Desire to grow

As soon as he touched one of the leafs his sixth sense for wood activated, allowing for him to sense the structure of wood spirit qi inside the leaf which gave it its proprieties.

He thought "Interesting, so my affinity does help with something. How can this help me with alchemy I have no idea"

Next he took the flask of powder and tried using his sixth sense, managing to vaguely sense the structure of the red lizard bone powder with his blood sense. Using his mental energy to amplify his blood senses, he managed to sense the weak links formed between the small grains of powder that gave them their proprieties.

Rubbing his chin he thought "So my blood sense works on other bodily parts, I guess calling it blood affinity is a bit wrong. Should look more on this in the future."

Next he quickly read the potion formula, which the only interesting part was the part about controlling an especial alchemy fire, but it did not teach how.

closing the box and putting it back inside the ring, Dean looked at the thinnest of the three books next. He read "The basics of alchemy and alchemy fire

Alchemy is an art few get a chance to learn and even fewer manage to truly learn it. Those who only follow a recipe and just trow the ingredients in a pot hoping it will work every time are doomed to fail and never grow as an alchemist.

Reggie Grove, Spirit emperor alchemist"

He thought "Reggie? There is actually someone with named Reggie who is what I assume is a good alchemist. What the hell does spirit emperor alchemist even mean"

He continued to read "To become a true alchemist one must know everything about thousands of plants, animals, monsters, demons and other weird creatures that roam this world.

The more you know about your ingredients the higher your chance of success, as you know how they should be reacting inside the cauldron. Even masters who have talent towards the uncommon wood element still have extensive knowledge over plants."

Dean thought "So having a wood sense does help, I am actually starting to get excited to this. Maybe this is why they told the receptionist about me, having affinity to wood helps with alchemy."

With his interest piqued Dean finished reading the first book, which was mostly about a fire technique, which melted the ingredients it heated up, and the many ways to control it.

What surprised Dean the most was that the technique did not use any rune formation, instead it was necessary to mix the mental energy with the spirit energy in a very specific way to create a blue fire.

Very excited to learn something completely new Dean spent the entire night trying to create the alchemist fire, stopping to meditate to recover his mental energy and spirit energy every few tries, which allowed him to dive deeper on what he did wrong.

After many tries he managed to create a small blue flame above his right hand, a big smile appearing on his face as he looked at it.

In a few second Dean felt his remaining spirit qi being drained at a fast pace, it was them he realized that it was impossible for him to become an alchemist in the rank he was now.

Letting himself fall on the his bed Dean thought "Well this sucks, by the way this feels I need at least five times the spirit qi I have now to do something with alchemy. Well this can be easily resolved, just have to train more."

As soon as he seated up on his bed the first rays of sunshine hit his eyes thru the small window in his bed room. He thought "Damn, did I stay up all night? what time is it"

He tried to look at time on his phone, but it was out of charge. He looked around his room for outlet but there was none to be found.

Scratching his head Dean thought "How do people charge their phone on this place. Maybe there is a technique for charging the ph. Fuck where did this need to pee came from, fuck, fuck I am going to pee my pants"

Running out as fast as he could, he quickly went inside the man side of the floor bathroom at the end of the corridor. Feeling completely relieved when he did his deeds.

As he walked out of the bathroom a girl walked out of the girl bathroom at the very same time. He was just going to ignore her and walk back to his room but she greeted him "What a coincidence? Hi I am Mary, I live at the 304"

Faking a smile Dean said "Hello, I am Dean" continuing to walk to his room while the girl, with black hair, an average face, a bit of chubby body, and bosom so big that made other girls jealous and at the same time sorry for her back, accompanied him.

Mary said "Pretty shitty that they just throw us here, they called me a genius and everything, now I have to live on a room whit a third of my old room size. I also don't know no one here".

Dean said "I kinda like it, it makes the people in here truly grow as adults. Albeit it would be a bit nice if they explained some common things here. Well this is my room, have a good day Mary"

"Bye…" said Mary with her hand in the air as she saw Dean quickly enter his room, which was right beside hers.

Inside his room Dean thought "Why do people try to talk to me, completely forgot what I was thinking about... Right I need to take a shower and brush my teeth, getting out of my routine really makes it easy to forget stuff."

Putting his backpack inside the ring Dean used his blood sense to check if Mary was outside. When it was safe he walked out his room and used the communal bathroom once again, getting happy that there was no one around at this time of the day.

Refreshed and in new clothes Dean went downstairs to check if the inn breakfast was already being served and to talk with the receptionist.

Seeing the receptionist behind the counter as always, Dean walked towards her and said "Good morning, is there any place to charge my cellphone around here?"

With the same bored voice, but now with a bit of sleepiness, she said "There is not electricity in the sect, if you want a working phone you will have to buy a spirit phone. The cheap ones are around a hundred points"

Dean said "Damn that is expensive. Thanks for the information, by the way what time is it?"

She said "Three minutes to seven, the breakfast will be coming out shortly"

Dean said his thanks and sat at the table he, Reggie and Eva have been seating at. Midway thru his breakfast Mary came down and sat with him, next was Reggie, then Eva come down shortly after.

Breaking the awarded silence that was at the table because of Mary Reggie said "Hi mine name is Reggie, this is Eva and that is Dean"

Extremely glad that someone said something Mary said "Hello I am Mary, I meet Dean earlier in the corridors"

Before the silence crept in the group once again Reggie asked Dean "So how is the alchemy Dean? Any progress?"

Dean said "I actually spent the entire night reading and training it. Just to I find I will need to work more on my cultivation before I can do anything with alchemy. How is your cultivating? Any progress?"

Reggie said "Barely any, if I spent the afternoon trying I might do it, but I get bored so fast. Do you have any tips"

Dean shook his head and said "Its not something I can really help you with, is like trying to explain a feeling words its basically impossible".

He turned to look at Eva then asked "Did you make any progress Eva? By the way what is your element? I don't think you told us"

A bit shy because of the new person Eva said with a low voice "My element is light, I did made some progress, I felt my soul yesterday"

Reggie said "Man I need to train or I will be left behind hahaha. And you Mary, how are you doing on cultivation?"

All proud of herself Mary said "I already breathed with my soul, I will try digesting it today. My affinity is 86% fire"

Reggie said surprised "So you are a genius? Damn I am the oldest one here and I will be left behind."

Dean laughed at Reggie then said "You are already behind, did you forget how I beat you at the nationals"

Reggie said angrily "Tsk, you where just lucky that I wasn't well on the day or I would have kissing the mat in two seconds"

After chatting away for a few more minutes everyone went back to their rooms on the third floor to cultivate.

A soon as Dean entered his room he suddenly felt very homesick, seeing his empty room just made him miss his big home and his family. He shook his head vigorously, but the feelings dint go away instead they only increased to missing his first family.

He thought "You are a 34 year old men, compose yourself, you don't have time to loose on this". With a little bit of meditation Dean managed to calm himself down, changing the focus of his emotions to his big desire to grow stronger, strong enough to protect himself from losing everything once again.

Taking the almost empty spirit stone and a new one Dean begun to cultivate.