The auction ended not long after. The items being sold after the cauldrons were quite good, but Alex couldn't buy any. Not that he needed any of it.
He left the room with a staff member who was to take him to a room to get his money. The family Head of the Huang family on the other hand walked away with a staff of his own to show him over to get the items he bought.
Alex received his money and was asked to sell some more pills as he had done today. He was planning on doing that anyhow so those people didn't even have to say.
Once done, Alex walked outside and met with the other man that had been in the room. This was most likely someone from a secondary branch of the family and was thus acting as the family head's guard or something.
The family head walked out not long after.
"Here you go," he said as he handed a storage bag to Alex. "It's quite good, I must say."
Alex sent his spiritual senses inside and checked the cauldron. The color was nice to look at and the cauldron itself seemed solid, however, he wouldn't know just how good it is until he tried to make a few pills with it.
"Let's go," the family head said and they walked away.
The Huang Family's mansion was not far away from where they were. It was on the southern side of Eastwatch city and was massive enough to be considered a small town.
The number of buildings and open space in there would make one think that they were actually entering a small town.
Alex was taken to the main building where the main family resided. As he walked along, he could sense a few spiritual senses landing on him.
'Not bad,' he thought. 'They're quite strong.'
If he wasn't wrong, there were people here that were above the Saint Core realm in cultivation. There were definitely quite a few that were stronger than the family head himself.
'Why is he the leader then?' Alex wondered. He came to the conclusion that it was either because he was the most capable, or more likely, he was from the main branch and was thus allowed to take up the mantle of the family head just because it was his birthright.
Either way, Alex didn't have much to consider as he continued looking at the building designs in there. Compared to the Wasteland, which was simply just a bunch of rocks, bones, and mud put together, this was much better.
However, compared to the rest of the world, it wasn't anything unique.
Alex entered the largest building and was taken to a room at the center of the house where the sun shined through an opening in the roof.
Alex sat down and so did the other two. Refreshments were immediately brought out without even being called for.
Alex drank the refreshing fruit juice that most definitely came from some semi-exotic fruit and placed the glass down. "So, let's talk about those pills," he said. "When do you want them exactly?"
"Actually, I would appreciate it if you could sell us the recipe instead of the pills themselves. We can make the pills ourselves as we have many alchemists, but it's the proper recipe that we lack," the man said.
Alex shook his head. "I can't do that. It's not a recipe I can just sell given just how good it is. You surely don't expect me to give the golden goose away, do you?" he asked.
"What if I were willing to give you a large sum of money? Would you reconsider?" the man asked.
Alex shook his head. "I can't. I will make you many pills so you won't have to worry about ever running out," he said.
"But that's going to cost me a fortune, isn't it?" the man asked. "I could handle the cost if it were spread over the course of many years, but if I have to pay such a sum in a single year, my family will become homeless."
Alex smiled. "Say I were to sell you my recipe. You should know that there will be almost no alchemists in this continent that can go over 90% in this continent. Heck, even reaching 80% will be hard for them," he said.
Alex knew that the only reason he could make such high-quality pills was because of his Dao and his techniques that added energy as well as helped in forming pills that adhered to the Structure and Combination that the pill asked for.
The man didn't believe him, however. It was an obvious thing to lie about for Alex to not have to sell the recipe and instead make the pills themselves.
"Fine, let's go with just pills then," the man said and turned to his subordinate that followed him around. "Is guest room 1 or 2 empty?"
"I'm afraid not, senior," the other man replied. "Guest rooms 3 and 4 are empty, however."
"I see," the man said. "Prepare guest room 4 for our guest here. He will be staying with us for a few days to make some pills."
"I will get the servants to get on it right away," the man said and send his spiritual sense to give some orders.
"Now, please give us the ingredients list so I can send someone to fetch it for you," the man said.
"Sure," Alex said. "Do you have an empty talisman?"
Once handed one, Alex wrote all 11 ingredients required in that one pill and handed the talisman back.
The family head got his subordinate to go out and buy the ingredients while he himself took Alex to the guest room.
The guest room was outside of the main building, in a separate building that was entirely for a single group of guests. As Alex was only one person, he got to keep this entire house.
"Please rest for a while. I will call you once the ingredients are here," the man said and left.
Alex nodded and went into the building and found his way to a room. As soon as he was in, he slumped onto the bed and gave a tired sigh.
"This is getting so boring," he thought to himself. "When should I go search for father"
He wanted to take a few healing pills with him when he went searching for his father, which was why he was so focused on earning at the moment. He did not want a repeat of what happened with Li Yun to ever happen again.
He quickly moved his thoughts away to something else and remembered the cauldron he had just received. "Right, I should check that," he thought and quickly opened the storage bag.
The multicolored cauldron came out and landed on its 4 legs. There were two birds that were on either side of the cauldron that was just there for decoration.
Alex checked for any peculiarities with the cauldron. He checked for its Qi lines, its artifact spirit, and even the properties of the metal.
"Hmm, that's weird," he thought at the last part. The metal that was used in making the cauldron was very receptive to heat. Even just placing one's palm was enough to heat up the entire cauldron with one's temperature in mere moments.
The speed at which the heat traveled through this metal was quite amazing. "That's unfortunate," Alex thought after learning all of this. After all, for someone with the Dao of Heat and Heat Conduction, such a metal provided no additional function.
"Still, that's not bad. Maybe I can just focus on the fire with this cauldron instead of trying to heat everything," he thought.
He looked around a little more before he was called outside.
"Shall we head over to the Alchemy room?" the family head asked. "The ingredients are here."
"Oh, that was quite fast," Alex said. "How many are there?"
"Uhh... should be about 60 or 70 sets. That was all that was available at the moment," the man said.
"That should be enough for me to make for a week or two," Alex said. "You can gather more by then."
"Yes," the family head agreed to those words. "By the way, did you check the Sun's Womb? How was the cauldron?"
"Oh, it's quite good actually," Alex said. It couldn't compare to Memory, but it was a fine cauldron after all.
"I'm glad my gift wasn't a waste," the man said.
"It wasn't," Alex said. "Speaking of which, do you know what metal my cauldron is made out of? I found it quite unique."
"Metal? I'm afraid I don't know much about your cauldron. I did buy it to gift you," he said.
"Well, then do you know any metals that are well known for transferring heat very fast?" he asked the family head.
The family head looked at Alex for a bit. "Oh, is the cauldron made up of True Sun Copper?" he asked.
"True Sun Copper?" Alex asked. "That's the name?"
"Yes," the man said. "It's a metal with very niche usage as it is only good for heat transfer."
"I see," Alex said. "I don't think other continents have that metal."
"I wouldn't doubt that," the man said. "There are different types of metals that are exclusive to the different continents. True Sun Copper just happens to be one of those."
"There are other metals that are unique to the Southern Continent?" Alex asked.
"There are a few," the man said. "They are usually mined in the mountains of the Sunless lands."
