Eternal Cultivation Of Alchemy

Alex walked through the desert, searching for any beasts he could fight. Since it was still daytime, the only beast he could find was a horse with Sunheart. And as a beast with Sunheart, it was moderately strong.

He trained his Sword Intent against the horse, but it became quickly evident that his choice to find human fighters had been the right choice. The beasts simply weren’t strong or clever enough to be worthy opponents for his sword.

Alex stopped fighting it when he realized how needless the battle was and left far enough away so that the horse wouldn’t chase. Once the horse’s hostility died down, he returned to the sand dune next to where the horse was resting.

The sky darkened, so he let Whisker take over the next step.

As the sun went down on the horizon, the horse prepared to go back down to the depth of Hell as well.

Alex had yet to see how easy it was for Whisker to bring out the sludge, so he decided to check that today.

Once the beast went down, with Whisker hanging onto it, all Alex could do was wait for Whisker to come back out.

Alex ultimately did want to go down to the depth of Hell himself, but there were two reasons why he couldn’t do so right now.

Firstly, he didn’t have a technique to help him do so. The Earth Movement technique that Whisker used was a beast technique, so he couldn’t use it himself.

He did know just enough about beast physiology that he could try and repurpose the technique to work for a human too, but that took time. So it would be a while before he could go down there.

Alex did have the Dao of Earth, so if he were to force his way underground, he did believe he could do it. However, there were more issues with that plan than what could be seen at a first glance.

The beasts were one issue to begin with, but there was also the case of his Intent. Using the Dao of Earth needed focus and Intent. If he went down there, he would have to divide that focus and Intent into protecting himself from the Yin.

As strong as his body was with Yang, a strong enough Yin was still dangerous for him. He couldn’t go down there without any preparation.

Which was the second reason why he didn’t go down there right away. From what he had heard Whisker say, the best thing one could use to reach the depth of Hell was a Decaying Sunheart.

All beasts used their Sunhearts that way at the depth, so he could see how that could be used by him to go to the depth. He would have to gather a bunch for that, and he didn’t have many Sunhearts at the moment to swap for some.

Alex was in no hurry to know how Elixir was made at the depth of Hell. He had enough time to figure that out. He could even try and find out after he found a way out of Hell.

Whatever the case, he wasn’t worried.

Alex waited throughout the night. Once the sun went down, the Yang in the surroundings slowly began turning to Yin, and all Yin was dragged down below. It became far too cold for Whisker to do anything after that except wait for the beast to come back out tomorrow.

The sun had just come out on the horizon when Whisker climbed back out of the sand and met Alex on top of a large rock.

The beasts came out in the morning so punctually like clockwork.

Whisker arrived by his side.

“How much did you get this time?” Alex asked him.

“Enough to fill at least 10 cauldrons,” Whisker said. “A lot of my Soul Space is filled with it.”

Alex smiled. “10 cauldrons is still small for your Soul Space, is it not?”

“Yes,” Whisker said gently. “But the sludge is full of Qi, and I worry too much of it will do things to the other items in my Soul Space. So I only gather so much each time.”

Alex didn’t have to think to see the merit in that thought process. He nodded, acknowledging that Whisker was doing the right thing.

“So do you just stay by the beast all night long?” Alex asked.

Whisker nodded.

Alex looked in the direction of where the horse would be. “I don’t see it,” he said.

“It’s moved a bit away from here. Remember? They keep moving each time,” Whisker said.

“Ah!” Alex said. He roughly checked the direction where the horse had gone to. He would need more beasts to confirm the direction, but for now, it appeared to be moving toward southeast.

‘What’s southeast again?’ he thought, trying to locate himself in his mentally built map of Hell.

The eastern side was the forest and sea region where he had landed, and the northwestern side was where he had ended up after being tossed around by the anomaly.

The Northsword came down from the north, and Alex was to its west. So, from that direction, the southeast would have to be…

“The core region of Hell,” Alex said thoughtfully. That sounded about right.

“The core region?” Whisker asked.

“Yes. They must be going there,” Alex said. He saw Whisker’s confused look and explained what the core region was.

“Beyond this, there is a region at the center where the sand is fully red and the beasts there are Divine realm in strength,” Alex said. “Even the best elders of the Endless Night sect don’t go there all by themselves. They have to go in groups to subdue those beasts.”

Whisker hadn’t heard about that yet. “There are such strong beasts in the center? And none have any Qi cultivation base?”

“None from what I was told,” Alex said.

Whisker thought for a moment and asked a question Alex had already thought of. “But if the beasts there are so much stronger, then wouldn’t these beasts just end up dying when they reach there?”

Alex shook his head. “I don’t think that’s the case. The Elixir there must be stronger, just like the Elixir here is stronger than it on the outer range.”

Whisker nodded, but still he had a question.

“Why?”

Alex tried to answer, but nothing came to mind. Nothing he could think of could answer the simple question of why Elixir was stronger in the center of the desert, if that was really the case.

Alex was stumped.

‘Can it be that Yin is concentrated in the center region far more than the outer regions?’ Alex thought. But he couldn’t justify that thought with any explanation.

There should have been no reason why Yin there would be stronger than it was out here.

As far as he knew, there were no spirit veins in Hell. Even if there were, it would clump together in certain locations instead of spreading in a spectrum from the center all the way out.

He wanted answers, but alas he was too weak to find them right now.

“We’ll learn what we need to soon enough,” Alex told Whisker. “For now, let’s focus on getting stronger. Bring out the sludge. Let’s make some Elixir.”