Eternal Cultivation Of Alchemy

News of Pearl and the others being ready to break through reached Alex one after another.

Pearl was the first one to leave his Soul Space and appear outside to break through. He had already completely turned all four of his Origins into Spirits, which made breaking through a lot easier for him.

Scarlet was next, and she too broke through a lot faster.

The others broke through as well, but unlike the ones breaking through to a new realm, they didn’t need to appear outside of the Soul Space.

By the time Alex had ended up exhausting his resources, he wasn’t the only one who had progressed quite far.

Helen had reached the Immortal Transcendent 7th realm.

Liz had reached the Immortal Transcendent 4th realm.

Long Huan had reached the Immortal Origin 9th realm.

Whisker had reached the Immortal Transcendent 9th realm and was now working on his Spirits.

Graham, older Alex, and Emily had cultivated a lot as well, but they hadn’t made any meaningful progress, sadly. Their talent in Qi cultivation was simply too weak to do anything.

Alex himself was close to breaking through as well, but sadly he hadn’t managed to by the time the resources had run out. He was close enough, however, that he was sure even without using any of them, he could reach it in no time.

Enough time had passed that less than a decade remained now. For the first time since his return from the tournament, Alex decided to spend his time on something other than cultivating. He found his way to his master’s courtyard to try and talk with her, but upon learning that she was cultivating, he let her be and trained with Swiftslash once again.

Swiftslash was happy to train Alex. Training him meant getting closer to full atonement toward Bladedance, which he most sincerely wished for. They trained for some time with little rest in between as Alex pushed himself as much as he could.

At the same time, the formation inside his Soul Space could continue once again so the others could start cultivating in a faster environment.

Bladedance came out of her cultivation session a few months in.

”You’re out,” Bladedance said with a nod. ”Come here.”

Alex walked over to her. ”Did something happen, Master?” he asked in a whisper.

Bladedance gave a half-hearted nod. ”Newheaven apparently talked to him, but it seems he had been guessing. In fact, the very fact that she talked to him about it confirmed it for him far more than his conversation with you.”

Alex frowned. ”But he appeared very confident about it.”

”Maybe, but she also talked to the three, and they haven’t talked about it at all. Battlesage is the only one who probably would out of all three, but even he knows to remain quiet about it,” she explained.

Alex scratched his head. ”Then was it really just a hunch?”

Bladedance shrugged. ”At this moment, it could be whatever he wants us to believe it is. Our only option is to hope he doesn’t spread it.”

”And what about what he tried to do to me?” Alex asked.

”He says he did nothing, and we have no proof he did,” Bladedance said.

”My body reacted to something for certain,” Alex said.

”I trust you, but if even Sunflare noticed nothing, I don’t see how we are ever going to prove he did something without doing something akin to forcing him to consume Truth-seeking pills.”

Alex thought for a moment. ”When we were in hell, you forced me to speak the truth, Master. Can you not do that with him?”

”Your Spiritual Energy is far weaker compared to his. He is the Mind God, after all. He’s so strong that he may as well have the strongest Divine Sense out of all Divinities, comparable to Celestials. I cannot do anything to him at all,” Bladedance answered. ”Even if I did, that would only give him reason to go spreading the information.”

Alex frowned. That was the most annoying part of the entire thing. The Mind God had leverage over them. Logic dictated he wouldn’t leak that information to anyone, as the leverage would likely be worth more to him than whatever he could gain from leaking the info.

If nothing else, Alex trusted the man to be greedy enough to keep all the information to himself. That would be good. That way, he would have to deal with one God instead of dozens.

”Are you training with Swiftslash?” she asked, looking behind him. ”Keep training. I’m sure you can improve soon.”

”Yes,” Alex said. ”I’m getting the hang of how Dao Swords are formed as well. I think. It shouldn’t be much longer before I form them entirely.”

Bladedance smiled. ”Going from Sword Heart to Dao Sword is always easy. Since you’ve separated yourself from your Sword, your Sword is always looking for something to attach itself to. And Dao is one of the easiest things it can attach to.”

”Well, I don’t know how easy it really is. It’s been decades, and I’m still not fully there,” Alex said with a sigh.

Bladedance snorted. ”I long for the day when you say dumb shit like this in the presence of other swordsmen, so I can watch them beat you for being such a braggart.”

Alex blinked. ”I was really just speaking from my perspective alone, but I suppose I get your point. I’ll try not to sound very spoiled.”

”Just go train.”

”Yes!”

Alex returned to train with Swiftslash once again and kept training for a long time before deciding to return to the courtyard. While he would love to train his Sword skills alone, there was still the matter of forming his Spirit, as well as learning the Dao of Radiance.

That wasn’t even mentioning the fact that he had to break through as well.

There may only be less than a decade’s time now before the day of the duel, but Alex still had a lot to do before then.