The room they entered was as big as the one below it, however it was far more impressive.
Right in the centre of the room was a massive shrine like structure with formation lines flashing across its surface that stretched into the floor and all up the walls, it seemed like they would travel up the entire length of the tower.
And above the 'shrine' floated a giant pale green sphere about 2 meters in diameter, it shone brilliantly as multiple metal rings rotated around its circumference like asteroid belts.
Shu He's eyes opened wide, he wasn't using his 'sight', yet he could clearly see the pale green Alchemic Qi, it was the first time he'd seen such a phenomenon.
'Just how much Qi is collected in that one place?!' He felt entranced by the sight, not to mention that fact that it was floating, FLOATING!
Tao Ru grinned as she saw him staring dumbfoundedly "Impressed?"
"How's that thing floating?!" He asked immediately.
"It uses a special type of opposing forces to stay in the air, it helps the efficiency; That thing is what we call a Qi Reactor and it's the very core of this tower" She spoke proudly.
'I wonder if it's magnetism, this opposing force she mentions?' Shu He pondered.
"What does it do?"
"Reactors like these have one purpose, to absorb and convert Qi en masse, this one supplies Alchemic Qi to every single floor in the tower".
"Isn't it dangerous to have such an important thing sitting out in the open like this? I can't say your guard seemed very reliable…" Shu He couldn't help but express his doubts.
However, Tao Ru scoffed at his comment "You're welcome to try do something, but you'll just be fried by the formations protecting it".
"Oh, so that's how it is" Shu He nodded, he opened his 'sight' to take a good look but struggled due to the massive amounts of formations littering the building and the reactor; He could however see a massive flow of normal azure Qi being sucked into the reactor like a whirlpool, and Alchemic Qi concentrated in the core itself being outputted through the formation lines.
He noticed once more however that the Golden Qi was floating around, undisturbed as always.
'There really is no-one that uses this Qi… I wonder why it is that they can't see or use it…"
There weren't that many people on this floor, only a few alchemy disciples sitting silently on stone seats near the edge of the room.
Tao Ru noticed him glancing at them and said, "They're attempting to attune themselves to the Alchemic Qi, this room has a high concentration of it after all".
"Attuning? What do you mean?"
"Alchemic Qi is quite different from the 5 natural elements, it exists as its own category as a man-made type of Qi, while some people may be more predisposed to controlling the Qi than others by bathing in it and attempting to understand what exactly it is, your control over it can improve".
"Oh…" Shu He kept watching the disciples as they walked on, he used his sight and isolated the area around them to get a better look, he could occasionally see the Qi shifting, entering their bodies, or performing weird movements, the expressions of the disciples were blank, deep in meditation.
They headed to the other side of the room and headed up another flight of stairs, there was no guard standing at the double doors this time, clearly they didn't find the need to have another, the room they entered was different once more, or rather it was more like a centre hall, they walked through a small hallway before they reached a large gap in the floor with railings surrounding it.
Just below there was a large glass pane that depicted a pure white circle surrounded by five colours, the light from the reactor below peered through the glass and beautifully lit up the floor and all the ones above it.
Shu He looked up and he felt like he could see all the way to the top of the tower, but it was so tall his normal eyesight had trouble distinguishing it.
"This way, I'll bring you to a practice room" Tao Ru said before she walked off, so Shu He followed behind.
Other than the beautiful stained-glass pane in the centre there wasn't much else of interest, the walls and floor were all made of stone, entirely different from the fancily decorated bottom floor.
It reminded Shu He of a house who belonged to a poor person pretending to be rich, where they'd have an expensive room for guests but lived like a pauper elsewhere; Though that analogy might be a bit inappropriate since poor people don't have a ridiculously tall tower.
"Here" She said, opening one of the many sturdy wooden doors that lined the curved hallway, Shu He entered and immediately caught a whiff of medicinal herbs floating through the air, the room had a cobbled design like an old dungeon and there were a bunch of smooth stone tables lining the room with metal storage containers to the side, it wasn't impressive but was quite a sturdy place.
As he walked in further he caught sight of someone, or rather two people already here, at one of the stone tables was a young man with ruffled, spiky brown hair sweating as he leaned over, his hands forward concentrating on something, he wasn't wearing an alchemy robe, but rather a sect robe like Shu He, except it had green trimmings not grey.
'Hm? Is he from a different division?'
Behind him was an alchemist with a rather plain, emancipated face with a neutral expression and small eyes watching the disciple carefully.
"Oh, Ma Dong, you're here?" Tao Ru expressed her surprise before she glanced at the young man "Who's this child? Why's he here?"
The old looking man called Ma Dong turned around before sighing "Tao Ru? Sorry for the disturbance, I wasn't planning on using this room at this time, but he insisted…" He glanced at the young man.
Suddenly a cry of anger sounded as the young man hit the stone table.
"Ow! Damnit! Why isn't it working?!" he cried out.
Ma Dong massaged his brow for a moment "Zihao, I said before, you can't perform alchemy in such a frenzied state, you haven't listened to anything I said have you?"
"I did! But it's not working" He held up what was essentially ashes as it drifted through his fingertips "I don't get why I need to learn alchemy anyway! It's pointless for me!" he complained.
"Your father wants you to… he let you come to this sect because you said you'd do better if you could join a more combat oriented sect, but that's only if you truly make progress!".
"But I don't want to! I'm a cultivator, I should just be learning great techniques and how to use a sword!" He obstinately replied, his eyes reluctant.
Ma Dong sighed again "My apologies, this is Ma Zhihao my nephew, he was sent here at his father's request."
"Oh, as long as you don't interrupt us it's fine" Tao Ru replied, beginning to become disinterested.
'That boy…' Shu He glanced at the ash drifting through the air and couldn't help but subtly shake his head 'He doesn't understand it one bit'.
Shu He had spent a lot of time practicing extracting, yet the failure that resulted in 'ash' was only the first type of failure he encountered, the young man here was barely at the first step.
"Hm? Who's this disciple?" Ma Dong glanced at Shu He, finally noticing him.
"He's here to take the test to become an alchemist, much like your nephew there."
"Oh, really?! That's great, it's been a while since we've had a new disciple here!" Ma Dong said looking positively surprised.
Next to him Ma Zhihao grunted "So what? If I can't do it some new disciple won't be able to either".
"Be quiet Zhihao, unlike you that young man actually wants to become an Alchemist, that puts him five steps ahead already" The man admonished his nephew.
"…" Ma Zhihao crossed his arms and just stared angrily at Shu He.
'If looks could kill…'
"Come here, Shu He" Tao Ru called him over, she went in to one of the storage units and pulled out a wooden box, then she went over to the stone table and opened it, bringing out three leaves.
"These are leaves of the Remedial Tree, it contains strong curative properties against foreign substances, and it's a primary ingredient in the Detox Pill; This will be your test, fully extract the essence from one leaf". Tao Ru stated as she took a step back.
Shu He glanced at the three leaves in front of him, they were pure white and immaculate, not a single sign of impurity in them.
'They live up to their name'.
"Do I have a time limit?" He asked, just to make sure.
"Not particularly".
"But taking too long won't look good, correct?" He replied with a wry smile.
"So you understand, good." Tao Ru nodded with a satisfied smile.
"Then, I'll get started."
"Hmph, he's just going to fail…" Ma Zhihao grumbled in the back, but everyone ignored him.
Shu He placed his hands around the pure white leave like he was holding an invisible sphere surrounding it, he also activated his 'sight'.
If he were asked if he was confident, then he would say yes, he was.
He had spent a lot of points and time with trial and error with over a hundred failures, but his guerilla method of training paid off, one of the reasons he feels he can succeed was because of his eyes though.
His Qi slowly flowed from his skin, its golden azure colour contacted the pure white leaf and began to infect it like a dye in water, the first step was to dye the ingredient with your Qi, however this was the first thing that Shu He made a misstep on when training.
Dying and filling were two very different things, filling an ingredient with Qi is actually incredibly simple, just by forcing your Qi in you can achieve that; However that's not what is needed here, you need to change the 'will' in every inch of the ingredient to your own, the visual difference is minimal, or rather it can't be seen normally, however with his eyes he could after many attempts.
In essence, it was the difference between painting a piece of wood red, and making the wood red naturally, visually it was basically the same, but conceptually it was very different.
After 5 minutes, Shu He managed to succeed, every inch of the ingredient was the same uniform colour under his eyes, his 'colour'.
It was to be said that missing a single part of the ingredient in this process can lead to failure, as he had learned as well before.
The next part was the part he struggled with most, the actual 'Extraction'.
When he heard it, he naturally concluded the meaning using his science-based mind, he assumed he would need to take apart the ingredient, making It into a fine powder.
So he did just that and wound up with a pile of coloured ash, a massive failure; He had completely destroyed the ingredient, rending it into a pile of basic elements, this might be useful in some situations but in this one it wasn't.
So he took a step back, and soon he was left with a slightly different pile of ash and larger clumps of materials.
He had separated the different ingredients, but kept the molecules the same, in theory, at least in his mind, this was the correct approach, the 'Essence' of the ingredient, but reading the scroll he found out he was wrong.
What he did would certainly be helpful when making mortal medicine, for example if a certain molecule was the reason for an ingredients healing property he could extract it and use it on its own, but 'Alchemy' was something different.
He had to open his mind to something beyond his current scientific knowledge.
And after many, many more attempts and failures…
Inside his cupped hands, the leaf no longer existed, instead there was a floating white light that shifted and turned, it was neither solid, liquid, gas nor plasma.
It was essence, an entirely new 'state' that he had never seen before.
It had blown his mind when he saw it, like he had been hit over the head with a hammer, for the first time he had truly created something that he didn't understand.
He could move it to his will, yet it seemed to go through his physical hand, it was like a gas yet not, it had no physical feel, yet he could tell it was 'there'.
And now, he had once more done the same feat without a single failure, it took him 10 minutes which didn't seem long, but when fully concentrating it felt like an eternity.
"He did it…" Ma Zihao stared blankly at the essence floating in Shu He's hands.
"Here, place it in here" Tao Ru pulled out a jade bottle with a seal on the bottom and placed it in front of Shu He, he steadily moved his hands over the bottle and began moving the essence as it shifted like smoke into the bottle, when it was all in Tao Ru placed a cap on it.
Shu He breathed a sigh of relief, he was confident in it, but it wasn't any less nerve wracking.
"Congratulations, Shu He, you have the qualifications to become an alchemist!" Tao Ru smiled "On the first attempt no less, and your time wasn't half bad; I can tell you practiced a lot" She added.
"Thanks very much, I did… a lot" He replied, feeling that he had a weight lifted off his shoulders.
He had passed the first hurdle to becoming an alchemist.
"How… how did you do that?! Aren't you younger than me?!" Ma Zihao said, pointing at Shu He.
"I worked very, very hard" Shu He replied simply, his eyes gleaming with gold.
'I'm not lying, though I did have an advantage' He laughed in his head.
"Enough Zihao, let's go, you need to work on your fundamentals first." Ma Dong rebuked his nephew before turning to the other two "It's good to see a new disciple in our division, I look forward to seeing your future progress Junior Shu He".
And with that, the two left.
"Why was his robe different?" Shu He asked after they left, unable to satiate his curiosity.
"Him? He's from the Sleeping Forest Sect, no idea why he's here though" She just shrugged at his question and picked up the two remaining leaves, restoring them.
'So that's it… I didn't catch the emblem on his robes, but I'm getting it say's forest on it'.
"Either way, come with me, it's time for you to make a decision on which technique you want" Tao Ru hurried through the door, dragging him long.