1223 An Exchange

"Elders, seniors, have you come to a decision yet?" Alex asked as he walked into the room with Hao Ya.

He walked up to an empty chair in the room and sat down with Hao Ya sitting next to him.

"Who is this?" one of the people asked seeing Alex come in so nonchalantly.

"This is Yu Ming... er, Alex. He is the one that freed us from Xue Kuangren," one of the elders explained.

"Oh, it's him?" a few of them looked at him curiously.

Alex looked around, waiting for someone to answer first.

"We have," Lady Xuan said. "We told this young lady that we cannot agree to this request at all."

Alex was a little surprised, but not very much. He had expected some obstacles to the task after all.

'Of course, it won't be as easy,' he thought. "May I ask why you refused?"

"Accepting your request is no different than slicing off our arm with our own swords," Lady Xuan explained. "The people that you say come from the Central continent have mixed themselves very well with our normal lives."

"They are part of the infrastructure that runs the Northern Continent. They are some of the best members a sect or guild has trained in the last 5 decades. Letting someone like that simply return back home after we've put so much in raising them, that's simply a loss that we can't bear."

Alex nodded.

His elders had told him the same when he had given the order too. They had been worried that people who had been given so much would be simply sent away without any reward for training them.

However, Alex was certain of one thing.

"I can promise you, anyone who has made anything with their life here will not want to stay back home at all," Alex said. "I'm sure sister Hao here is explained to you, but everyone who wants to return can return a year later. The ones you care about the most, those will return for sure."

"Not all of them though, isn't that right?" one of the men asked. He wore a robe that didn't belong to any of the 5 ancient sects, so Alex wasn't sure who he represented.

Still, he answered. "You are not wrong, senior. It is true that no matter how much of a life they have made here, some would still want to stay back in the Central continent. But, don't you think it's good to give them the choice? If you want someone to stay with you, don't you want their full loyalty?"

"If somehow tomorrow they find out that you were the reason the person was denied of the opportunity to return back to their home, not even given a choice to go back to their family they must have been missing for the past 5 decades, would they still be loyal to whatever sect or group it is that you run?" Alex asked.

The man's face darkened a bit. "Are you saying you are going to spread around the word that we denied them an opportunity to return?" the man asked. "I see that as a threat boy, and I don't do well against threats."

Alex gave the man a plain smile. "It was more of an advice and a small plea to show some humanity, but you can see it as a threat if that's what you want to see it as. I don't deny anyone the opportunity to make a choice for themselves," he said.

The man's face darkened and he was about to retort when Tia Guan cut him off. "The problem isn't that we don't want to do it," the woman said. "It's that we would be at a loss if we do so. However, if there was a way to minimize the loss, then we could be persuaded to do so."

"I see," Alex said as he got a little thoughtful. He scratched his chin for a moment as the rest of them watched him carefully.

"Use your authority as a King maybe?" Hao Ya suggested with her spiritual sense.

Alex nearly chuckled when he heard that. "On a foreign land that's not my own?" he asked. "I may be a recently crowned king, but even I know what a king can and cannot do."

He then turned around to Lady Xuan and spoke. "Lady Xuan, since I was once a part of your sect, it isn't an understatement to say that you are the one I trust and respect the most."

The woman was a little surprised and grateful to hear that.

"So, I would like you to do me the honor of testing this pill," he said as he pulled out a random pill and tossed it toward her.

The woman hurried caught the pill and looked at it. She saw the light green pill with an earthy aroma as well as a few random lightning strike-shaped lines across it.

She curiously brought out a pill tester that she carried around and put the pill inside the vessel.

Everyone around her looked at the pill tester with burning curiosity as well. After all, they knew Alex was an alchemist that had been taken away by Xue Kuangren, so he must've been quite the amazing one.

Lady Xuan was sure she knew how good he was since he had made pills for her for an entire year. She was curious to see how much he had evolved

Tai Guan and Bai Qiyi were the only ones there that had remotely any idea of what he was capable of in that room.

However, when the pill tester showed the number 100, even they couldn't help but let their jaw drop to the floor.

The entire room went dead silent for a few seconds as even Hao Ya couldn't hide her amazement.

"100... this is a pill with 100% harmony," Lady Xuan spoke softly. "H-how is it possible?"

"Is it fake?" someone asked.

"How could it fake my pill tester?" Lady Xuan asked, shutting up the person. "Y-Yu Ming... er... Alex, are you giving us this pill in exchange for letting the players go home?"

"We don't accept it," a person quickly spoke. "A single pill isn't worth so many talented individuals."

Alex smiled. "Of course not," he said. "I was only showing you what my pills are capable of. That one is a healing pill that I give to you in thanks for letting me stay in the sect for a year back then."

"I request that you don't use it haphazardly as it holds the powers to even possibly heal an Immortal himself," he said.

The woman's hand quivered seeing the naked pill in her hand that had probably lost value just because she had touched it. She quickly put out a pill bottle and put it inside and immediately hid it in her storage bag.

"If that is not what you are offering, then what is?" one of the elders asked.

Alex reached into his storage bag and pulled out 3 different recipes.

"I have 3 pill recipes here, all of which hold the potential to reach 100% harmony," he said. "This is what I'm offering to you."

He threw out the first recipe that fell into the hands of Huang Xinyi. He slowly read through the recipe and his eyes went wide.

"Is this... real?" he asked.

"Absolutely," Alex said. "I have no reason to lie here."

"What does it say?" one of the elders asked.

"This..." Huang Xinyi looked at the other and said, "This is a recipe for a pill that can help improve a person's Water Spiritual root."

"WHAT?"

The entire crowd spoke at almost the same time. They looked back at Alex to see if it was true or not. Seeing Alex's relaxed expression, they could only trust that it was real.

Alex then tossed the second pill recipe to Tai Guan, who quickly caught it and read it.

"Th-this one improves Earth Spiritual root," the woman said with a shocked expression. She couldn't believe that there could possibly be a pill out there that could do such a thing.

Hao Ya was looking around shocked as she couldn't believe Alex had recipes for such pills. How come he had never told her or even given her any of these?

Finally, Alex tossed the last recipe over to Lady Xuan.

Lady Xuan, who had just had to test a 100% harmony pill couldn't imagine what wonders the talisman in her hands held. She slowly let her spiritual sense sink into the talisman and read what was written.

Her shock came so abruptly that she stood up from her seat in shock. "This... this can't be," she shouted.

"It is," Alex said.

"B-But how?" she asked.

The others got curious now.

"What is it? Another Spiritual Root improving pill? Just tell us which one it is for. Fire, Metal, or Wood?" the group asked.

"It's... not a pill for spiritual roots," Lady Xuan said slowly. "It's... a pill to help you learn Dao."

"Huh?" the group was surprised... and confused.

"Help us learn a dao?"

Lady Xuan looked at the pill. "The main component of this pill... is the Soul Elucidating Tulips," she said.

Alex nodded. "That recipe took me a decade to come up with," he said. "It uses the Soul Elucidating Tulips to create a pill that puts you in a similar trance to the one you would fall into in the Dao mountain."

"Except, unlike the Dao mountain, it won't come around only once a year," Alex said.

The group watched not in shock, but horror this time around at what had come across them. It scared them that there could be a pill out there with this much potential and they hadn't even heard about it.

"Not only that," Alex explained. "Depending on how well the pill you've made is, you can have pills that are more effective than the pond at the top of the Dao Mountain itself."

"I give you all these three recipes in exchange for accepting our request," Alex said. "How does that sound?"