In the middle of the garden, Alex was sitting down while closing his eyes. Normally, he would be cultivating, but there was something different in his current state.
Above his head was a shining Spirit Crown. He had been training for a year by now.
Not far from him, Rilt was observing his state and widened his eyes. He sneakily went around him and released his killing intent.
As soon as he sensed that killing intent, Alex instinctively woke up, rose from the ground, and slashed his sword.
Rilt smiled and used his golden staff to block that slash, but the residual power passed his body, going straight to the garden behind him.
It decimated the ground and created a one kilometer long fan-shaped crater.
"Excellent." Rilt smirked. The strength Alex released earlier was similar to what he first demonstrated. "The rest will depend on yourself. My job has finished."
Alex nodded and bowed his head. "Thank you for guiding me all this time, Father."
"Haha, I don't mind. Besides, this is a fulfilling one year for me." Rilt laughed while patting his shoulder. "What are you going to do now? I am sure that you are not planning to leave this place this soon, right?"
"Yes. According to my schedule, Firia will teach me about Alchemy. I need to learn it as well…For now, I want to concentrate on it first and cultivate later. After that, it's time for Array. And because there is that new way of using an array, I am intrigued whether it's possible for me to use it or not." Alex nodded with a smile.
"I see. Although the girls will be missing you, I think it's fine to let you go. You have lived here for a whole year after all. I can't be too greedy."
Alex smiled. "I will be saying goodbye with them first."
"Sure." He nodded. "I won't be seeing you off."
Alex waved his hand while walking inside the house.
Meanwhile, Rilt fell flat on his back and stared at the blue sky. He raised his hands and flipped them a few times. "That guy is indeed an enigma. To think he really can finish the training in a year. And that kind of control…If he fused that strength to his own techniques or elements, he would be very dangerous. Haha…This time, there won't be anyone to stop the rise of Alexander Sirius.
A few minutes later, Alex was already in front of their house with Anna and Anya standing in front of him.
"It will be a while, but I need to get going." Alex put on a gentle smile.
"Don't worry. Even though we plan to finish our training first, if we want to flirt together with the girls, we can do it in the future." Anya smiled while assuring him.
Anna pinched the bridge of her neck and commented, "Is that the only thing in your brain?"
"What else? There is only Alex, Flirt, Family, and Training. These four." Anya tilted her head in confusion. "The rest are secondary."
"…" Anna shook her head helplessly. "Whatever."
"Anyway, I will be going." Alex smiled and kissed Anna and Anya.
"Yes. Give our regards to Firia."
"Haha, you can visit her yourself." Alex shrugged and snapped his finger, creating his Teleportation Array.
He blinked his eyes and returned to the castle. It seemed Firia was waiting for him in the castle, or that was what Lin Xingzhi told him.
Surprisingly, Firia was already in the garden, looking at him, who just arrived.
"Am I late?" Alex scratched the back of his head.
"Nope. I just couldn't wait anymore and arrived here first." Firia shrugged. "So, do you have a place to train?"
"I don't have one. By the way, how is the arrangement?"
"Alicia and I will have six to nine months each and spend the last few months together. In other words, you are going to train for two years. The last few months are to teach you how to fuse Alchemy and Array together."
"I see. Sounds good to me. It's been a while since I last studied Alchemy, so my skill might be a bit rusty."
"With your Godly Pure Fire, you won't need to worry. It is the king of Fire, which is also perfect for Alchemy. Not only it has the purifying attribute, but it also can speed up the process with that intensity. Besides, no other Alchemists can distract your flame if you are refining a pill."
"Fair enough. My Teacher wanted me to participate in a pill competition…" Alex suddenly thought the worst.
"Ah, yes. You will surely obliterate them. Let me guess, he is suggesting you for a pair competition?" She narrowed her eyes.
"Yes."
"As expected. He might want you to be an assurance or such while I will be doing most of the job. Not that I mind though, but we will see in the future. Besides, my Sacrificial Fire has also gotten strengthened because of your Godly Pure Fire, so it's close to a Pure Fire level."
"That is interesting." Alex smiled. "If I use my Pure Fire in that competition, no one can refine the pill. This will make many people unhappy. However, if I become an assurance and only make a move if needed, we are kind of forced by the situation to do that. It will have the opposite effect."
"Yes. He is surely an evil person." She nodded. "Even my master told me how evil he is."
"Really?"
"Yes. He loves tricks, so that makes him evil since all his tricks are really nasty."
Alex nodded with a smile. "Anyway, I will be learning from you now. Do you have a place to learn?"
"I am not sure. I heard that you have a Simulation Room, right?"
"Yes. I usually trained there to avoid losing precious materials."
"My schedule is three months for knowledge, three months for learning ingredients, and three months for making pills. That's why I have prepared one thousand books for you to read…" Firia made a gentle smile while playing around with the Space Ring on her finger.
"Can I just absorb the knowledge in my inheritance?"
"Oh, there is that as well. Alright. You can, but you still need to browse the books to check whether it's the same or not. Just some checks, and you will be fine."
"I understand. I will study again with books…" Alex let out a long sigh. "I don't know why but books don't excite me like scrolls or other things…"
"Do you have that kind of fetish?" Firia looked at him with a weird expression.
"No, no. I was just saying that cultivators still didn't escape the hate for books. I wonder if cultivating could cure sleepiness when reading a book…" Alex looked down, falling into deep thought.
Firia shrugged. "Anyway, how about sorting the knowledge about Alchemy in the garden? Or do you prefer doing it in your room?"
"I will do it here. There are too many temptations doing it inside." Alex shrugged. "Not that I will do it though, but just in case."
Firia smiled while looking away. "Anyway, I will protect you here. You may start."
"Yeah, yeah." Alex nodded and sat on the ground before closing his eyes.
He had absorbed all the knowledge but never tried to see the information or even sort them, so it would take a while to really learn the knowledge. At the very least, it would be faster than reading a book.
Just like how they predicted, Alex took only one and a half months to learn much information about Alchemy.
"Have you finished?" Firia noticed the change in Alex's expression, so she thought Alex had finished.
"Yes." Alex nodded while opening his eyes. "My brain hurts to process all those, but they are really great."
"What have you learned?"
"Many pill recipes, ingredients characteristic, and how to handle the temperature. I haven't tested them yet though."
"Ho? Then do you have something that you like to refine at the end of our training?" She asked.
"I have one. White Ash Pill."
"Oh, you asked me that, but the medicinal herb wasn't ripe yet."
"Don't worry. It's almost finished. Although the Void Flower will take a little longer, the White Ash Tree is almost ripe. This training will last for two years, right? I think it should be ripe by that time." Lin Xingzhi suddenly appeared behind them.
She was in her room earlier, and when she saw Alex was thinking about the two medicinal herbs, she decided to answer it personally.
"Really?" Alex widened his eyes.
"Yep. I have worked hard." She gave a thumb up to him.
"I see. We can do that then. Maybe we can learn about how to make a pill using an array. And as the grand test, we will refine that pill." Firia offered a solution.
"Sounds good to me." Alex nodded. "How is the situation around?"
"Nothing big happened. You can focus on your training first. After this training, you are going to cultivate until you reach Rank 7 God, right?"
"Yeah. After that, I will probably leave to another place…Maybe in search of another world for the Gacha System. Now that I mention it, I haven't checked the progress yet." Alex opened his system.
[Gacha Point: 3000]
[Gacha Coin: 10]
"Hmm…Ten people have gotten UR Reward while there are a total of three thousand times they got Rare and Super Rare…Isn't this a bit too low?" Alex furrowed his eyebrows.
"They just managed to barely fight the invaders. Give them more time." Lin Xingzhi shook her head.
"Is that so? Well, I don't mind. Just want to make sure…How many coins for one Gacha?"
"One thousand."
"…" Alex twitched his eyebrows. "Seriously?"
"Yes. The number will start skyrocketing, so you won't feel shocked in the later phase of the system state. In fact, you will feel inclined to use it anymore. After all, if you give all people the Sword Mastery, it will become chaotic."
"Fair enough. Why do people claim someone is good? Because there is someone worse than them. Why do people claim someone is diligent? Because there is someone lazier than them. No matter how harsh the truth is, it's still the truth." Alex sighed. "I will be giving to my family only. Maybe one or two outside the family depending on our relationship."
"Yes. That's the best course for now. But I think it's fine to enchant a weapon with an elemental orb. We can sell it more expensive than the market price." Lin Xingzhi nodded.
"Yeah." Alex agreed. "I will look at the system again after finishing this two-year training. For now, I want to focus first."
"Alright. I will leave then. Good luck." Lin Xingzhi waved her hand with a smile and disappeared.
Alex then looked at Firia. "So, what are we going to learn today?"
"Since you have all that knowledge, we will be checking the knowledge with my books. After that, I will show you how to spot a medicinal herb and ascertain whether it's really the herb or not since there are many counterfeit ones out there. The last stage will be learning in your Simulation Room to refine pills. I am going to torture you there…" Firia smirked.
"Haha. That's good. I need extensive knowledge about materials to create the exact copy in the Simulation Room, so this kind of schedule will benefit me."
"In that case…" Firia waved her hands, summoning all the books she read during her training with her master. There were only one hundred books, but each of them had more than ten thousand pages, making Alex wonder if he could finish them in one and a half months.
"Don't worry. You won't need to read the details. Besides, your cultivation allows you to easily memorize them, so you will finish before you know it. Trust me."
Alex twitched his eyebrows and shook his head helplessly. "Well, my devilish training might be better than this."
Alex resigned his fate and began reading the first book.