Eternal Cultivation Of Alchemy

Alex woke up at the first sound of human noise. He opened his eyes and looked around to see some men gathering close by. He got up, wanting to watch how they were going to train.

In the Southern Continent, the reason there were so many body cultivators was because everyone was able to heal themselves after training thanks to Phoenix Flames. But there was no such thing here as far as he knew; otherwise, he would have been healed already.

Looking at them, he waited for them to begin training, but from what he saw, they instead began carrying small sacks and walking away. They weren’t cultivating at all.

‘What are they doing?’

The answer became apparent when they walked toward the mountain. They were going to forage for food.

‘I should go get some too. See what sort of plants they have in this world,’ Alex thought. As he planned, he realized he needed some sort of sack or pouch. Without it, he couldn’t gather much of anything at all.

He walked toward the chief’s house, and as he did, he saw two other people walk toward there as well.

It was the groom and bride from yesterday.

Alex slowed down his steps and waited for the two to get closer. Once they were before him, he put on his best smile and greeted them.

“Hey, congratulations on the marriage. And thank you for saving me the other day. I hadn’t had the chance to say either of those things yesterday.”

“I-it’s nothing,” the young man quickly said, while Mili’s sister smiled a little. Then, both of them moved past without saying a word and entered the house.

Alex was a little taken aback by how quickly the two moved on.

‘Maybe I should have waited to talk to him,’ he thought.

Alex didn’t know what to do at that moment, so he hung around outside, waiting for the two to leave before asking for that pouch.

The young man came out of the house a few minutes later, and the chief walked out along with him.

“Hm? You’re awake. How are you feeling?” the chief asked him.

Alex shrugged. “Somewhat hurt, but I’m fine. I’m healing,” he said.

“That’s good. Are you hungry? You will have to wait for a while before they can—”

“No, no. I’m not here for the food. I wanted to ask for a pouch or something. I saw people going to the mountain and wanted to gather some myself.”

The chief raised an eyebrow. “Do you know much about herbs?”

“You can say that.”

“Haha! Then do you want to join us? We are going to gather some, so you can gather with us,” the man said.

“Is that alright? I wouldn’t want to get in between the private talks of a man and his son-in-law.”

“Haha, no need to worry. I’ve talked many times with Tara here. Para, get me another sack, will you?”

The chief’s wife came out some time later, carrying another sack. She gave it to the chief, who gave it to Alex. “Let us see how good a forager you are.”

Minutes later, they were beginning to ascend the mountain.

The mountain was called the Sun Stealer. It probably wasn’t so grand when spoken in their native language, but to Alex, who was mostly translating the language, it sounded great.

The mountain was nearly 4 kilometers tall with quite a wide base. The base of the mountain ended on large cliffs on either side of the beach where the Baylords had their homes, so the only way out of the beach was through the mountain.

The chief began talking about what other tribes lived nearby. About a 3-hour walk away to the right lived the Stone Climbers. Four hours to the left lived the Honey Watchers.

Those three tribes were mostly who they interacted with and traded with for their goods. Those three were the only ones that also foraged on this side of the mountain. The other side of the mountain also apparently had tribes, but the chief had only been there when he was a child and never since then.

They kept to themselves mostly.

As the chief talked, Alex looked around the forest, searching for what he could get. It appeared that his Alchemy God’s Inheritance hadn’t been affected at all by the Storm God, so he could easily tell which plant was what just by looking at them—not that he needed that knowledge for common and true plants.

He knew them all by now.

Anything that looked useful, Alex gathered. It was not possible for him to make pills anymore, but he could certainly make paste. That should still be useful to him here.

The chief and Tara looked at Alex with a weird look in their eyes. “You do know that not everything is good for you, right? Some are even poisonous.”

“I know,” Alex said. “I’ve left the bad ones behind.”

“Are you joking? I just saw you put in one of the Gaijarkal Farr,” the chief said.

Alex frowned. He did not know what that word meant at all. “Which one?” he asked, opening the sack for the chief to show him.

The chief pulled out a green branch with a few leaves still attached to it. “You will get sick if you eat this.”

“Ah!” Alex realized he was talking about the Flaming Wolfsbane. If eaten, it released a certain juice that made one extremely nauseous and gave them a high fever.

“It’s not for eating,” Alex explained. “If you mix this with a few other plants and apply it to a wound that’s infected, it helps get rid of the infection. It’s also good if you have unknowingly eaten a parasite. At those times, you can chew on the branch to make yourself vomit and get rid of the parasite.”

Tara was certainly surprised by Alex’s knowledge, but even the chief couldn’t hide his shock. “It… does that?” he asked.

Alex nodded.

The chief got interested. “What else does it do?”