All Chapters of Alchemist In The Cultivator World: Chapter 601
- Chapter 610
1130 chapters
Chapter 601
“Should Flee wait outside, Master?” Flee asked with a smile.Ren and Ash looked at me seriously too.“Liuxiang is inside, so once she’s done talking with—” As I was saying that, the door opened.Liuxiang popping out and looking at me with curiosity. “Yuan, I sensed your presence, but what brings you here to—” She looked back into the room at the Shie Matriarch, who had a hollow gaze as she stared at the ceiling. Even though Liuxiang didn’t finish her words, I understood what she was asking.“I need to have a private conversation with the Shie Matriarch.”Liuxiang blinked in surprise. “With the Matriarch?” Liuxiang suddenly looked quite nervous. She closed the door behind her and leaned toward me, whispering, “She is in a quite sensitive mental state these days. That’s why I’ve been accompanying her and trying to spend as much time as I can. Can you try to be gentle, if possible?”I nodded. “Of course I’ll be gentle. The Shie Matriarch may not be someone I knew too well, but she’s stil
Chapter 602
This made her turn toward me, a spark of life entering her eyes. “You do?” She shook her head at herself. “Of course you do. You’ve done all this. You’ve come back from death. You’ve sealed the demon god. Of course you can heal me. Please heal me. Can you restore my power as a divinity? No, I know, that is beyond even your ability. But even if you can just give me a core, I can cultivate. Even if I can just recover my youth.”I patted her outstretched hands gently and nodded. “I will look into it and do my best to heal you.”Her fingers were cold. I pushed a wisp of gentle warmth through my palm, careful not to flood her weak channels. Her shoulders relaxed by a small amount. Outside, soft claws tapped the floor twice. Flee, waiting.The Shie Matriarch nodded before bitterness took over her expression. “I am sorry.”I raised an eyebrow. “Sorry? Why?”“I failed you. I failed my clan. I failed everyone. Losing to that demon divinity and then not even having the decency to die like the o
Chapter 603
Her mouth pressed flat in thought. I could almost see her old self weighing options. Old habits of planning were not gone.“Perhaps I am not empathizing enough with your position,” I said. “Perhaps I am assuming too much about my own tolerance, but I think I would like to survive, no matter what, if it meant I could spend more time with my loved ones. Even if the world is inconvenient and the food is worse without cultivation and the stairs are hard. Even if I was in your position.”“Hnh,” she said. “The stairs are very hard.”“Then you see my point. Even if I fail, Matriarch Shie, wouldn’t it be better for you to survive and spend some time with Liuxiang? Spend some time with the old man and Granny Lang? Even though your lot might not be the best, just… live? Is life truly so worthless?”Her gaze dropped to her hands. She flexed them once. “You’ll be sacrificing yourself,” she stated.“Yes.”“Is there no other way?”“There might be, I don’t know yet. Can you think of any ways to take
Chapter 604
Her gaze then went to the window. “There is a small tree in the courtyard. Liuxiang planted it. She watered it every day for a week. Then she forgot one day, and it drooped. She ran outside in the night and gave it water and talked to it until it stood again. She thinks I did not see. I saw. I did not say anything because I did not know how to praise. I was not good at praise.”“Tell her now.”Matriarch Shie’s mouth tightened, but she nodded. “I will try.”I shifted on the stool. The next part had to be said. “Would you forgive me if you knew that I was the one who caused your current state?”“You?” Matriarch Shie raised an eyebrow. “How so?”“During the moment I became Emperor, I touched the system that governs fate threads. My actions then impacted many things. I pulled on lines to stop one disaster and created others. I set the stage for your battle and its outcome. I did not lift you out. I could have tried. I did not.”“You think you are the heavens,” she said, not accusing.“I w
Chapter 605
Liuxiang watched as Yuan walked out of the room, flashing a smile at her before he left with his pets. She paced anxiously in front of the door, wondering what Yuan’d talked about with Matriarch Shie. She knew him. She knew it probably wouldn’t have been anything negative. But Matriarch Shie’s state had already been volatile—who knew how she reacted? Still, his expression would’ve been more conflicted if it had been something negative, right? So surely it should have been something positive.She took a deep breath and opened the door, only to find Matriarch Shie sitting up in bed, staring out of the window at the village moving outside with people doing their tasks. When she saw Liuxiang enter, Matriarch Shie flashed such a gentle smile that Liuxiang’s breath was stolen for a second.“Sit, Liuxiang. Sit.”Liuxiang gulped but obeyed, sitting on the stool. She didn’t know how she felt about this lady. Even now, Zhi Zhu protested.Don’t waste your time, Liuxiang, it said. You didn’t like
Chapter 606
I stared at Flee. “So this is the underground pathway that leads straight toward the divine tree?”Flee nodded fervently.Ren had gone back to their house, perhaps to continue his duties, and Ash had given me an apologetic look, saying Zhang might appreciate his help. That left Flee as my sole companion.I looked over the tunnel system with a flicker of pride. It resembled the old mines I’d seen in films—the bracing, the ribs of mortal metal holding the rock in place. Good choice: if they’d trusted cultivator formations, the recent fluctuations in ambient chi might have shaken the whole warren apart.Formations all over the city were straining; if not for Liuxiang’s craft and the old man’s and Granny Lang’s efforts, with the occasional assist from my pets, the barrier would have already failed.“I’m very proud,” I said, and ruffled Flee’s hair.She bounced in place, pleased. “Yes, Master should be proud. Flee is amazing!”I couldn’t help but chuckle.The entrance she chose was a low s
Chapter 607
Sound filled the workshop and bounced off brick, wood, and clay. We had cleared three benches to lay everything out but the room still felt crowded. Baskets of dried leaves sat stacked by size on the floor, the stems bundled tight with thread so the grades wouldn’t mix.Two mortar sets rested near the window where the light was strongest at this hour. The pill furnace hissed softly as it released the last of its heat, a thin ribbon of steam rising from the exhaust valve.The vent crystals in the ceiling pulsed, shifting from bright to dull as they balanced the air. On the nearest table, nine fresh pills cooled on a lacquered tray, each one the pale green of new shoots with darker veins running through their centers. The smell coming off them was sharp and clean, like crushed leaf and wet soil after rain, only stronger, enough that it tickled the back of the throat.Old Man didn’t move right away. He bent over until his breath fogged the tray’s cover, then lifted the lid with practiced
Chapter 608
Being back in my own lab was very nostalgic. The room had the old smells and I stood for a moment just to take it all in. Spirit ink, dried peel, heat from a plate that had been cleaned but not used for weeks. The crack in the third plank of the bench was still there. The bitten talisman brush was where I had left it, the bite clean and round. I picked it up, felt the teeth marks, and set it in the cup with the better brushes.I took a stick of chalk and wrote on the wall beside the worktable.Ki’s seal: one year.I looked at the line, then added a second.Less if the leaves sap the Chi from the tree even after they’re disconnected.There was a lot to do and not a lot of time to do it in. Still…“It is good to be back,” I said, not to anyone in particular.Yin came in with a tray and heard me. She set the tray down and looked around once, like she was taking stock of all the small things that made this room “ours.”“It is,” she said. “I missed the bench. I missed the way it quiets the
Chapter 609
I cleaned the table. Yin set the small cauldron on the steady plate. I took a leaf sliver with tweezers and held it against the light. The treatment had left it flat and matte. I rested it on the etching pad and took up the fine needle.“Route mark v0,” I said, more to the log than to Yin. “Three steps. We keep the lines short and straight. No curls.”I scratched three small rings with breaks at the top. I added one notch on the first, two on the second, three on the third. Stillness, separation, purification. I paused and checked the depth. Too deep and it would crack the sliver during rolling. Too shallow and the mark would not hold its path.“Depth?” Yin asked.“Hair-thin,” I said. “No more.”I etched nine more slivers, checking each one with a finger tap to make sure it did not bend or split.“Base mix,” I said. “Six parts base, two parts binder, one part refill, one part temper shell.”I measured with the small scoop, leveled each scoop with a straight edge, and wrote the ratios
Chapter 610
I wondered how much of them occurred due to the Demon God and how much occurred just as backlash of the cultivators drawing the little Chi that remained in the atmosphere.Either way, the small bead in its groove stayed steady. Good. So the pills were clearing the miasma from the bodies, not expelling it back into the ground.“Ask Ren for a read.” Just in case.The tortoise rounded the door on slow feet and looked up at us the second I reached out to my connection with him. His shell was clean, darker at the grooves where water had dried, a cable of a thin silver line tucked along his left side. He stopped at the bench and tilted his head.“Ren. We kept it small.”He blinked and looked toward the ward plate, then toward the floor, as if looking through it.“Slow,” Ren said. “Daily cap.”“Yes, yes, we made sure to maintain a cap on using the Chi and leaves and not experiment too much.”He looked at the ten pills on the tray, then back at the floor again. “Lines. Little slack, no pull.