Eternal Cultivation Of Alchemy

Before entering the test site through the several paths each one of them was made to go through, Alex talked to Ronron and the rest, making decisions on what to do should they walk out too early.

It was decided that they would try their best to learn a new Dao and stay inside, but they wouldn’t force it. If they failed to continue after the month was over, they would go to the surrounding few trial sites, taking part in ones that would give them ample time to come back when the month was over.

Alex gave them pills to help improve their chances anyway and sent them in.

Once they were gone, he went in through the gate that glowed for him.

Unfortunately, it appeared each of them was going their separate way.

Ahead of Alex were Luo Sheng and Lan Suyin, both of whom kept a certain distance from each other. The walls around them were quite tall, with many doors built into them that were closed off.

Luo Sheng walked through one such door that he was likely shown to, but Alex continued on. As he did, he noticed Lan Suyin walking into a door further down. As he got close, he realized that this room was for him as well.

He hadn’t seen it previously, but the gate had a subtle glow to it that likely only he could see.

Alex walked in through the door and saw the surprised look of Lan Suyin, followed by the few expressionless gazes of the 3 people who were already in the room. There were 2 men and a woman from previous rounds, each one of whom had likely improved enough to be allowed to stay there.

Alex ignored the 4 and focused on what lay in the center of the room.

There was a large statue in the center, carved entirely of ice, depicting the figure of a woman with a pitcher, pouring water onto the base. Liquid water flowed out of the pitcher and fell onto a circular metal tub at the bottom, where it hissed slightly and immediately evaporated, before flying up onto the statue where it froze around the ice sculpture.

It took Alex a moment to realize that the water coming out of the pitcher was none other than the water produced by the sculpture melting.

The base of the sculpture was heated, which was obvious thanks to the heat inside the room being higher than what was outside.

For a very brief moment, Alex wondered if he was being sent to learn the Dao of Melting, which he already had. He also wondered if it was the Dao of Boiling, which he had already learned as well.

However, considering the strangeness of the sculpture, there could only be one thing that it wanted them to learn.

The evaporated vapor condensed around the cold sculpture, unnaturally freezing back into ice. As such, the strongest aura that the sculpture was producing at the moment was, in fact, the aura belonging to the Dao of Freezing. There were weaker auras as well, but still stronger than the Fire auras. Those were the aura of the Dao of Cold and the Dao of Ice.

That was understandable, since the 3 Daos were similar to each other after all.

Alex went around to the other side and finally sat down on the soft grass, no more than a foot away from the sculpture. This close, he could feel the aura quite intensely.

The test had sent him to learn this Dao, and Alex had a month to learn as much as he could regarding this Dao to prove that he could learn it.

For a Dao, it was difficult to tell if a month was enough or not. Sometimes, a few days was all he needed. Sometimes, it took years.

Since the only way to find out was to start, Alex closed his eyes and used his full senses on the aura, feeling it as well as he could.

The outside thoughts slowly vanished from him, along with all the worries he felt for Helen and the rest, and he simply focused all of his attention on the sculpture. Once he found himself focused enough, he brought out one of the Grand Tranquility Pills he had and ate it.

Consuming the pill gave Alex a greater ability to focus on a single topic, erasing all stray thoughts from his mind. Instead of letting him fall into a trance to let his mind find answers all on its own, his entire brain power was being solely focused on figuring things out.

There was 1 main Dao and 2 secondary Daos that one was supposed to learn from the sculpture. Having already learned the Dao of Ice, Alex focused on the other two.

As he did so, he found the two Daos somehow familiar and easy to understand, while at the same time completely different as well.

The Dao of Freezing was in fact nothing more than the opposite of the Dao of Melting. While understanding one didn’t fully allow him to understand the other, it gave him enough of a step up that learning the rest became relatively easier than starting fresh.

The Dao of Cold was similar as well. The Dao of Heat helped him understand the Dao of Cold to a certain extent.

Both of those Daos were made easier to understand thanks to his Dao of Ice, pushing him further ahead in his progress.

The effects of the pill vanished some time later, but it had helped him tremendously. By the time the effects were gone, Alex had learned so much about both of the Daos that learning the rest became far easier.

Slowly, his mind soaked up the knowledge like a sponge, helping him learn more and more, letting him fall into a slow trance.

And then, just 2 weeks after he had entered the room, his effort bore fruit.

The sky rumbled with energy, as the 4 others who sat around him began to feel Alex learning a new Dao.