77 Missing Ingredients

"Good Evening, Elder Wang. Is the list ready yet?" Alex arrived at the foot of the alchemy garden late at night. He had purposefully waited as much as he could without doing anything before coming here.

"Oh, you are here, Disciple Yu. Yes, Elder Zhan has prepared the list. Here you go." He handed Alex the list of ingredients.

Over the last couple of days, Alex had come to know the elders quite well. He respected them as elders and they respected him as someone with talent.

They would still be surprised every time he walked out of the garden within an hour.

"How do you do it, Disciple Yu? The mountain is quite huge, so how do you manage to find the ingredients so fast." The elders asked.

"Oh, hehe… that's a secret. I can tell you that it's because I know where every single ingredient is already. So I just go and take it. I don't have to waste time searching for it."

Ma Rong had told him not to reveal anyone about his Spiritual sense yet, so he tried to work around the question and answer them without really answering the question.

"I'll be off then, Elder Wang." Alex walked into the valley in search of the ingredients. He quickly scanned the list and thought of where all the ingredients were.

'There are 2 there, 3 next to that, only 1 near the top…' he revised the locations in his mind and walked off.

Ingredients started to fly on their own and landed inside his storage bag. His Qi manipulation and Spiritual sense coordination had gotten just that good.

One after another, he started finding all the ingredients in the list. It took him half an hour to finish it all, so he walked out.

"Always so punctual, aren't you? Disciple Yu. " Elder Wang spoke as he saw Alex coming out of the garden.

Alex just smiled and said, "I will head to the other garden." He walked across the valley to the other garden and entered.

He once again started looking for the ingredients.

"Hmm… it's missing." Alex knew for sure there was an ingredient here yesterday, but there wasn't one anymore. 'Did some animal take it?' he wondered.

He kept on looking for the other ingredients. Once more he found another ingredient missing.

"That's the second time. Is there really some animal in here?"

He searched for more ingredients. By the end, he found about 4 different ingredients missing. And those were just ones he searched for because of the list.

'Let's check everything.' He immediately sent out his spiritual sense and looked at all of the different ingredients growing in the valley. He found out more than 20 ingredients had been stolen by now.

He quickly thought of the materials and realized they were ingredients for the pill [Heart Stopping pill]. It was a common-grade pill that would kill anyone below the Mind Tempering realm by solidifying their blood and stopping their heart from pumping blood.

The only thing that could possibly save a person that had taken a Heart Stopping pill was either the Healing Lotus pill or a True Grade healing pill. He didn't know of any pills other than that, that could possibly save a person.

Of course, this was with his limited knowledge of 200 pills. There were many other pills out there that he had no idea about.

"Master, I thought I was the only one allowed to pick from the gardens for now. Someone else is taking ingredients for a Heart Stopping pill in the alchemy garden." He sent out a message using the communication talisman Ma Rong gave him.

He walked out of the valley and gave the ingredients to elder Wang and elder Zhan.

"You took quite some time today, Disciple Yu? Were the ingredients hard to find this time around?" Elder Wang asked.

"Oh, no. I just found some ingredients missing from where they should have been. So I looked around for a while and realized that a lot of ingredients had been taken in the last few days. Are elders allowed to take away ingredients nowadays? I thought I was the only one."

Elder Wang and Zhan lost their joking smiles and immediately got serious. "Someone took away ingredients? Are you sure you didn't make any mistake?"

"No. I counted and realized about 20 ingredients were missing. All ingredients required for a Heart Stopping pill are missing."

Elder Wang contemplated a little. "If that is true then we need to call the sect leader."

"No need. I am already here." Ma Rong flew down to where Alex and the elders were.

"You said somebody took ingredients for a Heart Stopping pill? " She asked Alex.

"Yes. I don't know when they were taken as I only found out about them missing today, but I can guarantee they were there 3 days ago, and I did not pick them."

Ma Rong knew about the amazing memory of someone with a spiritual sea so she believed him instantly.

"Who had entered aside from my disciple?" Ma Rong looked to the elders.

The elders only stood outside every day and took requests from the disciples so they didn't know. Ma Rong immediately sent out a sect-wide message for every elder who had to enter the garden within the last 5 days to gather here.

Within 10 minutes, a group of about 10 elders was standing in front of Ma Rong.

"Did anyone of you take out ingredients from the garden in the last 5 days?" Everybody denied having taken any ingredients. At least not since the sect leader took away their authority too.

Ma Rong frowned and took out 2 pill bottles, and 10 pills flew out of them to the elders' hand.

The elders had a confused look as they looked at the pill. Immediately, their eyes went wide with shock. All of the elders knew what the pill was.

"Truth Seeking Pill!!" one of the elders said with a surprised look.