Cedric felt his liver hurt from hearing the System’s word. He regrets recalling his poverty as the System actually took his weakness to deliver a killing blow.

  Not in the mood to do anything else, Cedric checked the situation in the Crystal Cube world.

  Amidst the chaos caused by Lacius spreading the name of the god of alchemy, every city tried its best to calm down the turmoil while keeping an eye on Lacius or the temple’s movements.

  Every city lord, especially the four city lords that have tried to attack Lacius, is afraid that he might take this moment to carry out an attack or further worsen the situation.

  But unexpectedly, Lacius has been silent the whole time, while the temple simply focused on spreading the name of alchemy toward smaller vilges.

  At most, they’ll receive a request to send magical pnts and other precious resources as tributes to the king.

  When a few months passed, yet Lacius hadn’t made any other moves, the four city lords calmed down and prepared another scheme to avenge the city lord before them. Which they suspected to have been killed by Lacius.

  As a simple civilization whose history hasn’t even sted for two hundred years, the scheme those city lords could concoct is quite crude.

  They simply gathered another army to unch an attack toward him. But this time, they gathered it in a slightly more subtle way.

  Nevertheless, such a huge movement is still detected by the people in their city.

  Before they could even gather enough resources and people. The civilians who overheard their city lord’s pn to attack the god began to riot.

  It must be said that Lacius’s idea to turn himself into a god has succeeded.

  The civilians that have become believers of the god of alchemy have turned into a burden that blocked the city lord from attacking Lacius.

  Meanwhile, as the eye of the storm. Lacius, who has completed most of his pn, has been busy with his experiment and recruiting some alchemists with high talent.

  As a person who understands his own mediocrity, he knows the limitations of a single person more than anyone.

  He knew that unlike An, who is a genius capable of creating a training method out of nothing. Or Tsukiko and Yuma, who could reach Level 2 simply by killing demons. His talent is simply average.

  Even the only reason he could discover alchemy was due to multiple coincidences.

  Whether it’s the story about alchemy that he heard from Yuma, his status as a king that could make him to disregard the amount of resources consumed for experiments, or his will to achieve eternal life so he can remember every retive he has that has been killed by Gratian and let them life forever in his memory.

  Every single thing contributed to his current achievement.

  That’s why Lacius has decided to take some genius alchemist to join his boratory. Of course, he’ll also test their loyalty first.

  For those who failed his test or those without much talent. He pnned simply left them in the temple to produce cheap alchemy potions or grow some magical pnts that’s used in alchemy.

  Only those who successfully passed his tests will come with him to his boratory in Winter City.

  With that decision, Lacius traveled to the temple in every city.

  Together with thirty blessed, Lacius left Winter City and began his journey.

  In every city he visited, the civilians went festive while the city lords were tense and constantly full of sweat.

  Luckily, Lacius didn’t stay long in each city. He simply checked the temple, observed for a few days, before finally leaving the city with some people and the children that he had sent to spread the name of alchemy.

  Just from how much the city lord has been sweating when Lacius stayed in their city, some city lords might have died from a heart attack if Lacius stayed any longer.

  After three months of journey, he passes through Brown Oak city, which is his second st city to visit.

  Bringing a few people and Hars to leave the city and join his group, Lacius visited another city before returning to Winter City.

  By the time they returned to Winter City, the group that initially consisted of thirty people had doubled to more than sixty.

  That too, is due to Lacius’s decision to only bring the alchemist along.

  If he has asked the blessed and sculptors that have been sent to sculpt his statue to join his group. The amount of people would’ve reached beyond 100, and rations will become a problem.

  With the addition of twenty two alchemists, plus the children and Hars. Lacius found that the Laboratory he created actually wasn’t wide enough.

  So he simply purchased more custom boratory equipment from Red Leaf City, who has slowly become the center of commerce in the kingdom, and transformed a part of the pace into a boratory.

  It’s not like alchemy is still a secret that can’t see the light of the sun. Now that he has spread the existence of alchemy, he isn’t too afraid of information leakage.

  With a bigger alchemy boratory, the people that have been recently introduced to alchemy excitedly pyed with the tools inside.

  Among them are the old doctor couple who Hars met in Brown Oak city.

  Compared with the other alchemist, the couple toyed around with the tools for a moment and quickly got a gist on how to use them.

  Soon, everyone began to calm down and started their respective experiments.

  While Lacius is busy managing the kingdom, doing alchemy experiments, training, and managing the new alchemist, a year has passed.

  Among the alchemists Lacius has recruited, only the elderly doctor couple has successfully invented something.

  They have discovered health nurturing potions with an even better effectiveness than the one Lacius has created. The potion they created through using rare herbs can allow even someone on their deathbed to regain some energy.

  Although it didn’t have the effect of extending lifespan like Lacius wanted. But, the effect of that potion is still powerful enough.

  Lacius has seen the couple’s talent and awarded them with the training method he has.

  What a pity that the female doctor actually isn’t a blessed, while the male doctor is only a low leveled wind element blessed.

  He initially only wanted to grant them An’s wind element method that can be practiced up to Peak Level 1 as a reward. But after he thought about it, Lacius decided to also give them the earth element method that can be practiced to Level 2.

  The elderly couple thanked Lacius profusely, while he simply nodded before returning to his busy schedule.

  The next time he heard something regarding the couple was when the female doctor died three years ter.

  After hosting the burial of that female doctor as his sign of respect, Lacius held a tube full of red colored liquids. It’s a potion called strengthening potions, and also the masterpiece of that old doctor.

  Although it uses extremely precious herbs to create. But, it also has an incredible effect of greatly increasing a normal person’s strength to the point it could rival a newly awakened blessed with divine strength.

  What a pity that it has no effect on someone at his level, whose body has been strengthened upon reaching Level 2.

  Soon, Lacius returned to his daily schedule of endless training and managing things.

  He only stopped one year ter, when the old male doctor had also died from old age.

  Unlike the female doctor, the old man doesn’t leave any alchemical masterpiece. Instead, he has slightly optimized the wind element method that Lacius granted him.

  After being optimized, the amount of mana that can be contained with each circution slightly increases, which results in a slight increase in training speed.

  With that optimized technique as a base, Lacius spared some time to optimize his earth element training method and Hars’s water element training method into his already busy schedule.

  Days turn to years as more and more people Lacius knew of kept on dying.

  Even the nobles that often reported the kingdom’s condition to him have all changed.

  Every single one of them is unfamiliar faces, unlike the one he usually see when he first took the throne.

  Just like that, more than fifteen years pass by in the blink of an eye.

  This also marked the twentieth year since Lacius and Hars had reached Level 2.

  After living for so long, Both Lacius and Hars knew they didn’t have much time left. And this time, they won’t be able to depend on raising their strength to increase their lifespan.

  Both of them could feel their strength is still far from reaching the next level. Furthermore, there is still no news about Yuma nor anyone else who has reached the next level.

  The situation is simply hopeless.

  ***

  Inside the Divine Space, Cedric opened his Divine Sight and observed Lacius’s status.

  [Life Level: Mid Level 2

  Potential: Peak Level 1]

  Fifteen years since he reached Level 2, Lacius’s Life level has actually risen by a small level and reached Mid Level 2. But, they’ve been stuck at Mid Level 2 since then.

  If his training speed didn’t increase any further, Lacius definitely won’t have enough time to reach Level 3 before he runs out of lifespan.

  Cedric has once asked the system regarding the amount of lifespan that can be increased upon reaching Level 2 in his world, and it said they’ll only gain twenty years of additional lifespan.

  That means, even without an accident, Lacius will only live for around ten more years. As for Hars, who is a few years older than Lacius, he can at most st for another one or two years. That too, thanks to the Lifespan Fruit he has given them.

  It’s not like Cedric hasn’t tried to help them.

  For the past few years. Except for observing the creatures in the Crystal Cube world, he has been spending time researching the training method for blessed with earth and water element power.

  Yet even after so long, the most he could do is to increase the training speed by around 10% from the original method.

  He has also searched through the Divine Items sold in the System and indeed found something that can increase Lacius and Hars’s lifespan.

  It’s a Level 2 variant of the Lifespan fruit that he has purchased for Lacius and Hars before.

  [Level 2 Consumable Divine Item, Lifespan Fruit.

  Cost: 20 GP

  Details: Increase lifespan by 2 years. Note: lifespan increasing items of the same level is only effective 3 times.]

  Different from its Level 1 variant,. The Level 2 Lifespan Fruit can only be consumed by someone at level 2 to increase the user’s lifespan by 2 years. It also cost 20 GP each, which is frickin expensive

  Just like the Level 1 variant, a single creature can only consume 3 fruits.

  That means Lacius can only increase his lifespan by 6 years. While Hars, who has only eaten 1 Level 1 Lifespan Fruit, can increase his lifespan by 8 years if Cedric decided to purchase 2 additional Level 1 Lifespan Fruit for him.

  But after a simple calcution, Cedric knew that a few additional years won’t be enough for them to reach Level 3. Which is why he decided not to waste his GP to share the slightly improved training method and Lifespan Fruits.

  Although deep down, he disliked such a calcutive method. But there is nothing that a poor wretch like him can do. Especially considering his 100.000 GP debt that must be repaid within 10.000 years.

  So, he can only pray that some genius will somehow appear in the Crystal Cube world and create a new training method that’ll allow Lacius to reach Level 3.

  ***

  Inside the Crystal Cube world.

  Lacius, Hars, and close to a hundred genius alchemists that Lacius has invited throughout the years are busy doing their own experiments in the pace that Lacius has turned into a boratory.

  In the midst of their experiments, Hars suddenly fell unconscious.

  Lacius who saw it quickly approached him.

  When he felt Hars’s borious breathing, Lacius fed him a few bottles of healing potions while shouting, “Call the healers to Hars’s room! Some of you, come and help me bring Hars to his room!”

  Although unwilling, hearing Lacius, the god of alchemy’s command, the surrounding alchemist stopped their experiment and brought Hars to his room.