Chapter 49: Start of the Body Tempering Process (I)

Spending around 1 hour something to finally find every magical herb needed for the medicine bath. 

Zhen has to say one thing and that his mind will definitely overload when he starts to learn alchemy from Cecilia.

The magical herbs he would need to memorize and their effects on everything. Also, one misstep could cause the whole magical herb to be ruined.

Ruining magical herbs would not be a problem since that's a process to learn alchemy but if you add the cost of it.

Then one can easily go broke and the main reason why not many could become a prominent or even an eligible alchemist.

The total amount Zhen spent this time was over 2000 gold and everyone was staring at him with a disbelief look.

After all, almost all the customers here are buying a single herb and eating it raw for the quick supplement from its effect.

It was extremely unusual for Zhen to purchase so many herbs and the only reasonable thinking they got was that he's trying to learn alchemy.

'Yep, they must think I'm a wealthy brat of a renown family who doesn't know anything and spend whatever.' 

Zhen didn't need to read their minds to know that they're labeling him as a rich 2nd generation.

Not that he cares about these people's opinions either. 

Ever since the fact that Zhen knew this is a tiny world, he can not imagine how vast the higher world is and wonder if Earth was even worth a grain in the eyes of a cultivator.

A tiny world is already this huge yet Earth is like an ant size world when being compared. 

'This is probably why no superpower or spiritual qi was present on Earth.'

"Stop thinking unnecessary stuff and start to enter this space so we can begin the treatment," Cecilia said while Zhen was still thinking.

'Her eyesight is truly terrifying to know that I'm thinking about some nonsense.'

"Eh, queen, where will my physical body be if I enter this space." They are still outside and if people see his physical body fainting, he doesn't know what they will do to him.

"Sigh, how many times do I have to call you a damn fool. You can enter with your physical body too. The first time was simply because you're completely ignorant that I had to use a method to forcefully pull your conscience inside." Cecilia said slowly with a bit of a dissatisfied tone in it.

'What do you mean by a fool? You never told me about this. I'm pretty sure you laid this trap out for me to step on it.'

"Haha, I see how it is queen. I'm truly a fool" 

Still, Zhen continues to give a smile in response to this since she has the upper hand while he has nothing.

A man must know when to retreat and when to advance to succeed in their life. 

'Why should I argue in a fight that I have zero advantage?'

Cecilia nodded inside the mysterious space and a smug smile appeared on her face. 

She has indeed laid this trap to tease him a bit even though she didn't know why she's acting like this.

Meanwhile, Zhen grudgingly finds a dark, secret alley and makes sure no one is nearby after triple-checking the area. 

Then he follows the procedure on how to enter the space from Cecilia.

*Whoooosh*

Once Zhen teleported inside this space, he covered his mouth as he felt like vomiting because of the turbulence in the teleportation.

"Hmph, weak boy, already feels like vomiting just from this tiny turbulence. How are you going to endure the next treatment?" A smile glistens on Cecilia's face.

Zhen was about to be entranced by her smile before retreating a few steps back. He couldn't help but feel exposed in front of Cecilia where there's no hidden card for him.

Not that he has any, to begin with, but it still feels uncomfortable to have someone knowing everything about you. 

Whereas Zhen only has a bit of information that she allowed him to pry.

"A-Are you going to make the medicine bath now, queen?" Zhen asked nicely since he would get nothing for prying more information than she wants him to know.

"Mhmm, although I'm still a projection, I still have my innate alchemy flame and spiritual qi after Karl healed me up so creating this medicine bath is no problem. I'm going to start and if you can't understand a single process then you can forget about being an alchemist."

"Is that a challenge for me, queen?"

"Hmm, if you can try to comprehend at least 80% of the process then I shall reward you a bit," Cecilia said with her mouth curling up into a smile.

'Challenge accepted! I shall shove your cheeky mouth for once.' 

Zhen decided to close his eyes and start to concentrate real hard.

'Hehe, you'll underestimate my ability to comprehend things, Cecilia, watch me win this bet.'

Before Zhen can even try to smirk in his mind, Cecilia has already begun the process.

Zhen saw her using a green color flame and the flame is extremely beautiful. It looks like a rose-shaped flame and the inside is blinking with radiant.

"This is called an essence flame and it's born in nature after thousands or even millions of years. To control this kind of flame, you have to merge it with your spiritual core or nascent soul in other words. Without any preparation, then the flame will instead manifest inside and take possession of your body."

Zhen nodded at Cecilia's words because he can tell she's teaching him about the so-called essence flame. 

In other words, he would probably need to obtain an essence flame or something equivalent to it for better control when he's concocting a pill.

"However, even without an essence flame, one can still become an alchemist but the pill would have a lower percentage of the effects as it can not clear out all of the impurities. Impurities in pills are common as not many can completely neutralize the magical herb's foundation."

"Uh, may I ask what is the magical herb's foundation?" Zhen got the point about the impurities of a pill but not about the magical herb's foundation.

'Do they even have a foundation, to begin with?'

Cecilia simply shakes her head as he is indeed a complete amateur. "Magical herb's foundation is basically their root of qi within the nature that allowed their birth. They are difficult to completely remove as most alchemists could only remove 70-80% at best."

'Hmm, I see what Cecilia means now. The magical herb's foundation is simply like  how a flower grows up with photosynthesis.' 

A focused expression that was never seen came out from Zhen when he realized the details regarding a magical herb.

An alchemist would try to remove most of its foundation to create a pill that has fewer impurities which could be sold at a high price.

"Alright, those are simply basic knowledge that every alchemist should know if they want to become one. You are extremely lucky because I'm one of the best alchemists back in the days and many begged me to concoct a pill but I refused every single one of them. Learn to be grateful."

Cecilia said with a haughty and pride tone.

This time, Zhen didn't sneer her in his mind as he knew how stingy and crazy alchemists are toward their knowledge and foundation of alchemy.

Most of them are a bunch of old men and half-ass skills yet pride themselves to be king.

"Thank you queen for teaching this ignorant kid," Zhen said with respect as he is indeed lucky to be able to have a beautiful and capable teacher.

Cecilia nodded her head before instructing him to pay close attention now as she starts to begin organizing the magical herb.

Zhen paid attention to this detail as organizing the magical herb like this should have meaning otherwise, Cecilia wouldn't spend time doing this.

"Mhm, you're not completely hopeless as this step is the most crucial one because it starts from the toughest melting point temperature to the lowest. If you misplace a magical herb doing the concocting process. You could burn the magical herb before you're able to condense all the critical herb to merging."

Cecilia said while continuing to organize each of the magical herbs.

'Women are truly the best liar. She clearly wants me to learn alchemy but didn't want to acknowledge it and provoke me instead to give me motivation.'

Letting off a soft sigh, Zhen shrugged his shoulder a bit as he would never try to understand the mind of a woman because it is the most mysterious thing ever.