Alex and the Emperor arrived in a secluded room that Alex hadn't been to before. The dark room had little to no furniture, so the two monarchs stood around.
"So, let's get it done," Alex said.
The Emperor nodded. "Make the oath then," he said. "In 20 years' time, you will give me everything you can for me to make pill clouds."
Alex closed his eyes and thought through what he wanted to say.
"I swear to the heavens that in the next 20 years I will offer a trade for everything I have that can help you call the pill clouds, so long as you can offer me something worth double what I am offering back if we come to a settlement," Alex spoke.
The oath landed on Alex, but they didn't bind him just yet as the oath had yet to be completed. It was a two-sided oath and unless both sides agreed to the words that were being said on the oaths, it didn't activate.
The emperor gave the words some thought and spoke his own words. "I swear to the heavens that I will pay you for every offer I accept at double its value, and I shall not share them with anyone for the next 100 years if we come to a settlement," the Emperor finished.
Alex listened to the oath and nodded. "I agree."
"I agree as well."
The moment the Emperor spoke, the oath landed on the two of them, binding their words to heaven. Their agreement was finally done.
"Now that it's settled, will you start by trading something or do you intend to wait?" the Emperor asked.
"Yes," Alex said and reached around his storage ring for a while, gathering up the various stuff.
The Emperor looked at Alex's storage ring for a bit before looking at his own blue ring. "Did the Phoenix give you that ring?" he asked.
"Hmm? Oh yes," Alex said without paying much attention. He finally took out the stack of nearly 100 different talismans and handed it over to the emperor.
The Emperor looked confused for a moment. "What… is this?" he asked, wondering if they were some techniques.
"Pill recipes," Alex said.
The Emperor frowned for a moment. "Pill recipes?" he asked before quickly looking through the talisman and realizing that Alex wasn't lying. He frowned for a moment.
"I don't need pill recipes. I have plenty," he said, about to refuse.
"Yes," Alex said. "But do you have ones that are guaranteed to not have any error, with a potential to reach 100% harmony in each turn, so long as the other variables are perfect?"
The Emperor frowned for a bit. "Are you certain?" he asked.
He had a few recipes like that, brought over by the Azure Dragon the last time around, that had been passed down from his father. However, there weren't nearly enough of those that were brought back. Merely a dozen or so.
The other recipes were good, but they never gave a good enough result.
So, if Alex was telling the truth then these 100 pill recipes would help him improve a lot. In fact, they might be the biggest change for him overall to learn about Alchemy as he had more recipes to learn from.
He knew that these recipes weren't going to help him call pill clouds at all. He had reached 97% or even 98% in rare cases with the dozen perfect recipes that were brought back.
However, that still was a good start.
"How did you get these recipes?" he asked.
"I don't suppose I have to answer that question, do I?" Alex asked. "It isn't part of the agreement."
"No," the Emperor said. "No, you don't."
He started thinking of what he had that he would consider double to value of the offer he was being made. He couldn't even lie and make a low offer as the oath bound him into making only valid trade suggestions.
"I do not yet understand what you would consider as double the value of the recipes," he said. "Do you have any idea?"
Alex looked away for a bit, thinking to himself. "What about a visit to the Azure Dragon? I wonder if he will have some knowledge for me to prepare for my eventual breakthrough to the Immortal realms in the future."
The Emperor frowned a bit. "Don't the Phoenix have something like that for you?" he asked.
"Her Majesty has told me quite a bit about it, but I still wish to learn more if I can," Alex said. "It doesn't hurt to ask multiple immortals, does it?"
"No, it doesn't," the Emperor said. "But I'm afraid you cannot visit His Majesty. As you may have learned already, there was an attack in the Central continent long ago, where his majesty was injured just like your Phoenix and needed recuperation."
"He is still recuperating to this day, so I cannot allow entry for anyone," the Dragon Emperor said.
"I see," Alex said. "That's a shame."
That was quite the excuse that the Emperor had for the Dragon's absence. It was damn near the same thing the elders had told the entire world when Scarlet was missing.
He wondered if the emperor knew something was wrong back then too and if he was still playing the part of an oblivious emperor.
"Then I guess I will accept something else," Alex said.
The Emperor thought for a bit. "I will need some time to think of what I can pay you with. Please return back for now. I will send someone to get you when I know what I have I can give you," he said.
Alex nodded and left the room, going back to the Swan Courtyard where the two elders were waiting for him.
"Your majesty," Elder Yao quickly called for him as he entered. "How did it go? What did you trade for what?"
"I traded 100 of my recipes," he said. "Don't worry, I kept the better ones out of the trade and only gave the generic ones."
"And what did you get in return?" elder Liang asked.
"He doesn't have anything for me yet. He will decide what he wants to give me later, so we can relax for now," Alex said.
"I hope it is something good," the elder said.
"I hope so too," Alex said. "Alright, I'm gonna go rest for now. You two should go and cultivate as well. Now that we've finished what we wanted to do, we can go visit the other places in the city tomorrow."
The two elders nodded and bowed before leaving.
Alex went into his own room and sat on a seat before calling out Pearl and Whisker to have them cultivate along with them.
While he started cultivating, the Emperor was in his own room, alone, thinking of what he could trade for those recipes.
The problem wasn't that he didn't have anything valuable to trade for those recipes, but that he didn't want to give anything valuable that he owned.
After thinking for a long time, he came up with something that he believed was valuable enough for Alex to want to trade it with him.
Once he figured it out, he sent someone to let Alex know that he was ready to trade.
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