Eternal Cultivation Of Alchemy

Mili quickly put down her bowl as soon as she was done and got up. “I’m going now. I’ll see you guys later.” She ran off.

“Where’s she hurrying to?” Alex asked.

“Rini is teaching the girls in the village how to make ropes and twines. Mili is going there to learn today,” Para explained. “Mumu should go learn too, but she keeps saying no.”

“I told you I already know how to make silk threads. I don’t need to learn how to make twines,” the girl complained.

“Whatever,” the woman said and turned to her husband. “It will be stormy the next few days, so we will need to cook inside. You should prepare some firewood when you have the time.”

The chief nodded. “Alright. I will do that later today with my son-in-law.”

“No. No passing along your work to our son-in-law. You do it. Besides, we are running out of fish too. Our son-in-law can help us with that,” the woman said.

“Y-you want me to fish, mother?” Tara quickly asked.

“I’m sorry, but I must ask you this. You don’t need to get a big one like the last time,” the woman said. “Just a regular-sized fish will easily feed our family for more than a week.”

“Just watch, mother. Tara will get a bigger fish than last time,” the bride said happily. “He will even beat father’s old record.”

The young man slowly nodded. “I will prepare to go to the sea then,” he said and stood.

“Well, then I should go prepare some firewood too,” the chief stood.

“Wait!” Alex suddenly said, his thoughts finally catching up with them. He spun toward the chief. “The fish you guys get. Does it have a beast… center?”

He did not know the word for core.

“A beast center?” the man asked, his eyes narrowing in confusion.

“It’s a spherical object inside every beast,” Alex explained. “There should be one in every beast.”

The chief’s eyes widened slightly. “Do you perhaps mean the gem?” he asked.

“Yes!” Alex said with an excited look. There it was, his shortcut to getting Qi. The beast core. “You guys should get one each time you kill a fish, right?”

“Yeah, we do. Every time,” the chief said. “What about it?”

“What do you do with it?” he asked, getting a little nervous. “You don’t eat it, do you?”

“Eat it?” the chief snickered. “What idiot would eat a fish’s gem? Of course we don’t eat it.”

Alex sighed in relief. “It’s good that you don’t eat it. Can I have them?”

“You want the gems?” the chief asked.

“Um, yes. It will help me heal faster,” Alex answered.

The chief slowly shook his head. “But we don’t have any gem at all.”

Alex’s eyes narrowed. “But you just said… if you guys don’t eat it, then what do you do?”

“Isn’t it obvious?” Mumu asked from the side. “We pray to the god of the sea for more fish and give her the gem in return.”

Alex’s eyes slowly widened. “You… do what?”

“We pray on the gem and toss it into the sea. Why do you want a gem?” the man asked.

“I…” Alex was distraught. “Every gem? You don’t keep a single one?”

“Nope, not a single one,” the chief explained.

Alex could only grunt in the end. “Then I will need to get one on my own,” he said, turning to Tara. “Do you mind if I come with you?”

Tara didn’t answer and instead looked to the chief for help.

The chief frowned. “Going to the ocean with an injured body… that might not be such a good idea,” he said.

“That’s okay,” Alex said. “I’m perfectly capable of going to the sea on my own. In fact, I am going to go no matter what you guys say. I just wanted Tara to show me the places where fish gather the most.”

The chief took in his words for a long while and sighed. “Fine. Show him the way, Tara. And try to keep him safe. Don’t let him get caught in the riptides.”

“Okay, father,” Tara said and turned to leave. “Come, let us leave then.”

“Oh, we’re going right away?” Alex said. “I thought we would do it a little later.”

“I need to go home first and change my dress as well as get my harpoon,” the young man said. “You need one as well, don’t you? I think I have a spare.”

“Thanks.”

Tara turned to his new wife. “I will come back to get you soon.”

The girl nodded excitedly. She was so very happy to have been married to this man.

They walked out of the house, and Alex immediately realized what these people meant by today being hot. He could feel the sand burn under his feet, the sun blind him with the white sand.

And still, all these people walked around as if it were nothing.

It was not as though the heat and light bothered Alex. In fact, he was perhaps the one that bothered it the least. It was just that he had never felt the sun this strong on the surface ever before.

If this were to happen every day, he could understand why people would want to call this place hell.

Tara took him to his house, but along the way, Alex stopped and let Tara go on alone.

He had stopped by a group of girls, with a few women at the center, teaching everyone how to twist the coconut fibers to make a rope. It was a fascinating teaching that was passed down from women to women in this tiny tribe.

Mili did not even notice anything else, simply fascinated by the teaching.

Alex kept watching until Tara arrived, handing him a spear. It was a slightly worse spear than the one that Tara had himself.

“Do you want to keep watching, or can we go now?” Tara asked.

Alex shrugged. “We can go. I can watch this all later.”