Too Long of a Process

"Senior sister Lei-Lei thank you for all the help you have given me, I'll pay you back in the future for sure."

"Alright I will hold you on to your words, but before that you first have to complete what senior brother Min Ren told you to do. I don't really want to see my juniors getting broken bones once more, I don't really want to report that to the palace lord."

Lei-Lei lightly laughed and waved at Ace as he started descending the mountain where the Palace of Healing stood.

Ace looked at Lei-Lei and showed a bright smile on his face and left that place with a brand new set of clothes and the leather bag that contained his Restoration Pills. He was going to leave the Palace of Healing today and head back to his own house so he can get started on concocting some pills so he can practice his Alchemy and level it up as fast as he could.

'I need to hurry up and level up my alchemy as much as I could or else I'll get my bones broken and ground to dust and I just might become Rea's medicine servant.'

Ace shuddered at the consequences he will encounter if he fails to level up his Alchemy. The fact that the deadline of his bet with Rea and the condition of Min Ren made Ace wanted to laugh but he was also feeling truly miserable at the moment.

As Ace was descending from the Palace of Healing he saw some disciples ascending the mountain while carrying another disciple who seemed to have been injured. He moved out of the way and let them pass him.

He looked at the disciples and remembered something that he should be in his possession now that he was a Minor Saint. Ace narrowed his eyes and heightened his senses and like magic, he felt something open inside his mind and soul.

'Ding… Divine Sense opened.'

When his divine sense opened the way he looked at things around him brightened and became much clearer that before. He could vaguely feel his surroundings and he can directly see the level of cultivation of the two disciples who were running up the mountain.

'They are both at the first level of the Minor Saint stage just like I am.' He thought as they passed him up the mountain. Ace looked started checking the limits of his Divine Sense and found that he could spread his Divine Sense for about a two meters which was quite outstanding already.

The Divine Sense, unlike his Martial Skills and Alchemy don't have any obvious levelling mechanics like showing how many experience he would need to level it up but nonetheless it still improves at a very terrifying rate.

'Divine Sense: Let's you feel your surroundings and see others cultivation clearly, after reaching Sovereignty you will be able to 'see' their levels without any hustle and see through every illusions, but as for you are still a Saint it is still very limited (levels up as your cultivation goes up.)'

With that discovery Ace didn't dally and hurried along so he could descend the mountain quickly.

The Palace of Healing is located near the Lower Demon Plateau so if a disciple were to get injured they will able to quickly go there and get medical attention. He was just about to descend the mountain but when he saw a giant crowd forming on the foot of the mountain.

'They must be waiting for someone.' Ace didn't know who or what they were waiting for. There was a chance that they were there to find him or if for someone else entirely but he didn't want to take any chances of getting further delayed so he went to take a different path back to the residential areas.

'I don't want to deal with any this right now.' He thought as he went to take the route that leads to north of the Palace of Healing. He started feeling out his body little by little and just as he started feeling out over his body he took one big step forward and flew like an arrow that had just been released from a fully stretched out bow.

Swoosh!

He moved from the Palace of Healing then he went around the palace just so he can get passed the crowd that had formed below the mountain. His actions were truly weird for avoiding fame when he is in that stage but Ace just wanted to go back as quickly as possible without any encountering any kind of troubles.

…

In the residential areas where the outer circle disciples stays in the talk of everyone's mouth was naturally Ace and for a good reason. Being a Core Formation he was able to beat someone at the Minor Saint stage and enter the Demon Rankings cementing his name in the minds of many.

At this time the Core Formation disciples were flocking to either the Lower Demon Plateau or the Palace of Healing. Their blood were boiling from what Ace showed and they too wanted to make a name for themselves.

Even the disciples who usually lay low went to the Lower Demon Plateau to gain both experience and some entertainment. However, the person in question who affected all these people were currently holed up inside his own room with a hundred batches of ingredients for the Restoration Pill that he has to create in two months.

"Let's start." He took a deep breath and simultaneously opened the Alchemy job that he had by clicking it.

Woosh!!

A bronze colored furnace appeared from out thin air and quietly floated with red flames weaving beneath it. Ace didn't know what to do from here so copied what Rea did by picking up the ingredients manually by hand and directly throwing them in the furnace.

Three different ingredients were thrown in and after thirty minutes an announcement was made.

'Ding… concocted 5% effectiveness Restoration Pills + 1 experience points (Alchemist).'

With that the furnace spewed a black pill that was far from the intended pure white color that it should have. Ace picked up the burnt pill from the ground and commented as he said to himself a little irritated.

"What the hell is this!?" Ace looked at the burnt pill and was left to stare at the failure that he had just created. He was expecting to at least create something at some at twenty-five percent effectiveness but it seems like the path of Alchemy was truly hard for anyone who traverse it.

He got experience from concocting a single failure of a pill but it wasn't anything that he can actually celebrate and the amount of time needed to make the pill made Ace think that this will be a long and arduous day.

"Nothing ventured nothing discovered." He said to himself as he threw another batch of ingredients inside the furnace, waited for another thirty minutes and once again a little burnt pill was once again spewed out of the furnaces mouth.

'Ding… concocted 5% effectiveness Restoration Pills + 1 experience points.'

Ace saw another failure but that didn't stop him from once again trying. He didn't want to waste any time by grumbling and saying things that he don't have to so he just sucked it up instead of saying unnecessary things.

'Ding… concocted 5% effectiveness Restoration Pills + 1 experience points.'

'Ding… concocted 5% effectiveness Restoration Pills + 1 experience points.'

'Ding… concocted 5% effectiveness Restoration Pills + 1 experience points.'

…

'Ding… concocted 5% effectiveness Restoration Pills + 1 experience points.'

'Ding… Extra Job: Alchemist raised to level two.'

It took Ace three hundred minutes or five straight hours of continuous concoction of defective pills before he could even raise his job level by one. Even with Ace's patience and determination it made him feel that what he was currently doing was simply too hard.

His eyes were starting to turn red from the frustration of waiting for a simple pill to pop out of his furnace. He wanted to finish this as quickly as he could but it seems like the Alchemist job wasn't letting him do so. Ace bit his own lips until it hurt enough that he almost bled then started taking deep breaths.

"I can do this." he gave himself a needed encouragement and threw another set batch of ingredients and started waiting for the pill to come out once again.

Ace waited patiently and sat there alone inside his room, then, something happened that him smile a little bit.

'Ding… concocted 10% effectiveness Restoration Pills + 1 experience points.'

The effectiveness was raised and the amount of time he needed in order to concoct a single pill from thirty minutes to twenty-eight minutes. It was a very small achievement but it made him happy, the only that made Ace want to slam himself on the wall was the fact that he still has to repeat this entire cycle twenty times because the experience needed had already increased once again.

Ace sighed and was about to throw another batch of ingredients inside the furnace when his black medallion suddenly glowed with golden light.

He picked it up from the ground and the instant he did Ace saw a jade tablet from inside his mind and that tablet was emitting light. The tablet showed many names starting from 42 to 33 and in the very middle of this names at number 38 a name was suddenly change.

From Leo to a very familiar name of Rea.

The top 38 of the Demon Rankings was replaced that day.