Death... and me

Roan went back to the Alchemist Hall and bought all the herbs he could. Although it cost a few thousand Rank Two Spirit Stones, neither Rean nor Roan bothered with it. At the moment, Spirit Stones were not as crucial as raising their cultivation as fast as possible.

Although Roan was missing four materials for concoction, the fact was that the rest was available for sale in the sect. He would need to find the right combination for Dark and Light Cultivation Stabilizing Pills, so he decided to start with the ones he has at the moment.

However, Roan seemed to have underestimated Old Worm experience. He spent three entires weeks in the old hut, failing his concoctions one time after another. However, he came to understand why Old Worm added those four rare items on the list in the end.

'Impressive. I wonder if Old Worm already knew it from the very start even though he had never seen a Dark or Light Cultivation Stabilizing Pill. Those four items turned out to be the only catalysts that can work with the possible combinations I came up with. But that makes sense. If that was not the case, the old man wouldn't have added them to the list. It would have been much better to put equivalent ones that could be bought with Spirit Stones.'

Roan then turned off the fire under the cauldron and left the old hut. After that, he went straight to the Alchemy Repository. As always, Old Worm was reading some alchemist book behind the counter.

"Have you figured it out already?"

Those words confirmed Roan's suspicions.

"So you knew I would need those items to serve as catalysis. Why didn't you tell me instead of making me waste so much time?"

Old Worm closed his book and looked at Roan.

"What if I'm not around? Will you simply give up concocting?"

Roan was taken aback. But he immediately understood what Old Worm meant. He couldn't count on the old man to make the choices for him, so Old Worm left it for Roan to find out by himself that the rare items were a must. In fact, Old Worm was very impressed that Roan only took three weeks to find out the truth.

"You have talent, but you need experience. Unless it is really necessary, I will not help you much. Anyway, why did you come here?"

Roan then put the other thoughts behind his mind and asked what he wanted.

"I need the locations of those four items. Will it be considered too much help if you say where I can find them?"

Old Worm shook his head.

"No."

Old Worm then wrote down the locations and passed it to Roan.

"You can find them in those areas. As for how you will obtain them, that's up to you."

He then opened his book again and resumed his reading. The man was really just like Roan, speaking as little as possible.

Roan, of course, didn't mind that. He then turned around and left.

'Two-Tailed Sun Phytons can be found in the Rohe Sect territory in the Moffen Forest Inner Region. Cave Mandragoras are inside our territory in the Moistery Mountain Range. Frigid Alligators can be found here as well in the Somun Rivers. As for Midday Ginseng, I will need to go to the neighboring country, Qerten.'

Roan pondered a bit and contacted Rean through their Soul Connection.

'We need to go out to acquire a few items for the Cultivation Estabilizing Pills. There are four items with three of them not needing too long to get.'

Roan then talked about the four items and where they could get them.

'The problem is the last one that can only be found in Qerten. Do you think you can get some faster Flying Demon Beasts for us to use?'

Rean heard the message and answered after a few moments.

'I guess I can get two Stage Two Azure Hawks. Considering their speed, we would only need a week to go and another to come back. Would that be fast enough?'

Roan nodded.

'That's good. I just need to make sure to bring enough of this herb back. Do you want to go look for the other three items first?'

Rean immediately rejected the idea.

'No need. Let's go direct to the Qerten Country. As for the other three items, we don't need to go get them ourselves. Instead, let's just put them up in the Mission Hall. We have a lot of Spirit Stones, so it would be better to save time and let other disciples take care of it.'

Roan had to admit that it was a good idea.

'Very well, but we need to tell Hulain that we will leave the sect.'

Rean nodded.

'I'll arrange it straight away.'

However, Roan rejected the idea straight away.

'Not now. Our cultivation is already stable enough. Let's take the next two months to reach the peak of the Middle Stage of the Foundation Establishment Realm. After that, we will have 8 months to breakthrough into the Late Stage and then Peak Stage. The best-case scenario will be for me to come back from our travel and devise the formula for our Elemental Cultivation Stabilizing Pills. If that works, we can try a breakthrough into the Late Stage straight away.'

Rean couldn't help but ask.

'What if you can't find the right formula?'

'In that case, we can only risk it. We will make an unstable breakthrough and hope that we can fix our foundations later. The main objective is to reach the Peak of the Foundation Establishment Realm before one year is gone. We can think about the other consequences later.'

Rean nodded and made another question.

'In that case, isn't it better to also put a mission for the Midday Ginseng? After all, we won't be leaving the sect anytime soon because of our cultivation.'

Roan shook his head.

'I found out that the area with the Midday Ginsengs is quite lively. It will be perfect for us to train our combat skills. Don't forget that only cultivating won't be enough. We need to know how to use our power as well.'

Rean then asked back.

'What do you mean with lively?'

Roan faintly smiled before saying.

'Nothing much, it's just that there is a war between two sects of Qerten country happening around that place at the moment. But let's ignore them. We are just going there to watch the beautiful scenario and get a few ginsengs. There is no need to worry about them. Of course, if we are somehow attacked by either side while at that, we can only defend ourselves.'

Rean didn't know whether to laugh or cry. Roan was obviously trying to attract any side to attack them to have real combat experiences once more.

They talked about a few more things and ended their conversation.

Later that day, Rean paid a visit to Elder Guliva. They were told to not take any missions by themselves. Instead, use Elder Hulian or Guliva to take the missions for them. That way, no one would know about it. However, this time Rean came to ask Elder Guliva to post three missions instead of taking one. Obviously, those were the missions to acquire the first three items of the list. Although Rean and Roan won't be leaving now, there is nothing wrong about working on the three easier items first.