"Sigh, yes I was poisoned," Liz said. "I didn't want to worry you, so I said nothing. Seriously though, don't worry. Master is doing as much as she can to go around looking for antidotes. With me freezing my leg's time, it won't be long before I'm healed."
Alex looked at the swollen ankle and nodded to himself. "Yep, you were bit by a venomous snake for sure. Good job on containing the venom to just your leg thought," he said and kept on walking.
"You... don't seem worried," Liz asked.
"Didn't you just say not to worry?" he asked.
"Of course, but that's just because I was trying to be the grown-up here. Of course, I want you to worry. I'm worried as hell myself," Liz said. "Master has been asking around for a month, and yet she can't find any antidotes at all. She doesn't even know where to begin."
"Oh, was that what the Nether Poison sect talk was about earlier?" Alex asked.
"Yes, they have the best knowledge in poisons and venoms, and even they couldn't find a cure," Liz said.
"I see," Alex said.
Liz looked at him with a suspicious look. "You still don't seem worried. Don't you worry your aunt might die if she's not healed?" she asked.
"Will you die in 10 minutes?" Alex turned around to ask.
"No? Why would I die in 10 minutes?" Liz asked.
"Because that's how long it will take me to fix up an antidote for you," Alex said with a wide grin on his face.
"Antidote?" Liz's eyes narrowed. "You have an antidote?"
"I will be making one," he said. "Let's go to my room."
Alex quickly took his aunt to his room and started pulling out ingredients left and right along with a measuring formation to measure their weight.
"What are you doing? Are you making a medicinal paste?" she asked. "I don't think it will work. We've already tried it."
"No, it's not a medicinal paste," Alex said as he focused on the ingredients, measuring them to perfection itself.
"Then?" Liz asked.
Alex continued for a few seconds before stopping and turning around to look at her. "I've been lying to you about something," he said.
"Lying? About what?" Liz's face got serious.
"Remember when I said I had knowledge of formations, talismans, and a little bit about artifact forging?" Alex asked.
"Yes," Liz said. "What's the lie there?"
Her eyes dropped towards the ingredients again as she finished her question, and very quickly a thought emerged in her mind, one she couldn't believe.
Her suspicion of the matter was basically confirmed when Alex pulled out the Green and Golden cauldron from his storage bag.
"You're an alchemist!" she shouted in surprise and quickly caught her own mouth so as to not let others hear anything.
Alex smiled back at her. "I am," he said. "Don't tell your masters though. I don't know what they will do to me if they find out."
"Of course not. I won't tell anyone," she said. "Are you... really going to make a pill?"
"Of course," Alex said. "That's the antidote I was telling you about. Now, please be quiet I need to focus."
"Okay, okay," Liz said and walked away to the corner of the room. "I won't trouble you. Do what you need to do."
Alex nodded and looked back at his own task. He brought out a fire formation to ask as his source of fire and placed his cauldron above it.
As it heated, Alex focused on the ingredient. He had already refined this recipe, so he wanted to follow it to make the best pill he could.
Since he was trying to do his best for his aunt, he had to use his best techniques at making the pills. Which meant he couldn't use the Profound Revolutions of Myriad combinations and had to instead resort to the Pill-splitting Qi.
Which instead meant that he had to double the number of ingredients he needed to make. He was okay with that if it meant the best result instead.
Also, he had the ingredients for the pill, some of which would be incredibly hard to come by in a continent that snowed almost all the time.
Alex weighed them, measured them, poured his energy into them, and kept them aside as the cauldron heated up for a while. Liz watched it all from the side with curious eyes.
Once it was all ready, Alex started.
The cauldron lay on top of the fire with its lid closing it fully, and Alex didn't want to change that. So, to put the ingredients in instead, he used the Dao of Teleportation to send them directly into the cauldron.
This was something he had come up with towards the end of his 4-month long Alchemy training session in Ghostbane City.
He put the first ingredients into the cauldron by directly sending them inside the cauldron. There were two of them, and he kept them on opposite sides of the cauldron as he moved them around at the same speed.
With them being the same ingredients, under the same temperature and motion, they resulted in the same powder and energy.
Once the first ingredient was done, Alex moved on to the second one. He sent the two ingredients using his teleportation skill too.
Not having to open up the lid meant that even by mistake, he would no longer lose any of the energy in the cauldron anymore.
Alex was getting excited right now. If he didn't make a single mistake, he wondered how far he could push the harmony of the pills.
Once the 2nd ingredient was done, Alex moved on to the third.
Liz's spiritual sense was constantly on Alex and the cauldron, watching him do the work from afar. She was surprised at how much concentration Alex was putting into his work to make it work.
Since he was making the pill for her, she too tried her best to not make a single sound to disturb him.
Alex continued his task of putting in ingredients, releasing their energy, and turning them to powder 9 more times before it was time for him to put in the last ingredient.
He did so without hesitation and turned the last set of ingredients into powder as well.
The energy from all of the 12 different types of ingredients had all mixed together in perfect harmony, and Alex couldn't help but be excited at the fact that nothing of it had escaped even in the slightest bit yet.
With him not making a single error in the recipe as of yet, Alex was super excited about the result he would gain from this batch of pills.
With how perfectly everything was going on, if he didn't get 98% harmony at the very least, he would be severely disappointed.
Alex felt a slight throbbing in his head from making two Saint rank pills at once, but he ignored it to finish the task.
Once all the powder and energy were separate, it was time to mix them back up to form two different pills.
To do that, it was very simple. Alex used his intent and suddenly, a pill-splitting Qi came out of his body, following the normal spiritual root from the meridian that was part of Qi that controlled things.
He felt the pill-splitting Qi land on the powder and suddenly they split up into two different sections of powder as they clumped up together they form two different pills.
The Pill-splitting Qi automatically forced the powder to combine in the best way possible, meaning the combinations of these powders were always the best, regardless of the powders he had presented.
"I have made no mistakes," Alex softly spoke to himself as he watched the pill-splitting Qi quickly form a pill and pull in energy from the cauldron to make the best pill Alex could've seen.
He was super excited to see how well he had done, so the moment all the energy was back in the pill and not the tiniest amount was left, he decided to finally open the cauldron.
However, before he could, a loud noise broke off his peace, forcing him to stop. Even Liz was surprised.
"What's going on?" he thought as he heard more lightning and thunder, so he looked up.
There, inside the room, a storm was brewing.
