Eternal Cultivation Of Alchemy

Alex put away his sword immediately and frowned as he stepped back. “I can’t help? It’s my cauldron.”

“No, your cauldron will have to survive on its own,” Godslayer said. “Just let it do its thing. It will come out better, I promise you.”

Alex reluctantly nodded. He reached through his bond to Memory, and even though he knew it couldn’t hear him at that moment, told it to do its best. It had to survive through this.

A vague sense of affirming feeling flowed back through the bond, surprising Alex. He hadn’t expected the cauldron to still be able to hear him.

As Alex stepped back, the first lightning bolt struck down from the heavens, striking the cauldron. The lightning struck the cauldron straight on without anything blocking it. However, even so, the cauldron stopped it entirely.

With his Demon Eyes, Alex could see Memory absorbing the energy surrounding it at that immediate moment. All the energy from the tribulation lightning that it stopped was going into it, making it stronger.

Memory was already strong as a cauldron for Immortal pills, so now Alex could only wonder how much better it was going to become. He hoped deeply that Memory could withstand all nine lightning bolts.

* * * * * * *

The entire world watched the next phenomenon that occurred after Alex formed his Axiom. They had expected the surprise to be over when the Heavenly Principles left, but in its stead was now tribulation lightning, and for none other than a cauldron at that.

Seeing a cauldron evolve during the final competition of the greatest Alchemy tournament in the past hundreds of thousands of years was not something that many could have ever expected to see.

The one who was most surprised of all was, in fact, Shen Yaojia, the Artifact God. She had been very surprised by Alex learning an Axiom, but considering she worked with artifacts all the time, she was more surprised by the artifact tribulation she was able to witness.

She had only ever heard of such a thing being possible and had never truly seen it happen. Her master had still taught her everything about it, so she knew more than enough to understand just how incredible this was.

“Your Majesty,” she spoke up from where she sat. “Would you mind if I approached the stage? I wish to see this happen from as close as possible.”

The Alchemy God looked toward her and considered her request for a moment. “If you wish to, you may.”

Shen Yaojia flew out of the chamber and flew down toward the stage, where she stood only meters away from the giant cauldron that took on the tribulation lightning.

It was an interesting experience to see something she had wanted to see all this time. And more than that, she wanted to see the outcome of what came because of the tribulation.

Her master had told her something, but she still found herself doubting it. Surely, artifact spirits that went through tribulations were not that different from the ones that evolved normally.

She absolutely needed to know now.

Her eyes narrowed all of a sudden as she began to see a shape around the cauldron. A shape that appeared more like a mirage than anything else. Still, it was a real shape, and it was the shape of a woman.

* * * * * *

Alex began to see a humanoid outline through his Demon Eyes after the third lightning bolt that struck Memory. The cauldron spirit was protecting itself from the tribulation, and it was manifesting in a humanoid shape to do so.

According to Godslayer, that was the spirit of the cauldron taking on a real form.

With the fourth lightning bolt, the shape got clearer, and with the fifth one, it took on a feminine shape.

Alex was quite surprised to see that. He had never considered his cauldron to be female at all. But then, artifact spirits didn’t have a gender, did they? So the fact that he considered the spirit male in the first place was perhaps wrong as well.

Still, he was curious why it appeared as a female and not a male. Why did the fact that a part of his soul had been torn away to make this pill not influence the gender of the spirit?

With the sixth lightning bolt, the figure of the female spirit gained a bit more clarity. Not only that, it gained a bit of color as well.

The female spirit’s skin was fair in color, and the hair was dark.

When Memory blocked the seventh lightning bolt, the color became sharper, and the shape clearer. The proportions of the female figure of the spirit were now more well-defined, which was moderate from what he could see.

The eighth lightning bolt fell and struck Memory. The female spirit fought back at the same time, fighting back against the lightning bolt. Memory shook a little from the impact but still defeated the lightning. It then consumed all of the energy, growing even more.

The female spirit became clearer. While its face hadn’t been fully formed yet, Alex could see a somewhat old age to the female spirit’s looks. It looked to be about late 30s.

Alex wondered why it was that the spirit looked so old. If it could choose to be female, why not become younger and maybe prettier?

At this point, all of his nervousness about the cauldron failing the tribulation lightning had long since vanished. Now, he only waited for it to succeed.

The ninth lightning bolt came down a few seconds later and struck the cauldron. The female spirit lifted its hands at the same time and struck back.

An explosive force shook the ground itself and sent out a shockwave, forcing Alex to protect himself.

Alex closed his eyes for a moment and only opened them again when he was safe. He looked back toward the cauldron and saw the female spirit floating freely in the air, now fully formed.

A wave of shock passed through him when he saw the spirit, now with a face from so long back in his past. Tears filled his eyes as he couldn’t believe who he was looking at.

“… Master?”

The spirit looked exactly like Ma Rong.