Martial arts and alchemy were the same—they were about spending a long time to advance, aiming for the peak.
Moreover, alchemy had no way of speeding up the process.
There were spirit medicine and spirit fruits in the world—eating a stalk or a piece could increase cultivation and turn one into a formidable cultivator over night. However, there definitely wasn't anything good like that that could make an alchemist's techniques improve greatly in a matter of days.
Even with the Strange Fires' existence that only allowed alchemists at lower tiers to refine higher tier medicinal pills, one still needed enough understanding of alchemy to do so; they couldn't reach the sky in a single bound.
Ling Han wasn't twenty, but he was already a medium level Black Grade alchemist?
This was definitely a joke; if such a genius 's name didn't spread across the world, how could they have not heard of him?