Eternal Cultivation Of Alchemy

The old man walked back into the hut in order to continue his work. Alex wanted to continue their conversations, but there wasn’t anything he immediately needed to know, so he let the old man be.

Instead, he walked to the edge of the village where the people were beginning to dig up the piled sand in order to clear up the place.

Many men were already working from early in the morning, most of them the same men he had healed yesterday. They all came up to Alex again and thanked him personally before going back to their work.

Since Alex had nothing to do, he decided to help them. He began clearing the sand as well, shoveling it away in the storage bags he was provided. He would hand over any filled storage bags to the people responsible for emptying them and then continue on.

While he helped quite a bit that way, Whisker helped a lot more.

Whisker didn’t show himself, but he went into the sand and ran through it, swallowing all sand into his Soul Space. When it was full, he walked a short distance away over the closest dune and dumped it all out before returning.

That way, he cleared nearly five times more sand than Alex did.

It was around afternoon, past the point of Shadow Dance, when Alex felt something pulse through the air. He paused for a second, looking around to see what had happened.

Whisker emerged from the sand around the same time. “The formation is active,” he said, noticing the changes.

“Is it?” Alex asked, trying to sense it again. There wasn’t much he could tell.

“It is,” Whisker said. “I can sense some sort of repulsion from this place, like I’m not supposed to come here. The effect might only be working on beasts.”

Alex left the work to the others and returned to the hut where a large hole had been dug on the outside and was being filled with dirt.

“Is the formation inside?” Alex asked.

The old man nodded. “Better to keep it away from people that might accidentally knock away the Decaying Sunhearts,” he said before turning toward Alex. “How did you know I was done?”

“Whisker,” Alex answered.

“Ah! A beast, of course.”

The old man patted the dirt, leveling the ground.

Alex watched how effortlessly the man did his job, as if he had done it a thousand times over.

“Do you happen to teach these about formations?” Alex asked. “I would love to learn it. In return, I could teach you about another type of formation.”

The old man paused for a second, smiling. “You’re going to teach me Human formations?” he asked.

Alex was surprised to see him understand his intentions so quickly, but then it made sense. “Have the other outsiders taught you about formations already?” he asked.

“They’ve given me the blueprints. In some cases I’ve received the formations themselves,” the old man said. “And while I do think they have some value in their simplicity thanks to them being entirely straight lines that even a child could draw, I will stick to my complex system since it gives me a finer control on what I want and what I don’t.”

“Human formations have that too,” Alex said. “There is quite a level of control there too, and complexity as well. But, you’re right. You’re fine as you are, and I doubt I could teach you all the intricacies and nuances of Human formations since I don’t know them myself. I can make them, but coming up with new ones isn’t so easy for me either.”

The old man smiled. “That being said, I wouldn’t mind learning more about making pills if you can teach them.”

Alex’s face lifted into a smile. “I would be happy to teach them to you, senior,” he said. “But… I’m afraid it won’t be anytime soon. I will need to leave this place in a day or two and go wherever it is that I can find Death.”

The old man’s smile vanished, replaced by a soft frown. “You’re still stuck on the idea of finding her?” he asked. “Do you really think you can heal her mind?”

“I have to find her since she’s my only way out,” Alex said. “As for healing her, I have no clue. I need to get close to her first in order to see what is even wrong with her.”

“She doesn’t have a soul; that’s what’s wrong with her,” the old man said. “She’s mindless.”

“A body without a soul is a corpse,” Alex said. “If her body lives, then her soul lives. It might be being suppressed by something else or it might be weakened and needs healing. So long as she isn’t dead, she can be healed.”

The old man paused for a long moment, staring at Alex.

Alex met his gaze, unsure what else to say. The old man wouldn’t suddenly attack him in order to stop him, would he?

It was a long while before either of them spoke. Unable to suffer the silence, Alex broke it.

“Do you oppose that, senior?” he asked.

“Do you really think she can be healed?” the old man asked.

“She can,” Alex said. “As for whether I have that capacity or not is a different matter. I have some Divine pills that could heal her if I were to feed her, but if she requires some specific type of pill… then things might get more troublesome. I might even have to become a Divinity before she can be healed.”

The old man shook his head. “Pills won’t help her,” he said. “She’s eaten many such pills, and the best they do is mitigate her issue, not solve it. Solving her issues won’t be so simple as giving her a pill. It will require something else.”

Alex narrowed his eyes. “Are you sure about that? Do you mind if I ask how you know that?”

The old man took a deep breath.

“I know that, because she told me herself.”