Eternal Cultivation Of Alchemy

The woman was strong. Stronger at least than anyone else he had fought until now. But still, she wasn’t strong enough to fight him should he fully use his physical strength on top of the sword.

Having to restrict his own strength was more annoying than it was helpful. He wanted to fight to his content.

Alex pushed the woman back, but she came back right away, stabbing toward him. Alex was about to block, but the spear suddenly blurred. To his surprise, the spear had gone invisible.

The woman held her hands in the same position, but there was nothing to say whether she held the spear in her hand or not.

Alex waited until she arrived within his range before searching for the spear with his Spiritual Sense. He had a fraction of a second to locate it and then stop it.

He parried the spear at the last second, redirecting it to the side.

The woman took the momentum of the redirection and spun around as her left hand flung toward Alex as a burst of white light appeared from it. It struck Alex in the chest.

A massive explosion rang aloud with dust covering the entire location. The woman was pushed back by her own force, landing a distance away before she came to a halt.

The people behind her cheered, but she alone did not look happy in that moment. As the dust settled, it became obvious why that was.

Alex casually dusted his robes, having not moved a single inch from where he was.

The woman’s eyes narrowed.

“Do you hold a grudge against our sect?” she asked.

Alex gave a confused look. “Of course not. What makes you say that?”

“Then why have you come to fight us?” she asked.

“I simply wish to find strong warriors and train myself against them,” Alex said. “I have no interest in hurting you or your sect.”

The woman was taken aback by his response. “But why?” she asked. “You’re already so strong. You’re stronger than me.”

“I can get stronger,” Alex replied. “If you don’t mind, would you please ask your sect to help you with the fight? I’m sure you all have several battle formations to help you become stronger. If you win, I will give you the Elixir.”

The woman paused for a moment, turning around. She looked at her husband, the sect leader, who simply nodded.

The man uttered something that Alex could barely make out as ‘formation,’ and a group of people settled all around in a crescent formation.

Alex wondered what sort of battle formation he was going to witness now.

At first, he could see no change around the woman or himself. But then, something happened.

It took Alex a moment to figure out what had changed. The surroundings had gotten hotter, the wind blew faster. The people moved swifter than before.

The woman spun her spear around her, a dull white glow appearing around it.

Spear Intent.

Alex felt pleasantly surprised to see it. It almost seemed like Spear Qi even, but not yet.

He heard the woman next as she said, “If you don’t mind me using our sect’s battle formation, then here I come.”

Her words were a blur from her lips, the words both high-pitched and fast.

It was as if Alex was suddenly experiencing the world at a much slower rate. To him, everything around him happened twice as fast.

Alex saw the woman move with incredible speed and swung his sword to stop her. To his surprise, his movement had been slowed as well. His eyes widened, slowly, and he put the full force of his body into the swing.

His speed increased finally, but still he was barely fast enough to block the attack.

The woman pulled back the spear and swung at him from the side.

Alex followed her spear, spinning around it as his sword glowed with a strong white outline that came down toward the woman. He was fast with his strike.

But now, the woman was faster.

She wasn’t just faster, but her strength had severely improved as well. Every attack was twice as strong as before.

‘What an incredible battle formation,’ Alex thought in surprise. Making the opponent feel everything at half the speed gave them almost no time to react.

Alex could only barely keep up because he was faster to start with.

He could feel the force upon him now, the collective Intent that stopped him from acting. He pushed against it just lightly enough to see if he could fight back or not.

He could.

As soon as he figured that out, he stopped, letting it all affect him fully.

That made the battle closer after all.

He focused on the sword, putting almost all of his thought and mind into it. He fought the woman and the woman fought him.

Together, they danced a dance of sword and spear.

Their clash quickly delved into a territory that most could not imagine. Even as they watched, they failed to comprehend just what was going on. All they heard was the constant ringing of metal on metal, veiled by a thin layer of sand in the air.

The two were at a standstill, with maybe the woman a little stronger than Alex. Her spear had reached his body multiple times, only to be stopped by his blood armor.

However, as time went on, the scale shifted toward another one’s favor.

The white outline that surrounded the spear began to take shape as it took over the whole spear. Slowly, the entire spear became fully surrounded with it.

The woman had learned Spear Qi in the midst of the battle.

With the Spear Qi, her attacks became stronger and heavy-hitting. Alex could no longer stop her as he had at all.

He took multiple hits on his chest before he was thrown back onto the sand. When he tried to get up, the woman was above him, her spear pointed at his head.

He had lost.