Eternal Cultivation Of Alchemy

Helen held a piece of stone in her palm. She concentrated on it, focusing all of her Intent into it as she commanded the stone to lift. The stone trembled slightly, nearly becoming weightless, but it didn’t float.

Helen strained with her eyes on the stone, but she could barely make it stand on its point. Beyond that, she failed to do anything at all.

She let out a breath as the stone dropped back onto her palm.

”God, my head.”

The pain that came with trying to use one’s Intent directly, and not through any medium either physical or with Qi, was extremely high.

”You’ll get better,” Alex told her. ”Imagine this as though you are trying to use a Dao you don’t understand in the slightest. While normally you could do nothing since you don’t have a Dao, with Intent, it gets used up regardless. And if you don’t find the right way to use it, it would be no different from trying to carry a weight whose center of mass is on the edge instead of its center.”

Helen slowly nodded, taking a deep breath.

”How long did you train before you were able to move the sword around so easily?” she asked.

”I only make it look easy. It’s actually not. I’m constantly mentally burned and in pain each time it moves beyond where I want it to move,” Alex explained. ”To get to that point, it took me more than a hundred years or so.”

Helen let out a slight gasp. ”Alright, I won’t expect much result anytime soon then.”

”That would be for the better,” Alex said. ”I also suggest that you focus on fighting for now. Don’t tire yourself out with the stone before you get to someone else soon.”

Helen nodded and tossed away the rock, continuing on.

Liz and Ronron weren’t practicing with any rocks whatsoever. While they understood that training Intent might’ve been a good idea, they also understood that they were a little too weak. Helen was much better than them when it came to being able to handle mental pain, and even then she was failing a lot at this.

So, it was better for those two to at least get as strong as Helen before even thinking about doing anything at all.

It was half an hour before the group met someone else to challenge. For the sake of choosing the challenge they wanted to take part in, Alex had asked the women to not be the first to challenge others.

As such, when they met with the group of two, there was only one challenge issued at the start.

The woman of the group pointed to Ronron, whose cultivation base was the lowest at that point, and challenged her. Ronron accepted the challenge and chose a fight. The other woman was more than happy with Ronron’s choice.

The man who was with her didn’t say anything, simply staring at the other four with strange eyes. Liz sighed, realizing the man wasn’t going to take the initiative. So, she challenged him.

The man let out a sigh of relief upon being challenged. ”I want the challenge to be formation blueprint making,” he said.

Liz paused for a moment. ”What?”

”Making formation blueprints,” the man said again. ”Not the actual formation. Just the blueprint on some paper or talisman. We let the group choose an effect, and the fastest one wins.”

Liz could only stare with a blank look on her face. She hesitated a moment before turning toward Alex. ”Do I just give up?”

”You can. Or you can accept it. Who knows? Maybe you’ll luck out and get something,” Alex said. ”Although, do you know anything about formations?”

”A little,” Liz said. ”I remember some of what I learned from Hao Ya long ago, but I don’t think that knowledge translates well to Immortal formations.”

”You could try and see if it does,” Alex said, gesturing her ahead.

Liz sighed and nodded.

”Alright, I agree.”

Their challenge started, and it became very clear very quickly that Liz was just not meant for something like this. She looked completely out of her element as she tried to come up with the strokes and nodes for the formation. Her knowledge of base formations themselves was so bad that it was understandable when she eventually failed.

Ronron’s fight went better than that. Even without any Dao or techniques being used, her body cultivation was still strong enough to contend with most of the cultivators in this place. So, she wasn’t so easily hurt in the attack.

However, she also didn’t land many hits. It was hard to move and catch someone off guard without using any techniques or teleporting directly next to them. Thanks to that limitation, the battle lasted much longer than normal.

Liz failed and walked back. Helen stepped up next, challenging the man.

The man proudly issued the same challenge he had issued for Liz.

Another formation blueprint battle.

Helen had no qualms about that. ”I accept.”

The man seemed confident at first, but when Helen brought out one of the many artifacts she had for writing, his face fell. He wasn’t going up against just anybody at all. While formations weren’t Helen’s strong suit, she was still very talented in them, at least a lot more than Liz was.

She brought out a large canvas paper and waited for the group to come up with the type of formation that needed to be made.

They landed on a type of formation that would block sounds and images from inside the formation from going outside, while making the formation itself invisible when looking from outside in.

As soon as they got to the core of the challenge, they began immediately.

The man quickly drew a circle and began jotting down the various strokes and symmetrical lines that would be needed for the formation. Helen wasn’t much farther behind him, continuing at the same pace.

They completed it at almost the same time.

The man looked toward Helen’s blueprint and then back at his. While both blueprints were technically different, the overall task they did was exactly the same.

As such, it was a tie.