1514 Weak Memory
The main problem with making two pills at once, from what Alex had come to realize after a bit of testing, was Heat. If you wanted to make two pills at once, and truly make it at once and not one after another or alternatively, then you needed to make it so that your cauldron had two different temperatures at once.
The upper half of the cauldron, where one pill would be made, would have to have a different temperature from the other half of the cauldron. That required one not just to have a Dao of Heat, but also a Dao of Heat Conduction to stop the heat from flowing from one section to the other.
On top of that, the different temperatures in the same cauldron would cause the cauldron to have a durability problem.
Alex worried Memory would start showing such problems as well. Unlike Midnight, which he had kept with himself for the past 2 decades, Memory had been lost to him for a majority of that time, and had started making pills with it half a decade ago.
As such, Memory hadn't grown much, and that scared Alex from putting it through harsh situations. Still, he needed to do this. He needed to try and he did.
And in the end, he succeeded. But not without finding that he couldn't do much more than what he had done, or else Memory wouldn't be able to handle it.
If the cauldron's physical body was damaged, Alex could maybe find a way to fix it. But if the budding spirit inside of it was damaged, he wasn't sure what he could do to fix that at all.
So, he decided to not overdo it at all.
A lightning bolt fell from the Pill Cloud at once, stopped by Alex. 4 more subsequent lightning bolts fell, which Alex stopped before stopping altogether. He brought out the two pills, of which one was in the upper 90s in terms of Harmony, and the other one had 5 lightning scars.
Once Alex had the two pills, he stopped to think about what he had done. He had made two pills in the same cauldron at the same time as if he were working with two different cauldrons.
It required a lot of mental focus and Intent as well as Qi, but there was still quite a lot for him to spare. Unfortunately, Memory couldn't handle much more, the spirit at least.
Splitting the cauldron into two sections, each of which had a different temperature strained Memory too much.
However, even though he decided to not strain Memory too much, he had achieved an epiphany regarding something and would now have to do just that.
"I'll have to improve your tolerance to outside temperature and stress, Memory," he said softly. "It will take you some time to get used to it, but when you're done, you'll become stronger." He spoke while caressing the side of the cauldron with gentle strokes.
Alex got a vague impression back from Memory, but it wasn't close to being anything informative. Still, that made Alex quite happy.
"Rest for now," he said. "We'll begin once I'm done with this trial."
He put Memory back into his storage ring and stood up. "I'll leave now," he spoke.
The dragon soul nodded. "I hope I'll see you in the future," he spoke.
"I'll try to come the next time it opens up again," Alex told the Dragon.
The Dragon nodded. "Thank you for the technique," he said. "I'll send you out now."
Alex thanked the Dragon soul one last time and let the teleportation aura grab onto him, sending him outside the building that housed the realm of trial. He arrived outside the walls, surrounded by bright, white light.
The moment the pillar of light vanished, and he reappeared to everyone, he could see the surprised faces that surrounded him.
"White light!" someone shouted.
"Someone passed all the trial!" another person shouted.
Soon enough, everyone in the surroundings heard their words and turned to look at Alex. A few people recognized him and the information spread like wildfire.
Within a minute, every single person standing on the side of the Alchemy trial knew that Alex, the king of the Southern Continent, had now passed the trial with a white color.
He had passed with the highest grade one could get. Something that very few people in the entire history of the Realm of Trials had passed.
Soldiers surrounded Alex as guards, giving him some space in the middle of the crowd. Before Alex could decide what to do next, someone quickly flew in.
"Your majesty!" the man shouted with an incredulous look and a voice inflection that told Alex that he was very much amazed by the scene he had put forth. "What an incredible sight! I didn't think that you would have passed the entire trial in a mere 4 days."
Alex looked at the handsome newcomer and smiled. "I only did what I was best at, King Qian," he answered. "I would say this was even expected of me."
"Of course," the new king of the Gold Empire spoke to him. "Still, this is quite incredible. Expectation is one thing, but the result itself can be amazing even with everything else added on top."
"The Gold Kingdom hasn't seen a white light from any of the 6 trials in what… 2 centuries now? The last one for Alchemy trials was… 3 centuries ago I believe. The Crown Prince's fiancee was the one who achieved a white rank at that time I believe. And before that… it was 6 millennia ago, with His Majesty himself."
Alex hadn't known this information about the trials before so he was surprised. 'So Lady Zhan went through this as well?' he thought. It wasn't that hard of a test, so it was understandable. What surprised him instead was that the Crown Prince hadn't done that.
He was supposed to be in Level 9, along with her as well.
"Thank you for the information, King Qian," Alex spoke. "But I must get back to the trials."
The king frowned a bit, surprised at Alex's words. "The trials? But you just completed it, with white light at that. There's no point in repeating the same trial over and over, Your Majesty."
"I never said I was doing the same thing, did I?" Alex asked.
The king was slightly taken aback. "You wish to go to another trial?" he asked.
"Absolutely," Alex said. "Aside from the Music trial, I'm going to enter all of it."
"Ah, I see," the man said. "I'll wish you luck then."
The king walked away afterward, leaving Alex to go to whatever trial it was that he wanted to.
Alex met up with his elders briefly after the king was gone to see how the other alchemists were doing.
"Most returned with indigo or blue lights," Liang Shufen said. "No one came back with any red. 3 came out a day ago with regular blue light."
"As far as I can tell, Jai Heiyun is still inside. If all goes well, she might get white light as well."
"I don't know," Alex said. "The final question was certainly quite difficult. Still, I wish her the best. For now, I think I'll head on over to the Formation trials."
