Eternal Cultivation of Alchemy

"Why?" he asked.

"You are now a King. We cannot let you walk around on your own. Us servants must be with you at all times," the two of them explained.

"It\'s fine, you know," Alex said. "I\'m used to being alone. I can call for you if I need your help."

"Please let us accompany you wherever you go, your Majesty. We will feel better if we are around you whenever you might need something," the two said.

"Can\'t I at least be alone in the palace itself?" Alex asked.

"If that is your wish, then yes," the two said.

Alex nodded. "Please let me be by myself for a while. In the meantime, if you do want to do something, please help me find a bunch of cultivation methods so I can get my father started on with cultivation."

"Yes, your Majesty. I will immediately go find whatever is needed for his highness," one of the elders said.

Alex nodded and let them get away.

"I\'ll be in my room for now," he said.

"Your Majesty, you can\'t stay in that place anymore. We will prepare you a better room fit for a King," the elder said.

"Oh, is that room ready?" Alex asked.

"N-no, not yet," the elder said.

Alex smiled. "Then I shall be content with what I have. Please let me know when the room is ready," he said.

The elder nodded.

Alex nodded back and walked away from the place with his father. Graham was still in shock, so the two of them didn\'t say anything until they reached the guest room Alex was staying in for now.

"I didn\'t get the time to ask, but did you consume the Divine Devil\'s fruit?" he asked.

Graham shook his head. "It got late yesterday, so I didn\'t have the time. I will be eating it today," he said.

Alex nodded. "I should be able to find some good cultivation methods for you soon. Once that happens, you will need to use another thing, a lily. Although, I believe someone else would prefer to give it to you," he said.

"Someone... else? Who?" Graham asked.

A small light flashed from Alex\'s shoulders and Whisker appeared in front of him. Graham looked at Whisker and remembered him from the battle.

"This mouse... it was in the battle too," Graham said.

"This is Whisker," Alex said. "He\'s been with me for a while now and has been helping me with finding you. If not for him, I would\'ve likely died in the battle the other day."

"Brother\'s father is safe?" Whisker asked with his spiritual sense.

"Yes," Alex said. "We saved him."

He put his hand forward and placed it next to Graham so he could see Whisker better. "He\'s not a normal mouse. You can speak with him, he\'ll speak back."

"Speak... back? A mouse?" Graham was surprised.

Alex smiled and nudged Whisker. "Whisker, say hello," he said.

"Hello, Brother\'s father," Whisker spoke aloud into Graham\'s mind.

Graham was taken aback by the sudden voice in his head, but he understood that it was the mouse speaking.

"He-hello," Graham said. "Your name is Whisker, right?"

"Yes," Whisker said. "What is brother\'s father\'s name?"

"My name? It\'s Graham."

Alex smiled seeing the two interacting. "Whisker, you don\'t have to continue calling him \'brother\'s father\', just call him father from now on."

"Oh... okay," Whisker said. "Are you well, Father? Do you want a pill?"

"A... a pill?" Graham looked at the little mouse. "You\'re going to get me a pill?"

"No," Whisker said. "I\'ll make you one."

"M-make a pill?" Graham was surprised. "Isn\'t that... hard? Isn\'t being an alchemist a hard job?"

"He\'s a talented little mouse," Alex said. "He doesn\'t have much talent in fighting, but he\'s not bad when it comes to stuff like alchemy and formations."

He then turned to Whisker. "Don\'t worry about father. He\'s fine," he said. "He doesn\'t need a pill but, his friends do. Help me make some of those pills instead."

"What pills?" Whisker asked.

"It\'s... hmm, you don\'t know about it," Alex said. "Let me write the recipe down."

He took out a talisman and noted down the recipe for the pill that made a person sweat profusely.

\'I wonder if body cultivators need something stronger,\' Alex thought. The recipe he had written down was for Common pills, so he wasn\'t sure what a body cultivator with strength in the True realms needed.

\'I will find out after feeding them,\' he thought. It was just a common pill either way, so it wouldn\'t be a problem if it didn\'t work.

"Try and see if you can make a pill with this. You\'ve never tried this recipe before, but it shouldn\'t be that hard," Alex said.

"Where are the ingredients?" Whisker asked.

Alex brought out a pile of ingredients and put it to the side, along with a cauldron he brought out for Whisker.

"Don\'t worry, father. I will make these pills to heal your friends," Whisker said and got to work.

Alex looked at Whisker and back to his father. "I will start too," he said.

"Okay, work," Graham said. "I will leave you for now."

"Where will you go?" Alex asked curiously.

"Anywhere I want," Graham said. "As the King\'s father, people shouldn\'t bother me as much, will they?"

"I don\'t think they will," Alex said. "Go on. I will finish these pills quickly."

Graham nodded. "Don\'t overdo yourself," he said and left.

After he was gone, Alex focused entirely on making pills and spent the next 2 hours completely making all the remaining antidote pills.

After he was done, he looked over at Whisker who was hard at work as well. His pills were coming to be somewhere between 40% and 60% in harmony. Given how bad the recipe itself most likely was, that was a great feat for Whisker.

But then again, he was making a Common pill as a True rank alchemist, so he was bound to do something good.

Alex decided to help him, so he started making the pills on his own as well. With each pill he made, he realized just how bad his recipe was.

There were so many places for improvement, but there just wasn\'t any time for it. He had to make the normal pills to test the people.

Alex made upto 8 pills at once using two different cauldrons. He could\'ve gone up to 12, but he didn\'t want to have an aching head by the end of this.

Sometime around the evening, someone knocked on his door.

Alex was just about to finish the pills, so he made the person stay out for a few minutes. Once done, he finally called the person inside.

Yao Ning walked in with a storage bag in her hand. She smelled the aromatic scents in the air and looked at Alex sitting with 3 cauldrons around him.

"Were you making pills, your Majesty?" she asked.

Alex slumped back. "Yes," he said. "Those people we saved still need treatment, so I was making some pills that would help them."

"Did you spend the entire day making it, your Majesty? You should at least rest on the day you became a King," Yao Ning said.

"It\'s fine, I was worried anyway," he said. "So, why are you here?"

"Oh right. I was told you were looking for these," she said as she handed him the storage bag.

"Cultivation methods huh? Yes, I wanted my father to start cultivating," Alex said. "Do you have any suggestions?"

"How about your Yao family\'s cultivation method? It was a prize one of my elders got back when they entered the Sanctum a long time ago," the old woman said.

Alex thought for a bit. "Isn\'t the Yao family known for their Metal arts? My father\'s Metal spiritual root is one of the worst. I don\'t think that\'s a good idea," he said.

"Oh, what spiritual roots does his highness have?" the old woman asked.

"Wood, Water, and Earth," Alex said as he looked around.

"Wood, Water, and Earth..." the old woman repeated to herself. "A cultivation method that only has those 3 spiritual roots, huh?"

"Oh, no," Alex quickly explained. "He has all 5 roots, but those are the best."

"Oh, if he has all 5 roots, then... he should use the Liang family\'s cultivation method. They are known for their 5 roots after all," the old woman said.

"Is that so?" Alex said. "Is it here in this bag?"

"It should be," the old woman said. "It\'s called the Purelake Qi Absorption Method."

Alex nodded and searched for a few seconds before pulling out the manual. "Isn\'t Purelake the city where the Liang family is located? Is the manual named after the city?"

"No, the lake is named after the manual when the Liang Family settled there about 9 thousand years ago," the old woman said.

"I see," Alex said. "Then I shall be using this. Since it\'s only for the Common realm, I shouldn\'t worry about finding the best methods just yet."

The old woman agreed.

"Thank you for bringing these to me," Alex said.

"It\'s my pleasure, your Majesty," the old woman said.

"Also, I need something done tomorrow while I am gone to the north," Alex said.

"What do you need?" the old woman asked.

Alex brought out all the pills and handed them to her. "I will be needing your help in having these delivered to the people we saved. They will have to eat these pills."