Eternal Cultivation Of Alchemy

The commotion was enough to get the attention of the gods. After all, no cultivator would be okay with having their privacy intruded on without being told.

Many participants began voicing their anger and disappointment and demanded an explanation.

Alex couldn’t help but worry about what this meant. Had his secrets been stolen already? Even if the artifact knew nothing else, did it know the size of his Soul Space? That was a secret alone big enough to cause gods to get jealous.

He felt fluctuations in the air for a moment and at the next moment, a person stood next to him. He looked at the suddenly arriving individual and was shocked to recognize who it was.

It was the Formation Monarch, lord of an entire realm.

He had his back turned toward Alex as he wasn’t here for him, but rather Aethersage.

“You understand what that formation does?” the Formation Monarch asked. It was difficult to discern what his emotions were from his voice alone.

“I do,” Aethersage said, neither cowering nor getting ecstatic at the sight of the Formation God.

“Have you seen this formation before?” the man asked.

“No,” Aethersage said. “I only know what it does by looking at it.”

Alex couldn’t see if the Formation God had some sort of look on his face, but he did notice a slight twitch around the side of his cheeks.

“You know a lot about formations then?” the man asked.

“I have dabbled in it, senior,” he answered.

The situation was not just wild for the many participants who got to see a god up close, but also for the Divine realm woman who stood bowing toward the Formation God. She could not imagine the thought of someone speaking to a God this way.

The young man had barely used any words that were fit for a God, and yet the Formation God didn’t seem to be angered.

“Lies,” the Formation God said, but his voice held no hostility. “No person who simply dabbled in formation could understand what my formation does. You need to have spent a lot of time learning if nothing.”

“That I won’t argue against, senior,” Aethersage said. “I had practiced it a lot before I got into Alchemy.”

The Formation God raised an eyebrow. “Why did you move to Alchemy?” he asked.

Aethersage simply shrugged. “I learned everything I had to learn in regards to Formations,” he said. “I was looking for new challenges.”

The Formation God paused for a long second before bursting out in laughter. “You… You say you learned everything there was to learn about Formation?” he asked.

Aethersage cowered a bit for the first time, hearing the Formation’s God question. “Everything I could learn, yes. I do not claim I can do everything, just that I have the knowledge. I still need to improve my cultivation base before I come to make use of my knowledge.”

The Formation God said nothing and brought out something instead. A formation plate. He showed it to Aethersage and asked, “What does this do?”

Aethersage took the formation and looked at it for a mere 5 seconds before answering. “Ice formation, with added Yin power. Meant to trap people or beings with a high affinity to the Fire element. It reduces their Fire energy and makes it improve all attacks related to Yin and Water.”

The Formation God slowly took back the formation plate, seemingly shocked. “What’s your name?” he asked.

“Aethersage, senior,” the young man said.

“Aethersage…” he mulled over the name for a while before nodding. “Would you like to be my heir?”

The single sentence caused the entire group of participants to be thrown into a frenzy. A God was asking someone to be their heir.

Aethersage seemed troubled at that moment. “I… I…”

“You don’t have to answer right away,” the God said. “Take your time. If you wish to waste your years taking part in this tournament, do so. When this is over, before I leave, I will come to ask you again. Have your answer ready by then.”

The Formation God turned around and left, leaving behind deafening silence. Something incredible had just happened and everyone got to witness it. Aethersage seemed stunned enough that he didn’t know what to do.

All eyes were on him and he was not used to this. He got nervous.

A single clap took away everyone’s attention back to the sky. The Alchemy God stood in the sky once again.

“If I may have your attention, I would like to answer some questions that everyone has on their mind. You all wonder why we have put something that invades your privacy on you. That is by design. It is not something sneaky to steal your secrets, but rather to force you to think twice before you even use the treasures in your Soul Space.”

“The artifact does not record what you have inside of your Soul Space. Just what comes out of it. This is an attempt to stop you from cheating, even if accidentally,” the Alchemy God said. “To be truthful, we could have placed a treasure on you that stops you from using your Soul Space entirely, but we believe that is worse as there come situations in life when you have to put your own life before the competition, so you may need things within your Soul Space.”

“Since every artifact that you deem necessary to you will be outside in the storage bag with you, you will not need it,” the God explained.

Alex took a few seconds to take in the information. So did this mean he was safe? His secrets weren’t stolen, right?

Since he had already activated the medallion, there were things inside of his Soul Space that he could no longer use. The most important of all that was inside his Soul Space was Whisker.

Did this mean he couldn’t bring out Whisker without the artifact knowing that he could store life in his Soul Space? That was bad. It meant that he couldn’t bring out Whisker for a long time.

‘Urgh! Whisker needs to learn more Dao though,’ Alex thought. That was troubling. How was he supposed to help Whisker now?

Someone far away shouted a question that everyone wanted to ask.

“How long do we need to wear this artifact?” they shouted.

The Alchemy God gave a simple answer. “Until you either make the pill you were asked to make, or you are too late to pass.”

Alex felt slightly better. He could make the pill as soon as he could and he wouldn’t have to wear this for much longer. This was rather simple then.

‘I just need to get the Rat and Raven’s body parts,’ he thought. He didn’t know where he was going to get it from just yet, but he could ask his master.

As Alex thought that, he frowned for a second. The status quo had changed, hadn’t it? Things were different now from what they were just moments ago.

He looked down at the medallion that kept track of everything that came out of his Soul Space in order to make sure he wasn’t using it.

Why did he think he had all the rest of the ingredients? The rest of the ingredients were in his Soul Space.

And as of right now, he wasn’t allowed to use it at all.

“…”

“Shit!”