Eternal Cultivation Of Alchemy

Fifteen minutes passed since the Alchemy God left, and finally, a Divine Realm cultivator made her way to the front of the line, where she began taking requests from each person for what pill they wanted.

Alex looked around, waiting for one to come to their side as well. He had the eight best pills he wanted ready and was prepared to provide that information to the staff. And yet, not a single other Divine Realm cultivator approached any of them at all.

The woman working at the front moved away from the first participant in line and proceeded to the second one.

“They’re going one at a time?” Aethersage asked. “That’s going to take a while.”

“That might take hours,” Alex said. “Why are they doing it one at a—”

“The number!” Jai Heiyun said, catching everyone’s attention. She wasn’t the only one who noticed, as everyone turned to look back up at the panel.

A few of the pills on the list had gone from 1,000 to 999. Alex counted, and there were exactly 10 of them. With that, everyone realized why the line was moving one at a time and why those who came first truly had the advantage.

“Most of those pills are going to be taken by the time we get to them,” Alex said.

“That’s… annoying,” Killersky said. “I had my list ready too.”

“Same here,” Riveroak said. “Time to make changes to it, I suppose.”

Alex wasn’t the happiest about this, but it was better than what the people in the back were going to get, let alone the people who hadn’t even arrived here today.

By the time the Divine Realm woman came to Alex’s group, over 20,000 ingredients on the list were gone, leaving behind the remaining options. Some of the objectively best pills for the competition were already taken, so they had to rely on the second-best options.

Alex chose his eight pills. They weren’t the best he had in mind, but they were the best he could get now. These would have to do. After waiting for his friends to choose theirs as well, they left.

Riveroak and Jai Heiyun immediately departed to complete their first competition. Between Alex, Aethersage, and Killersky, who could now use their Soul Space, they had the ingredients the other two needed.

“I’m going to continue training,” Aethersage said. “I’m sure I can improve a lot in the month we still have before the tournament.”

“I’ll see you all later as well,” Killersky said before leaving.

With nothing else to do, Alex returned to his place.

The next month passed rather slowly for Alex. He spent most of his days in his room, preparing his Blood Origin. He had been working on it for a year now, and a month was still a significant amount of time to do nothing else.

The Blood God’s Manual was before him, open to the fifth page, which absorbed blood aura to improve it into its perfected form before returning it back to Alex to put into his Blood Origin.

There was something curious about this part that Alex had come to realize. No matter how much blood aura he fed the book, it always returned a little extra.

Alex couldn’t figure out why at first, but after thinking it through, he realized it was likely because the book had consumed a lot of his blood previously, which it was now returning to him in part.

His Blood Origin was growing too. Inside the spiritual sea, the Blood Origin appeared not as an ordinary geometric shape like a sphere or an oval but had actual features.

Alex couldn’t discern much at the moment because it was still the size of a marble, even to his spiritual avatar. Even then, it had grooves and creases. It hadn’t started this way; it had been a simple grain-sized power when he first began.

But now, the Blood Origin was growing into something specific.

It was like watching a creation being formed from the start, rather than reaching it in the Divine Realm. Alex very much looked forward to seeing what shape it would take in the future.

His actual Origin hadn’t changed yet. He hadn’t even poured any energy into it, as he wanted to do so while using the other two techniques, which he had more or less decided on for now.

He planned to experiment with them once the technique was fully ready, tweaking them until they were the best he could use. Only then would he continue with his cultivation.

Alex didn’t leave his room during the month, focusing entirely on preparing his Blood Origin, coming out only when it was time for the next competition.

The day before the next competition, Silvermist and the others stood outside their place. The call for the contestants to gather had been given. They had to prepare for the competition while the others would finally get to watch tomorrow.

Whisker was with them too now, as he had taken him out of his Soul Space and given him to Pearl to watch over.

“Good luck, brother.” “Good luck, master.” “Do your best, young man.” “I have faith you will do great.” One by one, they gave him their well-wishes, and Alex departed.

On the way, he met up with Aethersage and the rest before making their way to the park.

They were soon sent into the secret realm, where they were gathered inside a large hall capable of holding hundreds of thousands of people. It was the same hall as before, filled to the brim last time.

And yet, it looked so empty this time around. Removing over half the contestants from the start had that kind of effect.

Alex couldn’t help but wonder how many more would be disqualified this time. Another half? Or maybe more?

“Settle down,” a voice boomed from the front with great intensity. Everyone turned to see one of the staff members speaking.

“His Majesty will be here soon to explain the next competition.”