Eternal Cultivation Of Alchemy

Whisker and the old man were off to the side, staring at the passing forest-cities, seeing the world built with no humans at all. Most houses had different architecture than one would expect.

There were constructs made by manipulating the growing trees that made it look like tree houses. There were giant caves dug on the side of many mountains where beasts lived.

In one location, Whisker saw a city built entirely out of spiderwebs, with most beasts living in it or around it. White webs covered a large span of land, going from tree to tree as everything was interconnected.

In another location, ants and termites had grown giant mounds that were larger than mountains. Beasts lived in these towering mounds, each taller than most towers and pagodas they had seen.

There were other locations where there was nothing built for them to stay in and instead everyone lived in a giant open meadow next to a large lake.

Whisker alone was so fascinated by all of this that one didn’t have to wonder what it was doing to the old man who had never been out of Hell.

The old man was far too used to beasts having little to no intelligence, so seeing a world built only by beasts was the most shocking thing he could have seen the moment he escaped from Hell.

From start to finish, he remained stunned no matter how much he saw.

Alex let Pearl be alone with his grandfather and walked over to where Bladedance had sat down on the deck and had begun cultivating. He sat beside her, saying nothing.

After a while, Bladedance spoke up. “It will take me a few days to prepare for the tribulations, and then I’ll be done. One week later, we should be ready to leave.”

“Leave?” Alex asked in surprise. “Master, I can’t leave that soon. I have things to do here.”

“What things?” she asked. “There can’t be anything more important than getting those trees to the Sky God.”

“They are, to me,” Alex explained. “Master, this is Pearl’s home world. He’s finally met his family. And there’s his father’s family that he hasn’t met yet. I can’t leave without at least meeting them. And there’s the matter of Scarlet. I need to get her too. I can’t leave without her.”

“Who is this Scarlet you keep talking about?” Bladedance asked.

“My other bonded beast,” Alex explained. “I have three, and she is the third.”

“A bonded beast?” Bladedance frowned. “Why did you let her be on her own then?”

“I needed to let her fulfill her oath. She had a continent to rule after all,” Alex said. “Now that she’s done and has come back, she’s finally free to leave with me.”

Bladedance paused for a long moment. “Rule?” she asked.

Alex nodded.

“What… What is Scarlet?” she asked.

“What… oh! She’s a Vermilion Bird. Or as you might say, a Phoenix,” Alex explained.

Bladedance stared at him for a long moment. “You… you are bonded to a phoenix?” she asked.

Alex nodded.

“And you’re bonded to a White Tiger too, and technically an Azure Dragon too, since he has the bloodline,” she said.

“Pearl doesn’t really have the Azure Dragon’s bloodline yet,” Alex said. “That’s another reason we’ll have to stay behind even more. I need to find a way to get the Azure Dragons to give some blood to Pearl so he can regain his bloodline.”

Bladedance looked as if she was trying really hard to process what he was saying and constantly failing. “How does it even happen?” she asked. “How does one even get bonded by a single one of the heavenly beasts, let alone two?”

“I… I just met them both when they were young,” Alex said.

“If it were that simple, there would be a hundred different other humans coming here to bond to a young beast. It doesn’t just happen,” she said.

Alex shrugged. “I’m lucky then, Master. You can’t truly fault me for that, can you?”

Bladedance seemed like she wanted to say something, but she sighed and put away her thought.

“Whatever. Our bigger issue is that you need to leave with me. We need to get that tree away from here as soon as we can. And I need to go kill the damn bastard who did this to me,” Bladedance said.

She was making her frustration perfectly clear to Alex. And yet, Alex could not accept it.

“I’m sorry, Master, but I must stay behind. It won’t be for that long, just a few decades or so. As soon as I deal with Pearl’s bloodline issue and get Scarlet, I will leave.”

“The Sun’s Talon,” someone said.

“Right, and the Sun’s Talon,” Alex added.

Bladedance frowned. “Why the Sun’s Talon?” she asked.

Alex paused for a second, looking around. Who had just spoken? He was certain he had just heard someone.

“What about the Sun’s Talon?” Bladedance asked again.

“I… I don’t know,” Alex said with a confused look. “But I think I need to go there.”

“Why?” she asked.

“I… don’t know.”

Alex was quite confused by who had said as much. Had he not heard a man speaking? Or was that all in his head?

“What’s in the Sun’s Talon?” she asked. “It’s just another beast realm.”

Alex nodded. “I know. I… something tells me I need to go there,” he said. “I don’t know what, but it’s compelling me.”

Bladedance narrowed her eyes. She didn’t even know what to say about all of this.

“There is a war that might happen because you want to take your time,” Bladedance said. “You should prioritize things based on what’s more important.”

“My family is the most important for me, Master,” Alex said. “And the sooner I get to the Sky God, the sooner I can meet them or start searching for them. Even so, there are things here that I must do. So I’m sorry, but I’ll have to stay. If you are forced to leave, then we might just have to part here for some small time.”