All Chapters of Alchemist In The Cultivator World: Chapter 591
- Chapter 600
1130 chapters
Chapter 591
My eyes widened. Three months could be both a short and a long time. I forced my breath steady and let my senses settle. As I looked at all four of them with a renewed gaze, no longer overwhelmed by first shock and able to really see them safe, I noticed many small differences.Flee had grown taller and a lot scruffier. Considering that she was a rat that had transformed into human, she was already naturally scruffy, but now it looked more like the scruffiness that came with exhaustion, with tiredness that nourished itself day after day. She wore a short blade at the hip—new habit. I noted the callus at her thumb and forefinger from repeatedly loading and firing the weapons we’d given mortals; even Flee had picked up drills.I looked at all their robes. With how strong their Chi was, Liuxiang, Yan Yun, or Zhang should not look tired, nor should their robes look anything but pristine. But right now their robes looked worn. Their skin looked parched. A faint gray along the knuckles. It
Chapter 592
The flight was brisk and quiet and I watched the world from dragonback, mentally cataloguing the changes. Forests patchy where Chi had retreated, rivers running lower than they should in late season, birds flying closer to the ground. We passed a ravine where cultivators would usually set up concealment arrays; the ground there was just empty. Formations had gone cold without Chi to hold them.My eyes widened when I saw the settlement. No, calling it a town would be more appropriate. They’d needed to expand. Houses arranged in rings around the core formation, smoke rising in thin, almost reluctant threads from cookhouses.As the dragons circled lower, more of the city came into focus: militia drill yards packed with mortals and low-realm cultivators; armories with racks of the rifles I’d designed and passed down; carts hauling ore and spirit wood to the new pill-and-weapon workshops; and storage barns repurposed into small factories. Qiao Ying’s system for logistics had matured—dedica
Chapter 593
We began to walk toward my master’s house. Villagers kept watching as I moved, hands clasped or held to chests, eyes overawed or brimming with hopeful tears, basking in my presence.I wondered if it would dispel some of that worship and tension if Ash knocked me to the ground like Flee had and started licking my face in front of everyone.Probably not something Ash would agree to do, being the majestic wolf he was. Still, the thought made me laugh and that alone took the edge off their expectations.Even outside the door, my sharp hearing caught the whispers within. Granny Lang and my master seemed deeply immersed in a conversation.“Maybe add more flame-spirit herbs—no, we might need a few leaves from the Divine Tree,” Granny said. “Only then can we really make the fertilizer stronger. But getting those leaves will be risky. Who do we send?”“Zhang might be a good choice,” my master replied. “But then Flee too, with her swift form, she should be able to dodge demons and get there. Bu
Chapter 594
A somber silence settled over the room at my words. The cauldron’s surface ticked—tiny popping sounds as bubbles broke. I watched them just to give my eyes something that wasn’t despair.“Nine more months,” Liuxiang finally spoke. “That is quite a short period. Do you know a way to stop the demon god, Yuan?” she asked, almost desperately. Hidden well, but obvious to anyone who knew her.I opened my mouth, then closed it again. Did I? Truly? Could I tell them it came down to sacrificing myself? Bring them pain now? It would be necessary when I eventually had to do it.If I had to. I still might find another way. That wasn’t guaranteed. Until I was completely sure there was no way out, I didn’t want to reveal it. No need to bring pain in advance over something that may not be necessary at all in the end.So I simply nodded. “I do have a surefire way. But I need to research it a bit.”At this, Liuxiang nodded, relieved enough to let tension out of her shoulders. The others took the breat
Chapter 595
I flew out of the house, eyes widening slightly at what was happening beyond the walls.One breath, there was clear air and the thin winter sun. The next, the light dimmed. A smear of black rolled across the clouds and spread outward, not fog, not smoke—Gu. The same greasy stain I’d smelled on battlefields since Azure City, but thicker, threaded with ash-grey motes that drifted down and hissed where they touched the wards.Sirens wailed from three towers. A drumline answered from the east wall—short, clipped signals. Gates slammed. Plates slid into sockets. The whole settlement changed posture in a breath.“Wave!” someone shouted from the south tower. “Wave rolling in!”Yards away, Zhang’s feet hit the ground with a soft thud that still cracked the stone under his boots. He looked up once, then at me. Purple motes flickered along his shoulders. “It’s a big one,” he said, calm like always.Yan Yun appeared next to him, lightning inscriptions flaring. “Third this month,” she muttered. “
Chapter 596
Above us, a shadow peeled itself from the black clouds and arrowed down. Flying demon. Its claws opened for the tower I was on.“Mine,” Zhang said without moving his eyes. His spear left his hand and crossed the sky in the time it takes a heart to beat, grew heavy as a falling hill, and smashed the thing out of the air. It hit the field as a crater and didn’t get up. Purple motes drifted like embers then winked out.“Left breach!” someone yelled. “Crawler under the wire!”Flee was already moving. She vaulted from crenel to crenel, then sprang out and down—Zhang flicked two fingers and gave her a gravity step to stand on—and she drove both fists into the ground just ahead of the crawling bulk. Thunder rippled outward under the soil. The crawler’s legs spasmed and snapped like burnt matches. It shrieked; she slapped a charm on its face and pulsed a tight bolt. It went still.“Good control,” I heard myself say, and swallowed the urge to join her and tear a lane through the herd. If they
Chapter 597
The captain slapped the plate. The charge buried inches inside the gate’s core went thump and threw the ox-thing backward, spine shattered. The smaller beasts rolled and kept crawling. One made it to the inner lip.I moved then, not because they couldn’t handle it, but because the risk curve crossed the line I’d drawn in my head. A child runner would be in the path if the thing cleared the lip. I dropped, grabbed a horn, and levered its head around with more force than a normal human could bring. Bone snapped. I pushed it back over the edge and flicked a quiet burst of heat into the carcass to cauterize the Gu before it could splash. Then I moved back.“Thank you, Your Highness!,” the gate captain said reverentially, without looking up.“Don’t thank me,” I said. “Shoot.”She shot.The sky pulsed. The Gu above thickened and then thinned. The second wave crashed and flattened; the third paused and then spread, testing for angles. They’d find none. Not with how good his friends were at t
Chapter 598
I hesitated in front of the door as I lingered. Within, I could sense the meeting happening between Zhou Fang and the vague auras of the ice spirits I had saved back then with the assistance of Feng Sha. And yet I hesitated to open the door and show my face to them.“Master,” Flee whispered behind my elbow, lightning crackling in tiny threads along her fingers before she clamped her paws and stilled it. Ash stood to my other side in human form, cloak hood down, eyes clear and watchful. Ren hovered half a step back, sea-quiet, one foot on a small slate covered in array lines that pulsed in time with the Seventh Peak’s ward ring.Even as the guards at the door looked at me with slack jaws and wide eyes, clearly stunned that I was alive. I’d only given them a smile and a nod, but that alone seemed enough to almost bring them to tears. Finally, gritting my teeth and stripping away any hesitation lingering in my mind, I knew I couldn’t just stay here. I needed to meet Zhou Fang and talk to
Chapter 599
Those words struck Zhou Fang in a way he’d not expected, as he stared at me blankly—just as he had when he’d first seen me appear. And then slowly he began laughing, laughter that evolved into full-blown cackles. “Hah. You always know just what to say, in the strangest of ways, don’t you? Rather, Yuan, or perhaps I should call you Emperor?”I rolled my eyes. “The empire has collapsed, Zhou Fang. I am an emperor, but you don’t need to show me any formality anymore.”Zhou Fang chuckled good-naturedly. “Now that you’re here, actually, I might need your help.”“My help?” I asked.“The spirits. It’s better if you hear it from them.”Before we returned, Ren cleared his throat. “Two items. First, the ward ring will hold for four hours if I divert the south line. After that, we’ll need a relayer at the sea plate. I can send a runner, but if this meeting runs long—”“Go if you need to,” I told him. “Flee and Ash will stay with me.”Ash nodded once. Flee squeezed my hand and then marched at my
Chapter 600
I pondered for a second whether I should tell these spirits what was happening, and then decided there would be no harm.I didn’t go into as much detail as I did with Zhou Fang, only giving them the basic outline: how the demon god was sealed because of the divine tree, and that the divine beasts are currently trapped with the demon god, though I didn’t mention they might be corrupted. I told them I had a way to end the demon god, but I would need their assistance.If I was going to be experimenting the next few days, or advancing weapons to face the demon god and his army, then I would need all the resources I could get. And where better to get them than from the spirits themselves, arbiters of nature?At my explanation, all the spirits relaxed, as if a major burden had been lifted from their shoulders; some looked like they’d regained hope; some looked positively delighted. I barely stopped the smile from spreading on my face.Flee leaned close and whispered, “Master, Flee can fetch