Chapter 42: Alchemy

Chapter 42: Chapter 42: Alchemy

Deep within the boundless expanse of the Golden Ocean world, Aeon sat in a quiet cross-legged meditative posture, a towering, two meter-tall metallic cauldron resting silently over the liquid plane directly before him.

The structure was a magnificent, breathtaking crimson-gold cauldron, its massive body intricately adorned with flame-like visual carvings, gleaming turquoise gemstones, heavy ornate handles, and thick, clawed golden legs that gripped the water’s surface.

It was a supreme, divine artifact that vibrated with a profound, ancient divine aura, drifting lazily over the golden waves as wisps of dense, white-hot vapor gently escaped from its sealed seams.

Suspended perfectly mid-air across the ambient space surrounding the cauldron were six distinct, spiritual herbs.

A few of the plants possessed identical, deep-crimson leaves that constantly shimmered with heat energy, while others held the precise anatomical shape of a miniature, soaring bird.

Aeon kept his eyes firmly locked onto the massive cauldron. This was the Sunfire Divine Cauldron, a divine-rank artifact he had successfully singned in from his system rewards pool exactly six hundred years ago during an annual sign-in draw.

Yes, a staggering six hundred internal years had systematically ticked past since that specific intersection of time.

An immense, far-reaching array of changes had rolled through him during that long temporal isolation.

Aeon had completely stabilized his cultivation base, deliberately pausing his active breakthroughs at the beginning of B- rank threshold across all three of his paths.

Today, mirroring the meticulous operational routines he had executed over the course of his long centuries, he was preparing to craft a pill.

Specifically, a Rebirth Pill—a highly volatile, Transcendent-rank medical pill engineered to instantaneously restore and completely heal a dying cultivator from the absolute brink of total physical or spiritual collapse.

Flaring directly over his upturned right palm was a dense, black-violet flame that held a brilliant, silver-white core. Looking closely into the heart of the fire, one could witness countless miniature, glowing stars swirling through the plasma field, its sheer thermal density causing visible ripples and distorted fractures to warp across the localized fabric of space itself.

This was the [Infinite Stellar Flame], an active ability from his Infinite Sun Dragon Bloodline. It held the conceptual authority to utterly incinerate, dissolve, and erase absolutely anything it made contact with.

Whether the target was physical matter, abstract laws, metaphysical concepts, living souls, or literal baseline existence itself.

Taking a steady breath, Aeon initiated the process. In the wider cosmos, successfully refining a Transcendent-rank medical pill was a near-impossible milestone that could only be executed by 6-Star Alchemists.

Within the known universe, medical pills, liquid elixirs, and condensed spirit powders served as vital cultivation supplements that held an array of high-utility functions.

Practitioners relied on them to rapidly boost their active cultivation ranks, break through unyielding progression bottlenecks, expand their reserves of cosmic or spiritual energy, heal deep internal injuries, or permanently reinforce the structural density of their physical body.

There even existed top-tier, Divine formulas capable of directly assisting a cultivator in cracking the boundary to achieve absolute, cosmic godhood.

Across the global databases, these medical supplements were strictly classified into eight definitive tiers:

Common, Uncommon, Rare, Unique, Legendary, Transcendent, Mythic, Celestial.

Concurrently, the specialized Alchemists who manually refined these formulas were categorized into a strict ranking system spanning from 1-Star all the way up to 9-Star Masters, with each individual star-rank further subdivided into Low, Mid, and High operational stages.

Naturally, the laws of the universe dictated that not just any ordinary cultivator could pick up the path of Alchemy.

An aspirant had to fulfill a demanding series of strict biological and elemental requirements. First, they had to be an active Mage—meaning they were a dedicated practitioner of the Arcane Path.

Second, they had to hold an affinity with the Fire element. Third, they were strictly required to have successfully unsealed their Channel of Consciousness during their E-rank breakthrough phase.

Although regular Alchemists who did not walk the specialized Spiritual Path were completely barred from manipulating pure external spiritual energy or executing high-tier soul arts or abilities.

Their open Channel of Consciousness granted them a minor, baseline clearance to interact with their own soul’s parameters. They commanded a meager, superficial level of mental traits—specifically restricted to basic soul sense, low-level telekinesis, and standard soul perception.

Without the fundamental ability to sense or control this ambient spiritual mass, their soul traits remained so heavily nerfed and restricted that their mental power could do absolutely nothing against a true, dedicated Soul Path cultivator.

Yet, when working before a cauldron, these basic soul traits were highly critical. They allowed an alchemist to accurately calculate when an elemental flame was burning too intensely, manage the distribution of their ingredients, manually separate toxic impurities from the herbal cores, and deeply sense the structural condition of the materials inside the cauldron.

If an individual successfully cleared these hurdles, they could officially establish an Alchemy career. There existed a few rare anomalies where mages holding a supplementary affinity for the Wood element achieved a noticeably higher success rate than mages relying strictly on a single Fire element, but ultimately, the raw tier of their element dictated their absolute ceiling.

For instance, if a regular alchemist possessed a standard [C] rank Fire affinity paired with a basic [F] rank Wood affinity, it did not mean they would automatically outscale or achieve a higher career trajectory than a master who commanded [A] rank or higher pure Fire affinity.

Furthermore, a practitioner’s active cultivation rank placed a hard ceiling on the tier of pills they could physically create.

If a master only wielded the raw energy reserves of an E-rank cultivator, they were barred from refining a Rare-rank pill, and the restriction scaled upward with every tier.

Beyond the energetic requirements, an alchemist had to memorize a vast knowledge of botanical properties—knowing exactly how distinct ingredients interacted and matching the right herbal groups to the precise formula being executed.

In other words, vast, comprehensive knowledge was vital.

This requirement explained why dedicated Spiritual Path cultivators were completely unable to cross into the Alchemy field, and why Warrior Path practitioners were locked out.

Simply put, pure Soul cultivators lacked affinities entirely. Their existance held zero affinity, and without a Fire affinity, sparking a refinement cycle was impossible.

While the soul power they held granted them terrifying combat versatility, the lack of affinities didn’t brought any disadvantages.

As for the Warriors, their entire training focus prioritized the physical improving over external magical energy. Furthermore, their unique composite energy—Martial Cosmic Energy was highly incompatible with delicate Alchemy, though its dense, destructive properties made it exceptionally well-suited for Blacksmithing and weapon forging.

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Aeon easily guided the floating herbs through the air with a single casual thought, lifting the heavy, intricately engraved lid of the Sunfire Divine Cauldron while calmly reviewing the advanced formula inside his mind.

’ Rebirth Pill. A Transcendent-rank medical pill capable of completely restoring a dying cultivator from the brink of oblivion. The structure requires exactly 3x Rebirth Herbs, 1x Phoenix Nirvana Flower, and 2x Lifeblooms to create the pill.’

With the structural blueprint perfectly centered in his thoughts, Aeon smoothly dropped the rare herbs straight into the open chamber of the cauldron, which was already blazing with the artifact’s internal golden flames.

If any Alchemist from the outside world had been present to witness this casual way of dumping all herbs unside the cauldron at the same time, they would have literally died of shock on the spot.

No normal practitioner could command that level of flawless multi-tasking focus and telekinetic control over multiple Transcendent-rank ingredients simultaneously.

Standardly, when a 6-Star Alchemist attempted to refine a Transcendent-rank pill, they were forced to continuously exhaust their soul power and pump their cosmic energy to its absolute, maximum limit just to process the ingredients one by one, desperately trying to stabilize the elements before the volatile flames destroyed the herbs or triggered a catastrophic explosion during the merging phase.

But for Aeon, raw energy was a baseline resource he would never lack. Moving with flawless, relaxed control, he guided the Infinite Stellar Flame blazing over his right hand to settle cleanly beneath the base of the cauldron, instantly accelerating the refinement process.

Leveraging the unique purification properties of the cauldron’s golden fire working in perfect harmony with his stellar flame, Aeon perfectly vaporized every single trace of cellular and spiritual impurity trapped inside the herbs, leaving nothing behind but their pure, unadulterated elemental essence.

Within moments, five small, vibrant quantities of glowing liquid essence drifted in a silent, perfect orbit inside the center of the burning cauldron.

The subsequent phase demanded the direct fusion of the materials. This was universally recognized as the most dangerous part of the cycle, as separate herbal essences naturally repelled one another at a molecular level.

With a sharp mental command, Aeon directed his telekinetic pressure inward, forcing the distinct liquid masses to converge.

Initially, an intense conceptual resistance flared inside the chamber as the essences fiercely repelled one another, their clashing properties threatening to explode.

But with his will, Aeon ruthlessly crushed their resistance, forcing the contrasting fluids to completely dissolve and blend into a singular, perfectly harmonized multi-colored mixture.

With the fusion successfully stabilized, he moved straight to the final step. Condensing the viscous mass into a solid, high-purity sphere.

Aeon squeezed the energy fields with his mind, driving the compression relentlessly. As the elemental essence became increasingly concentrated, its liquid property shifted, transforming into a thick, sticky, and highly concentrated mass that resembled green syrup.

The exact millisecond the condensation finalized, Aeon aggressively raised the temperature of his Stellar Flame, utilizing the intense heat to vaporize any remaining moisture trapped within the essence.

He deftly molded the thick, glowing syrup into a tight, perfectly rounded ball roughly the size of a small glass marble.

Subjected to the absolute, blistering heat of his infinte stellar flame, the newborn pill began to spin rapidly within its isolated spatial area inside the cauldron, its structure hardening and solidifying with every rotation.

As the mass fully crystallized into a beautiful, small emerald-green sphere, an intricate network of glowing golden patterns naturally manifested across its smooth outer shell.

Utilizing his telekinesis, Aeon smoothly lifted the heavy crimson-gold lid of the cauldron, guiding the completed green pill to float out of the chamber and land perfectectly above his open palm.

Aeon examined the flawless pill, a slight, satisfied smile spreading across his face as he murmured in a relaxed tone.

"All done."

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#N/A: Sorry for the long wait, everyone. I apologize for the delay in publishing the new Chapter. I have no right for excuses. Thank you for your patience and for continuing to support the novel. 🙏