Alex spent the next two weeks teaching Wu Shun about Alchemy. When he didn't do that, he spent his time on the Wood Spiritual pill that he had wanted to make for such a long time.
When he found himself at a block, he shifted his focus to the Spirit pill and tried to downgrade the ingredients.
This downgrade was the hardest downgrade Alex had to do until now. The most important part about downgrading was understanding an ingredient from the inside out and trying to find a lower version of it that did the same thing.
However, as there was no Immortal Ranked ingredient, it was a difficult task for him. Taking the knowledge about the pill from his memory was not the easiest way for him to improve it.
It was the difference between memorizing an answer for the test and understanding the context behind the question to naturally write an answer. One needed far less effort than the other one.
However, if you bothered to put in any effort, it paid off well when the questions were made to trick you.
Fortunately, of the pill's ingredients, 6 out of the 10 ingredients have Saint Ranked ingredients and thus could be either ignored or easily downgraded to True Ranked ingredients.
Comparing that to the Ten Thousand Earths pill which had 6 Immortal ranked ingredients, this was much better.
Alex became so busy with everything that he didn't even realize when the 2 weeks were over and he had finished teaching Wu Shun everything that he needed to know for now.
Wu Shun's understanding of Alchemy had improved to the point that if he took the test, he could easily pass Level 6. If he studied a bit more about the ingredients and experimented a lot with various pills, he could even reach Level 7 in a year or two.
"Thank you, your Majesty," the young man bowed when the final lesson was over. "Thank you for believing in me and teaching me so much about Alchemy."
"It was trade between the two of us. You do not have to thank me for something you paid to learn," Alex said.
"No, I must thank you," the young man said. "You have no idea how long I've struggled to become a decent alchemist, and now my dreams will come true. Please accept my gratitude," the young man said.
Alex smiled and patted him. "Do your best from now on. You are a member of my Southern Continent," he said and walked away.
Alex went to meet up with the other alchemists as well as Hao Ya before finally returning back to the palace to rest for the day.
Now that he was done with external matters, it was time to focus entirely on the Wood pill and also the downgrade.
For the next month and a half, Alex did nothing but focus his entire time on those two tasks alone.
He had already learned about the many wood ingredients since his time in the Hundred Blossom Valley. Now that he had practical knowledge of so many ingredients, all he did now was a mental simulation of how the various ingredients would react when used together in certain ways.
Alex also focused on some practical knowledge, but more than not he stuck to metal simulation.
Given how many wood ingredients there were, even hundreds of thousands or even millions of simulations wouldn't be enough at all.
It was truly going to take him such a long time.
In contrast, he was done with the 6 saint ingredients in the Spirit pill, which he wasn't sure yet was necessary to be downgraded or not.
He would have to do a few tests with those ingredients once he was done with downgrading the Immortal ingredient. That was what took more time than not.
After the month and a half he spent working on it, Alex was notified of something by his elders.
The time for the next Golden auction had been set. Which meant it was going to take place exactly 3 months later.
"So I have a month to go there, huh?" Alex asked. If he wanted to visit the Golden Mountain range, that was what he needed to do.
"Still there is a month," he thought. "And I'm getting nowhere with this."
There were only so many months he could spend in the Eastern Continent before it was time for him to go back to the Southern Continent.
Surely he couldn't spend it all holed up in this room. "I will have time for that later in the Southern Continent," Alex thought. "For now, I need to do what I can about everything else."
Deciding so, he finally left his room.
He met up with his elders and let them know that he was planning to leave.
"But your majesty, there is still a month before we need to go to the Gold Kingdom," Elder Liang said. "Do you wish to visit it this early?"
"We're not going to the Gold Kingdom," Alex said. Although he wanted to visit the Ice Mist Palace, he couldn't do so as well.
Instead, he wanted to go to a place that he had heard such high praises about.
"We're going to the Azure Kingdom's capital next," Alex said. "The Blueheart City."
Within a day, all the preparations that were necessary were made and Alex got ready to leave. The King on the other side was notified as well, and once again, Alex flew away from the Dragon Capital, making his way toward another Kingdom.
Unlike the Emerald Kingdom, the Azure Kingdom was nearby.
Technically, he was already inside the Azure Kingdom, but the Dragon Capital didn't count in its jurisdiction as it was its own thing, same for the Azure Dragon's realm.
They flew through the Azure Kingdom itself, viewing the many cities and forests as well as the beautiful rivers that were on the way.
It took them only 5 hours in total to fly to Blueheart city, and that was with taking their time.
The distance was nearly 3 times as small as the distance to the Greenheart city of the Emerald Kingdom, so it was why it all felt so relatively quick.
"General Fan, are all the kingdom capitals renamed?" Alex asked curiously. He had learned a few things about the Kingdoms, but they didn't mention anything about the names of the capitals.
Or if it did, he missed it.
"Yes, your majesty," the general said. "After the previous kings and queens were executed, to make the new kingdom be neutral, it was all renamed to neutral names."
"Each of the Kingdom was given a color to represent it and the same went for the capital."
Alex nodded. "So the Goldheart city of the Golden Kingdom wasn't a fluke either."
"Yes," the General said. "Neither is the Darkheart city of the Ebony kingdom, the Snowheart city of the Ivory kingdom, or the Silverheart city of the Silver Kingdom."
Alex nodded. "That's good to learn," he said.
He was really surprised at how thoroughly the previous kings and queens had their names wiped from history.
'They must've really offended the Emperor with their plan to overthrow him,' Alex thought. 'Just in case he is involved in the events with Pearl's mother, I will need to be extra careful around him."
