Eternal Cultivation of Alchemy

The Alchemy God sat in the tower with his book in his hand. From time to time, he would get messages from his staff, who couldn't verify in time whether a certain ingredient counted as a replacement or not. The staff was mostly capable of handling everything on their own, so the Alchemy God wasn't disturbed as often.

Still, he had been getting these messages quite frequently and had to check.

The sky darkened again, lightning bolts ready to strike down.

"That kid is really something, isn't he?" Winter God said, looking down at Alex. "How many times is this? 8?"

"Yes, this should be 8," the Alchemy God said with a grin.

"Whose disciple did you say he was again? Silvermist?" the Poison God asked.

"Yes," the Alchemy God replied.

"Why do I know the name Silvermist?" the Winter God asked, thinking to herself for a moment. "Is he the one who Brother Spearheaven follows these days?"

The name seemed to pique quite a bit of interest around the place, getting heads to turn.

"Spearheaven?" the Alchemy God asked. "I'm afraid I cannot be certain. The one who follows Silvermist these days should be an old man by the name of Grimsight. Perhaps you are mistaken?"

"No, that is Spearheaven," Winter God said. "He goes by a different name today."

"Is that so?" the Alchemy God said, a little surprised. "I have heard of the name Spearheaven before. I wasn't aware Silvermist was being followed by someone so famous."

"It is surprising you didn't recognize him, but then… I suppose it is understandable too," the Winter God said. "You only recently became a God, after all."

"If 60 millennia ago can be called recent," the Alchemy God said with a small smile. He suddenly felt something buzz again and turned around. "My apologies. My people need me."

The Winter God gave a soft nod, and the Alchemy God pulled his medallion. He expected to get two or three names as replacements for another ingredient, as Alex had done so for the past few hours. However, this time the situation was a little different.

The Alchemy God stood up. "It appears I must go in person," he said and left the room.

* * * * * * * *

Alex had delivered his final replacement, so now he simply needed to wait for his name to have 12/12 next to it. It was still stuck on 11/12, even though he had sent it a while ago. That was to be expected, he supposed, given what he had just done.

He wondered if anything would change to that number now.

Suddenly, he sensed a presence next to him that had appeared without him noticing. He turned around and was taken aback to see the green-robed Alchemy God standing next to him.

"Your Majesty!" Alex quickly bowed in greeting.

The Alchemy God stood tall before him, eyeing him for a moment. Then, he spoke.

"Tell me the recipe you just made."

Alex had expected to have to relay this, but not to the Alchemy God himself. He relayed it quickly, a recipe with not 12 ingredients but rather 9 completed unique ingredients.

The Alchemy God couldn't help but frown as he heard the recipe with the 9 ingredients.

The Alchemy God remained thoughtful for a moment and then asked, "And you came up with this in the past hour?"

"Past 2 hours, Your Majesty," Alex said. "Is this perhaps not allowed? I can change my answer if that is the case."

The Alchemy God didn't say anything, simply standing motionless. He seemed to be in a quiet contemplation of how to handle the situation. After a while, he asked another question.

"Why? Why do this?" the Alchemy God asked. "You ranked 2nd already and have done good enough in the past competitions that there is no doubt you will make it through to the end. Why go through all of this?"

Alex wasn't expecting this question. "I… I suppose it is because of my pride as an Alchemist," he said. "I was given an opportunity, so I decided to make the best of it."

"That is it?" the Alchemy God asked. "You aren't doing this because you believe there to be some other reward?"
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"Not really, no," Alex said. "In a way, I'm simply showing off what I can do. I am here to make a name for myself, after all, Your Majesty."

"That you are," the Alchemy God said, sighing in the end. "I will be honest. I don't know what to do with your new recipe. I'm honestly surprised that you came up with something so perfect in just a few hours, but it is completely outside of what we asked for."

Alex nodded slowly. "I expected as much."

While the task was to replace the ingredients one at a time, Alex had ended up changing the entire recipe to require only 9 ingredients instead of 12.

In a way, he did the opposite of what he had been doing this entire time. Instead of replacing a single ingredient with multiple ones, he now chose to replace multiple ingredients with a single one. In doing so, the overall recipe was now way different.

"Should I just give my other answer then?" Alex asked. "It's not very unique, which was why I chose to go this route, but if I'm not allowed, then I'll choose the obvious answer."

The Alchemy God kept his eyes on Alex for a long time before shaking his head. "No, you're fine. I won't have you dumb down your ingenuity for the sake of following my rules. What you did today is incredible, and you should be rewarded for it."

The Alchemy God pulled out a medallion and sent a message through it. Once done, he put it away and looked at Alex with a small smile. "Congratulations, you're done with the competition. Your assistant should come soon to take you away."

The Alchemy God walked away, leaving Alex alone on the stage.

Alex remained stunned for a while before he looked at the sky and saw the ranking, along with what had changed next to his name.

It now read: [Dawnblade (9/9): 14 hours 19 mins]