Rise of the Alchemy God

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After waking up, Ethan did his usual workout routine.

It didn't take long.

In just over an hour, he was finished, and he had even showered and had breakfast.

Now that he had finally completed all his morning activities, it was time to refine more pills to fill the remaining Qi needed to reach the next level.

As usual, he entered his room and closed the door to avoid being disturbed during the refinement process.

He took out his cauldron and placed it over the fire, which he lit using his blue lotus flame.

As he pulled out the materials for the refinement, Ethan couldn't help but notice something.

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[----------------------------

[Bronze Cauldron]

Name: Bronze Cauldron

Grade: Low-Grade Spiritual Artifact

Description: An ancient artifact, which, with the passage of time, has lost its former splendor but still retains its hidden value, ready to be revealed by those who know how to fully exploit it.

Requirements for the upgrade:

- Refine 1000 Level 1 low-grade pills (732/1000)

- Refine 100 Level 1 mid-grade pills (100/100)

- Refine 10 Level 1 high-grade pills (10/10)

-----------------------------]

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Ethan realized that lately he had prepared so many pills, yet his cauldron was still at the same level.

Seeing its statistics, he understood why.

'Just as I thought.'

After obtaining the mid-grade and high-grade recipes, Ethan had practically stopped producing low-grade pills in large quantities.

If the counter for mid-grade and high-grade pills hadn't maxed out so quickly, Ethan was sure that the total number of those pills would have exceeded, or at least been very close to, the number of low-grade pills he had produced.

And that was normal; after all, he earned much more by selling higher-quality pills than low-grade ones.

He wondered if he should increase the production of those pills just to level up his cauldron.

But the problem was that, no matter how fast he was at production, to create the quantity of pills required to complete this task, Ethan would need at least two days, and the amount of Qi he would receive would be far less than what he needed to reach Level 10.

So, he decided to set the matter aside for the moment.

He didn't need a more powerful cauldron at the moment.

The one he had was more than sufficient for his current pill production.

Ethan had decided that he would think about upgrading it to the next level after he ascended to the Qi Refining stage.

And so, with that decision made, Ethan began refining.

He had decided to produce high-grade pills since he was able to produce at least three of them per batch of materials, in other words, 30 Qi per batch. Unlike perfect-grade pills, which he had noticed he could only produce one per batch. It was fine, given the high grade of the pill, but it wasn't ideal for now because he would receive 20 Qi less if he chose to make it.

For now, he wanted to focus solely on gathering Qi and nothing else, so he decided to refine high-level pills.

[Congratulations, you have successfully created three high-grade basic recovery pills.]

[You have gained 10 QI] (x3)

[Congratulations, you have successfully created three high-grade basic recovery pills.]

[You have gained 10 QI] (x3)

[Congratulations, you have successfully created three high-grade basic recovery pills.]

[You have gained 10 QI] (x3)

As usual, he produced batches of pills one after another as if it were nothing.

At this sight, any alchemist of his level, or even a higher grade, would surely cough up blood.

But Ethan didn't seem to care.

He prepared the pills, stored them in his dimensional space, and then started again.

This is more or less what he had been doing for the past few hours.

The more batches of pills he produced, the closer he got to his goal.

At a certain point, Ethan began to feel that he was nearing the peak of his current level.

'Just one last effort.'

And in no time, the remaining Qi he needed was accumulated.

Right after producing his 29th batch of high-grade pills, Ethan felt that the limit had been reached.

Ethan didn't start preparing a new batch, but instead prepared himself to welcome whatever was about to happen.

A familiar sensation of energy filled his body as he immediately sat in a meditation position and focused on his breakthrough to level 10.

The spiritual energy in his body was boiling and began to pervade his entire body from head to toe.

The breakthrough was beginning.

Ethan knew that this was the last breakthrough he would make in the Body Refining stage, and he also knew that this was the last time his body would expel the remaining impurities.

As he had said earlier, there were three occasions when this situation would occur.

One was when successfully entering the first stage of cultivation.

The second was when reaching the halfway point of that stage, in other words, the fifth level of the Body Refining stage.

And finally, the last, but not least important, one was at the end of the first stage, namely the tenth level of Body Refining.

Ethan knew this, so this time he had prepared in advance.

The last thing he wanted to do was clean his room after the breakthrough, like the last two times, so he made sure to move all his stuff into the dimensional space and cover the walls with a layer of paper, easy to remove.

Normally, people would go to cultivation chambers, which were designed for situations like this, but after the first few times, Ethan had decided not to.

You had to register your presence every time you used those chambers, and although it was common for disciples to use them frequently, it wasn't normal to see someone break through so many times in a month.

Ethan wanted to avoid anyone noticing his rapid growth.

He could still somewhat justify his progress if he claimed it took him a whole year to do it, but he wouldn't be able to if they discovered he had done it in just over a month.

Although doing it in a year was still very fast compared to most people, it was still within acceptable limits.

At most, he would be regarded as a rare genius appearing once in a thousand years, or something like that.

Even though Ethan still hoped he wouldn't have to fully reveal himself.

If possible, he wanted to keep a low profile for as long as he could.

He might have reached the peak of Body Refining, but that didn't mean he had become very strong.

He was definitely stronger than before, but considering that he was still in the first stage of cultivation, with four more stages to reach, it wasn't wrong to say that he was still at the bottom of the hierarchy.

Ethan knew very well how bad his luck was, so he didn't want to take any risks if he could avoid them.

Especially now that things seemed to be going well for him.

From money to cultivation itself, everything seemed to be going smoothly.

Some more time passed, and finally, his breakthrough reached its climax.

BOOM!

As expected, with the breakthrough came the impurities.

He could feel that his body temperature was slightly high, and his breathing was a bit rapid.

Ethan took a few seconds to calm the Qi in his body.

After about a minute, he finally recovered.

He could tell he had reached the peak of this stage, but he could also feel that a new path had opened up for him.

Ethan's thoughts paused for a moment.

'Wait a minute...

What the hell?!'

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FRANK_LEE_JUNIOR:

And here's today's chapter; I hope you enjoyed it.

As usual, if you have any comments, suggestions, or errors to report, you know where to do it.

See you tomorrow.