier mid-grade pills.

Luo Chen did not need to calculate further. The conclusion was obvious. At higher realms, relying on supreme-grade Rainbow Chrysanthemum pills would only mean spending twice the effort for half the returns.

That makes sense. If this cultivation alchemical formula was truly on par with the Ascending Dragon pill, the Tao family would have never given it to me. I should’ve anticipated this from the start. It’s just like the Jade Essence pill being widely circulated. So long as the major sects control the better formulas, they can suppress the price-efficiency of rogue cultivators’ pills and dominate the entire market!

Having figured it all out, Luo Chen could only smile bitterly. The Rainbow Chrysanthemum pill formula in his hands suddenly felt painfully tasteless, neither useful nor worthless.

Was it of use? Not particularly, at least not for him.

And yet, could it be called useless? Not entirely. If he ever developed resistance to the Ascending Dragon pill and found himself without alternatives, then the supreme-grade Rainbow Chrysanthemum pill, though merely on par with a mid-grade Ascending Dragon pill, could still serve as a backup. Only... that fallback was frustratingly feeble.

With a sigh and a smile, Luo Chen stepped out of Mohe Garden. He gazed silently in the direction of the Tao family’s estate.

Perhaps even Tao Wan had not realized how immense his need for pills truly was. For ordinary rogue cultivators, being able to refine and use their own pills was a tremendous blessing. But Luo Chen’s expectations went far beyond what an ordinary rogue cultivator could imagine.

“Maybe I’ve just been too greedy,” he muttered under his breath. “The way things are going is beyond my original hopes anyway. How could I expect everything to come at once?”

Luo Chen shook his head and rose onto a drifting cloud and left Mohe Garden behind. He wished to clear his mind with a quiet stroll.

Earlier, Tao Yisheng had mentioned that Green Pill Valley’s market had been bustling recently. With the Dao Scion competition approaching, many Foundation Establishment cultivators had returned to the sect. There were outsiders as well, and even disciples from other sects had arrived to witness the event. With so many people gathered in such a short time, trade was bound to flourish.

My alchemical path may have hit a snag, but maybe I’ll recover some fortune elsewhere.

With that hopeful thought, he guided the cloud downward and descended into Green Pill Valley’s market.