Chapter 54 54 – Strengthening The Core



"Great, see you on Sunday at 07:00 in the morning."

Annie stood up and left Ken's house, leaving him with a smile. He finally improved his shitty luck.

'With bad luck, I kept encountering people above my stage as well as bumping into annoying young masters. It should be much better now.'

Although he only got half of Annie's luck, it was still much higher than the average disciple he saw in the sect. If he used his previous luck as a luck-measuring unit, he estimated the average disciple with 25 luck units.

As for his current luck, it should be somewhere around 125, making him five times luckier than the average disciple.

If he went to find a master in the Alchemy Division with his current luck things would work out differently, but it was too late now. He didn't need a teacher to understand alchemy anyway.

He held a shiny silver pill in his palm. He played with it with his fingers, making it rotate as he scrutinized it carefully. It was an interesting pill he invented for his core.

A few rare pills required condensing Elemental Qi inside them, which gave them attributes of that element. Those pills were a few times harder to concoct and more expensive compared to regular fourth-grade pills.

Ken learned a theory that claimed that it wasn't possible to achieve those results only with Elemental Qi, but with every type of specialized Qi. The researcher believed only fifth-rank alchemists had the ability to achieve it, so he read it on the third floor.

However, that researcher could achieve only very weak results when he tried making his theory practical, rendering this theory useless. 

Since he still managed to prove it was theoretically possible, his theory was published in the library for the next generation to crack down on the problem and upgrade the theory.

Ken also read another theory that claimed one could use specialized Qi without having it by using materials that had it. Similarly to the previous theorist, he also managed to achieve unsatisfying results in his practical research.

This theory was published for the next generation to improve as well. It would open new gates to alchemists who were still limited to making pills with the same attributes that they cultivated.

Ken took those two theories and perfected them as much as he could with his new knowledge and thinking process, and it allowed him to create this shiny silver pill.

He used gems with Sword Intent and Sword Qi imbued in them for this pill. Those came from the training room of a sixth-stage cultivator and were sold for a few thousand medium Qi Stones.

Although he had Sword Qi, it couldn't compare to that of a stronger cultivator. He used the first theory to create this pill with Sword Qi, something impossible for other alchemists that could only mix Elemental Qi in their pills.

He put the pill in his mouth and removed the protective layer of Qi coating it. He started ingesting the pill with closed eyes, sensing the miraculous effect on his core.

He gave it the simple name 'Sword Affinity Pill', and its job was to empower the affinity of the core with swords. In his meditation, he watched the faint shiny silver part of his soul turning more vivid.

Just because he invented this pill didn't mean sword cultivators had no way to improve their affinity before, or nobody with access to pills would cultivate the sword. 

Alchemists could still use their Alchemical Qi to create pills with sword attributes using materials with sword attributes like the gems Ken used. 

The difference was that Ken's pills were a few times better. His pills were concocted using both Alchemical Qi and powerful Sword Qi. 

The only downside was the cost of those pills since each set of materials cost him nearly 20,000 medium Qi Stones. Most of the price was for the special gems he purchased.

Normal fourth-grade pills cost around 100 medium Qi Stones, 5 times the production costs. If the pill was perfect, it would cost twice or thrice more, depending on the specific pill.

Luckily, his purchases were sponsored by anonymous strangers. At least they were anonymous to him since he had no idea who the people he robbed and killed were.

He created 12 of those pills and after consuming them all, the shiny silver color in his core seemed to be much brighter compared to the other 3 colors.

He stared at 36 other pills that lay on the table in front of him. They were grouped according to their type, each group consisted of 12 pills.

One type of pill had a bloody red color, resembling the faint bloody red that represented his affinity with Bloodlust in his core. 

Another type of pill had a fiery red color for his affinity with Alchemy, and the third was navy blue for his affinity with Runes.

The overall price for making those pills was around half a million medium Qi Stones. 

'I still have another half a million medium Qi Stones left, but I don't know if it's enough. I've been depleting my funds faster than 10 spoiled young masters combined. If everyone from the young generation was as spendthrift as me, the elite families would go bankrupt long ago.'

Luckily, he had a 20% discount on alchemy resources from the Alchemy Division, which allowed him to spare over a hundred thousand Qi Stones.

Although maximizing his power at every stage was an expensive matter, it was too vital for his future. The people sacrificing their lives to fund it died for a great cause, and he owed that much to their altruistic philanthropy.

A few weeks already passed since he made the deal with Annie, and he had sparred with her twice by now. It was time for them to spar for the third time.

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"Hey Annie, how's your progress with your sword art?"

"It's good, thank you. I wouldn't be able to improve so much without your guidance."

She already reached the Basic mastery realm thanks to Ken's teaching. He didn't offer her any superior techniques since she was still his enemy, but he didn't mind helping her cultivation to get her trust.

After all, no matter how much she improved thanks to him, she will always be far behind.

"Let's spar again then."

Over the past few weeks, Ken even mastered her other 3 arts to the Basic level, including those that had Darkness Element in them. As for the pure sword art, he already mastered it to the Advanced mastery realm.

Although they wouldn't help him in the future, he could still use them in the present to get closer to Annie.

The two sparred and Ken easily defeated her. He would always put a lot of pressure on her, just the amount she could endure, but barely. It served two purposes – it helped her improve quickly and it depleted her Qi fast.

"Here, it's a perfect Qi Absorption Pill, you can use it to recover your Qi."

Ken smiled at Annie after helping her get up from the ground. He handed her a pill, but she didn't take it.

"You don't need to spend your pills on me, I have some with me."

She rejected it because she knew her budget was far bigger than his.

"Don't worry. Give it a try, it's far more efficient than the normal ones in the market. If you like it, you can buy it from me for 300 Qi Stones per pill, this way you won't owe me for the pills."

She looked at him for a moment and decided to take the pill. She already felt she owed him for training her, so it was too impolite to reject him again after he insisted. Ken gave her the pill and their fingers brushed against each other for a short moment.

To her surprise, the pill truly had an effect considerably stronger than the usual pills. After contemplating, she had to ask for their source. 

Pills that could make her replenish her Qi so much faster would allow her to train more. Training more would make her grow stronger quickly.

"Ken, where did you buy this pill? I want to buy them too."

Ken looked to the sides as if he wanted to make sure nobody was listening. When he opened his mouth, he stepped close to Annie's ear and spoke in a low voice.

"I will share my secret with you. I didn't buy them, I made them myself. I've been promoted lately and I'm a fourth-rank alchemist."

In her astonishment, Annie turned her head to look at him so fast she almost banged her head into his. Ken leaned backward slightly, just enough to avoid the head banging.

Their faces were close to one another, their noses were less than a centimeter away. They could feel each other's breath, and Annie quickly took a step back awkwardly.

"I'm sorry, I was just surprised."

"It's ok. Having a beautiful face so close to mine is never bad."

There was a short silence until Annie spoke again while looking away from Ken. She suddenly felt too self-aware after this small incident. 

"Any… anyway, do you think you can make enough to sell to me? I promise not to tell anyone about them and only to use them myself."

Although young and naïve, she knew that if the clan found out that Ken had such pills, they'd force him to give away the formula for it, hence, she promised to keep it secret for him.