1180 Rewards

Alex's fun didn't last very long.

He managed to go through the next round just fine, but on the round after that, he ended up fighting against someone with a high Saint Soul realm cultivation base.

That person was strong enough to be the leader of the entire royal army, and as such Alex had to finally give up.

He returned back to the stage, as Alex, and sat down on the throne.

"Did you have your fun, your Majesty?" the elders asked.

"Enough," Alex said. "You guys didn't purposefully put me up against such a strong person, did you?"

The elder gave a dry smile. "We had to, your Majesty," the elders said. "While it was fine when there were many people, with only 16 remaining now, your fake identity would cause a lot of problems."

"I see," Alex said. "I should have thought about that before going headfirst into the competition. Thank you for getting me back."

The elders smiled and returned to watching the competition.

The competition went through its rounds very quickly, and in the end, the winners were decided.

The top 3 included 3 men, each from one of the 10 major sects and families.

"Finally, it's over," Alex said. "Let them have their rewards, and we can leave after that."

The elders nodded and prepared for the rewards to be distributed. The winners would go in order and pick what they wanted for themselves.

"Oh right, the person I told to not participate, he will come looking for this later. Can you hand it to him?" Alex said as he took out a small pill bottle.

"What's this?" the elders asked as they opened the pill bottle and found two pills inside of it.

"It's a pill that accelerates your cultivation speed," Alex said.

"It has those pill veins you talk about, your Majesty," the elder who took the bottle said. "How much does it improve your cultivation speed?"

"Hmm, it has 5 pill veins, right?" he asked. "Then around 50 times."

"""50 TIMES?!!"""

All the elders cried out in surprise at the same time.

Alex looked at them and smiled. "Why? You want it?" he asked.

The elders gulped and looked at the pill. "Th-there must be something wrong with this pill. What's the downside of the speed?" the elders asked.

"It overwhelms your meridians for 2 entire days, so you end up with about a week afterward where you can't cultivate at all," Alex said. "Unless you have some other cultivation technique where your swollen meridian pathways won't be used."

The elders watched him in absolute shock. "That's it?" they asked.

Alex nodded and chuckled a bit. "I'll make some for you all later, don't worry," he said. "This time, they will even be better."

"Thank you, your Majesty!" the elders all bowed toward him. Alex smiled and told them to get back up.

Once the winners took their rewards, everyone was sent their own way. It was late into the day, so it was time for everyone to return.

Alex returned back to the palace with the elders and decided on what immediate work needed his attention.

"I'll address the Royal army tomorrow. It would be better if Scarlet was here, but she's still busy," he said. "After that, please alert the Alchemists that I will be giving them their lesson tomorrow as well. It would be better to do that as soon as possible."

"After that…"

Alex mentioned everything he had thought of doing the next day and even the following days to the elders.

The elders nodded and left, leaving Alex by himself.

Alex returned to his royal chambers and immediately started cultivating. It was been a while since he had entered the Saint Foundation 3rd realm, so he was preparing for another breakthrough, although that seemed quite far away still.

He woke up the next morning and after spending some time training his sword skill, he went over to the training field where the entire 5000 different royal army soldiers were stationed.

As soon as he appeared with an elder, the entire crowd of 5 thousand got quiet and orderly.

"I welcome you all to the Royal Army. From today onward, you will be the first line of defense for the continent against any external or internal threat that may come it's way."

"As someone who still has a lot to learn, I won't lecture you on what you should and shouldn't be doing. I'm sure you all have already spoken the oaths, so I will skip directly to what matters."

Whisker appeared on his shoulders, which Alex showed in front of the entire army.

"From today onward, you will be split into 40 different groups, each with 125 different soldiers in it. 25 of them will be Saint realm cultivators, while the remaining hundred will be the rest."

"And this little friend right here will be your leader for the time being."

The army looked around with confused looks on their faces. They couldn't understand possibly what Alex was talking about.

How could they? There was no way for any of them to guess exactly what Alex had planned on doing with the 125 soldiers in each group, as they had no idea about Hell Emperor's Divine Battle Array.

After thinking a bit, Alex had decided that he wanted to teach the army the array. The army itself didn't need to learn the technique, they only needed to practice it.

The one who needed to learn the technique was the main controller of the array. For now, only Alex or Whisker could possibly be this controller, but with so many Saint realm cultivators, Alex wanted to have them be the controller as well.

He could imagine 125 individuals in a group with 2 cultivation realm worth of energy added onto them all.

In fact, he could even imagine 5000 individuals as a collective, all of whom had 3 cultivation realm worth of energy added onto them. Alex truly looked forward to it all.

Whisker was already told what he had to do and how he had to teach it, so he left Whisker with the army.

His father would be by his side at all times, so Alex wasn't very worried about Whisker being cowardly in front of so many faces. Not to mention, Whisker was showing signs of getting more confident in himself. Although that confidence never showed itself when it came to active battle.

After the talk with the army was done, Alex went over to the new building where the royal alchemists did their work.

All 200 people were here and ready for him to teach them his understanding, so they had been waiting for his arrival since early morning.

Alex found himself being taken to a large garden with enough space to handle over a thousand different people.

He sat on a podium, while 200 alchemists sat on the meadow in front of him.

They all excitedly watched him as they waited for him to start giving away his teaching.

Alex hadn't planned much on exactly what he was going to teach, so he simply decided to teach them exactly what they were curious about.

How to make a pill with 100% harmony.