William's Cultivation progressed at a decent pace over the next few hours, but it still didn't feel fast enough for him. At the current rate, it would probably take a long time to Ascend. Even with his SS-Rank Cultivation Talent, William's Cultivation speed was only slightly faster than his Master's.
By the end of his four-hour Cultivation session, William's Cultivation Base had only improved to 120100 Spirit Qi, only 800 higher than before.
I wish I had enough Points to upgrade the Cultivation Talent, but I've been quite broke since the battles. Even hundreds of thousands of Potential Points aren't enough... William thought as he spent his stored Spirit Qi to break through to the next stage.
The Cultivation Talent needed 25000 Potential Points for the next upgrade, but he only had twenty-one thousand. It would be a few weeks before he earned enough passively to level up the Talent.
———
INFO: ( - )
-Name: William
-Race: Human
-Age: 352
-Lifespan: 600 Years
-Cultivation: Core Formation 2 (0/20000)
———
Only a five thousand increase from the previous stage. Thankfully it didn't go up exponentially...
William broke through to the third stage next, followed by the fourth. An interesting sensation spread throughout his body as the core of his Dantian repeatedly condensed and expanded until it was a small grey ball the size of a closed fist.
That's enough Cultivation for now. I'll go back to it when I can upgrade the Talent.
In William's opinion, Cultivating any more before he maxed out the Talent was a waste of time. If his Cultivation speed increased with each upgrade, he could make up for a month of no Cultivating in no time when he raised it to X-Rank.
For now, William divided his time more evenly among his other tasks. He started with Alchemy, since he had acquired loads of ingredients from Blue Moon City, the Night Market, and from a few Specialized Space Rings that some Thieves Guild or Pillars of Justice members were wearing.
Since he was planning to refine perfect-quality Pills, William needed to find a safe area to undergo the Pill Tribulation. He didn't want to destroy his new room, and the remainder of the residence wasn't a good idea either, so William created a long-distance portal to the surface.
He spent 375 Potential Points to raise his Carpentry Talent to A-Rank, then spent a day creating a duplicate version of the Five Elements Sect's Alchemy Hall. The necessary Arrays were added to the structure in a matter of hours, then William was ready to begin.
"Let's start with a Tier 3 Heavenly Resistance Pill." William muttered as he brought out twelve pieces of medium-quality Mana Grass.
Along with the Mana Grass, he also laid out four glass vials each containing a gram of medium-quality Heaven Enduring Soil, an uncommon type of soil that could only be found at the site of Heavenly Tribulations where the Lightning Bolts had struck the ground.
Depending on the level of the Tribulation, higher qualities of this soil could be gathered. Since William had undergone multiple levels of Tribulations already, he was able to gather low, medium, and high-quality Heaven Enduring Soil from his own Tribulations.
Even if he hadn't, there were tens of thousands of Tribulations every year. Only the extreme-quality Heaven Enduring Soil would be difficult to find, since it could only be found at the sites of Soul Formation and above Tribulations.
The Mana Grass was mashed into a paste and thrown into a filled cauldron of water while William heated up the cauldron all at once with the Fire Element. His control with the Fire Element was incredible, so the recent upgrade didn't have any adverse effects on the refinement process.
The Heaven Enduring Soil was thrown in next, which tried to sink to the bottom given its density. William immediately controlled the Water Element to force the Soil to the top, keeping it in place until the Mana Grass and Soil mixed together properly at a ratio of 4:1.
This was the hardest part of the refinement process, which made up for the readily available materials. Among all Tier 3 Pills, the Heavenly Resistance Pill could rank in the top ten most difficult to refine perfectly, since one would need to use both Fire and Water Magic simultaneously.
The number of Alchemists that could refine this Pill alone were few, and they were usually made with the assistance of another with the opposite Element.
Once the Mana Grass paste had fully absorbed the Soil, William split a Resonating Sunflower Seed into fourths and dropped it into the cauldron, condensing the ingredients together right away and forming four perfect Heavenly Resistance Pills.