Eternal Cultivation Of Alchemy

Two horns appeared on the beast’s head, flaming red and entirely illusory. Alex caught sight of their appearance and raised an eyebrow. For a moment, he wondered what technique the beast was using, only to later realize this wasn’t a technique at all.

It was the beast’s Spirit manifestation.

Which meant that the beast’s horns were most likely going to be its Creations. Spirits were strange in that they could not directly be used, so Alex waited to see how the beast was planning on using it. The beast took in a deep breath and exhaled, and Alex felt the temperature around him increase significantly. “Oh?” he said with slightly raised brows as he waited for whatever was to come next. “Let me see if you can keep hiding your cultivation base after this,” the beast said, its body slowly changing. Within a second, the human turned into a black ox, its flaming horn now overlapping its regular horns.

It was ferocious in appearance, and the moment it showed itself, its hooves began glowing red as well. It suddenly moved, leaving flaming hoofprints behind as it charged toward Alex with a speed it hadn’t shown before.

Alex felt the Dao of Fire enveloping the ox, giving it greater strength. It charged with its head in hopes of impaling him.

Alex sighed a little upon seeing that. He would rather have the beast keep its distance from him so he could train his Sword Intent. It was hard to train his sword in close combat.

His left hand shot forward right as the ox arrived, its horns smashing into his palm. The ox heard a snap and was happy for a moment before horror filled its mind along with the realization that the snap had been its own horns.

Pain came second but was no less intense.

Before the ox could scream, Alex grabbed it by its other good horn and tossed it into the distance where it crashed into the ground with explosive force, leaving behind a crater.

Without even bothering to check if the ox was alive or not, Alex shook his head with disappointment and left. There wasn’t much else for him to do there.

The land became a blur for him again as he flew through the sky at tremendous speed. It wasn’t the fastest he could go, but the fastest his Qi could allow him. With his Qi being close to the Immortal Spirit 1st realm in comparison, he wasn’t slow.

He deactivated the earring from time to time, learning where Pearl was. The more he moved, the better he honed in on Pearl’s location. Thankfully, it seemed the two of them were dropped relatively close to each other, so it didn’t take him more than a single day.

Once he gained an accurate direction as to where Pearl was, he kept the earring deactivated and followed the direction.

When Alex finally saw Pearl, he was still a few kilometers away, moving through sparse woods toward a giant monolith in the distance made entirely of metal.

“The artifact, Alex thought, remembering something about certain artifacts being spread around the land that had many purposes, the most important one being that they constantly scanned their surroundings for any Divine realm cultivator.

Considering no one had caught him just yet, he would likely be fine. Still, he didn’t wish to get too close.

‘I can stay this far away,’ Alex thought. ‘I can keep an eye on him without him ever looking to fall back on my aid!

It was really just the White Tiger purists that he was here to help Pearl against, and even then, only if they weren’t playing by the rules.

Alex’s eyes moved toward the monolith again, his purple irises glowing slightly. He saw multiple auras in that direction and knew

that at any moment now, Pearl would come across those beasts lying in wait.

The locations around these artifacts were perfect for ambushes, so Alex looked forward to seeing how Pearl was going to get out of his situation.

******

Pearl was surrounded.

The three figures had hidden themselves quite well in the trees and only revealed themselves after he had entered their encirclement. He looked around the trees, noticing the two women and the single man. They all looked the same with their blue hair and pure black eyes. One of the women was behind him, with a younger appearance and taller stature than the one before him. She had a slightly narrow face, while the older woman ahead of him had a chubbier look to her.

The man had a flat nose, and he too stood behind Pearl, cutting off his escape route.

If Pearl didn’t know better, he would’ve guessed all three to be siblings. But the greater possibility was that they were just from the same family. Beasts tended to show similar human features when transformed if they were of the same species.

Pearl held his spear tightly and stared at the older woman before him, who was clearly the leader-or at least the strongest of the group with an Immortal Spirit cultivation base.

“Can I assume that you have no wish to let me go on ahead without

fighting?” he asked.

“Without fighting?” the woman asked with an amused expression. “The situation is much more dire than that. You are going to die soon.”

Pearl wasn’t surprised, but he still had to question it. “Really? But why? Wouldn’t it be enough if you just defeated me?”

“We get better rewards if we kill,” the woman behind him shouted.

“He doesn’t need to know anything, cousin,” the man said. “Let’s just

be done with it.”

The man moved the moment he said this, his fingers turning into sharp talons as he came down on Pearl.

Pearl flipped his spear backward while the space between him and his attacker collapsed to almost nothing. With the tiniest backstab, Pearl’s spear went through the man’s throat.

When space returned to normal, Pearl pulled his spear out, leaving a bloody hole in the attacker’s neck.

“You’re right,” Pearl said. “Let’s just be done with it.”