Alex left back for the palace afterward, constantly wondering about what he had learned.
The Azure Dragon was alive just 500 years ago, and he had been seen by regular folks. Has that been an illusion perhaps? To show the people that their ruler was still alive?
Alex didn't believe that was the case. Especially because the poison had been strong enough to kill the poison master himself. A regular saint could not have cleared that up in that case.
It had to be the Azure Dragon himself. But if that was the case then… he had to have been alive just 500 years ago.
Then… how was he dead?
The headmaster had told him the dragon was injured, so… maybe it had lived until now. But then… why was it dead now?
Surely the White Tiger wasn't wrong.
Alex thought for a while about this, but he eventually had to stop caring. He wasn't going to get the answer from just thinking, and asking wasn't going to work as the death of the Dragon wasn't made public yet.
Not that knowing when the dragon had died really affected any of Alex's plans in the first place.
He returned back to his room and decided to make some pills as he wanted to prepare some of the new pills from the recipe he had just come up with.
He let the palace staff know that there was going to be a lot of lightning going on on this side of the palace and that they had no reason to be scared. Once the people were alerted, Alex began making those pills.
He spent nearly 6 hours making the pills he now named Water Root Transforming Saint Pill. It was a long name, but it got the point across.
After getting done, he returned back to his room, only to find the head servant waiting in front of his room with a tray. There was a glass on the tray and some juice inside ot it that looked quite good.
"The elders asked me to prepare some refreshments for you, your majesty," the woman said. "Please have them."
"Thank you," Alex said and took the glass before drinking it all in one go. He truly felt refreshed, as if the deep coldness had touched deep inside of him, making him feel quite alive.
The mental fatigue that came with making pills for nearly 6 hours simply disappeared as the last gulp of the juice went down his throat.
"This is quite good," he said while he looked at the glass. "Huh? Maybe I should go visit the cooking school too. Thanks again."
He returned back to his room. "I will have to get some food made for Whisker and Pearl too at some later date," he thought to himself. "How do I make them not know it's for beasts though?"
Maybe he could just ask them for some generic food. That should still be quite good.
He cultivated for the rest of the day, and when tomorrow came around, he went back to the Poison school to learn a bit more throughout the day. He sent the elders back and learned about poisons and how to cure them on his own.
There were many students that were in the library, but none of them dared to come close to Alex as they all recognized who he was.
He was left alone as he learned what he could for the entirety of the week.
It was at the end of the week that he finally left and went back to the palace again to rest. This time around, he asked for some sort of meat to be cooked for his beasts.
Pearl and Whisker were quite happy that day.
The next day, Alex went to check out the school for cooking.
As a school, this one apparently had the least number of students, which made quite a lot of sense to Alex. Of the many schools, this was the one that made the least sense for a cultivator, even before the music school.
At least music helped you during fights. This one was only useless for when you weren't in battle, and even then there were pills that could do a lot better than cooking, certainly.
Still, he kept an open mind, willing to learn what it was that made this school even a school in the first place and went in. He met with the headmaster, a young woman who looked to be in her 30s, who gave him a small tour.
Alex had no intention of trying to test himself here, so he only learned what the headmaster told him.
His answers were quickly answered.
As it turned out, while the benefit of cooking was not all that much when compared to pills, they were also much easier to make at the same time.
Cooking didn't need perfect control like making pills did, so one could cook something as long as one could focus on the task and not lose track of what they were doing.
Anyone could become a cook this way. So, the only thing separating them was the amount of dedication that they put into learning the various recipes and the way the tastes interacted with each other.
It wasn't exactly the same as pills, as the cook cared very much about how the final product tasted and not just what it did.
"I'm assuming people don't have a hard time climbing through the levels?" Alex asked the headmaster.
"They do not," the headmaster said. "But they also don't spend their entire time learning to cook, so it kind of doesn't matter in the end. Most end up leaving after they think they are good enough, compared to other schools where they try to be the best."
"I see," Alex said, understanding a bit better. "If I may ask, what level are you?"
"I am level 9," the headmaster said. "A few people stick through and most actually end up at 8 or 9. The Palace accepts them, so most end up leaving at that point anyway."
"And the students?" Alex asked.
"We have one Level 8 who is going strong, but no one else," the headmaster said. "I can't tell when we'll get another Level 8 at all."
"I see," Alex said. "I hope you have more people enthusiastic about this profession then. Now that I've learned about it, it doesn't seem truly that bad."
"It isn't, your majesty," the headmaster said. "It's just looked down upon a lot by the regular people who don't know much."
Alex nodded. Just moments ago, he was the same as well.
"What about Level 10?" he asked. "If it's so easy, certainly someone must have reached Level 10, right?"
"Yes, one person has," the headmaster said excitedly. "Senior Zhou Linfan, the head chef of the palace. You can meet him in the pa… err… he's out with the second prince now that I think about it. But yeah, he reached Level 10."
"I see," Alex said. "Someone at least stuck through it all."
"Yes," the headmaster said.
Alex conversed with her for a bit longer as she showed him the whole school. After a while, he finally left the school once he was done learning what he wanted to.
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