Story 9 - Nothing Bad Ever Happens at the Alchemy Convention (Part 8) (Patreon)
Content
I narrowed my eyes at the silly nerds. âThe topic you all chose was â how to overcome a bottleneck in your alchemy...â
While a significant number were Foundation Establishment cultivators, most of them were at Golden Core. Several who had gathered to listen to Pill Otaku and White Lily discuss their current troubles were even at Nascent Soul... and they wanted us â practitioners weaker or equal to them â to talk about how to achieve breakthroughs.
Were these guys fucking joking?
Obviously, I could do it, but if I was a normal Foundation Establishment brat, Iâd be fucked.
Well, more than likely, the cultivators at my current realm had bottlenecks and those experts stronger than them had disciples they wanted to instruct. Part of what a good lecturer needed to do was take in who their audience was and cater the lecture to them. With such a mix of strengths, the content had to be useful for all realms and skill levels.
The subject was, thankfully, broad enough that I wouldnât have to dumb things down for the lower realms or add higher-level concepts to keep the Nascent Soul experts occupied.
Violet grinned sadistically at me. She would assume that, with her advanced age, sheâd have the upper hand. It didnât help that her realm was higher than mine. Cultivators respected power, after all.
But there was more to power than personal strength. If there wasnât, then all those young masters that showed up in every Xianxia, wouldnât be able to walk sideways and get away with it.
âYou both agreed to an incense stickâs worth of time,â Lina said.
Fortunately, I didnât have to lecture on something that might show that I was a time traveler.
I began by using secret sound transmission to speak to the left ear of every cultivator in the crowd and Violet Pill Fairy. This came out to around a hundred people. But I did one more thing â I brought out my earthen flame pillar from the space and placed my cauldron on top. Next, I set up a prep table with the already arranged plants Iâd prepared to teach Little Spring the other day.
This was because I believed an alchemy lecture should always incorporate practical alchemy, even when it was on something as obscure as bottleneck breakthroughs.
Watching thousands of videos online in my past-past life helped me come up with my lecture process. For instance, when discussing strange topics, I would add visuals, even if they were unrelated.. like a video about relationship nightmares that was basically an AI voice talking over someone playing Minecraft.
For this lecture, I decided to show my skill level by concocting the hardest pill an alchemist at Foundation Establishment could create within the time limit â the Presence Scattering Obfuscation Dan. This was a life-saving pill that, when crushed and scattered over a person, could, for two minutes, temporarily hide their presence from someone in the Nascent Soul realm or below.
Of course, after use, it wouldnât work on the same cultivator for a full day, so it was best to only use it in an emergency... It also didnât work against beasts. That required a different pill.
I used the split mind technique. Part of my mind listened to Violetâs lecture, two more focused on concocting the batch of pills, and my final available part recalled a brief lecture Iâd given. Once I gathered my thoughts, I threw the first plant inside and began my speech.
âBreaking through a bottleneck sounds so easy, doesnât it? But it never is. Who here hasnât struggled with some pill recipe that just wouldnât work? Perhaps it was something you needed to reach the next small realm along your Dao? Or maybe your teacher showed you a technique that looked so easy, but when you tried, you found it impossible?â I threw in a Spiked Red Ginseng. âI know tricks and tips that will make things easier on yourself. And if you donât believe me, consider who my master is.â
Violet hid her mouth behind a fan and secretly sent me a sneer before she began her own teachings. âBottlenecks are something I have experienced far more by this point in my cultivation than every person in this audience, especially my opponent. She might be an Immortalâs disciple, but how long could she have learned from him? Three years? Four, maybe? What matters the most here is experience, and I have that!â
Bitch. She threw shade at me first rather than start her lecture. And she used something currently beyond my control, my bodyâs age. The stupidest part was that it worked! Most of the audience slightly tilted their heads or looked to the right to better listen to her.
Hell, even most of the Nascent Soul cultivators who had just listened to me give advice to Pill Otaku glanced in Violetâs direction.
If my body had been an adultâs instead of a tall twelve-year-old girlâs, I knew these nerds wouldnât pay her any mind! At this rate, they would never believe I was more capable than them, since cultivators in the mortal realm still aged. This meant that it was nearly impossible to see a powerful master appear as young as me!
I had to get more visual to bring attention back over to me. Fortunately, my recipe was at a point where I could do that without harming the quality of the pill.
I used the old hand seals to raise the flames and tossed in several more ingredients, nearly simultaneously. My cauldron rumbled and steamed as if it would explode any minute.
A few worried glances turned toward me. About twenty alchemists looked like they wanted to come over here and take my cauldron away, so I would stop fucking up. Muahahaha!
Just wait! I would turn this train-wreck-looking concoction into a beautiful pill.
While I had their attention, I quickly started the main point of my lecture. âI practice my masterâs alchemy, which means I use logic, something shockingly rare, to discover the issues behind a problem. My opponent may say that I donât have enough practical knowledge to discuss a topic like this, but would someone without experience know that every bottleneckâs beginning is different?â
I lowered the temperature and added one more ingredient, suddenly causing the cauldron to calm and proving that I had been in control the whole time. âThe first step to finding a solution is to look at yourself. Just because someone else can create that pill in a specific way doesnât mean that youâll be able to. Your body is different. Your cultivation also affects you differently than your peers. It may be that you have a hidden special constitution. Or possibly your instructor does...â
Violet smirked at the audience. Then she put her fan away and took out a highly valuable defensive spiritual tool that resembled a jade cauldron pendant.
Some members of the crowd turned towards it. They watched as she casually attached it to her belt, which also brought attention to her other extravagant protective tools. âYou all know I donât need the spirit stones for lecturing and only want whatâs best for the alchemists here. I have already accumulated a lot of spirit stones. Iâm very good at increasing my wealth. And something else Iâm good at is overcoming bottlenecks. If you desire to be rich and respected like me, the first thing you should understand is that nothing beats practice. Overwhelm your problem by concocting the pill you struggle with. Every day, every hour, over and over. If youâre not practicing a pill that helps you improve, then choose a different one that will. Create pill after pill until your hands bleed.â She held her fingers like claws, as if they were covered in sticky blood and she didnât want to squish it together.
She confidently threw her hair over her shoulder. âThat was how I helped solve the Five Leaves Break down and became this strong... But there is a trick to doing it right. That is, to find the right pills to practice for the right small realm. Unlike my opponent, I know which ones those are. As long as you listen to me, Iâll tell you.â
Did this bitch just resort to the equivalent of a, âUse this one weird trick to solve any bottleneck!â article?
A few in the crowd switched to listening to both of our lectures at the same time. I thought I could convince a majority of people to listen to me by using logic and my masterâs name, but because of her clickbait-style lecture, only a few switched over.
It was time to fight back!
âYou may ask why I told you to first identify the underlying cause. It is time-consuming when you could just make more pills. Isnât practice enough to overcome any hurdle? Itâs true that some alchemists can do that, but itâs very inefficient. Brute forcing your way through a solution, like my opponent recommends, may work, but is it really the best for an alchemistâs foundation?â I paused and threw in another plant. âImagine, if you would that you have a disciple. Now and then, they face a difficult recipe that they just canât get right, one that has ingredients suspiciously similar to the last problem.â
I tossed in a Three Tears Rainbow Root, causing a colorful cloud to puff out of the cauldron. âCurious, isnât it? Until you realize that the original bottleneck was because they used the incorrect temperature, or their extreme yang body diminished the yin herbsâ effectiveness, or some other thing that followed them into the next small realm. If you had found the reason behind the initial issue and solved it, you would have prevented the others. Right?â
Violet sent me a glare because more listeners paid attention to me. These little alchemy geniuses couldnât resist trying to figure out what recipe I was using. Just as I predicted! Muahahaha!
Meanwhile, she spent another few minutes mostly spouting nonsense to increase her face, like those bad weight loss advertisements that wasted an hour while never getting to the point. Then they would try to sell the confused viewer something in the end. After all, those videos werenât free to make.
Eventually, she finished by telling everyone which pills they should practice during what small realm to improve. But she didnât say why practicing those elixirs worked and just assumed that her audience would understand. I could tell by the glazed look in the eyes of those still listening to her that they could not.
Actually, her style of lecture wasnât similar to a shady weight-loss ad, it was closer to the much-memed-about-and-lamented cooking blog. Nonsense up front, actual content in the back.
While she was doing that, I explained various ways to troubleshoot a blockage. Everything I said was clear, concise, and easy to understand. Beautifully logical.
And when I neared the end of my lecture, I threw the last plant into the cauldron. The perfect-quality scent escaped, causing everyone to relax and turn to me, even if theyâd been listening to Violet before. I made the hand seal to create the pill shapes. Usually, in this era, alchemists would slap the side of the pot to force the pills out, but I used an advanced hand seal to call the pills to me. The batch of green pills flew toward me and I captured them in a jade bottle. Everyoneâs eyes grew wide. I grinned at the crowd.
While I was always amazing, giving lectures was something I kicked ass at.
âThe last advice Iâll give you all on overcoming bottlenecks is to never stop learning and experimenting. If you can learn a new technique and it wonât hurt your Dao, then do it. Because sometimes, what you need for a breakthrough is a tool. Donât be too full of yourself. Use what you can to get ahead.â
***
The Con assistants swiftly traveled through the crowd briefly speaking with each person who had been there from the beginning. Once they finished Lina walked toward the two of us. âThere were 103 people listening from the beginning. Nine refused to say or admitted to paying attention to both lectures evenly, leaving 94. Of that number...â Lina paused. Her trademark smile grew even more professional, which I didnât think was possible. âWell, this is interesting.â
Come on Lina, there was no need to stall. By the end, everyone listened to my lecture. A few people even looked like theyâd stab someone near their eye to know what kind of hand seal I used to remove the pills from the cauldron.
Violet crossed her arms and smirked as if she knew sheâd won. Ha!
Lina glanced at each of us. âThe winner is... both of you!â Her professional smile relaxed a little. âIt was a tie.â
No! How could I tie with that clickbait-shitting merchant?! Unless a few audience members just refused to listen to a twelve-year-old⊠which might be possible because mature and successful individuals were highly respected. Fuck!
Frankly, if Violetâs expression wasnât more furious than mine, I would assume the bitch had bribed Lina.
She started arguing with the assistant, which was a mistake. Con assistants would help an attendee, but they werenât servants. They had no obligation to do what anyone wanted.
And that was when movement in the distance caught my eye. Little Spring ran over to Peak Master Enduring Flame just like I told him to if something happened.
The kid started making wild gestures I couldnât decipher and was obviously speaking to him using our telepathic technique.
What happened?
âSince you both won, why donât you share the lecture hall like you just did and split the payment evenly?â Lina made a reasonable suggestion.
âShare lecture times with⊠my esteemed fellow alchemist?â Her Lips twitched. âThat would be inappropriate.â
Violet, being the greedy bitch she was, probably thought sharing would give her hard-won spirit stones to the enemy.
But my attention was once again drawn to Little Spring who stopped talking. He pointed in a direction. Both Enduring Flame and Five Leaves Medicine shared a serious look, then the two vanished.
Well, shit. If the problem needed two Immortal Bone Creation experts, then we all might be fucked!
::Do we need to evacuate the island?:: I sent a message to Little Spring.
He shrugged. He fucking shrugged.
::It might be nothing.::
::âŠ::
It might be nothing, he said. The goddamn main character. Nothing...
Maybe I was too paranoid but I was ready to grab everyone from our sect and hang out near the emergency exits. Of course, that was when Violet said something she shouldnât have.
âI donât understand how my lecture could be less informative than this bratâs!â
Authorâs Note: Thank you all for reading! You are the best readers a writer could ask for!
Iâm posting this weekâs chapter early because this week I will be writing Tanking Hits chapters again! Rather than risk constantly being late, Iâd like to get WIAFTTTTA edits done first. My goal will be to post them on Tuesday, but chances are that Iâll have to post them on Wednesday instead when I have more alone time.
Of course, editing two parts so close together hurts my head so, Iâm going to go rest now. I am a ded dragon. I hope this part turned out okay even though I rushed a bit to get it done.
Also, as you can tell, I have given up fighting with Patreon and itâs terrible image handling. Iâm just going to have links to the image in the body of the text from now on. This should also help prevent my chapters from taking up too much space in your mailbox. I apologize for any inconvenience.