Eternal Cultivation Of Alchemy

Scarlet let out a soft gasp. “It’s a blood beast right? Why does it look so different?” she asked, taking a closer look afterward. “You made a blood beast out of an Azure Dragon’s core? That is dangerous if the Azure Dragons find out.”

Alex narrowed his eyes. “Do you not recognize him?” he asked.

“Recognize what?” Scarlet asked, looking at the blood beast’s face with even more attention. She froze for a moment, realizing. “Is this… Tianchui?”

The Azure Dragon gave a look of surprise as well. “Do you recognize me?”

Scarlet’s eyes widened even further. “HE CAN TALK?!”

Ningzhu and Xianhei gave confused looks. Neither of them knew Tianchui by his name, and his current form meant little to them even though they could see the strangeness of it all.

“You must know who I am,” Tianchui said. “My apologies. My

memories aren’t so good. I don’t know who you are.”

“You don’t remember me?” Scarlet asked. “We went down to the lower realm together.”

Tianchui blinked for a moment. “Feng… Nuanhuo,” he said,

remembering the name of the phoenix that had left with him. “Is that you?”

“Yes, that’s me,” Scarlet said. “Do you remember me now?”

“Only the name,” Tianchui said. “Being reborn has caused me to lose many of my memories.”

“That’s understandable. If you could come back to life with all your memories, my own death and rebirth wouldn’t have been so special,” Scarlet said.

“Daughter, what’s going on?” Xianhei finally asked, unable to hide her curiosity anymore. “This young dragon was reborn?”

“In a way,” Scarlet answered. “He-“

Her words stuck to her throat, frozen in that moment as Alex quickly asked her not to reveal anything about the Blood Beasts. “He…” she continued. “His memories were given form, it seems. Not actual rebirth.”

“How?” her grandfather asked, curiosity peaking.

Scarlet turned to Alex with pleading eyes. She had no excuses to make here.

Alex sighed. Maybe it was better not to hide everything. “This is Qing Tianchui, Pearl’s father,” he quickly introduced them. “His memories were temporarily given life through a very rare circumstance.”

Both phoenixes were surprised. “Is that so? What is he made of?”

“Blood and Yang,” Alex explained.

The two beasts could hardly understand how that worked in the slightest. They asked a few questions, and Alex answered as much as he could, relying on the fact that he could say the strange circumstances had taken place in Hell to avoid most of the questions.

As long as he gave them the impression that such an occurrence was impossible to replicate, they hopefully wouldn’t ask again. The topic thankfully switched not long after, only for it to head directly toward Pearl’s trial.

“I failed,” Pearl answered Scarlet. “I was 8 years in out of the 10 years when I failed.”

“You… failed?” Scarlet said, unable to believe her ears. “You ate the elixir too, right?”

“Yes.”

“And you lost?”

Pearl gave an awkward smile. “There were circumstances I could not avoid. I more or less failed on a technicality rather than losing to

someone.”

“Oh,” Scarlet said, nodding slowly. She hadn’t been to Fighting Island even once, so she wasn’t entirely sure how things went on there.

“Wait, so what’s the punishment?”

“I’ve been kicked out of the palace and won’t get to enjoy the benefits within the palace,” Pearl said. “Not that I was going to.”

“Makes sense. If you’re not going to stay here, there’s really no point,” Scarlet said. “Speaking of which, when am I leaving?”

“Are you really that much in a hurry to abandon us?” Scarlet’s mother asked.

Scarlet gave a strange look. “But you said-“

Xianhei laughed. “I’m joking. Yes, you can leave. With everything I’ve seen, it would be foolish of me to try and keep you here. You would

never grow!”

Ningzhu laughed louder than anyone. “Hard to believe my daughter is speaking like this. Just 10 years before and she would’ve been

screaming to keep little Huo home.”

Scarlet’s mother gave an aggrieved look before turning around to the rest. “You all plan on leaving for the Sun’s Talon realm soon, right?”

she asked.

“In a few months,” Alex said. “We’re making the final preparations. So

we came to get Scarlet.”

“Really? Even though you still have a few months?”

“I’m going, mother,” Scarlet said, wanting to hear nothing negative about her decision.

“I wasn’t going to stop you,” Scarlet’s mother said with a sigh. She turned toward Alex and the rest. “Please take care of my daughter. Despite her age, she hasn’t seen much of the world. The only place

outside of the palace she’s been to is the lower realm, and that’s not enough to know of the world.”

“Mother!” Scarlet sounded embarrassed.

Alex smiled widely. “Don’t worry, senior. I’ll take good care of your daughter. She’s family to me after all.”

Xianhei finally gave a wide smile.

“Do you plan on staying here for long?” Ningzhu asked. “The matriarch

is currently in closed cultivation, so she won’t meet you. But I’m sure I will be able to host you all the same.”

Alex smiled and shook his head. “We have important things to prepare for, so I will have to decline your offer, senior.” He paused for a moment, a thought coming to him. “Although, if I can have you do something for me, I would be very grateful.”

Ningzhu perked up. “What do you want?”

Alex moved in closer. “I need a large amount of blood, preferably all phoenixes out there,” he said.

Ningzhu frowned immediately. “What?”

Alex nodded. “It sounds absurd and-“

“It is absurd,” the phoenix said. “Do you understand what you’re

asking?”

“I do,” Alex said. “But, in exchange for helping me with this, I can give something back to the Vermilion Birds as well.” He brought out a small talisman and handed it over to Ningzhu.

Ningzhu took the talisman with some apprehension before reading what it said. When he was done, his eyes went wide in surprise. He looked down at the talisman and then at Alex, doing his utmost to

stop himself from sounding shaken. “Can you really do it?”