Eternal Cultivation Of Alchemy

Silvermist waited for Alex to think of his answer. It was no simple question he had presented to his disciple, so he wasn’t impatient with him. He knew his disciple had likely never considered this topic to such an intense degree.

After a long while, Alex looked up. “I have some thoughts, Master. I do not know if these are the thoughts you hoped I would have,” he said.

“Go on, tell me,” Silvermist said.

Alex relayed the first of his thoughts—his main answer that would come to him every time.

“I believe I already told you that Dao does not come from the Heavens,” Silvermist said.

“No, but the Heavens do facilitate it. The worldly laws are sent down by the Heavens, and they certainly aid you when you do use it,” Alex said. “So it is only fair to assume that to learn a Dao, you must need the Heavens’ aid.”

Silvermist paused, not wanting to refute his disciple’s words without explaining. “I have met multiple instances of people who managed to learn Dao without the aid of the Heavens,” he said.

Alex was taken aback. “Without the Heavens’ aid? You mean the worldly laws didn’t come down for them?” he asked.

Silvermist chuckled. “No, they were in space. There were no worldly laws or any other phenomena. They simply understood the concept entirely and learned the Dao,” he said.

“Such a thing is possible?” Alex asked.

“It is,” Silvermist said. “But I am told it is wildly difficult. It is not something you can just hope to do without any aid. So in that regard, the Heavens do facilitate the learning of Dao. But…”

Alex sighed. “But because one can learn Dao without the help of the Heavens, the Heavens’ involvement can’t be the factor.”

Silvermist nodded. “What other answer do you have?”

Alex frowned a bit. “I had two more answers, Master, but I don’t believe I can use those either. Both of them included the Heavens’ involvement.”

Silvermist grinned. “Let me hear them anyway.”

Alex shrugged and answered. “Well, my second answer was that the Heavens most likely waited for you to learn almost all of it before giving you the last bit of the answer.”

“They most likely do,” Silvermist said. “But that doesn’t mean they can stop you from learning the Dao.”

Alex nodded.

“And the third answer?” Silvermist asked.

“My last answer was that it had to do with your intent of learning the Dao. Maybe reading someone else’s understanding of a Dao won’t help you. Maybe you need to show the Heavens that you intend to learn it and show them that you can learn it. Maybe then they give you the Dao.”

Alex sighed after answering his third possibility. “But because we’ve ruled out the Heavens, none of these answers work,” he said, looking back at Silvermist.

Silvermist held a curious expression on his face, one that was nearly breaking out into a smile.

“Master?” he called out.

“You were so close,” Silvermist said, his smile widening. “You’re right there, but you keep thinking about the Heavens. Take the Heavens out, and you have your answer. My answer.”

Alex was surprised by his master’s sudden positive change in temperament. I am close? he thought. His master had reacted as such to his third possibility, so he went back to it.

If the Heavens aren’t checking your intention on learning the Dao, then what is? The world? Alex thought. He didn’t see how that was so different that his master would ask him to think about it again.

No, it’s not someone checking if you intend to learn it, Alex thought. It’s about the intent.

It was funny how things worked in life. You had one understanding of one thing, and another understanding of another thing. If you stopped for a moment and thought about it, you would see how closely the two things were related, and yet Alex never had.

It was only now that he was prompted to think on this topic that he found something interesting in something else.

Alex was trying to learn the Dao of Time Stagnation. The method of doing that had been to slowly learn from its aura. He had already talked with his master about how one could learn from an aura, but he never considered the other half of this topic—how the progress showed itself.

Alex could slow down time now. He wasn’t very good at it, and his intent behind it was very inefficient, but he was doing it. He had to force himself to do it with his intent. It was not yet a Dao.

He knew through that, the moment it would become a Dao was the moment his intent behind it would align completely.

Looking at it the other way around, the moment one completely matches their intent to the aura of a Dao, that is the moment they fully learn the Dao.

Alex slumped back on the couch, stunned at his own realization.

How simple an answer it was. It was right there from the start, and yet he never paid any mind to it before this. At least not with this intensity.

Silvermist saw the change in Alex’s expression and asked, “Do you see it now? Do you see the answer? The fallacy that I speak of?”

Alex slowly nodded. “We believe that someone can’t learn a Dao because they’ve learned the truth from somewhere, but that is not the case. They can learn it. At least they should be able to if the answer I reached is correct.”

“They simply do not because while they’ve learned the answer, they haven’t honed the intent. Learning isn’t all there is to it. You need to understand it closely too, to match your own intent with its aura.”

Silvermist smiled. “And now you understand it,” he said.

Alex nodded. “I do, Master,” he said, a thought coming to him. “Wait, does this not mean that the Dao of Alchemy should be learnable as well?”

Silvermist raised an eyebrow. “What do you mean?”

Alex sat up straighter. “If we find the aura of the Dao of Alchemy, we should be able to learn it.”