Eternal Cultivation Of Alchemy

One of the days, Scarlet appeared out of her closed cultivation in the Time Chambers and heard of what Alex had been doing.

She had heard about it before too, but she hadn’t realized that he had switched to absorbing from the Void again. And this time around, she wanted to be there as well.

So, she came out of the Soul Space and arrived next to him.

Scarlet was still in her bird form when she stepped next to Alex, who was sitting before the tear in space that led to a world of silver and purple.

Scarlet could feel the temporal auras that came out of it, something she had always been able to sense but never gave much thought or attention to. Now, she wanted to do something with it. Prove that she didn’t lack talent.

She had been feeling like an imposter these past few years.

Alex could feel the tumultuous thoughts going through her mind, causing him to give a serious look.

“What’s wrong?” he asked. “Something is bothering you.”

Scarlet remained silent for a while before she found the courage to speak out her thoughts.

“I’m struggling to form my Creations,” she answered.

Alex narrowed his eyes. “Struggling? Why is that?”

“The Three-Legged Crow’s aura is proving itself to be much more complex than what I can understand,” Scarlet said. “I worry that I bit off more than I can chew!”

Alex gave a thoughtful look. “Is that so?” he asked. “You can take things slowly then. There’s no hurry after all. We have all the time we could need.”

Scarlet didn’t like that. “What if I keep trying and it doesn’t work? I know that I can get whatever I absorb to evolve, but I was hoping to absorb everything from the start. Does that mean I’m not talented enough? I also couldn’t eat more than a single fruit at all.”

“Most can’t,” Alex explained. “Even my master struggled to eat more than half. And neither could Whisker. Eating a single one makes you talented. Pearl is just that unique that he can eat two. As for me, I ate three, but then I do have the Sun God’s body, so I’m not a very fair comparison. Keep doing what you’re doing. Even if you fail, we won’t say anything.”

Scarlet looked down.

“Trust in us a little,” Alex continued. “We won’t abandon you just because you lag behind a little. We’re family now. We help each other. If you lag behind, we’ll tie ourselves to you and drag you with us. One way or another, you are coming along with us.”

He finished his words by patting Scarlet on her back. Scarlet let out a long sigh, looking down. She mulled over her thoughts for some time before staring ahead at the Void, letting its aura fill her. She remained there for some time, absorbing the aura.

When it was time for Alex to move over to the Sun, she left back to the Soul Space.

Inside, she met Whisker. Without the older Alex and Emily, the place had been quite desolate these past few years in terms of company, so seeing Whisker there made her smile a little.

“How’s your cultivation progressing?” she asked him.

“Not bad,” Whisker said. “I’m still finalizing my second Creation, but I’m a decent way into the first one. I think I’m close to a fifth of the way there with the Nine-Tailed Fox’s beast core.”

Scarlet’s eyes narrowed a little. “Only one-fifth?” she asked.

Whisker nodded. “Is that slow?” he asked.

“No,” Scarlet quickly said. “It’s not. At the rate you are, you can likely break through to the next realm quite soon.”

Whisker smiled. “I still have to finish working on my second Creation before I can break through,” he said.

“Good luck.”

Whisker left to complete his duties, which included taking care of the two trees, the various alchemy ingredients growing around the place, and taking care of the Heavenly Silkworms.

Seeing him leave, Scarlet was struck with a strange thought. All this time, she had been so concerned with how slowly she was doing things that she hadn’t even realized how much worse Whisker would be at it.

He had gotten the beast core around the same time as she had gotten the corpse, so their speed should have been similar. And yet, he had been so much further behind than her.

She felt stupid for considering herself untalented. She very much had above-average talent; only that wasn’t enough to stand out when she was overshadowed by two individuals who were more talented than anyone else she had met.

And that usually made it harder for her to notice the others that were lagging even further behind than her. She had completely forgotten about Whisker as a result.

Scarlet shook her head and returned to the time chamber, where she began absorbing the Three-Legged Crow’s aura again. She had paused at some point and focused on the Sunheart and Midnight Phoenix’s core, but now her attention was back on it.

Having come to terms with her lack of talent, Scarlet knew better than anyone else now that she was likely not going to absorb the actual Three-Legged Crow as her Creation.

In all likelihood, it was going to be an aspect of it, or maybe a body part. She knew of beasts in the Vermilion Bird Palace who absorbed

the aura of a Phoenix as their Creation and ended up with some tail feathers, or wings, or talons that gave them the power of a Vermilion

Bird.

The same that happened to the wannabe Vermilion Birds was what

was going to happen to her with the Sun Crow. Her only solace in this knowledge was that she could thankfully evolve it and make use of a Creation much stronger than what she could absorb.

****

Origin Saturation Rate:

Scarlet:

Godkiller’s Physique: 0%

Yang Core (Sunheart): 43%

Three-Legged Crow: 36%

Midnight Phoenix Core: 12%

Threshold Required per Origin to break through to Immortal

Transcendent 2nd realm: -11%

Whisker:

Nine-Tailed Fox beast core: 17%

Unknown Creation: 0%

Threshold Required per Origin to break through to Immortal

Transcendent 2nd realm: -11%