Eternal Cultivation of Alchemy

"I… can't give you anything about the tournament, even if I had anything to give," Silvermist said. "Everything I know about the tournament is supposed to remain secret and I have even made an oath to do so."

Alex had expected as much. He had been concerned about the fairness of the competition if someone could just give away what the contests were going to be. If he were to find out about it, everyone else had to as well.

"There is no decision made just yet either," Silvermist said. "Our task there was to simply brainstorm some ideas to be given to the Alchemy God later on. Once he receives those ideas, he will decide which ones to set up. At that point, I will have to go there again and help them."

"Did you give any good ideas?" Alex asked him.

"I did," Silvermist said proudly. "I had a rather good epiphany during one of the days and gave them a detailed explanation of what the contest should be about. I hope they choose it."

Alex saw his master's excited look. "But… you can't tell me what it is, right?" he asked.

"For fairness' sake, no," Silvermist said. Alex nodded. He didn't ask for more.

"Come, let's go see how difficult it is for you to make those 18 pills. Since you've learned as much, I now have to start teaching you things as well."

Alex gave a surprised look. "You are going to teach me something, master?" he asked.

"Yes," Silvermist said. "I can't have you call me master while I do absolutely nothing. I have 2 things to teach you before the tournament starts. Hopefully, you can learn them by then."

Alex walked to the alchemy room, excited the whole way through as to what his master was going to teach him. For a moment, he even wondered if it could have something to do with Pill Souls, but then quickly remembered that Pill Souls could only be made with Divine pills, so that was most certainly not it.

After arriving at the room, his master handed him a storage bag full of ingredients that Shi Quanli had dropped by and left for him. He looked inside and saw that they were the ingredients for the same pill as the one he had made before he left to cultivate and train with the Standing Pendulum.

Alex began setting up his station by bringing out Memory and having it appear in a large cauldron. He started going through the ingredients to prepare it before he put it into the cauldron, and Silvermist walked around the cauldron to look at it.

"I wasn't aware your cauldron was made through compounded metal," the man said. "If I'm not remembering correctly, it has begun absorbing energy, hasn't it?"

Alex looked up, surprised. He had been wanting to learn about this for so long. "It has, master. Can you tell me anything about it? I'm not sure what I can do except feed it the energy from the pills."

"Feeding it energy is the right move," Silvermist said. "You will need to waste a lot of objects full of energy to improve your cauldron. Have the items be refined within your cauldron and have it absorb its content."

Alex nodded. "I have been letting it absorb energy from the pills I make," he said.

"That's… fine, but not the best method to go at it in my opinion," Silvermist said. "Find other things that have energy and refine them."

Alex frowned, not understanding what his master meant. "Isn't the energy from alchemy ingredient all we can feed it?" he asked. "Can we feed it other items as well?"

"Of course," Silvermist said. "Everything in this world has some sort of energy, and thus everything in this world can be refined. Some are tougher to refine than others, and some are useless to refine, but that does not mean they can be refined."

Alex paused for a bit, thinking. "Does that mean anything can be made into a pill?" he asked.

Silvermist grinned a little. "Unfortunately, that's not possible," he said. "Or at least, it is not something I have ever seen someone do. Honestly, I do not believe it is possible, because, in the end, the refined products do need to leave behind some sort of matter to make Alchemy with. You cannot refine air and turn it into a pill, do you understand?"

Alex nodded. That was what he had thought at the start too. Just because something had energy didn't mean it could be turned into a pill. But he did keep in mind that it could still be refined.

"What sort of things do you believe I should refine for my cauldron?" he asked. "Not counting herbs and animal parts."

"Metal is a good one that is easily found," Silvermist said. "There are other non-organic items that usually form after many years of energy being concentrated into one spot, like a rock or crystals. Those can be good too, although they are a bit more rarer. There are spirit waters and other liquids that you may find. Those can be good too."

Alex quickly noted everything down in his mind. "When you say metal, do ores in general work too?" he asked.

"Ores work, but you know what works better?" he asked.

Alex shook his head. "What, master?"

"Weapons and artifacts!" Silvermist said. "Get some old weapons, ones that were used by strong cultivators, meaning the refined ones. Then melt those in your cauldron and refine it yourself until the energy within it releases, turning it into a regular metal. You cannot pull every bit of energy out of it, but what you can will be a lot of help."

Alex nodded quickly, thinking about the many ways he could do this thing. There was the scythe in his Soul Space from the First Elder of the Poison Fighters Sect that he had wanted to auction off but had never had the time to sell it. There were also many other random artifacts lying around that he received from various cultivators he defeated along the way, the most important ones that came to his mind were the items left behind by the sect master of the Poison Fighter's sect when he died.

Alex quickly made plans to refine everything that was not needed within his Soul Space. It wasn't as though there was a need to clear up some space, but it was a good way to clear up the clutter still.

"Oh right, what about Spirit stones? Arguably, they have the highest amount of energy in them, do they not?" Alex asked. Silvermist nodded. "Those can be good too, but it is better if you find items with some element to it as the cauldron should get used to elements more than the energy."

"But I can still use it once in a while, right?" Alex asked.

"Sure, there is no harm there," Silvermist answered.

Alex nodded, quickly adding more things to add into the cauldron when he was free. As he thought, another idea came to mind.

"Master, if we can refine anything to add to the cauldron, can we refine humans too?"

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