Eternal Cultivation Of Alchemy

During the period between teaching Momo and testing her on her alchemy skills — the week of free time he had for himself — Alex focused all of it on improving his Provenance Duality technique.

Over the course of dozens of months, he inched forward with his improvement, coming ever so close to finally achieving what he wanted with the technique.

And then, nearly four years later, Alex did it. His technique was perfected.

He sat in his room, feeling the change in his Origin as his Qi fell back through the new pathway that was to be used for his technique. The success brought satisfaction like never before. He took a moment to internalize the new pathway he had created and observed the benefits of the pathway when it worked together with his Intent.

Alex could only wonder how long it would have taken him to perfect the technique without the Dao’s aid, if it was even possible at all.

Once Alex formulated it all into a technique, he rested for a day, doing nothing but internalizing the new information. He spent that time visiting Pearl and his master, dedicating the day to anything but cultivation.

For he knew that once he returned, he would be solely focused on it.

As the time approached, he took out one of the cultivation pills his master had provided and consumed it before getting ready. As the pill’s effect began to take hold, he started cultivating as well.

The first hour was simple cultivation, merely to get him into the rhythm of things and to bring his Dantian back to full. Then, once it was full, he used his new technique.

Qi flowed out of both sides of his Dantian, following a specific path as it made its way through his body, ascending toward his mind. When the flow of Qi reached his mind, aided by his Intent, it transformed into a technique that began suffusing the energy into his Spiritual Sea.

The sensation of the action was something familiar to Alex. Having improved his Blood Origin for a while now, he wasn’t fazed as the energy flowed from his body into his Spiritual Sea.

And still, with the new technique, he was surprised by how much stronger the energy was.

Unlike the Blood Aura used for Blood Origin, this was pure energy with no attributes. Thanks to the Yin Bead and Yang Source in his Dantian, his Qi was completely neutral, and thus the sensation he experienced from this was also quite unique.

Alex felt the Qi flow into his mind, and he was sure it was flowing into the tiny Origin that hovered there, improving it ever so slightly. He didn’t know how much it would improve just yet. He couldn’t leave to check.

He just hoped that it was a significant enough improvement that he wouldn’t have to spend a long time in the Immortal Origin realm.

There was also the matter of Transcendence. He needed to pour Sword Aura into his Origin to begin forming his Sword Creation, and he also needed to learn more about the Sun to form his Sun Creation.

He had tried learning more about the Sun, but as of yet, he hadn’t managed to do so. Not only was it due to his lack of opportunity, but also his inability to understand it.

He couldn’t yet determine whether he was just bad at understanding the Sun or if the atmosphere had something to do with his inability to learn it. Did he perhaps have to go to space to learn it properly?

After a week of cultivating, Alex was certain he had improved the size of his Origin significantly, so he entered his Spiritual Sea to check.

The dull, colorless world of his Spiritual Sea, with its murky black water and overcast sky, now had a hint of brightness at the center where his Origin lay.

Alex looked around, searching for his Blood Origin. He needed to check if it had been affected in some way. He found the fist-sized Blood Origin to the left, hovering on its own, completely unbothered.

Thankfully, nothing seemed to have happened to it. The Blood Origin — which was beginning to appear like a fetus — was fine.

Alex turned his attention to Godslayer next. The sword spirit was still in a deep sleep. Or was it a nightmare?

Alex hadn’t bothered Godslayer since that one time, even when he came to completely absorb the remaining silver mountain in his Spiritual Sea.

After checking on everything else, Alex focused his attention back on his Origin. It glowed brightly in the center of his Spiritual Sea.

Alex got closer and examined it in greater detail. The Origin still seemed to warp the space around it, creating what looked like space folding in on itself. It swirled with a bright white color, with shadows occasionally appearing within it, as if the folds of energy were both solid and liquid at the same time.

The Origin itself was now the size of a finger nail. It had grown somewhat over the past decade and a half since he had become an Immortal Origin realm cultivator, but the growth had nearly doubled after the past week of cultivation, during which he had focused all of his time on pouring energy into it.

Alex was taken aback by the size. If he wasn’t mistaken, this sort of improvement to an Origin should have taken months, not just a week.

“Is my new technique that good?” Alex thought. Or did it perhaps have something to do with his Qi and how strong it was? After all, at Immortal Origin 1st realm, his Qi had the quality of an Immortal Transcendent 1st realm cultivator.

That could have certainly helped.

“Now’s not the time to think about that,” Alex told himself and moved closer to his Origin until it was right in front of his eyes. He connected to his Origin through his physical self and found it waiting for his command.

So, Alex gave the command he had created the technique for.

“Divide.”