Alchemist Exam

"Hahaha, wonderful! We're having our second child!" I hugged and kissed Chen Jia. She looked happy too, and that was the most important thing.

"Beast…" I could barely hear someone muttering this.

Dinner was bliss after the news.

During this year, I wholeheartedly learned alchemy from my master. I was about to become a 9th Grade Alchemist. After officially becoming one, I could start earning money.

Pills are extremely crucial in the cultivation world. In a cruel world like this, everyone needs healing, and everyone needs to get powerful. Pills provide that to cultivators, paving the way for them to get powerful. Alchemists are important and respected everywhere exactly because they are so important.

System was mostly dormant during the past year, it occasionally gave me quests to make love with Jia'er, and believe me, I completed them wholeheartedly, but other than that, it was just silent.

At night, we were about to go to sleep when Chen Jia asked me a question.

"Husband, do you want a big family?"

"Of course, my love. You know it is my dream to have a huge family. I want to shower them with my love for years before I die."

"I... I will work hard to achieve that dream with you." She wanted to say something else, I'm sure of it.

She just hugged me and slept peacefully after a couple of minutes, but I could feel my clothes become a little wet.

Days passed peacefully, and Jia looked more and more beautiful with every passing day. Being a mother just makes her look radiant. Cultivating during and after pregnancy might be bad for children, so she didn't cultivate for the last couple of years.

Today, as I was watching over Xiu, playing with her, she stood up for the first time. She opened her arms wide and wanted to come to me. Well, she didn't manage to do that, but it was still cute.

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I'm going to take the Alchemist exam today. Pill Apprentices have to go through an exam to earn the title of Alchemist; if they do not take the exam, they won't be recognized by people globally. Pill Tower holds the exams, they have branches all over the world, and their sole purpose is to research alchemy and teach the younger generation. Fortunately, we have a Pill Tower branch in Drunken City, so we don't have to go on a journey just to get my alchemist badge.

"Kid, are you sure you're ready? It's been 15 months since you started learning, it is extremely fast compared to other apprentices I had before. Even I spent about 16 months, you know?"

"Yes, master, of all the people, you should know the best that I'm ready. It is all thanks to you. I couldn't have improved this fast if it wasn't for you."

"No, I just provided the basics for you, it was your hard work. Don't belittle yourself. You sacrificed your time with your wife and kid to learn alchemy, so don't mess anything up now."

Just as I intended to answer her, a fat lady came out from the tower and yelled at everyone.

"Apprentices, just get in quickly. We'll start after 15 minutes. You'll have 2 hours to fill in the properties of the herbs, stones, catalysts, and other materials mentioned in the exam. If you fail to fill in 80% of them correctly, you'll be disqualified, and you cannot take the alchemist exam for a year. If you want to leave, you have to do so now."

Her voice was emotionless; she didn't care if these apprentices passed the exam or not; she wore a 7th Grade badge on her chest; she was one of the Pill Tower's representatives.

I bid farewell to my master and got inside. The exam hall isn't that different from the ones we had on Earth, the only difference is that it was huge, and could host 1000 people easily. Since alchemist exams are held monthly in this city, there would be about 600–800 apprentices taking exams every month. There are about 900 apprentices today, so it was filled to the brim.

"Okay, everyone will be given spirit paper, I assume you know how to use it, you just have to use your Qi to engrave your thoughts on the paper, you have to identify 6000 materials during the next 2 hours. Good luck."

She started the exam after saying these. I'm not going to lie, it wasn't easy. I managed to fill in 5786 out of 6000 by the time this exam ended. After waiting for an hour, the results were out, only 120 people had passed the exam, I managed to pass by answering 5432 questions correctly. They didn't linger and began explaining the next exam to the candidates.

"Congratulations, everyone. The second part of this exam measures your control because, as an alchemist, you have to be able to create pills. We will ask you to create four different pills for this exam. They'll be Qi Gathering Pills, Lesser Healing Pills, Spirit Soothing Pills, and Berserker Pills. You should know by now, every single pill I mentioned has different properties and requires precise control over materials containing different elements. We'll start in 10 minutes, good luck."

Attendants brought cauldrons and materials in front of us. Four types of pill mentioned by this lady are the four basic pills every apprentice learned while studying.

The exam started after 10 minutes, and we had 4 hours to finish 4 pills. They had to be at least 9th Grade Pills. This exam wasn't anything like making pills at home, materials Pill Tower provided were of low quality, and the cauldron was just mediocre. It was much harder to extract essence out of herbs, and to purify catalysts, I had to spend double the time I required previously. Fortunately, I managed to create every single pill successfully by the third hour. I wasn't the first to finish, though, there was a girl who finished a couple of minutes ahead of me. Soon after, the exam ended. Only 11 people managed to finish their pills correctly. Others failed and asked to leave.

Fat Lady smiled at us, unlike her attitude last time. "Haha, congratulations! Our pill tower has 11 more alchemists today. From now on, every single one of you will be respected by people. I will give you your badges in a minute, but before that, I will tell you about the perks of joining Pill Tower as an alchemist. You can take requests from the pill tower, and we will cut 40% of the profit as tax from you, if you join Pill Tower, we will only take 10%. If you join, you'll also receive a 10% discount on materials, and Pill Tower will assist you. If you want to, please find me after you get your badges, especially you two." She looked at me and the girl.

I nodded my head and thanked her, took my badge, and headed towards the exit, but someone rushed to speak with me.

"He-hello! Excuse me! Can we talk for a minute?" It was the girl who was faster than me.

"Oh, hey, congratulations! You are really talented."

"Oh, thank you. I just wanted to ask for your name. I'm Xiao Xiao."

"Nice to meet you. I'm Yin Meng."

"It's a nice name. Will I be seeing you around? I'm planning to join the pill tower. I'd love to have someone I could debate with from time to time."

"Oh… I won't join the pill tower, unfortunately. My master is an elder at the Drunken Immortal Sect, and I'm a former disciple myself, it'd be inappropriate to join another force."

"Oh, I understand." She appeared depressed; other candidates were bad and probably didn't have the skills to compete with her, so she probably wanted someone on her level. She was talented, and she looked young too.

"Actually, I think you're pretty talented, you should be young too. My master is a 5th Grade Alchemist, just come with me and maybe she'll guide you in the future with me so you'll progress faster."

Her eyes were sparkling, 5th Grade Alchemist were rare. The best alchemist in the empire is a 3rd Grade Alchemist and surrounding cities only had 5th Grade Alchemist.

"Okay!!! Please show me the way!"