Long Tiankong, the Dragon Emperor, put the final ingredient of a healing pill he had been making and gestured it around with his hands to control it around the blue and gold cauldron in front of him.
Hand gestures weren't necessary to control Qi. At his level, simply using Intent was all it took to do what he had to do. However, the hand gestures did help in tricking his mind into quickly forming those Intent and he didn't have to pay attention to it.
Those hand gestures had become second nature to him, and it was hard to get rid of it anytime soon. Not that he wanted to.
The Dragon Emperor followed the recipe in his mind to the best of his ability. It was an ability trained over thousands of years, so it was more than good enough for what he was doing.
Countless formations ran around him. Some were as basic as formation to ward off sounds and spiritual sense, to ones that were specific to alchemy like formations to keep the energy in the cauldron from escaping or maintaining heat of the cauldron.
There was even a formation to improve the quality of the ingredients he put into the cauldron, although one could never be sure if an ingredient was good enough past a certain point.
With a few gestures of his hand, the ingredient he had put into the cauldron was completely turned to powder and was ready to be formed into a pill. However, before the powder was to be made into a pill, there was one more thing to do.
He judged the energy in the cauldron and took a deep breath as he tried to focus on whether or not what he was to do next was necessary. He realized that it was.
A white mushroom flew out from his storage bag, a rare ingredient that was said to be nigh impossible to get without tainting. Only a dozen or so untainted World Defying Mushrooms came from a patch of over a hundred.
And it was difficult to find such patches even in the Hundred Blossom Valley. So he had to be careful of when and where he could use it. It wasn't always he could use it, but this time he felt that it was the right time.
A talisman buzzed in the ring on the Dragon Emperor's finger, but he ignored it for the moment. He put the white mushroom into the cauldron and let it burn. Swiftly, the mushroom vanished, not even turning into powder, and the energy that came out of it was tainted by the energy in the cauldron, turning into it.
That was a good sign.
Now that he had used the mushroom, it was time to form the pill.
Qi rushed through the Dragon Emperor's body as he used the Profound Revolution of Myriad Combination technique that had been handed to him nearly a decade ago.
His hands flickered over the cauldron as he caused the powder to combine into minuscule lumps that were too small to see to the naked eye, and then those lumps joined together to form the actual pill.
When the pill formed, the Dragon Emperor's eyes shined brightly as even before it happened, he could tell he had done it.
The crackling of the skies was only a confirmation of what he had thought he had done.
Clouds formed overhead and lightning shone from time to time, causing the Dragon Emperor to look up in anticipation. He quickly recounted the last time he had successfully formed the Pill clouds. It was 5 days ago, nearly 90 pills before this one.
Even with a generous estimation, he had on average formed pill clouds once every 100 pills. That was an incredible achievement. He knew from the few records he had gotten to read that even in the higher realms, finding alchemists capable of creating pill clouds was extremely difficult.
There were things he doubted in the records as he couldn't believe that making pill clouds was so difficult since even he could make them. If they were true, however, that only went on to show just how good it was what Alex could do.
That thought made him frown sometimes. He wanted to know how Alex got the knowledge he did.
Any and all thoughts vanished the moment the first lightning bolt fell onto the cauldron. The Dragon Emperor had been distracted, but it was only lightning from pill clouds. He had come to get used to it by now.
The next 8 lightings fell, each stronger than the last, but none were able to get past his defense. When the pill clouds disappeared, he pulled out the pill from the cauldron with a satisfied smile on his face.
He had managed to form another pill, and these ones were pills with 9 pill Veins. The last he knew of Alex, he had only been able to make pills with 6 pill veins, so he was doing better overall.
The Dragon Emperor put the pill into a small bottle and kept it in his storage ring. He started thinking of what pills to make next when he remembered the talisman buzzing from earlier.
He had to check what it was.
Pulling out the talisman, he sunk his consciousness into it and a while later opened his eyes again. His satisfied look from before had disappeared and a frown had taken its place now.
"It's a shame we lost a legionnaire, but you handled it as well as you could have," he spoke into the talisman. "Did you manage to figure out what questions it was that he wanted to ask?"
A while later, the answer came.
"I doubt this was what he had wanted to ask, but it will be hard to force him to reveal it, so forget about it for now," the Dragon Emperor said. "Reprimand Lady Mao for her carelessness regarding the life-saving talismans, and figure out if other talismans had been lacking, or if there is a flaw in the talisman."
An affirmative answer came from the other side and the Dragon Emperor sent no more messages.
He thought of focusing back on the task at hand, of taking pills, but the thought that a legionnaire had died made him lose all motivation at the moment. The thought that it had been done by Alex made him even more curious about the young man.
"The Phoenix is likely in rebirth, and the turtle and snake are hidden in their own domain."
The words he heard so long ago flowed into his mind again. It was such a distant memory that he wondered why he even thought that.
"A phoenix is reborn," the Dragon Emperor said softly. "And it chooses him. Why? Why does a ruler that has never needed someone under it, chooses to have one now? What is so good about him?"
The Dragon Emperor's eyes were unfocused while he stared at the ceiling as if searching for answers there.
"And it even made him a… a King." That last word was especially hard to speak for the Dragon Emperor. Every time he thought of the word, it reminded him of something else.
Flashes of memories passed through his mind. Memories of a time so long ago that people that were there had all died at this point already.
9 thousand years ago, when he could still be considered a very young man, he had taken a delegation to the Northern Continent to be part of the InterContinental Competition that was being held for the first time.
Only portions of the memories from back then were even clear to him at this point. He would have to search through his memories to recall more about the competition. What was very clear in his head, however, was one of the things he had done on that trip.
Under the direction of the then-head of the Snow Immortal sect, Xue Kuangren, Long Tiankong had visited the westernmost region of the Northern Continent.
A place known as the Nine Wells of TIme.
Few knew he had gone there, and fewer knew what he had seen there. The Dragon Emperor himself forgot most of what he had seen in the earlier wells, but he remembered the prophecy of the final well very clearly.
The words of the prophecy still rang in his ears so very clearly, as if he had heard it just yesterday.
A prophecy that marked his downfall, and subsequently, his death.
The Dragon Emperor frowned when he remembered the prophecy once again. He tried his best to not remember it, but those were the words he remembered most clearly.
'It doesn't matter,' he told himself. 'It's just a bit longer. Just a few more years.'
There was not much longer before he broke through and became an Immortal. That prophecy would certainly not touch him there.
Before that, however, there were just 2 more things he needed.
The first was the final trade he would get from Alex any day now. Once he had that, he would be able to make pills with pill veins a lot more often and that would be enough to be respected in the upper realms.
Even if the lack of pill clouds was exaggerated, he could still do something with it.
It was the second thing he needed that was hard to get. Hidden behind a lock to which he had no key, it was impossible to get that thing.
All he could do was hope that the people he had sent to the other continents would soon find one of the keys.
