Rise of the Alchemy God

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Ethan, having just returned from the competition, immediately informed the sect master of his intention to go into seclusion to cultivate for about three months.

Although three months wasn't a lot, considering that cultivators often stayed in seclusion for years, it was still necessary to inform someone, to avoid any issues later on.

Especially now that he was a direct disciple of the sect master, he couldn't take these matters lightly.

When he went to the sect master's office to report this, he could tell that she had noticed he had already advanced to the third stage.

She probably thought that he wanted to consolidate his cultivation since he had apparently reached the third stage.

This was further confirmed when, before he left, his master asked him if he needed help finding a suitable spiritual beast for himself.

Ethan replied that there was no need, as he had some personal contacts to acquire one when the time came.

In fact, the best time to assimilate a spiritual beast's soul was when one reached the peak of the third stage.

From then on, he would have to cultivate the beast's soul within his core and prepare it for the fusion that would occur in the fifth stage.

Ethan could tell the sect master was a bit disappointed that he had declined her offer.

Perhaps she was a caring sect master who wanted to help whenever she could?

He thought this as he returned to his residence.

Having left the competition early, he didn't encounter Xian Hua when he went to visit the sect master, and he thought it was probably for the best.

If she had examined his cultivation base, she might have had suspicions about his identity as the masked boy.

That said, he didn't prepare much and went directly into his minor dimension.

Everything he needed was already present in his minor dimension, so he didn't have to do much in the outside world.

He knew this would be his first time in seclusion for such a long period, and he wasn't sure if he would be able to endure it.

After all, three months in the outside world would be 25 years inside the minor dimension.

Ethan believed that if he cultivated in seclusion for that long, he risked going insane, but fortunately for him, he wasn't alone, he had a dragon woman in his mind to converse with from time to time.

His plan for now was to accumulate a certain amount of Qi each day by refining high-grade level 2 pills and use that Qi to work on strengthening his Dantian.

In addition to this, he would continue his training with Bai Yu and learn more about dragons, their various characteristics, and abilities, so he could fully harness everything he had gained by assimilating their bloodline.

His Dragon Gaze was currently the most powerful weapon in his arsenal, but precisely because of this, it was also difficult to use.

No matter how much he improved his mastery of it, he would still encounter a fundamental problem: the energy consumption.

Ethan had done some quick calculations and had come to the conclusion that by producing high-grade level 2 pills for 5 hours a day, it would take more than a year to reach the amount of Qi necessary to reach the peak of the third stage of cultivation.

This time would be extended even further by the fact that to hatch the cocoon, Ethan would need to share part of the refined Qi with it, more precisely, almost half of the Qi, so it wouldn't take just one year but over two years.

This was just the beginning.

Once he reached the peak, he would need the creature inside the cocoon to be ready for assimilation with him.

A basic requirement for this had already been met, which was none other than forming a bond.

Now, he needed to ensure that the creature would nest inside his Dantian and begin fusing with him from the inside.

From what he had heard from Bai Yu, the process was much more complicated, but for him at this stage, that wasn't important.

Along with Qi, he would also gain an enormous amount of system points during this time and would have to decide how to use them best, since he had no idea what the future costs of his pills or abilities might be.

According to a rough estimate, he could earn at least 1,350 SP per day if he refined high-grade level 2 pills during those 5 hours.

The list of tasks was long, and Ethan knew that it wouldn't be easy to endure for such a long period.

But he thought it was better this way.

He intended to use every means at his disposal to become as strong as possible.

With the incident in the forest not long ago, he was now on high alert, and if it was true that demonic Qi had appeared in the mortal plane, it wouldn't be long before a catastrophe struck.

He didn't know when, but he knew that something like this could happen, and Bai Yu agreed with him on this.

According to her, it wouldn't take long before other similar incidents began to surface.

Arriving in his minor dimension, he glanced at his ever-growing herb garden and couldn't help but sigh in amazement.

'To think that it was just a small garden a few months ago,' he thought, satisfied with his work over the past few months, which had been years within this space.

He had expanded his garden multiple times, and now it was far from what it once was.

Each herb now had its own large or small area, depending on the herb and its importance.

With the great wealth Ethan managed to earn from selling his pills, he had ordered every type of rare and precious herb, cultivating them here and multiplying them in a short amount of time.

If anyone saw the enormous variety of herbs, including some extremely rare ones, they would go mad.

Even a grandmaster couldn't claim to have an herb garden that could rival Ethan's.

In fact, if it were discovered that Ethan possessed all these herbs, he would be hunted to the ends of the continent.

Ethan regretted not being able to get his hands on some extremely rare herbs that were hard to find, but for now, he was happy with what he had.

Not that what he had was anything to scoff at.

Ethan mainly had to rely on refining pills to gain Qi, as doing so normally would take too much time, more than he could afford.

There were many pill recipes, but he had to rely primarily on those he currently knew.

So, although his herb garden couldn't be considered complete, filled with every kind of herb, the important thing was that he had the main ones for producing his pills.

During this period, he knew he would accumulate a large amount of System Points, and he needed to choose a few pill recipes to upgrade.

Upgrading all of them would deplete his SP in no time, but doing so for 2 or 3 was manageable.

Opening the status screen, he went to the shop and looked at the recipes for some of the perfect-grade level 1 pills he already had.

The cost to upgrade a perfect-grade pill to level 2 was 1000 SP.

He had already upgraded his basic recovery pill recipe to low-grade level 2, so he found that recipe and checked how many SP it would take to upgrade it to the next grade.

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[----------------------------------

[Recovery Pill Recipe]

Level: 2

Grade: Low

Description: A pill capable of fully recovering fatigue from intense training and increasing the healing of moderate injuries.

The purity of this pill will be above 25% but below 50%.

[Upgrade] (100 SP)

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Seeing the cost of 100 SP, Ethan wasn't too surprised.

He had paid around 2000 SP to get that high-grade level 2 recipe, but if you considered how many SP in total had already been spent to bring a recipe from level 1 to level 2, then the total costs were much higher, especially since this recipe was still at low grade.

To bring it to mid-grade required 100 SP, but very likely, to bring it to high-grade would require 1000 SP or more.

He deduced this based on how the costs of recipes had increased in previous grades.

Almost every time, the costs increased tenfold.

It was almost like a rule.

And to confirm it, Ethan pressed [Upgrade] and raised the recipe's grade.

The familiar tingling sensation in his head, as he felt information being downloaded directly into his brain, didn't take long to arrive.

In less than a minute, the process was finished, and the recipe was successfully upgraded.

Ethan didn't waste time contemplating the new information but checked the status screen to see the new price of the pill.

[Upgrade] (1000 SP)

'Just as I thought.'

The price had increased tenfold.

Now, there was a problem.

If the price increased tenfold, didn't that mean to reach perfect grade for this pill, he'd have to spend 10,000 SP?

With just over a thousand System Points remaining, Ethan pressed the button to upgrade the recipe from mid-grade to high-grade.

Again, the upgrade process took less than a minute.

After it was done, Ethan immediately opened the pill screen and saw how much it would cost now.

[Upgrade] (10,000 SP)

"..."