After returning from the north, Scarlet went back to some more deep cultivation.
As for Alex, he was left to handle the continent once more. There wasn’t anything important to handle in the next week or two, so he was rather happy.
However, after that, tests would be held to form the new royal army. He had to be there for that. At the same time, he also had to tutor the Alchemists who would have settled down by then.
‘Let’s just spend the next two weeks doing what I want,’ he thought. What he wanted was to train without interruption.
45 swords flew in the air as Alex once again continued his task to find the best pathway to form an array of 45 swords. With Intent and Qi already fixed, he just had to find the pathway.
Alex spent what free time he could find on this array. With the 21 Sword Array as a base, he was sure he wouldn’t need as much work to make it work. After all with how the array worked, adding 24 more swords was a natural progression.
If he had instead added some different amount of swords or tried to change the number of swords per layer, it would result in a vastly different pathway for sure.
‘I’ll have to go through it all to understand how each thing affects the rest,’ he thought. ‘Not only that, I will have to try out all 4 types of skills.’
He had a lot of work cut out for him, so he wasted no time practicing.
Time passed and the capital once again became a mass of cheers and celebrations. This time around, the celebration was even more fierce as opposed to people with specific skills in Alchemy, Talismans, or Formations like last time, just about anyone could join the royal army, so long as they were fit for the job.
One of the elders came up to Alex and started explaining what they planned on doing during the tests and afterward.
“There is a competition afterward?” Alex asked with a surprised look on his face.
“Yes, your Majesty. Just for the saints,” the elder said.
“What’s the point of the competition? Do you have rewards prepared?” Alex asked.
“We have just about everything prepared for the winners to choose from. Whatever it is that they want, they can get,” the elder said.
“Including pills with 100% Harmony?” Alex asked.
The elder gave a dry smile. “We were hoping you could help us with that,” the elder said.
“Sigh, fine,” Alex said. “When is it starting?”
“In… less than 2 hours from now. The arena we’ve prepared must be getting filled up right now,” the elder said.
Alex nodded. “Let me know when it’s time to leave. For now, can you call over that female Alchemist from last time?” he asked.
“Yes, I will call her right away,” the elder said and left.
Alex walked over to the throne room and sat on the throne as he waited. Just 10 minutes later, the girl walked into the room.
“I, Jai Heiyun, have arrived, your Majesty,” the girl said as soon as she entered the throne room.
Alex looked at her deep bow with a peculiar look on his face and smiled. “Get up,” he said.
The girl quickly raised her head and looked at Alex.
“Here,” Alex tossed a talisman in her direction.
The girl caught the talisman and was confused for a moment. However, when she guessed what it could be, she quickly checked to see if she was right or not.
When she saw the recipe that was written on the talisman, her eyes went wide. “Your Majesty, did you improve the recipe?” she asked.
Alex smiled and tossed her a small pill bottle. The girl looked at the pill and saw various pill veins on it. However, she didn’t understand the importance of the pill veins enough to make a ruckus over seeing 6 of them at once.
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“I made it using that recipe, test it,” Alex said.
“No, no. If you made it, that’s enough for me, your Majesty. I don’t dare doubt your words,” the girl said before quickly bowing toward him.
The elders to the side smiled when they saw that. Alex himself couldn’t hide a few chuckles. “I’m not a tyrant. You can see and check if the reward is to your liking or not,” he said. “You can complain if it is not.”
The girl slowly looked back up. “Does that mean I can really test it?”
“Yes,” Alex said.
The girl smiled and quickly brought out a pill tester to test the new pill. The pill immediately showed a harmony of 100%, surprising the girl.
“Thank you, your Majesty,” she said once again. She put the pill back in the bottle and tried to return it. However, Alex let her have it as a gift on top of the reward.
After that, the girl left the throne room.
“Do you think she can make a 100% harmony pill now that she has the recipe?” one of the elders asked.
“Has there been a new 100% harmony pill made from the recipes I have already distributed?” Alex asked.
The elders quickly shook their heads.
“There’s your answer,” Alex said.
“Is there a reason why these people can’t reach the same level with their Alchemy as you can, your Majesty?” one of the elders asked.
Alex thought for a bit and said, “I just happen to have a lot of knowledge and skills that are required for someone to properly make a high-grade pill.”
Alex could pass down his knowledge, he could pass down his skills, but he couldn’t pass down his Dao or his talent, two things that helped made his alchemy a lot easier.
He also couldn’t give someone else the Intent that was in his mind that held most of the answers.
Not only that, even amongst his skills, there were ones that others simply couldn’t use. One of them was the Supreme Elemental Accord, which required a person to have all 7 elemental spiritual roots to add energy to an ingredient.
Without that, the chances of making a pill with perfect ingredients were astronomically low.
‘I can probably pass down the pill-splitting Qi, though,’ Alex thought. He wondered if he should do that. Given that he had planned to not keep anything to himself, he decided to pass it along as well.
‘By the time I pass it along, it will be useless to me anyway,’ Alex thought, or at least he hoped.
The elders didn’t ask many questions and one by one they started leaving.
“Your majesty, it’s time for us to leave.” The final two elders told them and with them, he went away.
Alex once again wore his flashy royal robes as he made his way to the arena that was prepared for the tests.
The people cried and cheered at his arrival, and Alex waved at them as he passed. He got off the ship and went into the tall tower that was prepared for him and the rest to watch the test in peace.
Once he was settled, the tests were finally begun.
