Chapter 7 7 – Watching Alchemy

He freed his hand from hers with a pull and started running down the steps.

"Ken, be careful!"

After the initial shock, Mei felt her heart racing in anxiety. She disappeared from her place and ran by Ken's side, ready to catch him in the slightest sign of stumbling.

To her astonishment, Ken didn't stumble even once. They were running 300 meters straight, some of it descending the stairs and some of it on flat ground.

"I'm okay, mom. You don't need to worry about me."

"Yes, yes, my little Ken is amazing!"

She spoke with a smile and took his hand again. They arrived at a large black building made of stones.

"Hello, fifth elder. Hello, young master."

They entered and the girl at the counter bowed and greeted Mei. Then she greeted Ken with a smile.

"Tell the cooks to make sure to send food for Ken too. He eats a lot, pretty much the same amount as a teenager at the top of the Body Strengthening Stage."

"He is cultivating already?"

The girl asked with wide eyes.

"Haha, don't be ridiculous. Nobody would let their son cultivate when they're two years old. He is just growing fast; you won't believe how talented he is!"

Ken's face twitched for a moment, and he quickly wore his innocent face again.

"Mommy, I want to see your work."

He reminded his mom of their goal there, and his mom, who was about to brag about Ken's talent, made a disappointed face but complied.

"Okay, sweetie, we will go right away. Go back to the counter and don't forget to let the cooks know."

Mei sent the girl back to the counter and took Ken to her concocting room.

"What is this room?"

He asked her and walked around and touched things that seemed interesting. He was just waiting for her to finish preparing, but he wanted to appear as a curious kid so he can act more freely later and just blame his childish curiosity.

"This is my concocting room. This is where mommy works and makes pills."

"What are pills?"

"Pills are like medicine. They are normally round and made by mixing powerful herbs and ingredients with your Qi as a medium. The different combinations of Qi and ingredients create different types of pills that have different types of benefits."

He already asked about Qi in the past, so he didn't need to ask her about that too.

"And do you stay in this room all day and concoct those pills? It doesn't sound fun."

"Haha, it's not all I do. I'm in charge of the whole division, so most of the time I make sure that everyone does their jobs or do my own research in order to improve."

"But who uses all the pills you make?"

"First, daddy and I consume plenty of them, that's why we are so important in our sect despite our relatively young ages compared to the other sect elders."

"That's amazing!"

'The balconies closer to the water get the moonlight first (1), seems like my father enjoys a lot of benefits by being married to the elder in charge of the alchemy division.'

Ken thought inwardly while smiling at his mother.

"Who else?"

"If I sell my pills, I can get much CP (A/N: Contribution points) or Qi stones, which I can use to buy things. Mommy's pills cost a lot because they are the best!"

She bragged to her son proudly.

"Mommy is the best! I want to see you make pills."

He asked again and his mother was about to finish her preparations. She then placed the medicines she needed nearby and the rest she placed on high shelves where her baby couldn't reach. Or at least that's what she believed; he could actually jump a few times his height now.

"Okay, I will start now. little Ken, don't touch anything without my permission, okay? You can only watch me work. If you're bored, let me know and I will call one of the girls to play with you."

"Okay."

She concentrated on the furnace in front of her and added 4 ingredients. Ken watched the process attentively as she melted them with her Qi and then mixed them carefully. She then threw other 3 more ingredients and did the same to them. She melted them, then added them one by one to the rest of the ingredients.

When she finished mixing them, she separated the mix into 5 pieces of which 4 looked good, while one had black marks on it. She pulled the fifth out and let it fall on the ground while she kept controlling the four remaining ones inside.

She used her Qi to place them on a tray inside the furnace and closed the lid. She controlled the flames for 15 minutes before she finished.

She pulled the pills out and four identical-looking green pills came out of the furnace. She used her Qi to make them float toward Ken and let him observe the pills. He tried to send a hand to grab one, but the pills dodged his hand and he looked at his mom with an annoyed face.

"Hehe, don't make this face to me. If you touch the pill with your bare hand without coating it with Qi, the pill will be ruined after a few seconds. You can look, but not touch."

He looked at the pills again and started scrutinizing them. When he was done, he thought for a moment and a question popped into his mind. He remembered reading in some novels that there were ranks for pills, so the better alchemists could make the same pill better than their worse peers.

'This question is too weird for a baby. Never mind, I will find out myself when I try to concoct pills.'

"When can I use Qi to coat my hands? I want to touch the pills!"

"Haha, you need to get to the second stage of cultivation first, the dantian and meridians awakening."

"What are those?"

This time he was a bit confused; didn't he already have a dantian? He didn't have to go through it because the Qi was already part of his body, but he remembered the other kids had to move the Qi from the liquid to their dantian first, but it made no sense if it was awakened only in the second stage.

"Everyone is born with a dantian and meridians. However, they are unfit for cultivation. The meridians are almost completely blocked, unable to channel the large amounts of Qi needed to carry out strong martial arts. As for the dantian, it's unable to create its own Qi, so you'd have to get an external source of Qi every time without this stage."

"And how do I awaken them?"

"You're still too young, so it's irrelevant. If you keep growing so fast, maybe you will be able to start cultivating before the other kids and then you'll go through the awakening."

Ken sighed inwardly and started planning how to put his hands on the technique. But first, he had to learn how to read.

"Mom, I want this!"

He pointed at the thickest book he found. He assumed the thickest book would be the book that included all the basic information about the herbs and ingredients in alchemy, and he was right.

Although he understood some of the principles behind his mom's concocting, he couldn't deduce ways to improve the method without first knowing about the ingredients. Since he couldn't analyze the ingredients through Qi, he could just read the analysis of others from a professional book.

"It's not a toy, this is a book. Do you want me to call one of the girls to play with you?"

He already compromised on the cultivation manual and had no plans to back off again. He unsheathed his most lethal weapon, his cuteness. He toddled to his mom and wrapped his little hands around two of her fingers.

"I don't want to go, I want to be with you. Mommy, please give me the book."

He stared at her with puppy eyes as he asked again. Mei rolled her eyes, but her heart melted.

"Okay, but you can't play with it."

"Okay."

He agreed and she gave him the book from the shelf. He opened the book, looked at it for a few seconds then looked back at her.

"What is this?"

"Those are letters. Just like I talk to you now, you can also say the words to the paper so people can later hear what you say to them even if you aren't next to them. When you talk to the paper it's called 'writing', and when others hear it, it's called 'reading'."

She explained the concept as well as she could, and to her surprise, Ken didn't show any trouble understanding it. The way her son would always understand and remember things she explained to him once baffled her sometimes.

"Show me."

He pointed at the book, then placed his small palm on it to prevent her from lifting the book. Mei's eyesight was far better than a normal human's, so she didn't need to lie down to read it.

"Mommy needs to prepare a few more pills for today and do her job. I will read only the first page, and then if you want more I can call the girls."

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A/N: the balconies closer to the water get the moonlight first – an idiom meaning those with connections get preferential treatment.