During dinner he spoke to his elder siblings and parents about his plans to leave soon to fully start his journey. At first, they were worried since who wouldn't be about their son leaving for a long period of time to go do dangerous stuff, but after showing them his strength comparable to stage 3 cultivators their worry lessened a lot since stage 3 cultivators is already equivalent to elders in sects.
The reason he has such high strength he also had to explain. He told them about his body cultivation technique allowing him physical strength of a early rank 3 + the strength from his other technique increasing that to middle rank 3 body cultivator. He then showcased some of his techniques by suing them against his eldest brother, and the strength of them made them all shocked.
He didn't obviously show them all his cards, but instead only the ones he plans to commonly use and be public knowledge minus his body cultivation techniques.
With his siblings leaving the next morning he decided to spend the whole night with his elder sister who readily and greedily accepted everything he gave her. She ended up passed out once again with a hand on her stomach hoping for a child. Although he knows it won't happen because of his technique to prevent it, he doesn't stop her from dreaming about it.
…
The next morning his elder siblings left early in the morning, flying through the air. With them gone he started to get his head down and prepare for his extended journey.
The first area he wants to improve is alchemy. Unlike refining, inscriptions and runes, alchemy allows him to make useful items that wont quickly be replaced by higher tiered things. For example, if he were to make a weapon himself, the limit he could create is a grade 2 using grade 2 materials, but he could easily get higher level stuff from auctions.
For inscriptions they have specific uses and take time to set up and run. Runes are more a support thing, like enchanting weapons with runes to increase its power, or a necklace with a Qi gathering rune to increase natural Qi regeneration.
Alchemy on the other hand although quickly get out graded, they are also one time use things so it doesn't matter since it would be consumed anyways. They are also a good way for him to increase his cultivation.
He tells his parents his master is going to give him alchemy lessons through out the day and he will be unavailable. He then heads to his pill refining room he specifically had made.
He looks at the two doors in front of him. One was a fancy wooden door with golden inlays and a panda stepping on a dragon statue out the front and embedded on the door and walls.
The other was a think metal door with nothing special to it, looking like a thick heavy prison door, used to keep prisoners at bay.
He looked at the fancy door with an annoyed expression before sighing abd entering the metal door. Inside the room was just as bleak as the door with metal walls and a foul smell.
There was also a constant buzzing noise, that would drive people crazy being near for extended periods of time.
He sits on the hard metal floor trying to ignore the sounds bouncing off the walls. He brings out a large cauldron covered in rust with the handles barely staying attached.
This was one of his 2 alchemy rooms. One is the best conditions for alchemy and is silent, comfortable and enchanted to keep the essence inside the room enhancing the pills quality.
This room how ever is the worst possible conditions with it being uncomfortable, noisy, and has a slight vibration to the floor with occasional kicks making him move.
The furnace he is using is also the worst possible one he had made. He has it made from mortal materials then placed underground to wither and rot away at fast speeds to the point its barely still whole.
This is a part of his training plan for alchemy. He plans to practice in the worst possible conditions with the worst equipment and herbs. This will make it so once he managed to make perfect quality pills in these conditions then when he goes to normal ones, he can make perfect ones easily and maybe even get ones higher grade.
He came up with the idea from remembering the games he used to play. He remembered the hard games he played and how in those it would take only a few hits to die. He remembered his strategy to deal with hard games is the put it on the hardest difficulty from the beginning and then painfully making his way through the game, taking hundreds of tries with each boss.
Eventually once he finished the game, he played it again on normal and it was so easy he didn't get hit once. He was already so used to the insane difficulty that everything else was a walk in the park.
So now he is taking the same thought process to alchemy in hopes that if he can condition himself to make pills in the worst condition, he can make then he would be able to do it anywhere and better. It would also allow him to progress faster and faster with his foundation requiring less effort later on if he goes through hardships now.
He sits on the floor and searches his ring for the herbs he put aside. A few creates appear beside him filled with rank 1 herbs. He is still amateur at alchemy because he has been focusing on other things like his cultivation and business.
So, he is having to start from the beginning as a first stage alchemist. He plans to make the grade 1 pill Blood Clotting Pill which is one of the most useful pills because helps stop wounds from healing and can even affect stage 2 cultivators but with less efficiency.
This pill requires 5 different materials. 1 stalk of blood-soaked glass, 2 petals of weeping daisy, the roots of a Red Tipped Lilly, a whole Blood Essence Carrot and the blood of a wood type beast.
Having 5 crates with each of the materials, he checks over their quality. They look almost mouldy with spots of brown and some of the tips are withering. He is happy with the bad quality and plans to be able to make a perfect quality herb, then once he goes to his normal supreme quality herbs, the pill will be easy to make and super high quality.
With each of the necessary materials placed next to him, easy to grab he focuses his mind trying to create a flame within the furnace. He doesn't have a flame element affinity or a technique for making flames so he is having to do it the hard way and force his Qi to turn into flames. The flames would be very low quality and take much more Qi to heat up materials. This is also a part of his training as if he can proficiently use the worst possible flame then when he gets better ones and the affinity his control would already be perfect.
A small spark starts within the furnace that quickly turns into a fire. The temperature keeps on fluctuating sometimes being too hot, some times too cold. He steady's himself getting used to the temperature that it needs to be for refining the first material.
The sound in the room and the moving floor makes it very difficult to stay concentrated and he keeps losing the flame, having to restart over and over. After an hour he starts to make progress and it no longer goes out. Another hour and he can now keep the temperature within a certain degree of heat.
The next step of progress takes a further hour and half, to be able to control the flame to more precise levels. Normally his Qi would be dry by now due to the amount it takes to forcefully convert Qi into flames, but the room is enhanced to constantly draw Qi to him, basically preventing him from ever running out.
He grabs the first item and gently opens the lid of the cauldron and puts it in with him having the flames temperature quite low to prevent damage. With the item in, he coats it in his Qi to keep an eye on its progress and starts to slowly heat up the flames.
The flames go up a few degree's at a time but he seemed to have made them too hot as within a second the fine herbs instantly turned to ashes. This made him think that maybe it's a long slow burn, so he tried once again keeping it on a low heat letting it slowly refine away.
Alternatively, he could use the database to find the exact temperature needed but he feels that if he learns it himself then he would get a better understanding of alchemy and learn more. Sometimes its best to figure stuff out through experience than be told everything and follow someone elses processes.
Herb by herb, he makes his way trying hundreds of times through out the next 9 hours and eventually managed to create a very low-quality pill. He opens the lid and takes out a slightly black, green pill. He looks over what he did and places to improve and gets back into refining and tries again.
With him naturally learning quickly and efficiently he manages to get a high-quality pill by the end of the day. Still quite a lot shy of his goal of a peak quality pill but he is still happy with his progress.
'It may still only be a high-quality but the gap between high and peak is immense so it would take more than a day to do that, especially under these conditions. If I were using my good room and tools, I would have probably done this very quickly and made a peak quality by today. But the slow and steady approach on the hardest difficulty is the best and fastest way to get better.
Well, I still have another 12 or so hours before I need to sort out my buisnesses, so let's continue perfecting this high-quality pill, and maybe do a few tries at the end for making a peak quality one.'
The night went by fast for him as he got really into alchemy and making pills. Each attempt made massive improvements, whether it be its quality, efficiency, or quantity. At the end he was unable to make a peak quality pill but was able to make a semi-peak quality one with very little pill poison but he lost some of its essence in return though.