Eternal Cultivation Of Alchemy

The woman watched with careful eyes as Alex ate the pills and waited as they took effect. She wondered what exactly those effects were. If her Divine Senses were any stronger, she could’ve seen directly into his body, but constrained as she was, she could not sense any outer change at all.

Whatever had happened to Alex was on the inside.

Alex brought out a sword and held it aloft, ready to attack.

She waited for him to attack, but Alex had his eyes closed, as if focusing on something very important. She couldn’t help but wonder what it was that he was thinking about. Or was it the effect of the pills he had eaten? Did they allow him to sense something?

‘How long are his preparations going to last?” she wondered. ‘I need to go back before anyone realizes that I’m-‘

Her eyes widened in an instant as something changed. She felt the world around her crumble as everything she had control over was taken away from her palm in that very moment.

At the same time, she sensed something coming down on her neck. She thought of dodging, but somehow, it was already too late. She didn’t even have the time to put her hand up to block the attack as the sword struck her neck with all its force.

The woman stood right where she was at the end of it all, the attack far too weak to do anything more than leave a minor scratch on her skin that would disappear if she scrubbed it right then.

However, the shock she felt from it was far worse.

She… had been hit. How was that possible? How could she not have reacted? If there was one thing she could boast about herself, then it was her speed. And today, she had failed to dodge an attack? That too from an Immortal?

This couldn’t be happening.

She turned around, staring at the real Alex. The one that had closed its eyes at a distance had been his duplicate that he left behind as a distraction. It hadn’t worked last time, but it worked today.

Alex struggled to stay up at the moment, his entire body going numb as a result of overusing his spiritual energy. He had thought eating the three pills had been overkill at first, but now, he was glad he had eaten them-especially the third one-or else he would have fallen unconscious and missed the expression on the woman’s face.

He felt a strong Qi surrounding him just then and was worried he had angered the woman. However, the Qi was only there to support him. There was nothing in the woman’s heart at that moment other than shock and curiosity.

“What… did you do?” she asked, her hand unconsciously going to her neck to feel it. “How did you hit me?”

Alex grinned, taking deep breaths. “I figured it out.”

“Figured what out?” the woman asked.

“Your question,” Alex said, feeling a lot better as time went on. The pill to rejuvenate his spiritual energy was quickly filling his empty sea. As he stood up straighter, he reiterated the woman’s question back to her.

“What’s the fastest creature in water?”

The woman paused for a moment. “And that helped you?”

“It did,” Alex said. “I had to ask myself why you would ask me such a strange question. And as I thought about it, I realized you might’ve been giving me a hint behind your speed. I don’t understand how it works exactly, but… that is your Axiom, isn’t it?”

The woman’s eyes widened. “You know about Axioms?”

“I do,” Alex said. “And as such, all I really had to do was stop your Axiom, and you wouldn’t be able to keep up the speed anymore.”

“And you found a way to do that with your current strength,” the woman said with surprise.

“Took more effort than you might think,” Alex said. “I spent a year trying to understand your Axiom to get better attuned to it. I thought I was ready, and even then, it nearly wiped my spiritual sea clean just to stop it from working for a single second.”

The woman’s eyes brightened. “The fact that you were able to stop it for a single second is beyond my expectations already,” she said. “I never thought an Immortal Transcendent realm cultivator could do that.”

“I happen to have a lot more spiritual energy than just that,” Alex said. He kept it hidden that he also used his own Axiom to fight back against hers to give him an edge. Without it, he would’ve likely knocked himself out before he did anything to her.

The woman laughed out loud. “Incredible!” she said. “I never would’ve imagined you finding a way to actually hit me. I never really planned for it at all. And it took you just three years too.”

“I would’ve done it months ago,” Alex said.

“Why didn’t you?” she asked.

“Because I wasn’t ready,” Alex said. “I might’ve been ready had you just

been a mere Divinity. But, given how freely you use your Axiom, I am certain you aren’t even applying it to your surroundings. It just exists

on its own, doesn’t it?”

The woman’s eyes narrowed. “So… you know.”

“That you’re a Celestial?” Alex asked. “Yes, I figured it out.”

The woman was shocked for a long moment. “That was going to be

part of the thing I was going to reveal for you surprising me,” she said, letting out a dry laugh. “I guess my identity will have to do now.”

“I believe I know who you are already,” Alex said.

“You… do?” she asked.

“A Celestial who primarily uses Water Qi reduced the possible candidates by a lot,” Alex said. “And of those, there can only be one that knows of me as a human.”

The woman smiled. “Who am I?”

“Xuan Qukuang, isn’t that right?” Alex asked. “You’re the snake half of the Black Tortoise Matriarch, aren’t you?”