Eternal Cultivation Of Alchemy

Before any of the people standing in a line could issue a challenge to Alex or the girls, Alex spoke out loud enough for everyone to hear him say something important.

”I can tell you all right now, if you challenge me, I will place the bet in the thousands,” he said. ”Unless you have enough to spare, I suggest you don’t challenge me.”

His words were enough to deter a few people, especially those who had seen firsthand what he could do during his contest with Firefang. However, there were plenty who either didn’t notice or didn’t care and were happy to challenge them.

Some even thought of calling Alex’s bluff.

They were wrong.

The first man Alex was challenged by, Alex immediately placed the bet of their battle at 2000 stars. Upon hearing the amount, the man’s face fell. The chances of him winning in a random match were high, at least according to what he could sense, but it was still a lot of stars to put up on a bet.

In the end, he gave up and handed over the star.

Alex took the star and looked in the women’s direction. They were challenged as well and had begun fighting as per Alex’s instruction.

Seeing that, Alex turned toward the group of people who had stood in a line. Before he could even tempt someone to try and challenge him, several rushed forward to do exactly that, and one of them ended up succeeding.

Alex didn’t increase the bet this time around and instead chose to fight the man normally. Normally, for him, meant without using his sword, his Qi, or his body. He relied entirely on his Intent to do things, giving his opponent a hell of a fight.

Nearly everyone watching the fight was incapable of understanding what was even happening. Very few people had even guessed that it likely had something to do with Intent. Not that they understood how that worked at all.

Alex had a hard time fighting this person, but in the end, he won against him after a long fight.

As soon as the battle ended, several people challenged him once again.

That was exactly the strategy these people relied on. They challenged someone one after another, attempting to fight strength with numbers. Alex could seriously fight 10 people in a row perhaps. Or maybe even 20. Even if he could fight 50 people in a row and beat all of them, he would be tired by the end of it. He would be weakened and need to rest, not to mention recover Qi.

He wouldn’t get that chance.

With 2000 people standing in wait to challenge him the moment he was done with a challenge, as soon as he was tired, they would destroy him by drowning him in never-ending challenges that he could not respond to.

There were only two flaws to the plan, however, and both of them boiled down to just a single thing.

They were trying to use it against Alex.

Alex had to agree that it was a very good plan that these people were using to stave off others from using the South End Marker. In fact, Alex was beginning to wonder if the South End Marker wasn’t actually their true target but just a honeypot meant to attract new people.

They would then come out of nowhere and bleed these people dry, forcing them to leave. It was a good plan if that was in fact a deliberate plan.

Alex lost one battle in 7 different ones, and that mostly had to do with the usage of a rare Sound Dao that Alex didn’t know enough to fight against. He didn’t tell any of the people who challenged him, but internally, Alex gave up the moment any attacks reached him.

This was just the first in 7 to do so.

As soon as Alex conceded, he was thrown into another challenge.

Alex took a moment to focus on the women.

They were doing more or less fine, but he could tell that they were getting tired now. Especially his mother, who was being forced to expend a lot more Qi than the other two.

Liz fought with her sword and Sword Qi for most of the fight, and Ronron relied on her Wood Daos. Helen fought the best way she knew, and it took more out of her than the others. He watched them for a few moments longer, enough to understand that after maybe 5 more such challenges, they would be forced to rest.

Alex had to prepare for that.

He barely even glanced at his challenger and put 1000 stars into the bet. His challenger gave up almost immediately. No one wanted to risk that many stars.

Alex kept an eye on the women through the next few challenges, until he realized that their performance was dropping. Their training would hardly show any result if they kept at it.

’Well, time to give them some space then,’ Alex thought as he watched the three.

He waited until they were challenged and began their battle. He waited a little more, while he himself was challenged and in the middle of battle. The moment he realized it was time, he conceded.

The man who had challenged him didn’t see it coming until the star was already flying in his direction. When he caught it, Alex was already gone.

He looked around, searching for Alex. So did everyone else who had suddenly seen him vanish. As they tried to figure out what was happening, Alex suddenly reappeared, but this time deeper among them all.

”Let’s do this then,” Alex said, making use of the flaw in the community’s plan.

The first flaw was that they were fighting Alex. They had believed their plan would be enough to tire him out. Instead, they had barely even scratched the surface.

And secondly, they thought they could waste his time and stars by endlessly challenging him.

Alex knew how to change that.

”To everyone who can hear this,” he said with enough power in his voice to be heard all around. ”I challenge you all.”