Eternal Cultivation Of Alchemy

The night grew darker, and then it was a constant darkness. They couldn’t see anything because of the fog to begin with, so it wasn’t much of a loss.

They could still see some things, some silhouettes surrounding them. They were still cultivators capable of seeing in the dark, after all. But the prominence of those objects had lessened so much that there was pretty much no information that could be gathered at all.

“Is it true that time here flows faster than it does outside?” Bladedance asked the Primordial.

“That is correct,” the Guardian Tiger said without looking back.

“Is there a reason why that is the case?” she pressed.

“Because it would be far too boring to spend every day otherwise.”

Bladedance fell silent, not asking how someone like the cub, who was only a remnant, could feel boredom at all.

She turned toward Alex. “How can you sense Time aura?” she asked.

“I have had some fateful encounters in my life,” Alex said, not really explaining much. Explaining that would mean explaining that he was bonded to a Phoenix, and that was a bit too much information to give away.

Bladedance tried to pry out some more information from him, but she gave up once she saw that there was going to be no answers.

The leaf drifted across the sea at a steady rate, but soon it became clear that it really was a massive sea. At this rate, it was going to take a few more hours before they reached the other side.

After a while, the three began growing bored of the constant, mind-numbing fog.

The three began asking the cub a few more questions, trying to gather however much information they could. They got half as many answers as they thought they would get, and less than half of them were half as clear as they deserved.

Still, they were happy with what they received.

Bladedance learned more about the God realm and the reason behind the downfall of the Primordials. Alex wasn’t surprised to learn that information, as he had already received it from Rosemist.

For Bladedance, the information wasn’t a surprise either, but it was confirmation of something that had only been a theory at best until now.

God Qi existed in the past, but after a certain point, it had begun to degrade. That had brought on the fall of the Primordials.

She did ask how long it was after their fall that the war had started, but the Guardian Tiger wasn’t sure. It was not an answer he could give her.

The old man asked about the Sunhearts. The Sunhearts had appeared out of nowhere in the past, allowing the beasts to survive what should’ve been certain death. The old man wanted to understand where they had come from.

“Is that what you call them?” the Guardian Tiger asked. “In my time, we called them Yang Core. Most, if not all, beasts were born with a Yang core back then.”

“Is this… before the humans?” the old man asked.

“Long before,” the Guardian Tiger said. “All beasts had them. But over time, they grew to not needing them. And once they were capable of cultivating, they naturally stopped creating one at birth.”

“The emergence of a world full of Yang merely forced them to return to how they were in the past.”

Both Alex and Bladedance were surprised by this information as well. Sunhearts were supposed to be unique to Hell, but if the Guardian Tiger was correct — which it most certainly had to be — then any beast in any part of the world could form it in its body.

Alex asked a few questions as well, mostly trying to get answers regarding the two gods and how they fit in conversation with the Primordials. He mostly wanted to be certain that he understood what the Primordial meant about its Father’s aura and Mother’s blessing.

But no matter how much he questioned it, it didn’t reveal a single fact at all. Alex gave up on that question, thinking of something else to ask.

“Do you know what a Child of Heaven is?” Alex asked.

Bladedance perked up when he asked that question. “How do you know that term?” she asked.

Alex turned toward her. “Do you know what that is, senior?” he asked her.

The woman’s eyes darted around for a bit before shaking her head. “Do not ask that question aloud. Those are not questions you want an answer to.”

Alex frowned. What was so dangerous about that question?

“A Child of Heaven?” the cub turned around, its eyes curious. “I have never heard of it before. Could you tell me some more about it?”

“Uh…” Alex’s eyes moved toward Bladedance for a split second before turning back toward the cub. “A friend of mine said she was a Child of Heaven.”

“A friend?” Bladedance’s eyes narrowed. “That can’t be.”

She couldn’t see that being true at all. He wouldn’t have been in Hell if he was.

“Was there anything special about this friend of yours?” the cub asked. “Any interesting physique or maybe special cultivation techniques?”

“None,” Alex said. “But she is special. She said that she was not a human, beast, or a plant. But rather that she was a spirit, but one formed on its own.”

“A spirit that formed on its own?” the cub said, its eyes narrowing. “That’s not possible. For a spirit to form out of nothing, they would have to be… oh. I see. Is that what they call themselves now?”

“Is there something else they are supposed to be called?” Alex asked.

“Nothing special. In our time, they would be known as simple spirits,” the cub said. “But they were few and far in between. Child of Heaven… that is a fitting name.”

“What are they?” Alex asked.

“For their sake, I shall not say,” the cub said. “The information is dire enough that the knowledge might kill them, were they not careful. Ask them yourself. Should they find it worth taking the risk to tell you, they will.”

Alex turned toward Bladedance in hope that she would say something, but she nodded as well.

Alex sighed in the end. It seemed he would only get the answer from Rosemist herself.