"Can you guys help me find an Alchemy room somewhere? I have some ingredients of my own that I can immediately turn into pills that can save these people," Alex told the healers there.
"Uhh, there is one a little north of the city center. Oi, Bingbing, come show senior here a way to the alchemy hall," the woman said.
"Oh, okay. Come with me mister," a little girl, who didn't seem phased by the people dying around her, took Alex towards the city.
They were stopped by the guard when the little girl said, "Mister is an alchemist. He is going to make pills to heal the people."
"Oh, the one Senior Jin was talking about? Please come," the guards immediately let them in.
Alex suddenly grabbed the girl and started flying. "We don't have time to waste," he said.
The girl screamed with joy when she was high in the air. "You are strong, mister. You can fly so high," she said.
"Where to?"Alex asked.
The girl pointed towards a direction and Alex flew to the Alchemy hall. Once he reached there, he immediately told the people what he was here for and they let him enter the empty alchemy hall without any problem.
The girl left them, and Alex was taken in by a young man. "Are there seriously no alchemists here?" Alex asked.
"No good ones," the man said. "The ones we have can't even make Earth-grade pills. The good ones saw the danger the city could face in case of another beast attack, and left in fear."
"Can't say I blame them though. I would have probably done the same. We are after all one of the weaker cities that barely even has a sect," the man said.
"I see. Well, I should hurry. Have someone stationed here so I can easily pass along the pills as I make them," Alex said and entered the room.
He quickly opened his storage bag and realized he had about 25 sets of ingredients all together to make pills that could help those people.
He probably would have had more if he could make True Pills as well, but since he couldn't, he had to stick with what he had.
He quickly sat against the fire and took out his cauldron before putting it on top of the fire.
Then he hurried with making his pills. In the first hour, he made 7 pills. He handed those pills to the man stationed outside.
In the second hour, he learned to cut back on unnecessary parts and made 9 pills.
In the third hour, he refined his pill-making process more for the night and made 10 pills.
By the fifth hour, he was done with all 25 sets of ingredients he had and made about 35 pills.
When he walked out to hand over the 5th set of pills, instead of a random guard, it was senior Jin who had been standing outside.
"Young lord, here," old man jin brought back a storage bag from somewhere.
Alex quickly looked at the storage bag and saw that it had about 45 sets of ingredients in total.
'That's enough for 45 people; 68 if I get lucky. I already have 35 pills of my own… let's hope that's all that is needed,' Alex thought.
"Um… Young lord, I heard you've been in there for 5 hours. Don't you… need to rest?" old man Jin asked.
"No, senior Jin. There are still people I can save. Don't worry about me, I'm young. I can do this all night," Alex said and handed him the remaining pills before walking in.
Senior Jin looked at the pill blankly and said, "But… it's already day."
Alex lost sense of time as he made pills after pills after pills. In fact, he even lost count at some point.
Everywhere he looked, he could see the shape of the ingredients, or the color of the fire, or sphere shapes like the pill. He even started seeing them whenever he closed his eyes.
He had made a lot of pills but never had he forced himself to make this many pills, under such a small span of time, while being under pressure to do the best.
"I can do it," he thought and did the best he could. It took him 7 hours to finish all of the 45 sets of ingredients and managed to make 70 pills out of them.
He had given his best, and fate had taken his side. He walked out with the last 9 pills and instead of handing them to anyone, flew directly to the outside of the walls.
He went over to the tent where people were coming out of one by one. When he walked in, there were only about 45 people left.
Alex walked over to the last remaining 5 self tempering realm people and gave them the pill.
Soon, they too started to get healed and rejoiced as they could make a full recovery.
Everyone got emotional and started crying. The patients and the healers started thanking Alex.
Alex was happy he could help. He was happy that the little knowledge of the medicine he had learned had helped him.
He walked outside of the tent and was about to take a deep sigh when he saw someone up front.
"Sister," Alex called out.
Luo Mei immediately ran forward and hugged Alex. "Thank god. I thought you were dead again," she said and started crying.
"Young lord, I am happy that you are okay," Meng Yun said.
"I'm fine. I tried to find my way back to the caravan and didn't know which way you guys went after the beasts stopped moving," Alex said.
"I stopped the caravan to wait for you to catch up, but you never came, so I thought… thank god you're okay. Old Jin told me that you were here and helping the people since midnight yesterday."
"How did you even get back here so quickly?" Luo Mei asked.
"Well, I told you I had a boat right? So I took half the journey in the boat, and the other half, I met sister Xing on the road and came here with her," Alex said.
"You met Luo Xing?" Luo Mei asked.
"Yes. She's back already," Alex said.
"Damn, old Jin. He didn't tell me that," Luo Mei said.
"Grandfather knows about your irrational hate towards Young Miss Xing, so he likely kept it to himself," Meng Yun said.
"It's not irrational. It's… whatever let's just go," Luo Mei said.
"One moment, sister. I need to speak to senior JIn about something," Alex said and ran over to old man JIn and told him about everything.
When the people there learned that majority of the injured had been healed, they were extremely happy.
Alex then suggested what else could be done in regards to extending the remaining injured people's lives until the others brought back the True rank healing pills from the city over.
"Alright let's go," Alex said and the 3 walked towards the gate. When the people saw Luo Mei, they all greeted her. Luo Mei too greeted them back as politely as she could.
"By the way, how long did you guys wait for me outside the tent?" he asked.
"Hmm… we had just arrived, so maybe 10 minutes?" Luo Mei said.
"Oh, then you haven't gone to meet your father yet?" Alex asked.
Luo Mei's face suddenly lost all colors as she was reminded once more why she was here.
"It's okay, sister. I am here. I will definitely do something," Alex said, seeing her blank face.
Luo Mei shook her head to get back her thoughts. "Yes, it will be fine," she said.
The Rubyroad city was not very different from the Scarlet city. Only, it had a single 2nd Grade sect that had just upgraded a few years ago, and as such, it wasn't that populated.
The city was also ruled by a distant member of the Royal Fu family, but the ones with more position in the city were the heads of House Luo and House Tian.
Both of these houses belonged to a noble of the empire, so they had quite a bit of backing too.
The Luo household was southwest of the city center, while the Tian household was to the northeast. These two houses had quite a good relationship with each other as well.
The 3 walked through the street as Alex finally started to feel the fatigue from 12 hours long, fast-paced Alchemy session.
"Are you okay?" Luo Mei asked a little worried.
"I'm fine. I'm… just tired after making the pills," Alex said.
"You should rest after we reach back home," Luo Mei said.
Finally, Alex could see a massive house, smaller only to the City Lord's house back in Scarlet city.
"Woah!" Alex said.
Luo Mei smiled when she saw her home. "It's been a while since I've been back," she said.
She walked over to the gate and the guards immediately opened the door. "Welcome back, young miss," they said.
"Huh? Young miss, did you not take a carriage?" a woman who saw her said.
"Oh, young miss, you are back," another woman said.
"Oh, Mengmeng is back too. Welcome back, you guys."
The servants seemed quite used to talking with Luo Mei, and Luo Mei herself was quite fond of talking with the servants.
Luo Mei walked through the main door and was about to ask where her father was when he heard loud laughter from the house.
She was surprised and followed the sound of the laughter, while Alex and Meng Yun followed her.
"Haha, it's just a small white lie to get them here. It won't hurt anyone. Besides, our household merging together is a really great news," A loud man said.
"Hahaha, right? Ask your two daughters and see what they say. I will leave, for now, you damn old fart," another man said.
"Haha, see you later old fart," the loud man said.
A hawkish-faced man with a beard walked out of a room just as Luo Mei was getting close to it.
"Oh, little Mei, you're back?" the man said.
"Yes, uncle Tian. How are you?" she said.
"Haha, I'm fine, I'm fine. I will take my leave for now. Please talk to your father about my proposal I just put forth inside," the man said and left.
Luo Mei stood still for a moment and then walked towards the room. When she saw what was inside, she started to grow angry.
Inside was a middle-aged man with black hair and beard, drinking wine from a wine glass as if he had no care in the world.
"What was that just now?" Luo Mei asked in anger.
The man nearly spilled his wine when he heard her. "Oh, Meimei, you're back," he said happily.
"Don't 'meimei' me. Did you lie to bring us back? Do you know how worried I was about you dying? Do you know that we nearly were attacked by the beasts when I came here?"
"I nearly lost my junior brother on my way here, and all for what? Just so you can make arrangements of marriage with the Tians?" he asked angrily.
"Oh, you heard that?" the man's smile dropped a little. "I was just—"
"Why would you lie about dying? Is this a game to you? Did you even help the people out there?"
The man tried to speak, "No, I was just—"
Luo Mei continued harassing her father with her words while the man couldn't find openings to talk back. He started getting more and more agitated as he started feeling uncomfortable.
Suddenly, he started vomiting all the wine and food he had just ate, along with some amount of blood.
He took a cloth from the side and wiped his mouth. "That finally shut you up?" he asked.
"What?" Luo Mei was confused.
The man then wiped a layer of makeup from his face and showed his pale and sunken face.
"I didn't lie, Meimei. I really am dying."
