Eternal Cultivation Of Alchemy

”Hey! You’re finally out!”

Liz called for them from somewhere close by with an enthusiastic look on her face. ”How did it go?”

”Not bad,” Helen said. ”How did you do? You must’ve come out some time ago.”

”I did good enough,” Liz said, bringing out a stack of stars from her Soul Space. ”I only managed to find 12 of them.”

Helen’s jaw slacked wide open. ”You found a dozen of them?”

”Yeah,” Liz said with a somewhat confused look. ”There are other people that have found way more than me. A guy got 40 of them. He was just showing off to everyone moments ago.”

”We didn’t find many at all,” Alex said. ”Just 6 in total. Ronron has kept 4, and mother has kept 2.”

”Really?” Liz asked. ”What about you?”

”I got 10 from the tower back there, so I didn’t take any,” Alex said.

”Oh, that’s a shame,” Liz said.

”When did you come out?” Ronron asked. ”You must’ve waited for us without knowing we were even in here.”

”Well, you had either entered the maze or had yet to get out of the tower,” Liz said. ”Either way, my best interest was to wait for you three. Not to mention, I have to wait for senior Battlesage anyway.”

Alex looked toward the maze. ”He hasn’t come out yet?”

”No. We separated inside as soon as we realized we could find stars just anywhere in there. We thought we would cover more ground that way, so he must still be searching for more,” Liz said.

Alex nodded. ”How many stars did you guys start with?” he asked. ”I mean, that number on the wall.”

”Hmm? Oh, that was around 20 thousand when I first entered. It might have started around 25 thousand.”

”That’s... quite high,” Alex said.

”I suppose.”

”To be fair, the tower did have about 30 thousand stars too, didn’t it?” Helen asked. ”It accepted 3000 people for 10 different trials.”

”That’s true,” Alex said. ”I suppose it makes sense then.”

Ronron excitedly told Liz about the map Alex had managed to get from the tower and showed it to her. Liz looked through it, her eyes shining bright. ”Where do we go next?” she asked. ”Here?”

That was the closest mark on the map from the maze that wasn’t the tower. Although, it was easily over 50 kilometers away. Alex’s spiritual sense located the general area quite quickly, but as always, he saw nothing that belonged to the challenges themselves.

”That’s weird,” Helen said as she looked down at her refined star. She pointed it to everyone too. ”I don’t have any more red spots at all.”

Ronron looked at hers, and Alex checked his. Just as they were told, there were indeed no more red spots at all. Instead, the points of the stars glowed various shades of green and yellow.

”What’s that about?” Liz asked.

Alex thought for a bit and looked at the top of the map again. ”Map of the Red,” he read out loud. Certain things fell into place as he thought about it. ”These challenges we’ve been through, they must be color-coded by some unknown category. The map only shows the challenges that fall under the red category. It doesn’t show the locations of the green and yellow categories.”

Helen slowly nodded, coming to the same understanding.

”How are they different?” Ronron asked.

Alex shrugged. ”I don’t know. Your master set this up, so if anyone knows that, it’s you.”

Ronron had no idea either. ”We should go check out one of them,” she said.

”Sure,” Alex said. ”As soon as senior Battlesage comes out.”

It took no more than 5 minutes for Battlesage to make his way out of the maze. He looked both happy and disappointed at the same time in a strange mix of emotions.

”What’s wrong?” Alex asked the old man as he walked out. ”Did you not find many?”

”Stars?” the old man asked. ”Not really. I wanted to find more, but they suddenly seemed to dry up out of nowhere. Probably because everyone went in and found them all.”

”How many did you find?” Alex asked.

”52. 53 including my original one.”

Battlesage quickly realized he had said something wrong after seeing everyone else’s expressions. ”What?”

”Senior. We are here making do with less than 10 stars, and you’re sulking because you have more than 50?” Ronron asked.

Battlesage’s frown lowered slightly, turning into a smile. ”Wait. Did I do well?”

”You found so many stars, senior,” Liz said. ”You can’t stay sad anymore. It’s just not right.”

”Haha!” the old man’s emotions seemed to flip suddenly. ”I did well then. I would have wanted more, but I suppose it’s good to not be greedy.”

The women shook their heads, unable to believe how the old man was acting.

”Should we leave now?” Alex asked. ”We can head over to the next red spot, but let’s go toward one of the green or yellow spots first to see what they are like. We should make sure we’re not missing out on other easier methods to get stars.”

The group accepted unanimously.

Believing that the saturated colors meant the trial was closer, Alex’s group flew south-southwest. They were in the northeast region of the Red Heaven Realm, so they made their way closer toward the center.

The next location where people were gathered was a yellow spot. As they arrived closer, they saw a small group near the edge of a cliff, surrounding something. As for what they were surrounding, they had to get closer to see.

It wasn’t until they were less than a kilometer away that the thing gained visibility out of nowhere.

Alex blinked in surprise upon seeing the thing that had appeared out of nowhere. ”That’s... huge.”

What lay at the edge of the cliff was a massive humanoid being, but not one that was living. Instead, it was made entirely of stone.

The yellow challenge had to do with this stone man.