Rise of the Alchemy God

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At the Peng family residence, in a large training area, stood a young man over two meters tall, wearing a simple short-sleeved training clothes.

The young man was exhausted, with drops of sweat visible on his forehead as he caught his breath.

In front of him, a dozen wooden dummies were scattered around, having once been intact training tools.

"Ha... ha... I finally managed to use it," he said in a tired but enthusiastic voice, clenching his hands into fists, which appeared to be covered by a thin black layer.

This layer covered his entire fist and extended slightly past his wrist, where it gradually faded and disappeared.

At the edges where it ended, a series of unreadable symbols were aligned, forming a column of seven marks stretching from his wrist to the elbow on both arms.

At that moment, one of the black symbols was illuminated, slowly losing its intensity.

A short distance from the training area stood an elderly man, who, despite his age, stood straight as if he still had plenty of energy.

This man was none other than Peng Jun, Da Shu's grandfather.

He had been observing the entire time, watching his grandson's training, and had to admit that Da Shu's talent had not disappointed him once again.

'Haa, only a few weeks, and he has already learned the first form,' he thought, recalling the scene from a few weeks ago.

"Grandfather, I want to learn the family's secret technique," Da Shu had said with a determined expression.

After the incident in the forest, Da Shu realized that he was still too weak to even protect himself, let alone the people dear to him.

"Hm? It seems you've finally advanced to the next stage in your cultivation," Peng Jun said, pleasantly surprised.

Through intense training in recent days, Da Shu managed to break through to the Qi Refining realm, but he did not want to stop there.

In the past, his grandfather had told him that he could only learn the family's secret technique once he reached at least the Qi Refining stage.

Now that he had reached that point, he decided to pay a visit to his grandfather.

Da Shu, who had almost fully recovered, released the technique, and his fists, once covered in that black layer, returned to normal.

recently, he had stabilized his new cultivation base while also training his body and Qi, allowing him to use the manifestation of spiritual Qi.

Before, he didn't understand why his grandfather had told him to reach the second stage of cultivation before learning the technique, but now he understood the reason.

This technique required the use of spiritual Qi; without it, 90% of its effectiveness was lost.

Da Shu had seen his grandfather use it in the past, and compared to that time, his technique still lacked much power.

'Well, I'm only at the first form,' he thought as he wiped away the sweat and prepared to leave.

Today, he had several things to take care of, including the enormous number of pills his friend had dumped on him, saying he would remain in closed-door cultivation for a few months.

Da Shu, who had gotten used to Ethan's refining speed, was still shocked to see the huge number of pills that Ethan pulled out of nowhere.

At this point, he wondered if Ethan had a team of alchemists helping him produce the pills, because no matter how much he thought about it, it was impossible to produce so many pills in such a short time.

According to him, this number would last for three months, but Da Shu believed they would likely last a few months more.

The sale of Ethan's pills was going great, and they already had many regular customers who eagerly awaited each new batch of pills.

The situation became even more frenzied when the number of high-grade level 1 pills that Ethan produced increased.

Previously, he had only produced three or four types of pills at this grade, but now it seemed like he could produce as many as he wanted, and on top of that, the purity of these pills was unmatched by any other high-grade pills produced by other alchemists.

In fact, it surpassed almost all of them, with a purity that exceeded 90%, which was insane considering that only a few alchemists could bring the purity of a pill beyond 90%.

This only brought more prestige to his brand, and since Da Shu's family was the only one selling his pills, they too greatly benefited from it.

All his uncles and cousins, who had ventured into business and ridiculed him in the past, were now flattering him from all sides, wanting a piece of his success.

Because, even though the family's reputation was benefiting from this, Da Shu was the one gaining most of the profits.

And the others couldn't even try to establish a connection with the unknown alchemist, as no one knew who he was, so they could only rely on Da Shu.

Da Shu was a cultivator, and a talented one at that, so no one dared to force him, especially because his grandfather, who was also the head of the Peng family, had warned everyone not to play any dirty tricks on him.

In the end, they could only accept the crumbs from his success and be happy in the background, though these crumbs were not insignificant.

Simply put, when there's an entire cake in front of you, no one wants to focus solely on the crumbs.

'I wonder how he's doing in the selection,' he thought, but then, remembering Ethan's results in the alchemical field, he simply shook his head.

'It shouldn't be too difficult for him to secure a spot in the imperial tournament,' he thought as he prepared to leave.

And just as he thought, Ethan managed to secure one of the remaining three spots.

But he didn't do it in the way everyone expected.

At the end of his match with Xun Wei, the third and final round began, in which the three participants for the official tournament would be decided.

The first two spots were more or less secured by Ethan and Xiang Hua, while Xun Wei and Yan Mei had to face off for the third spot.

The examiner asked if they wanted to take a break before the next match, but Ethan simply shook his head, saying there was no need.

Xun Wei and Yan Mei were to face off for the third spot, but as for first place, Xiang Hua was supposed to compete with Ethan.

In other words, their match was next, but that's not what happened.

Against everyone's expectations, Ethan, who had said there was no need for a break, asked the examiner if he had already secured one of the spots.

When the examiner, though with a puzzled expression, nodded, Ethan said without hesitation that he conceded the match to Xiang Hua.

Both the examiner and the participants, who had finished their matches and were preparing to watch the game between the two, were left speechless.

The one who took the greatest hit was Xun Wei, who ended up losing to Yan Mei in the competition, thus coming in fourth and consequently losing the last spot.

Both sides had given their best, but unlike Xun Wei, who had finished preparing nine out of ten pills, Yan Mei prepared two high-grade pills and used the remaining 40 minutes to refine a low-grade level 2 pill.

That single pill alone was enough to counter most of the pills Xun Wei had produced, and with the addition of the two high-grade level 1 pills, she secured the victory.

Just like Xun Wei, she was still a beginner when it came to producing level 2 pills, but she decided to take the risk and successfully refined the pill. |em|p,yr

Xun Wei, who had entered with his head held high and back straight, returned with his heart broken, especially by the woman he loved.

If Ethan had been there, he might have sympathized with the defeated, but after withdrawing from the last match, he took his medallion, indicating that he was one of the participants, and left.

He had the feeling that if he stayed any longer, he would end up getting beaten by Xiang Hua, who was staring at him with a dead look in her eyes.

Ethan had decided that he would never reveal his identity in front of her, because if she knew who he was, she would likely hunt him down.

Ethan had decided to participate in the competition up to this point only because he needed to secure a spot.

He had no intention of aiming for first place and wasting more time here, after all, what was an hour here was over four days in the Minor dimension.

The sooner he returned, the sooner he could begin his closed-door training.

Aside from cultivating and refining pills to accumulate large amounts of Qi and system points, he also had to do something about that cocoon in his spiritual sea.

The cocoon needed a large amount of his Qi to hatch, and whether he liked it or not, it would continue to parasitize his body as long as it remained in the cocoon.

Only after it hatched could Ethan and Bai Yu decide how to deal with it.

According to Bai Yu, Ethan was not at risk of being harmed by it, since both of them seemed to be linked, and hurting him would mean hurting the creature in the cocoon.

So, for now, they had one less worry.

What remained to be determined was the type of creature inside it, because depending on the creature that emerged, he could benefit more or less from it.

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