Eternal Cultivation Of Alchemy

The words froze Alex in an instant, his mind going blank for a second. ‘They recognize my aura,’ he thought. “They know I’m the Sun God?’

The confusion only lasted for an instant as the need to answer the two voices’ questions triumphed over any other thought Alex could’ve produced in that moment. He calmed himself, attempting to put a hint of confidence in his voice.

“My name is Alex. I am a human, and…” he paused for a moment, the next few words taking a lot to speak. “I was born with the Sun God’s body and will become him in the future.”

The two voices didn’t answer immediately, but their pressure on his yang aura lasted for quite some time. Then, one of them spoke.

“We shall converse at a later time. Do not interfere with the process and restrain your aura.”

Alex’s yang aura flared up again, and Alex quickly calmed it down. Without the intent pressing on it, Alex pulled the aura back into his body. He waited for any attack to push it back out again, but nothing

came.

All Alex could hear then was the soft breathing of the two beasts as they relaxed from the pain they felt. He wanted to examine their body, find the reason their soul improved so much, but he couldn’t.

The fear of the two Divine Senses’ relation scared him. They were way too strong.

His eyes moved toward the two statues, both made of the Spiritbound Starmetal. “Their Divine Sense is strengthened because they are using that metal somehow. How are they transmitting their senses out of it?”

Alex highly doubted there were beasts inside those small statues. They wouldn’t fit. But artifact spirits weren’t known to have such strong Divine Sense, were they?

‘Well, I can’t forget that they could also hold souls of deceased beasts. They would be-‘ Alex paused. ‘Souls! Dammit, I knew I was forgetting something. Soulsteel!

Soulsteel was another name for the Spiritbound Starmetal that Alex had only just remembered. It was a metal that could house the soul of someone whose body had died. It could keep someone’s soul alive for a much longer period than if their soul was by itself.

From what Alex remembered, Soulsteel could all by itself allow a soul to handle a few different Immortal Tribulations. Each tribulation made it weaker, until it could protect them no longer.

‘Hmm, I see no damage in the slightest, Alex thought. ‘And yet, I cannot imagine this statue being new at all. How is that possible?’ Alex could hardly answer that question by himself. He had a few guesses at who the souls belonged to, but it all sounded so impossible in his head that Alex had to wait before the truth could be told to him.

The snake and tortoise inside the pool improved at a terrifying rate. Each improvement led to a bigger and bigger push that changed the two beings violently. As more time passed, the two beasts came closer and closer to looking entirely different from what they were before. The two beasts, previously brown and gray, were now fully black. And as the blood drained away from the pool again, Alex watched the two beasts come awake from their trance for the last time as they both realized that they had become a proper Black Tortoise.

Their eyes failed to hide the signs of their true excitement. Each one scanned their body, realizing all the changes that had occurred.

“Congratulations!” Alex spoke as the two turned around. “You have become a Black Tortoise.”

“Thank you, senior.”

“Thank you, senior.”

The two beasts answered at the same time and looked toward each

other with another look of surprise. It was as if they had just realized that they could read each other’s thoughts.

They had formed a bond.

Alex did not have the faintest clue how that had happened at all. The majority of the days he had been attentive regarding their changes had brought along nothing in the direction of them forming a bond.

So whatever had happened had been afterwards, when the two Divine Senses began interacting with the two beasts’ bodies.

The beasts remained around for a few minutes longer, making sure that they were in fact fully evolved before notifying the ones outside

and leaving.

Alex watched them go and turned as he was finally alone.

The blood that poured out of the statue was once again the same thin blood from the very start. Alex waited as it filled the pool, letting the two statues begin the conversation.

After what felt like nearly 20 minutes, they finally did.

“Why are you here?” the voice asked first.

Alex could barely tell that it was the tortoise statue speaking. He

didn’t want to misspeak, so he went through his answers before

speaking them out loud.

“The Black Tortoise Matriarch and ancestors gave me a chance to understand how a Black Tortoise’s evolution worked inside the Ancestral Blood Pool in exchange for my help to the family.”

Alex pulled out the medallion he was wearing, revealing that he hadn’t sneaked in here and was in fact meant to be there.

“What help?” the snake statue asked.

“I devised a method to condense the available bloodline of all Black Tortoise beasts into one that resembles the progenitor’s bloodline as closely as possible. I have also devised a way for them to absorb said blood to improve their bloodline without any wasted blood.”

The two statues remained silent for a while, both taking in the meaning of his words.

“Is that the truth?” the snake statue asked.

“Absolutely!”

“I see. Thank you.”

Neither of the statues said anything else.

Once Alex was done waiting for them to speak, he asked his own

questions.

“If you don’t mind me asking, who am I speaking to?” Alex asked.

There was but one name that ran through his mind, but he highly

doubted he would get that name.

And yet, the snake sounded happy to let him down.

“We are Xuan Heichen.”

Alex blinked.

That was the name of the Black Tortoise Progenitor.