Eternal Cultivation Of Alchemy

While the scythe was still hot enough to burn anyone who wasn’t careful, its color slowly changed. The redness in its body vanished, replaced by a thick, almost suffocating Death aura.

Even so, Steelmind could tell this Death aura was different. It wasn’t the sort that would make his body sick or make him a dying man, but rather something entirely different.

The change the Death God had made to the aura had seemingly given it a transformation beyond anything he had ever seen before.

Bringing himself out of his stupor, he focused back on the task and waited for the right moment. As the scythe got blacker and blacker, almost as if it was an abyss swallowing all the light, Steelmind finally acted.

He forced Qi into the scythe’s blade, and with dexterous control over it, he split the Qi into nearly three thousand different parts, each moving nigh-independently as they formed the complex Qi-lines that Steelmind had come to form after a millennia.

This was the most important part of the whole creation process of the scythe, so he gave all of his focus to making this right. Even as his hands burned from the heat and blisters appeared on the surface, he continued, not giving a single thought to the pain he was suffering.

His mind was connected to each of the three thousand Qi threads that made the Qi-lines, controlling them in a specific pattern.

After what felt like hours to him, Steelmind finally reached the end and stopped. As he did, all life seemed to leave him at once, and he quickly dropped to the ground, losing consciousness.

When Steelmind came to, he was alone in a room, with Shen Yaojia sitting next to him in deep meditation. As he shuffled, her eyes opened and she quickly walked up to him.

“Master, are you awake?” she asked, quickly pulling something from

her Soul Space. “Here. The Alchemy God said to let you eat it as soon as you regained consciousness.”

Steelmind looked at the pill for a few seconds, sensing something from it. His eyes narrowed in surprise. “Is that… a Pill Soul?”

“I think so,” Shen Yaojia said with a great deal of surprise. “Amazing, is it not? He made it specifically for you.”

Steelmind took the pill absentmindedly and ate it. As the pill made its way through his body, it began taking effect almost immediately. The healing effect that came from the pill soothed both body and mind at once. Steelmind immediately felt more awake than he already was.

As the healing effect faded away, he felt something settle next to his heart. The Pill Soul slumbered there, ready to produce the same effect as the pill should he need it sometime in the future.

It took Steelmind a while to take his focus away from the Pill Soul, and he finally got out of his bed. Memories of what had happened slowly returned to him and he frowned.

“I fell unconscious?” he asked.

“The Alchemy God said you had overexerted yourself while making an artifact and that your spirit had weakened tremendously,” she answered. “You should have woken up earlier, but you had apparently taken in a lot of Death aura, making it difficult for your body or other pills to take effect quickly.”

Steelmind’s eyes narrowed. “I’ve been out for days?” he asked.

“Today is the ninth day,” she said. “If not for the Alchemy God’s guarantee that you were absolutely fine, we would’ve been a lot more worried.”

Steelmind slowly nodded. “And where are the two gods?”

“They left,” Shen Yaojia said. “I asked them to wait, but they said there was no more reason for them to stay.”

“And they took the weapon with them?” he asked.

Shen Yaojia’s face was blank for a moment. “I found no weapon in the room. I wasn’t told what it was you were making, Master. Was it dangerous?” she asked.

“Not dangerous, just difficult,” he answered. “I made something for the Death God. If you didn’t find it, then she must have taken it with her.”

“Oh! She left something for you,” Shen Yaojia said, quickly pulling out a talisman. She handed it over. “It’s from the gods. They left on the second day of your being unconscious but told me to give this to you when you woke up.”

Steelmind took the talisman and realized it was a recorded message for him. He put it aside for now and sent his disciple away. She left behind a pill bottle with more healing pills before leaving.

Steelmind focused his attention on himself for a second, making sure nothing else was wrong with him. He was still a little weak, but not so much that a cultivation session wouldn’t solve it.

Realizing he was okay, he switched his attention back to the talisman in his hand and looked into it.

The Death God’s voice immediately came through, carrying with it a somber tone.

“It was a failure,” she said-the first few words of her message. Her sadness came through with those words as well. “We tried the scythe, and it failed to sever my physique from my body. Death aura still

continues to gush out of me.”

Steelmind felt disheartened to hear that. Never had he tried this hard to make something like this before, only for it to result in failure.

“I fear I might have made a mistake once again, or grown overconfident in my own ability to control Death aura. Either way, please do not consider this to be your fault,” she said. “Besides, while you might think I’ll die now, I’m not completely out of options. The metal was not the only thing I brought back from the Realm with

Realms, but that shouldn’t matter to you.”

“I will return to my cult now and see what my options are. If things

work out, or if we need your help again, we will be sure to visit you and hope you will welcome us.”

“For now, we must depart, as time is of the essence to a dying woman. Goodbye. May we meet each other again.”