I Want to Become an Alchemist!

Cool moonlight spilled through the open window, carpeting the tidy floor in white frost. After returning to his room, Xiao Yan had not lit a lamp. He lay sprawled on his bed, digesting everything that had happened that day.

"Kid, hurry up and open Hun Tiandi's Storage Ring. Let's see what treasures are inside." Yao Chen's soul emerged from the black ring, his translucent form looking almost sacred beneath the moonlight.

Hearing this, Xiao Yan sat up. He took out the Storage Ring given to him by the Dou Sheng who called himself Hun Tiandi. Its face was antique and stately, enough to qualify as a work of art.

So this was a Storage Ring?

"What should I do?" Xiao Yan held the Storage Ring up before Yao Chen and asked.

"Cut your finger and drip a drop of blood onto it."

Taking a dagger from beneath his pillow, Xiao Yan cut his finger without the slightest hesitation. A bead of blood slowly dripped from the wound on his fingertip and landed on the Storage Ring's surface.

Yao Chen watched in surprise. This kid actually kept a dagger hidden beneath his pillow. He certainly kept his guard up...

The blood seeped into the Storage Ring, and an enormous space appeared within Xiao Yan's soul perception. His eyes widened at the dazzling assortment of items inside.

"What treasures are there?" Yao Chen extended his soul power, using Xiao Yan's control over the Storage Ring to enter its Storage Space.

Hiss...

Yao Chen sucked in a breath of cold air.

It was already his third sharp intake of breath that day, but...

Hun Tiandi had simply given far too much...

There were several portions of supreme-quality Foundation Establishment Spirit Liquid, supreme-quality Pulse-Protecting Pills, and supreme-quality Qi Gathering Powder, more than enough to ensure Xiao Yan could cultivate steadily to the Dou Zhe realm.

Over a dozen large chests held all kinds of superior medicinal ingredients and magic crystals, enough to refine almost every first- through third-grade pill.

The greatest constraint on an alchemist's growth was resources. After all, pill refinement had a chance of failure, and an outstanding alchemist consumed a staggering amount of resources while developing his skills.

These treasures of heaven and earth completely solved Xiao Yan's shortage of cultivation resources during his early stages.

There was an exquisitely crafted Pill Furnace that appeared to be the beginner's model previously most popular in the Central Plains. It was extremely reliable. Not only could it enhance an alchemist's inspiration, but a Defensive Formation engraved on its walls could also effectively protect the alchemist if the furnace exploded.

The final items were two jade boxes. One contained a peach blossom flame, the gentlest and lowest-grade Spirit Flame. An alchemist in the Dou Zhe realm could absorb and assimilate it.

The other contained a pill, a Sixth-Grade Pill: the Spirit Fusion Pill! It could fuse a soul with a physical body, rapidly replenish soul power, and completely heal any injuries the soul had once suffered.

Yao Chen's eyes burned with desire. This was undoubtedly the most important item to him. With this pill, his soul power could return to its peak within three months at most.

After steadying his excitement, the worry in Yao Chen's expression only deepened. He truly could not understand why the mighty Hun Tiandi would come to take a boy from a small clan in a remote corner of the continent as his disciple.

Granted, Xiao Yan's talent was fairly good in Yao Chen's eyes. Even without being chosen and taught by him, the boy would surely become a Dou Zong given time, ruling over a region.

With his guidance, in a few hundred years, the Dou Qi Continent might well gain another Dou Zun who was also an eighth-tier alchemist.

But that was all.

Yao Chen scrutinized Xiao Yan from one side, then the other, until the boy's skin crawled, yet he still could not make sense of it.

Although this kid's surname was also Xiao, he clearly had little connection to the Xiao Clan of a thousand years ago.

Everyone knew the Xiao Clan had been wiped out a thousand years ago. Yet among experts at the Dou Sheng realm and above on the Central Plains Continent, a rumor had persisted that before his death, Xiao Xuan, the Xiao Clan's chief, had entrusted his descendants to Gu Yuan, the Ancient Clan Chief, preserving a branch of the Xiao Clan somewhere on the continent.

Of course, Yao Chen had only learned this from a Dou Sheng Expert, and he could not vouch for its accuracy.

Still, if it were true, then under the Gu Clan's protection, even without its Dou Di Bloodline, the Xiao Clan would surely have no shortage of Half-Saints, even if it had no Dou Sheng.

The strongest member of this Xiao Clan in the Jia Ma Empire was merely a Da Dou Shi. No matter how he looked at it, they could not be connected to the Xiao Clan of a thousand years ago.

"What are you trying to do?" With Yao Chen staring at him, Xiao Yan felt his skin crawl. He tightened his grip on the dagger and backed away warily.

Yao Chen shook his head. These were not matters he ought to probe. Ordinary people did not have enough lives to spare to meddle in Hun Tiandi's affairs.

This boy...

Yao Chen fell silent. Over the past three years, he had absorbed a great deal of Xiao Yan's Dou Qi. Part of the reason he had waited so long to reveal himself was that he had wanted to test the boy.

He had wanted to see how Xiao Yan handled adversity. If Xiao Yan grew bitter and cynical, facing the world with hatred, he would never reveal himself. Instead, he would move on to another host until he found a disciple whose temperament satisfied him, then teach that disciple with care.

Yes, he was responsible for Xiao Yan's present circumstances. Three years of undeserved calamity would have been a devastating blow to an ordinary child. If Xiao Yan failed the test, he would be assigned to handle the clan's mundane affairs upon reaching adulthood, his path of cultivation cut off forever.

But Yao Chen could no longer endure another betrayal.

Those three years had been an enormous gamble, with Xiao Yan's fate and Yao Chen's soul as the stakes. But Yao Chen had won.

Xiao Yan's temperament was exceptional. Those three years had not dragged him into despair.

Now Hun Tiandi had appeared and explicitly declared his intention to take this boy as his disciple. The vast resources he had provided undoubtedly meant he wanted to train the boy as an alchemist, and Yao Chen would be the one teaching him.

This was Yao Chen's opportunity, a chance to rebuild his physical body and perhaps even advance further.

He could not give it up.

"Xiao Yan, can you endure solitude?" Yao Chen asked after taking a bottle of Foundation Establishment Spirit Liquid and a Pulse-Protecting Pill from the Storage Ring.

"Of course I can." Xiao Yan nodded firmly. Seeing Yao Chen take out the two medicines, he could roughly guess what he intended, and excitement immediately stirred in his heart.

At Yao Chen's instruction, Xiao Yan fetched a basin of hot water. Yao Chen opened the jade bottle containing the Foundation Establishment Spirit Liquid. A bead of emerald liquid slowly rose from the bottle, then flew into the basin of clear water in the room.

In an instant, the basin of clear water turned blue-green.

"For the next while, you'll cultivate in this. With your talent, breaking through to Dou Zhe within six months won't be a problem." Yao Chen clapped his hands and smiled confidently.

He then handed the Pulse-Protecting Pill to Xiao Yan.

"Swallow this pill. It will protect your meridians and help you absorb the medicinal power of the Foundation Establishment Spirit Liquid more effectively."

Break through to Dou Zhe in a year? Overflowing with joy, Xiao Yan hurriedly nodded.

Going from third-stage Dou Qi to Dou Zhe within a year was simply unheard of. The Dou Qi realm was one in which progress was extremely slow. A talented Dou Zhe might advance two stars in a year, but advancing even a single stage of Dou Qi in that time was beyond him.

Yet with the aid of pills, he could actually break through to Dou Zhe within a year.

"Pills really are miraculous. I want to become an alchemist too!" Xiao Yan declared his lofty ambition.

Hun Tiandi's lavish generosity had successfully planted a yearning to become an alchemist in Xiao Yan's heart!