Eternal Cultivation Of Alchemy

With so much weight upon him, Alex felt his body grow sluggish against the incoming attack.

He moved in time to block it, but the strength from the elder before him pushed him backward. Despite being weaker than him, the array allowed the elder to take advantage of Alex’s current weakened state.

Alex struggled through two more strikes before it became obvious to him that even with Sword Qi, he wouldn’t be able to keep on fighting for long enough. He needed to go beyond.

Suddenly, the Sword Qi began spraying out of his sword, zipping around. The elder saw it and was shocked.

“Sword Aura?” he asked.

Alex replied with a strike. At close range, the Sword Aura showed its might. It attacked the elder, and even as he fought back, it kept attacking. The Sword Qi was filled with an Intent of an unrelenting force, that wanted nothing more than to keep moving forward.

The elder, of course, was no slouch either. He fought back with his Sword Qi. With Alex’s current disadvantage, it made them equal on the battlefield.

Alex continued for as long as he could, fighting against the elder of the Black Heart sect for more than an hour. He intended to fight for longer, but around this time, he felt his strength returning to him.

The weight around him was getting weaker.

After a decent few exchanges, the elder could no longer keep on going. In the end, he gave up.

Alex stood there for a few moments with a confused expression on his face. “What happened?” he asked. “Why did the array stop working?”

The elder grimaced slightly. “The array is only as strong as the minds of the disciples running it. Sadly, they haven’t had much training. The elders should have kept it going for some time, but we were already so close in strength that any change would mean victory or defeat.”

Alex looked around at the gathered audience, seeing sweat drip from their foreheads, many of whom grabbed onto their heads as if they were aching.

“That’s unfortunate,” Alex said as he put aside his sword. “I was hoping I could fight for longer, or maybe fight someone stronger.”

“My seniors are away at the moment, so I can’t call them for you. If you were to ever return here again, I shall ask them to spar with you,” the elder said.

Alex nodded slowly. “May I ask where the next strong sect I can go to is?” he asked.

“Next strongest…” the man thought for a bit. “With your current strength… I don’t think there’s any sect right now that you can’t defeat.”

Alex’s eyes narrowed. “Really? I thought there were stronger sects up ahead.”

“There are a few stronger than ours,” the elder explained. “But similar to ours, their strongest members shouldn’t be present either. They won’t be present for quite some time. You can try the Azure Hawk sect east of here, but I do not believe you will find anyone you can’t defeat.”

Alex frowned a little. “Where have they gone to?” he asked.

“To the Night Assembly,” the man said.

“What’s that?”

The man paused for a moment. “Surely, you know what it is,” the man said.

“Does it have anything to do with the Endless Night sect? Because I’m not part of that sect. I don’t know what that is,” Alex said.

The man looked surprised. “Still you… It’s a gathering of great sects and their members. It happens every few decades.”

“Oh. What do they talk about?” Alex asked.

“Anything relevant. Strange news, discoveries, new hunting grounds, new breeding locations—basically, anything deemed important enough for the Endless Night sect to hear about. They also give us information that they believe is important as well.”

“I see,” Alex said. “How long does this last again?”

“Usually, about 3 months. 4 months if you count the days needed to go there and come back.”

“And how many days have they been gone?” Alex asked.

“About 3 weeks now. They should be back in 3 months.”

“I see.”

Alex brought out his storage bag and handed it over to the man. Despite the man’s refusal to take it on grounds of having lost, Alex forced him to keep it.

Once the man had it, Alex left.

He pondered along the way what he needed to do. For now, he decided to see. If everyone in the sects around these locations was strong, then he necessarily didn’t need to fight the strongest.

With such a thought, Alex went to fight the Azure Hawk sect.

He arrived there the next day and fought against a female elder who used a long saber. She fought him for nearly 2 hours, but at no point did she make it feel as if she was close to winning.

She wasn’t weak, but she was nowhere near strong. The elder from the Black Heart sect was stronger.

After defeating the woman, he asked for someone stronger, but she gave him the same news. The stronger members of the sect had gone to the Night Assembly.

Having received the same information from two different individuals, Alex was disappointed to realize that he would have to take a break. It would be 3 months before anyone strong would return, so it would have to be a break of 3 months long.

Alex arrived at a city and found a place to stay for those 3 months. Whisker went off to gather the stronger sludge in these locations now that he was closer to the core.

Alex stayed in the room they purchased and cultivated. He spent his days either cultivating or attempting to break through more of the seal. He could make bigger openings in the seal now, but it still regrew when he stopped.

It was unending.

Alex cultivated for a long time before he finally stopped. Over 2 months passed in the blink of an eye, and finally, Alex managed to do something he had been wanting to do for a while.

He created the Earth Movement technique that could be used by a human.

Now, he too could go underground and see what lay at the depths of Hell.