Eternal Cultivation Of Alchemy

Alex arrived at the Hands of the God to meet with Rosemist with just more than a month before the upcoming competition. Pearl and Momo were not here and were instead with Silvermist and Grimsight, traveling to Hardrock City at that very moment.

Alex needed to be there too as soon as he could. A message had been sent out everywhere around two months ago, telling them that they were all to get back as early as they could, for priority would be given to those that were there first.

There had been no other information about what this priority was for, but Alex didn’t intend to miss it. So, with more than a month remaining for the tournament, they had already left for it.

While everyone else made their way there, Alex had to take a small detour to learn more about himself. He had hoped that Rosemist would have the answer to his question, and thus he was here.

And yet…

“I’m sorry,” Rosemist said. “I do not have any information regarding that which you are seeking.”

“Nothing?” Alex asked. “So you can’t tell me why I skipped my Inner Demon too?”

“No,” Rosemist replied with an apologetic look on her face.

Alex slumped back against a tree, sighing. “I had hoped you could tell me what is going on with me. I was so looking forward to having answers.”

“I have many answers, but not those,” Rosemist said. “I’m sorry.”

“No, it’s alright,” Alex said. “I was the one who put my expectations on you. You shouldn’t be sorry for this.”

Rosemist nodded. “I can still give you some hypotheses if you are willing to listen to them,” she said.

Alex perked up. “Hypotheses?” he asked. “Anything. Please, don’t hesitate to tell me what could be the cause.”

Rosemist raised two fingers. “I see two possibilities of why this could be happening, though the way to confirm if either is true is beyond my capacity,” she said.

She put down one finger, leaving only the other one up. “First, it’s the thing that is causing my senses to tell me that you are a Child of Heaven,” she said.

Alex thought for a moment, considering the words, and nodded. “But you do not know what is causing you to think that, do you?” he asked.

“No, I do not,” she said. “But the Inner Demon is a product of Heaven too, standing before a cultivator internally instead of externally as lightning tribulation.”

Alex paused for a moment. “That’s… that’s correct,” he said. “The Inner Demon is of the Heaven too. It’s so easy to believe it to be a product of your own weak mind.”

“It is indeed,” Rosemist said. “You can’t get Inner Demons in places where the Heaven can’t reach, such as beyond the sky where Heaven’s eyes cannot see.”

Alex nodded. “But I am not in outer space,” he said.

“So, getting back on topic, you do not get an Inner Demon because the Heaven cares for you, like a child. No parents want a child to face danger, and you may be so as well.”

“But you confirmed that I am not a Child of Heaven, did you not? I am just a human, born of two mortals,” Alex said.

“I confirmed that you are special, despite being a human. Besides, it’s not as though humans can’t do what a Child of Heaven does, albeit in part. The Half-Gods do it all the time.”

Alex got curious, but this was a matter regarding the Child of Heaven, which he had promised not to ask about for another 30 years. She would tell him more about this and more about herself when it was time for him to leave.

“So your conclusion is that the Heaven cares for me, correct?” Alex asked.

“A mere hypothesis,” Rosemist said. “There is another possibility still, and it is the fact that there is something special about you or something you hold that is making the Heaven difficult to understand you. Maybe you hide, even from the Heaven.”

Alex took this possibility into consideration and quickly tossed it aside. “That’s not possible. I have learned a Dao in the past decade, and I have faced lightning tribulation when Whisker broke through right here a decade ago. The Heavens do see me.”

“They see you, yes,” Rosemist said. “But do they see your soul?”

Alex froze. “My soul?”

Rosemist nodded. “A regular cultivator’s soul is open for the Heaven to see, but yours may not be so. Maybe it hides from even Heaven, making it fail to understand that which makes you scared and cannot provide a necessary foe for your mind to defeat.”

The potential of this hypothesis went up in Alex’s mind after Rosemist’s explanation. ‘My soul,’ he thought. ‘Hiding from the Heaven? Why? How?’

Alex could see the potential in the first hypothesis, especially as someone with the Sun God’s body. There was a possible explanation there and some evidence to enforce that potential.

The Heaven could’ve skipped Alex, for he shared something with them. But that hadn’t happened before, so why would it happen now? Still, there was a chance that this was the answer.

For the second hypothesis, however, Alex couldn’t see how he could be hiding his soul from the Heaven. He hadn’t learned any technique that allowed him to do so, and for the past century, he had just been cultivating the same techniques he had. There was nothing else new to him that could do this.

Unless…

Unless he counted Godslayer.

During these past many decades, Godslayer had been continuously improving himself with energy so vast and so strong that the only reason Alex hadn’t been destroyed was that he was keeping it at bay, improving himself as a result.

Would such a large amount of aura in his mind explain this?

‘Could Godslayer’s presence in my Spiritual Sea have warped my spirit and soul in a way that the Heaven can’t locate it anymore?’ Alex wondered.

What was the more possible cause?

Was it the Gods?

Or…

Was it Godslayer?