Eternal Cultivation Of Alchemy

Aethersage had actually done it. He had successfully stopped all Pill Lightnings, so the Pill Clouds naturally began to disperse. The dispersed energy from the Pill Lightning flowed into the cauldron, where the pill began absorbing it.

His 15 rods fell to the ground, clanking against the hard surface. They had used up all their power and would have to be re-primed to be used again. That would only take Aethersage a few seconds, though.

Aethersage looked around at the audience, all of whom seemed to be cheering for him. He could see their excited looks, their waving hands, and he hoped he could hear them at this moment too.

He opened Moonshard and pulled out the pill.

Seven perfectly spherical pills with nine Pill Veins surrounded it appeared in his hands.

“Seven times nine,” Aethersage said softly. “Sixty-three. I made 63 Pill Veins.”

That thought alone was enough to make Aethersage giddy about his upcoming victory. Even if Alex managed to do the same as him and fight against all nine Pill Lightnings—which Aethersage doubted he could—Aethersage would still be in the lead.

‘And I make my pills faster than him,’ Aethersage thought. That gave him an advantage too.

Now that he was done with one batch, Aethersage began preparing the next batches of ingredients. He was going to refine about 20 sets of ingredients each this time around and make 10 pills with them.

If luck was on his side, at least eight of them would absorb enough energy to summon the Pill Clouds.

As Aethersage did that, he looked toward Alex and wondered if he had noticed what was happening outside. He wondered if Alex had seen him fight against all nine Pill Lightnings.

He hoped he did. Otherwise, he might stop early on and not give it his all. As much as Aethersage wanted himself to win, he wanted Alex to give it his all as well.

Around the same time, the next set of Pill Lightnings fell for Alex. There were barriers around each of the six cauldrons, so Aethersage could only wonder if they would be able to stop it.

The Pill Lightning struck down on the barrier, shattering it just barely. The remainder of the energy was not strong enough to do anything else.

Aethersage saw that very thing, and his face immediately fell as shock replaced any other emotion he may have held on his face before.

“That’s bullshit,” he said slowly. “You have got to be joking.”

He finally noticed something that very few others had managed to notice until now—something that one would have a hard time noticing if they weren’t looking for it.

Aethersage could hardly believe his own eyes, so he wanted to see it once again. He waited and watched as Alex prepared to fight off the next Pill Lightning as well.

He stopped his preparations to make his own pills for this.

The fact that Alex was trying to fight the sixth Pill Lightning should have already been surprising to him, considering Alex’s cultivation base wasn’t even strong enough to handle the fourth Pill Lightning. However, Aethersage had little care for that right now.

Large swirling vortices appeared right below the giant orange barrier, on top of each of the six cauldrons. The sight was astonishing, as no one could tell how it was appearing at all. But even that failed to take away Aethersage’s focus from what he was looking for.

As Alex finished all his preparations to defend against the incoming Pill Lightnings, Aethersage focused even harder. This was what he was looking for. It was coming.

Six Pill Lightnings struck down from the sky, each striking down on one of the cauldrons. Each one destroyed the first defense—the orange barrier—and struck down against the vortex of energy above the cauldron.

That stopped a significant portion of the damage as well, and the weaker Pill Lightning continued onto the cauldron. It struck the cauldron and then the pills inside.

Alex grimaced as he used all he had as the final line of defense against the Pill Lightnings. It was terribly difficult, but he managed to do it. He defended against the sixth Pill Lightning.

Immediately, Alex willed away the Pill Clouds as he knew he couldn’t block any more than that. The sixth Pill Lightning was the most he could do. He waited as the thick energy around the cauldrons was then sucked into the cauldron to form the sixth Pill Vein in each of the pills.

Alex looked away from the cauldrons and saw Aethersage’s wide eyes staring directly at him. He had never seen the man this stunned in the years since he knew him. That did make sense, considering what he had just done.

Aethersage failed to gather himself as he confirmed his suspicions. What he had seen the previous time had been the truth. And in the absence of his own Pill Clouds and Pill Lightnings, the others should have noticed it as well.

The six Pill Lightnings that fell on each of Alex’s cauldrons were not singular lightnings at all. Instead, just like with Aethersage, each of those six lightnings was bunched up together.

There were five Pill Lightnings in one of those single thick Pill Lightnings.

In each cauldron, Alex had managed to create five pills. In six, he now had a total of 30 pills.

There were a few who had noticed it from the start, but the majority of people were focused on Aethersage’s pills, so they had failed to observe Alex’s performance that well.

The fact that no one expected Alex to be making more than a single pill in each of the cauldrons also added to the slowness with which they realized what he had been doing.

It was only when Alex opened all six of the cauldrons and pulled out the 30 pills from inside that they were all aware of the truth.

While Aethersage had only made seven pills, Alex had made 30 in total.

While Aethersage had created 63 Pill Veins in total, Alex had managed to create 180 in total.

He had made nearly triple that of Aethersage.