Alex alone returned to the Southern Continent sometime later and immediately went to his room to start making the two pills.
He first spent his time going through the recipes to make sure they were the perfect as they could be. Thankfully, pill recipes from the Immortal realm seemed to always be as perfect as they could be.
Once that was sorted out, Alex then spent some time adding energy to the ingredients, preparing them before he made the pill. Adding energy to the ingredients took some time overall, but as Alex grew in cultivation base, the process became faster and faster.
What would have taken him an hour during the early days, now took no more than just 20 minutes. To go through all the ingredients he had with him currently, it took him 40 minutes.
Once everything else was done, Alex finally started making the pill.
The pill he made first was called the Heavenly Opening pill: a pill that was used to expand and open one's meridians and dantian. It was primarily a pill that supported one's ascendance to the Saint realm when sometimes the Dantian wouldn't open up as it was supposed to.
In that instance, this pill was given to the person to help them transition into the Saint Realm without any problem.
The recipe for the pill included some unconventional ingredients like the Roots of a Fluorescent Tulip plant that had died for at least a year and 3 petals of the Yellowtail Lotus that were recently pollinated by the Rockhoney Bee.
The rest of the ingredients, however, were common.
Alex took a few minutes to follow the recipe and used up all the ingredients he had. The energy in the cauldron told Alex that he would not need the World Defying Mushrooms, so he proceeded to use the Vortex of Perfection technique to form the pill.
Outside, clouds gathered in the sky with small crackles of lightning occasionally flashing as they prepared to fall onto the Palace.
Many of the servants looked up in surprise, but surprise was all they showed before they went on their way. Even the newer servants showed no change as such an event had become incredibly common in the palace by now.
The pill cloud formed inside the room as well and Memory was struck with a brilliant bar of pure white light that left behind a bluish hue where it passed.
Alex easily protected the pill against the first bolt of lightning.
He waited for a bit and then the second one fell as well, which he protected his pill from just as easily.
The next few lightning bolts were also pretty simple for Alex to protect the pill from, all the way up to the 7th lightning bolt.
The 8th lightning bolt required someone to have the cultivation base of Saint Transformation realm to even begin to stop the lightning bolt.
It fell, and Alex stopped it as well. By now, his pill had 8 veins, and he waited for the last one.
The last time Alex had gotten 9 pill veins was when Alex made the pill to close his sister's dantian. At that time, he had used all techniques he could to enforce the defense inside the cauldron against the falling lightning bolt as its strength would be in the Saint Transformation 5th realm.
However, since Alex was in the Saint Soul 5th realm now, with the battle prowess of Saint Transformation 5th realm, he did not feel the need to use any techniques or other auras to aid him.
He was confident with using just his Qi.
Alex didn't trust his confidence this time around as his sister's life was on the line. He did just use his Qi to protect the pill overall, but underneath it, he also employed various defensive techniques just in case.
The final bolt of lightning fell and struck Alex's first layer of defense, which was just his Qi. The strongest lightning bolt from a Pill Cloud produced a terrifying light and sound as the thunderous roar scared many of the servants and guards around the palace.
Everyone had subconsciously been counting the number of bolts, so when the pill cloud did not stop with the 8th bolt and instead had the 9th one fall, everyone was more than surprised.
Normally, they were used to having no more than 4 or 5 lightning bolts each time something like this happened. However, seeing 9 lightning bolts fall, each one stronger than the next made them wonder just who it was that was making a pill.
Many of the individuals instantly guessed that it was Alex, and even then they were surprised. Most of the elders hadn't been aware that Alex could even do that. 9 was said to be the most number of lightning bolts one could bring down during a pill cloud.
With all 9 bolts having struck by now, the pill cloud indeed dissipated. The people outside wondered what sort of magnificent pill was being made in the palace.
Alex watched with wide eyes but also a smile on his face as the various defensive techniques he had used underneath the layer of pure Qi remained intact. That meant that he was now indeed capable of making pills with 9 veins with nothing but just his Qi.
Alex excitedly took out the pill and looked at the 9 pill veins for a moment before putting it into a pill bottle. Then, he took a small break of two minutes and began preparing for Memory to make the healing pill.
The healing pill was called the All Jade Healing pill: a pill that cleared all poison and any other effect from one's body and healed it at the same time. It was especially effective in fighting poisons that harmed one's spirit.
Alex followed the recipe given to him and used up all the ingredients he was given to make the pill. He had to be extra careful this time around as this was the only set of ingredients.
The pill cloud formed once again as it always did, and threw down lightning bolts that Alex effortlessly defended against. He only had to put any effort into the final one, which he once again defended against with just his Qi.
As soon as the pill was done, Alex took out the pill from the cauldron and took it along with him as he quickly walked out of the room in a hurry.
Several individuals gathered outside his door, mostly elders, hoping to get a chance to talk to him about cultivation pills. However, Alex quickly got past them without waiting to hear them.
He made his way to his aunt's quarters and knocked on the door.
Liz opened the door and gave a serious look when she saw Alex. "Are we starting now?" she asked.
Alex nodded. "You seem ready, so we can start," he said and walked in without asking.
Hannah lay asleep on the bed, her wrinkled face showing no emotion as she rested.
Liz arrived right beside Alex and looked at her daughter as well. "Should I wake her up?" she asked.
"Please do," Alex said. "It might be better if she is awake."
Liz walked right beside Hannah and gently shook her, waking her up. Hannah woke up to confusion and quickly started waving for whoever was closest. She touched her mother and quickly moved to her face to recognize her.
It was only after she knew it was her mother who woke her up that she calmed down. She started waving around to try and talk to her mother, but Hannah had no way of communicating her words to anyone else.
With her incapable of using Qi at the moment, her only mode of communication had been ripped away from her, and she had no other methods to communicate.
"Damn boy! He could have at least taught her sign language when he had years to wait around," Liz complained. She found another problem to assign to her son-in-law that she did not want to claim as one just yet.
Hearing her call Long Huan a 'boy' made Alex nearly snicker. A woman who was only just past her first century of life was calling someone over 2 millennia old a boy.
It was weird to think that Long Huan had a mother-in-law who was many, many years younger than him.
While Alex had his thoughts run amok with such thoughts, Liz had started explaining to her daughter what was happening and what was going to happen next.
Immediately, Hannah sat up straight and started moving her hands around as if to try and touch something. She also tried to speak, but her vocal cords could not form any coherent words. All that came out of her throat was discordant sounds.
Still, Alex immediately realized that she was reaching for him.
Unlike the others, Hannah had not been told just what had happened in the past month and more. She had only known that Alex had been left behind in the Eastern Continent, and since then she had spent the entire time in just the past few hours where she had fallen asleep.
She had fallen asleep with Alex missing and had woken up with him ready to fix her.
She had only just found out that he had indeed survived the entire ordeal and was more than happy to learn that.
Alex walked up to Hannah and sat beside her where she took hold of him and hugged him as she cried in relief. That continued for a minute or so before Liz spoke up.
"Alright, what do you need me to do?"
