"I'm missing three myself," Alex said, continuing the conversation. "I don't know where I can find two of them."
"What are you missing?" Aethersage asked.
"White Ascension Flower, Emerald Raven's tail feathers, and shell of some Immortal Jade Locusts," Alex said. "The only thing I know where I can possibly find it is the locust shells."
"Oh!" Aethersage said in plete surprise. "You have one of mine."
"I need that flower too," Aethersage said. "I also need some Golden Spring Lotus, blood of a Five-Tailed Sword Snake, and eggs of a Wing Demon Frog."
Alex perked up upon hearing the names. "I know where 2 of those are," he said. "Or wait, one of those."
"Huh? Which one?" Aethersage asked.
"The Golden Spring Lotus can be found in the Whole Rose Garden. I saw it while I was there, so hopefully they still are," Alex said.
"Whole Rose Garden? Okay. I should go there next."
"And I know where a Six-tailed Sword Snake is, but not a Five-tailed one," Alex said. "I don't know if that senior can be of help to you."
"A Divine realm one, huh?" Aethersage said. "Is there a way of diluting the blood, to make it less strong?"
Alex shook his head. "I don't think such a thing is possible, really," he said. The better choice here was most likely to understand the blood the Divine realm snake had and then make a lesser version of it with other materials. But no one was sure if that was allowed.
The rules weren't clear on if they wanted the pill at the end, or if they wanted to have all the ingredients to make the pill at the end. So it was better to not take any risk at all.
"Well, that's at least one thing taken care of," Aethersage said with a bit of a sigh. "Two, if you count the White Ascension flower."
Alex's eyes narrowed. "Do you know where they are?" he asked.
Aethersage turned to look at him, confused. "You don't?"
Alex shook his head. "I mean, I know where they can be, but there were just too many places to say for certain," he said.
"I see. Well, you're in luck, brother Dawnblade, because I know exactly where they can be found. And bonus luck, others won't get it to that quickly," Aethersage said.
Alex was quite surprised. He had been to many places with his master over the years, and there was no place that he could guarantee would have one of the flowers.
"Where is it?" he asked.
Aethersage grinned. "Memories of God," he said simply.
Alex took a moment to understand what he was saying. He didn't realize until a moment later that he was talking about the secret realm located right outside Wineweed City, the one where the 4th Alchemy God left behind his inheritance.
It was a place that many had tried to take inheritance from and failed. Silvermist had asked Alex if he wanted to give it a try, but he had given up on that idea for a simple reason.
It took too damn long.
"I heard it takes years to get in and out," Alex said. "My master said the inheritance can sometimes last over 10 years."
"Oh, my master said this one time it took over 30 years even. It can indeed take long," Aethersage said.
"And we're entering that sort of place?" he asked.
"I mean… we aren't going there for the inheritance, are we?" Aethersage asked. "We are only going there for the flower. Once we get it, we can just leave. I can prepare formations that will teleport us out of the secret realm easily."
Alex paused for a minute, realizing that he had understood it wrong. He wasn't going to go there to get the inheritance. He was only going there for the flower. Once he had that, he could leave early.
"Are you sure we can leave?" Alex asked.
Aethersage shrugged. "I'm sure I can make a formation or two to help us," he said.
Alex supposed he could use his Space Dao as well. "Then we'll go," he said. "Let us meet after this petition is over. Then we can go there together."
The other three that were listening began paring the ingredients they had to find still as well. They weren't allowed to share recipes with each other, but mentioning ingredients alone was fine.
Alex ended up helping the others know where they could find a few of their ingredients. He wasn't sure if they could find it, but the locations were known to have it, which their foreigners were more than happy to learn about.
They sat around to cultivate afterward, having nothing else to do. They also needed to prepare for the tournament, so they focused on themselves for the time being. They were deep in their cultivation a few days in when a single ringing sound spread through the hall, catching everyone's attention. People turned around, opening up their barriers even, and followed the sound to find themselves staring at the center of the hall where a person had appeared out of nowhere.
The Alchemy God flew into the middle of the hall, staring down at everyone. He looked at everyone, a gentle and enigmatic smile on his face.
"Wele back, future of the human race," the man said. "I hope you are all doing well and ready for the next petition."
Many cheered and clapped happily. They were all excited about it too.
"Before I tell you about the tournament, I would like to report a few statistics I have received over the past few days," he said. "When this tournament started exactly a decade ago, there had been 92,822 of you out there. Only 84,259 of you are moving on to the next petition. Over 8,000 participants either couldn't return or broke one of the other rules and were disqualified."
"And now, with this next petition, we're going to cut that in half as well, dropping you all to 40 thousand in total. So, you have a less than 50% chance of passing this next petition."
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