Alex arrived at the edge of the continent and flew away to find a place where no one would see him. He was flying towards one of the islands that were adjacent to the Wasteland that still had Qi in it.

His purpose in come here was just one thing. He wanted to make pills.

He could’ve made normal pills back in the Alchemy association, but he wanted to make pills with Pill veins. For that, he would have to cause pill clouds to form every single time, which would lead the association as well as most of the Southern Continent to figure out the fact that he could do that.

If it were any other time in the past, Alex would’ve wondered in his current situation if there was a way to use that to make his name spread faster throughout the Southern Continent in hopes of finding his father.

However, that was not what the current him thought. He had learned his lesson from the madman that kept him imprisoned for nearly 10 years, so he wouldn’t show off the pill veins if he could help it.

Who knew what sort of monsters lurked in the shadows of the Southern Continent that would catch him and force him to make pills for them?

They didn’t even have to be False Immortals. Even Saint Soul realm cultivators could force him to work for them, and he did not wish to do that.

Besides, making 90% and above pills was enough to send his name reverberating throughout the Southern Continent. Most would likely not even know what Pill veins actually did to appreciate it.

He could imagine a scene where a customer would refuse to pay for a pill because it did not have any Harmony when checked by the pill tester.

Alex made a small area where he could sit and cultivate for the next 3 months while also making pills all the time.

He had bought many ingredients with his fortune for the last 3 months and had used his technique to improve those ingredients to their best. Now, all that was left was for him to make the pills.

Alex brought out Whisker. At the same time, he brought out his Blood Beasts so they could help him gather some more blood in the time it took for him to make the pills.

“Can you go with them and make them gather some blood for me? I will have to focus on the pill so you can do the job,” Alex told Whisker.

Whisker didn’t like fighting himself, but he was okay with making others fight. He accepted the request and went along with the nearly 100 Blood beasts that Alex had been able to gather for the past year and more.

Most of the Blood beasts, even the ones that were weaker had become stronger in the meantime after Alex gave them his blood to absorb. They hadn’t become as strong as the newer ones, but they were getting there.

Alex imagined he could help them reach there after half a year or so of providing blood to them. That was without counting the days when he would gather blood to make a new blood beast.

Alex watched Whisker and the Blood Beasts leave and smiled. He wasn’t really worried about the blood beasts getting into trouble with how strong they were at the moment.

Even if they did get into trouble and Whisker was targeted, there was no reason to worry about him as he would revive easily.

As for the Blood Beasts, it would suck to lose them, but Alex could always make more.

Once they were gone to the sea, Alex started cultivating. He spent a few hours reaching his peak condition, and once he was satisfied with his state, he brought out the Sun’s Womb to start making pills again.

There were various pills he had to make this time around, including healing pills, antidote pills, and Qi-restoring pills, but the majority of the ingredients were still for pills that would help him cultivate faster.

Alex began by heating up the cauldron and started tossing in ingredients two at a time. He was so used to making this pill now that he could do it without using his spiritual sense and still end up with a Heaven-grade pill.

The rest of the ingredients went in one by one and once he was done, he employed his Pill Splitting technique.

The small pile of powder split into two and started forming spheres that absorbed the energy. As all the energy was gathered, the sky started to get dark all of a sudden, and sounds of thunder could be heard.

Alex smiled when he realized that it was a double thunder, which meant that both his pills had reached 100%.

He used his Qi to protect the pills for the first 3 rounds of lightning strikes. As a Saint foundation realm cultivator, his Qi was as strong as a Saint Core realm cultivator, allowing him the ability to stop up to 4 rounds of lightning strikes.

However, since it was double lightning, he did not trust himself to be able to stop them. So, after the 3rd round, he switched to his blood aura.

By now, his Blood aura was way past the 5th realm of Saint Core in terms of strength, so it could block even the 5th round of lightning strikes. However, he had to be very careful since there were 2 different strikes that happened concurrently.

Once the 5 rounds of double lightning strikes were done, Alex quickly pulled his pills out and quelled the pill cloud above his head.

He looked at the two 5-veined pills and smiled. This was only the first pill he had made and he had already reached the ability to make 5-veined pills.

“Great,” he thought and put the pills aside as he continued making more of them.

He could only make 10 such pills before he had to stop. Making pills with pill veins, especially ones with 5 of them took quite a lot out of him mentally.

The mental fatigue that came with making these pills was not something that he could just ignore. He had to stop and cultivate for a while before starting again.

Alex decided to make use of the pill immediately and ate it. Instantly, his cultivation speed improved by a few dozen, going as far as to be 50 times more effective than last time.

Meaning this time around, it was far better and helped him a lot more in cultivating more. Alex was done around 2 and a half days later when the effect of the pills slowly dwindled to nothing, and the fatigue in his meridians became apparent.

They had worked overtime, so he needed to stop putting too much load on them.

Alex went back to making pills again as they didn’t require much in terms of Qi. He continued for half a day before stopping when his mental fatigue reached its highest.

With neither pill to make nor time to cultivate his Qi, he began cultivating his Undying Physique as well as his Demon eyes.

Once he was done and his mental fatigue had disappeared, he started making pills once again.

Alex’s time was spent almost all in the same place. The only time he didn’t have to cultivate or make pills was when Whisker would return with cauldrons full of carcasses and blood.

His only time away from cultivating or alchemy was when he absorbed that blood. He kept the beast cores and even ate one. Then, he went back to making more pills.

The nearly 250 sets of ingredients he had brought along this time around were used up by the time it was halfway through the third month.

He had made the pills sparingly, spent a bunch of the time cultivating, and still ended up finishing them early.

Of the 250 sets, he ended up making about 180 of them into 5-veined pills. Not all of his sessions had double lightning, but the majority did, which he was happy about.

Once Alex was done, he focused mostly on cultivating. Then, a week or so later, he called back Whisker and the rest of his beasts.

Whisker returned with a bunch more blood and carcass. Alex accepted it gratefully and was about to use it again when he noticed something.

“Hmm?” he narrowed his eyes as he looked at the various blood beasts that were around him. There were a few blood beasts that had died in the 3 months he had spent making pills, but that was not what he was staring at currently.

It was barely noticeable on the newer blood beasts, but he could sense it on the weaker ones for sure.

For some reason, the blood beasts had gotten stronger. The stronger ones weren’t that much stronger, but the weaker ones were stronger by a realm or two.

“What happened? Why are they stronger?” Alex asked Whisker. Whisker didn’t know what to say, so Alex asked him to tell him everything that happened.

“Wait… they drank the dead beasts’ blood almost every time after they killed one? Do they get stronger by absorbing the blood of something other than me?” Alex asked curiously.

He picked one of the weaker beasts to test out this theory and made it drink the blood that was gathered for him.

As it drank, Alex could sense the blood aura in the beast getting stronger by the second. By the time it had drank all the blood, the beast had definitely grown stronger.