It took Cely a full hour to calm down.
"How long has it been since I last cried? I-... I honestly can't remember." Cely muttered to herself as she wiped the last of her tears off her face and her egg.
Looking at her egg, Cely's feelings were... complicated. This will be her child soon enough. But she felt guilty about not having given Nicholas her first.
'It's my fault. I should have been more aware. I-', before she could finish that thought, though, a voice interrupted her.
"No, no, sweetie. It's not your fault. Someone interfered with you to make it happen! K and I will deal with it. Don't worry! We'll tell Nickie what happened. He'll understand. Just focus on yourself."
Hearing Gaia's voice, Cely almost erupted into tears, but managed to stop herself this time. She didn't know how her parents managed to find her even after her reincarnation. She didn't think Primordial Gods could do that.
"I will. Thanks, Mom." Although Cely wasn't crying, her emotion could still be heard in these words.
Looking back at the egg, Cely decided to put it in her storage ring for safekeeping. It was a Tier 7 ring, so it could easily support life inside of it; not to mention, it was the safest place on her person since, unless a Tier 7 being attacked the ring specifically, nothing would happen to her egg.
She didn't know how long it might take to hatch, given that it was a spider-like egg spawned from mycelium that had gained the ability from a spider.
Feeling inside herself again, Cely noticed a small crack in her Golden Core. "Seems like I wasn't careful enough. Sigh... guess I need to buy a pill to mend that. Luckily, I have the money now."
Another thing Cely was keeping an eye out for was the small interface in her mind.
Name: Cely
Cultivation: Tier 4 - Golden Core Realm: 4th Stage
Level: 40/40 [Max Level Reached | Evolve: Yes | No]
Shop: Locked
Lottery: Closed
"Evolution can come after I fix my cultivation."
And so, with a stretch, Cely got ready to head to the Alchemy Association for some core mending pills. They were expensive, but that was for a normal Tier 4 cultivator. She, however, had been nicely reimbursed for the issue she caused herself. Not like she would tell the Adventurers Guild.
One pill would cost her 50 high-grade Spirit Stones (or 50 high-grade stones of any other energy system). Yes, that was half of what she currently had. But no, that was technically not expensive since she could make that kind of money very quickly.
How? Well, Cely is a Tier 6 Formation Master and a Tier 6 Alchemist Master.
She couldn't make any pills higher than Tier 5 right now, though, since her energy was not enough. Although Cely never specialized in professions, she did get "elementary" knowledge in each field in her spare time. She just had way too much time.
Anyway, Cely reached the Alchemy Association after a few minutes of leisurely walking and looked upon the largest building in the entire city with twitching eyes.
If the Adventurers Guild was luxurious but functional, and the Blacksmith Association was luxurious but simple, then the Alchemy Association was pure overkill.
Every single stone of the building was made of Tier 7 materials. Rare plants of Tier 7 decorated every corner, protected by the same tier of formations. Every corner of this building radiated specks of law visible to the naked eye.
As a former leader of a large power, she could not fathom who came up with this kind of waste of material. With a mere glance, she could tell how unnecessarily all these materials were used, as displaying each of these plants individually with their own formations was merely to brag.
The pure display of wealth was blinding, in a literal way. The specks of law radiating from every part of the towering building did create the illusion of the entire thing shining rainbow-colored light.
She kind of understood why it was the Alchemy Association out of all of them that could do this, though. They truly were, by far, the wealthiest.
While Formations, Talismans, Blacksmithing, and Architects could make fortunes as well, it was just that Alchemy was way more profitable due to the immense difference in demand.
You might need a Formation for your abode every so often, and might want to upgrade them and maintain them, but you will always want some pills to boost your cultivation, or increase comprehension, or simply for healing on the fly.
Properly made pills had no side effects. Any that did were defective products, often based upon old recipes or methods. Some were also still prototypes that needed to be perfected.
As long as you did not completely stuff yourself and break your foundation due to overdosing, it would be fine. Not to mention, some pills could make a Tier 1 being ascend straight to the level of a Tier 6 Immortal Saint without causing issues for the foundation. The only issue is that it is a Tier 9 Medicine with a price tag no major organisation is willing to pay.
Even so, a display like this was a sheer waste. Outside of helping with law comprehension, something only Immortal Saints and higher could do, and making the building very sturdy, there was no actual use. Most of the materials were merely slapped there for looks, instead of being put to use.
Entering the building, Cely felt space shift for a moment before she appeared in a private room where, again, wealth was displayed in every corner.
She was numb by this point.
"Welcome to Alchemy Tower. I am Mais. How can I be of service to you?"
Mais, a red Felid (a type of humanoid cat), sat in front of her in the room. He wore the very obvious attire of a mage, though, judging by the badge on his front, she could tell he was a Tier 6 Alchemist.
"I want to be assessed as an Alchemist. Tier 5."
Mais's right eyebrow rose in surprise at hearing this. It wasn't every day you would see a mid-stage Tier 4 going for a Tier 5 alchemist application. Not unheard of. Just rare.
"I can do that. Materials need to be covered by you. If you need a recipe, it will also be covered by you. Our service fee for providing an official evaluation and an ID afterward will also be covered by you. We will, however, provide a room and cauldron for free. The base fee is 10 high-grade Energy Stones, and you will have five attempts to refine a pill of Tier 5."
"That's fine. I will need five sets of Core Mending Pill ingredients then."
"That will be 30 high-grade Energy Stones in total then. Once you have paid, I will give you the ingredients, and you can just use this room as the refining room. I will act as the judge."
Cely was fine with the entire arrangement. So, she just paid the 30 high-grade Spirit Stones. With a swipe of Mais's hand, 5 sets of ingredients appeared in front of the two of them on the table. The room also suddenly started expanding, revealing a cauldron for Cely to use.
Not hesitating, Cely grabbed one set of ingredients before starting to process them.
Modern Alchemy has three steps. Processing, refining, and formation. Processing itself differs depending on the pill you try to make and the ingredients you use. Generally speaking, it is the process of making the ingredients ready so they can be used in refining.
For Cely here, some ingredients had to have parts cut off, as they would cause issues later and would not be of use in the pill. Some needed to be injected with her own energy to burn unwanted components inside of them.
Materials like this tended to be the hardest to process, as you could damage them if you were not careful.
It took her roughly 10 minutes for all the ingredients, so she moved on to refining.
Injecting some energy below the cauldron to create a fire, Cely adjusted the heat to a certain temperature before throwing in the first ingredient. As it entered the cauldron, Cely used the heat and parts of her energy to dissolve the grasslike ingredient she threw in into a sludge.
Following this, she continued to adjust the heat and throw in another ingredient before refining it into similar sludge. Making sure to keep them separated for now, Cely kept on throwing in more until the 13 ingredients needed for the pill were all inserted.
Until now, the heat had been relatively low, but now, Cely increased the heat to a completely different level. The different sludges in the cauldron began to bubble and boil, as they became harder and harder for Cely to keep in check.
After a minute of this, Cely began to bring two of the ingredient sludges closer together. The two started to fuse, emitting black smoke, as they mixed and combined. Shortly after, more of these sludges were pushed together and fused. More and more black smoke was emitted by the cauldron.
After five minutes, the smoke stopped, leaving behind a yellowish-green mass.
Now, to the last step.
Cely started sweating as she pushed her Qi to the limit. Massive amounts entered the cauldron, compressing the mass inside with immense force. At first, the mass was the size of a tennis ball. Then, it quickly shrank further, until it became the size of a ping-pong ball. At this point, though, the contraction slowed substantially.
Each centimeter took substantial effort before finally, Cely exhaled. A quiet clattering echoed from the bottom of the cauldron.
"Congratulations. You have passed with flying colors. Here is your identity badge. You can use up the other sets of ingredients as well, or have the amount reimbursed. It will be your choice."
Mais was smiling as he approached from behind Cely to hand over her identity badge. He didn't need to look in the cauldron; his senses could tell everything that Cely had done the entire time anyway.
As calm as he appeared on the surface, though, the surprise inside of him was immense.
'She is way better than me! If she were at Tier 6, she could have easily taken a Tier 6 assessment. She's only at Tier 4 for fucks sake!'
Ignoring the internal cursing of Mais, Cely took the badge and injected some of her energy inside to bind it to her person. There was no need to display a name. Merely her energy being inside of it was enough.
Every person had a unique energy signature after all, and even Transcendent Gods have yet to find a way around this. Outside of one organisation, that is. But Cely would rather avoid thinking about them.
They know when they are being thought about after all.
Cely decided to make more pills with the rest of the materials after a short rest to recover. Although it is straining, it is not actually energy-intensive to perform alchemy, so Cely could just go at it again.
And so, after two more hours, Cely got teleported back outside of the Alchemy Association with a core mending pill and 130 more high-tier Spirit Stones than she entered with.