1029 Dual lightning
"You seem angry," Alex said. "Is it because I hurt your son? I don't even think that counts as hurting. I could've taken his limb in that instance, and I would've been justified to do so with how disrespectful he was to not just me but everyone around me."
"No, I'm not angry about my stupid son. Sooner or later he will learn and change his ways. I was the same before," the man said. "The reason I'm angry is that you refuse to sell me the recipe."
"I don't see why you should be angry because of that," Alex said. "It's not like I stole it from you and won't give it back. In the first place, why do you want it so bad? Is there a reason why a family head like you would want to advance so fast? You should take it slow, and enjoy your life."
"Shut your damn mouth. You don't know what my life is like. You don't know how much pressure one faces when they hold such a high position without having a cultivation base to back it up," he said. "I have to agree to everything the others say and rarely get my own say in my own household out of fear of the others walking away."
"Once I'm strong, I won't have to worry about any of that at all," he said. His eyes dropped to his hand and he looked at the pill bottle. The pill there was going to make his dreams come true.
"I'll go cultivate for now. You can spend some time to think what you should do in your situation," the man said. He turned to his subordinate and said, "Keep an eye on him. Give him a set of ingredients one at a time each time he makes a pill. And if he's ready to make the transaction, call me. I'll be in my room."
"Yes, senior," the other man said and stood outside the barrier, besides the door.
The family had walked away while the other man remained. He turned around towards Alex. "You have 2 more sets of ingredients right? Please make those first," he said and turned around.
Alex chuckled and bit and sat down. He sat in front of the fire thinking as to what he should do next now.
'It shouldn't take that long to go through the entire Wasteland, right?' he thought. Looking at the map again, the Wasteland was but only a fourth of the entire continent, and given how the north was filled with beasts, it was likely that if he was going to find his father, it was going to be down south.
'I should start from those mountains on this side of the continent and make my way south slowly,' he thought.
Alex couldn't think of a better way to find his father.
"Yeah, I should do that," he thought. "As for ingredients, I don't really need many. I have enough to make enough healing pills for anyone in the Wastelands."
Thinking so, Alex stood up. There was no more need to stay inside here.
With but a thought he concealed himself and left behind a copy of himself that seemed to be cultivating. In aura, shape, and sight, there was nothing that could distinguish that it was Alex.
As such, when he quickly teleported out of the room, the man standing outside did not notice his arrival at all.
The moment he was out, Alex used multiple Heaven's Impacts on the man, hitting him with a mental attack that quickly incapacitated him.
The mental defense artifact that the man had was easily broken through. Still, with a saint realm mental strength, it was unlikely the man was going to stay down for more than a few minutes.
He needed to act quickly.
"I can't leave without taking anything for trying to capture me, right?" he thought and quickly took the man's storage bags.
Then, he teleported away, leaving the Huang household without anyone's notice. He teleported outside the house, arriving in a random alleyway before quickly making his way to the Alchemy shop.
Alex bought everything he could there with his money and left the place.
The Huang family would be in shambles very soon. The family head would leave his cultivation session with a massive smile on his face after seeing the effectiveness of the new pill.
However, when he would go to check on Alex, he would find nothing but disappointment and anger in knowing that he had escaped.
He would raise hell trying to find Alex, but by that time, Alex would've left far away.
* * * * *
A day or two later, Alex arrived back in the Wasteland. He could've come here far earlier, but he had to spend some time searching for his father through the various tribes that were set up on the way.
Since he didn't find him, he made his way back to the Wasteland.
Since it took him 2 days to get here, Alex was low on Qi. Coming through a place with absolutely no Qi at all, he needed to take some days off before he could go out again.
Alex made his way out to the ocean, teleporting each time so he wasn't caught by some strong sea beast.
Thankfully, he made it to an island with relative ease and he sat down to cultivate once more.
"Hmm, maybe I should eat my own pill to cultivate. I do need to get stronger even faster," he thought. Since he had the ingredients for quite a few pills, he needed to use them.
For now, he could only cultivate since there was nothing he could do without Qi.
Alex sped up his cultivation until he had half of his Qi back. That was all that was needed for now as he needed to quickly make the pill.
He pulled out the Sun's Womb and started preparing 2 sets of ingredients for when he was going to be making the pill.
It took about an hour and a half to completely prepare the ingredients, and by the time he was done, he was all but out of Qi.
Alex took a few deep breaths and cultivated for a bit before getting ready to make the pills.
He pulled out a set of formation flags that he had bought in Eastwatch city and quickly set up the formation.
When the formation was done, a fire blossomed at the center of the formation, on top of which Alex put the Sun's Womb.
He used his Dao of heat to quickly bring the heat of both fire and cauldron to the appropriate level. Once they were both more or less ready, he began.
One by one, he placed in the ingredients in pairs and started processing them. Since he had been doing this for so long, it felt very easy to him.
The ingredients turned to powder at a steady rate that was neither fast nor slow, Alex kept the consistency and his Dao helped a lot towards it.
He was soon at the end phase of the process where he would have to form the pill from the powder. So, to do that, he used his Pill-Splitting Qi which entered the cauldron and started making forming the pill.
The pile of powder was split into two sections which quickly formed the two pills, and as the energy was driven into the newly formed pill, the sky above him started darkening.
'It's starting,' he thought as he looked at the massive storm brewing in the sky. Just then, he noticed something peculiar about this storm.
"Is it stronger?" he thought. He didn't know why, but the lightning flashes in the sky looked stronger than every other time he had witnessed it.
Granted, all the times he had seen the pill cloud were inside rooms where he couldn't see the lightning from the start. Now that he was in the open, maybe this was how it was usually.
But still, it continued to feel weird for him.
Alex put his Qi into the cauldron and placed it around the pills to protect them. Then, the lightning flashed and the bolt struck his cauldron.
The Sun's Womb was an amazing Saint rank cauldron so there was no way it was going to break. The lightning entered the cauldron and struck the pill, but his energy easily protected it.
However, just before Alex could take a bit to be ready for the next lightning bolt, another lightning bolt of the same intensity dropped from the sky.
Alex hastily used what Qi was inside and protected the pill. Thankfully, the lightning didn't harm the pills at all.
He got ready for another one, but it seemed it was going to take a few seconds more. He took a deep breath and put in more Qi this time than necessary.
At the same time, he wondered why there were two lightning bolts. Were there already two Pill Veins on the pill inside?
He quickly looked at the pills he was protecting and saw that the pill only had a single pill vein. However, just as the confusion of the situation hit him, he also saw something else.
The 2nd pill had a pill vein too.
"Woah! No way," he thought and quickly looked up at the sky. "No wonder there are two bolts of lightning. No wonder it feels so weird."
Both of the pills in his cauldron at the moment we're going through pill tribulation. That was the reason why there were two lightning bolts striking the cauldron one after another.
