Eternal Cultivation Of Alchemy

　　Alex sat on his seat in the stands, silent, watching the match that was taking in front of him.

Liang Qiu fought against Fu Tao in the semi-finals, releasing the full fury of her Spear Qi, while constantly fighting off Fu Tao’s mental attacks.

Any formation plates that Fu Tao did throw into the ground were immediately destroyed by Liang Qiu, making it impossible for Fu Tao to get an upper hand.

Liang Qiu sent out spear Qi after spear Qi. Spear Qi itself was nothing but annoyance for Fu Tao, but it was an annoyance he had to fight against using his Saint Qi.

This meant, that while Liang Qiu kept her Saint Qi, Fu Tao was forced to use his.

Fu Tao managed to bypass Liang Qiu’s defensive mental artifact and finally could attack her directly. However, he was still unable to do much as Liang Qiu herself had an incredibly strong mind due to her spiritual sense. 

In the end, Fu Tao couldn’t go past Liang Qiu’s mental fortitude before her attacks reached him, and in the end, he lost.

Fu Tao was one of the strongest individuals in the younger generation. However, due to him being stuck at the True Emperor 9th realm for the last 2 years, others had caught up to him.

As a result, today, he lost in the semi-finals.

Alex saw the final spear strike and realized Liang Qiu had won. Which meant, that next up was his battle. 

He hadn’t expected much from the upcoming fight, but he wanted the same thing from it as what he wanted from his fight against Song Shing.

He wanted to give it his all and lose only after giving it his all.

He closed his eyes and prepared himself. He took deep breaths until his name was called. Then, he stood up and walked directly up to the stage, watching nothing else.

He didn’t realize how he had arrived at the edge of the stage, but he had.

Guo Chiang had easily won against the prince yesterday, and now he was standing against him.

Alex took out his sword and was ready to fight. 

The pale and near-dead-looking Guo Chiang stood on the other side of the stage in a very tired stance. He held a sword on his left side, currently hiding inside of the hilt.

The referee, a woman from the Jin family stood between the two as she waited for the two to be ready.

Alex took a little longer than normal to get ready, but he did in the end.

Guo Chiang looked so bad that it was impossible to tell if he was ever ready to fight.

Still, after a while referee took note that both of them were ready. As such, she began the match.

Alex immediately dashed the moment the match began. He needed to take advantage of his speed and…

Guo Chiang took out his sword. 

The surrounding air suddenly vibrated as Alex felt a deep chill pass through his spine. The world stopped all around Alex as if time itself had come to a stop.

Alex used his spiritual sense to see what was happening, and when he reached around Guo Chiang, he felt a backlash that hurt him.

Alex quickly withdrew his spiritual sense and looked at Guo Chiang in fear as his spiritual sense itself felt like it was cut in half when he viewed Guo Chiang.

Guo Chiang had seen Alex fight. No matter how hard the fight was for him, he had somehow won. Even against Song Shing, who should have been close to him, Alex had somehow won.

So, Guo Chaing planned on not letting Alex get started at all. From the very beginning of the fight, he wasn’t holding back at all.

Alex saw Guo Chiang’s sword and realized it was ordinary. However, what was around the sword was in no way ordinary at all.

Sword Qi moved away from the sword and all around him. It wasn’t just the Sword that produced the Sword Qi, but Guo Chiang’s body itself was producing Sword Qi.

No, when Alex looked at it more closely, it wasn’t sword Qi at all. The sword Qi all around him was going in and out from looking like a sword to looking like a blob of light. 

Sword Qi never moved around like that.

Suddenly, Alex guessed what it could be, and only fear invaded his heart.

Guo Chiang raised his sword and swung it downward. 

All the sword Qi that was all around Guo Chaing suddenly followed the path he made for them with his intent and a large slash flew towards Alex that seemed impossible to dodge.

Alex prepared the best he could, but before he could do anything, the referee appeared in front of him and fought back against the sword slash.

Alex felt the shockwaves from the clash between the two attacks and that was enough to send his mind into turmoil.

Guo Chiang’s attack was on par with a Saint realm cultivator. His attack… definitely had Sword Aura.

Alex got back up slowly. With the referee having to move forward to protect him, he had lost.

Just like that… he had lost.

Alex stared forward blankly. He had thought of so much to do. So much power and skills to fight with, and yet… he had lost just like that.

Surprisingly for him, he wasn’t mad at all. Yes, it had been a very quick loss, but it had been a loss against someone that had Sword Aura.

’I didn’t realize he was the strongest sword user in this whole tournament,’ Alex thought. He had expected it to be Jin Tengfei, as he came from a sword family.

However, given the Sword Aura, it was obviously Guo Chiang. Unless Liang Qiu brought Spear Aura out of nowhere, Alex didn’t think there was a way for him to lose at all.

The referee announced Guo Chaing’s victory and the crowd obviously cheered. A small smile appeared on Alex’s face as he once again remembered that he had lost.

He turned around and walked out of the stadium. However, before he could go any further, the referee stopped him.

”Young man, where are you going?” she asked.

”Um, I lost. I’m leaving the finalist’s area,” Alex said.

”You aren’t done fighting though,” she said.

”But I lost, right?” he asked with a confused look on his face.

The referee chuckled a bit when he heard that. “Yes, you’ve lost. But there is still one more match that you will have to fight. Unless you are giving up right now. Are you?” 

”One more fight?” Alex turned to look towards the area where Guo Chiang and Liang Qiu were starting to leave since the matches today were over, and was surprised to see Fu Tao was still there, despite losing earlier.

”Oh! The match for third place. I nearly forgot,” Alex said. “Thank you for reminding me.”

Alex returned back to his room where he now had to prepare for one more fight.

For some reason, sitting there after losing made him feel free, relieved even. As if a weight had been lifted off of his chest and that he didn’t have to force himself to make it as far as possible.

He knew how far he could go and this was it. As such, a smile appeared on his face as he got a feeling that he could do it now.

So he did. He closed his eyes and started breaking through.