Eternal Cultivation Of Alchemy

Beyond the hundred-meter mark, there was more than just mental pain. There was also a physical force that pushed back on people, very weakly at first, but growing stronger the farther one went.

Alex had been wondering why people were so slow up front if they could handle the mental pain to this degree, and now everything made sense.

When he reached the hundred-and-twenty-meter mark, earning himself fourteen stars in total, the pressure he felt on himself, both mentally and physically, was high enough that Helen and the other two would very easily succumb to the pain.

Alex slowed down by quite a bit, but he pushed himself, continuing on. By the time he pushed himself to the hundred-and-thirty-meter mark, there were only twenty minutes remaining before the fourth hour ended. And when that hour ended, the forty-meter cutoff amount from last time would double, cutting off eighty meters in total, which would be all of it.

Once he crossed the hundred-and-thirty-meter mark, he found Battlesage just steps ahead, struggling to keep moving on, but still trying. There was so much more distance ahead of the man that it was obvious he could not continue.

”Senior,” Alex spoke up in a slightly strained voice. ”You don’t have to force yourself so much. Just give up.”

The man looked back with bloodshot eyes and a face so red that Alex was worried he would burst open at any moment.

”No,” he grunted with great effort. ”I need to... I need to reach the next place.”

Alex moved sideways, getting closer to him. ”Senior, this isn’t good. You shouldn’t push yourself so much. You’ll get hurt.”

”I can heal,” the man said.

”Not if you get hurt spiritually,” Alex said. ”If the damage to your spirit is too much, healing it will be very costly. And you have nothing more you need to prove to anyone.”

The man hesitated a little, his movements freezing for a moment.

”Everyone ahead of you has a higher cultivation base than you, and even they are struggling. You already did more than enough. There’s no need to put yourself at risk for a mere four more stars.”

The man didn’t move, his face wrought with not only pain but also consideration. After a while, he slowly nodded.

”Fine,” he said, letting his body relax. He moved back a couple of steps, getting back to right after the hundred-and-thirty-meter mark where the pressure was low enough that his face showed hints of relief.

The man looked at Alex. ”You must be going all the way to the end then,” he said.

Alex gave a nod.

The man gestured with his chin. ”Go get the chalice then. I’m sure you can beat them all.”

Alex turned around and made his way through the last twenty meters. Step by step, he endured the mental pain and fought against the pressure pushing him back, making his way toward the center of the field.

Ahead of him were seven people in total who had reached this far, of which two had clearly given up already, leaving behind just five.

Alex pushed through, arriving close to the hundred-and-forty-meter mark with ten minutes remaining, causing many sets of eyes to turn toward him. By this point, a majority of the cultivators had already given up, as they weren’t going to make any progress in the last ten minutes, so they simply sat and watched.

While the battle at the end of it all was blood-pumping, the sudden arrival of a dark horse was no less exciting.

As everyone watched, Alex crossed the hundred-and-forty-meter mark and continued forward, soon passing the woman in fifth place to become fifth himself. The woman could only stare at him from the other side with a look of anger and horror that didn’t quite settle right on her face, which was already twisted with incredible pain.

By this point, the pain was so strong that even Alex couldn’t ignore it. His face twisted slightly as he groaned every so often involuntarily. He could handle much more pain than this, but that didn’t make this pain hurt any less.

Not to mention the fact that the physical pressure he felt around this moment was quite strong as well, relentlessly pushing on him like a material wall standing before him.

Alex pushed against it, moving through the final stretch a slow step at a time, crossing with just enough speed that he was sure he could make it in time. He went past an older man who couldn’t take a step further and then far enough that he was ahead of the young woman from the Han Family.

And then, with no more than two minutes remaining, he was at the hundred-and-forty-eight-meter mark, neck and neck with the two from the Han Family and Luo Family, neither of whom could take another step ahead at all and had been stuck in the same place forever.

Alex looked at them for just a moment, but he could hardly focus on them for longer than a few seconds as he needed to move himself as well. The time was about to end, so he needed to cross the final two meters.

Alex could tell the two young men from the great families were staring daggers at him, but they couldn’t do anything at all, so Alex focused on himself, pushing himself a meter ahead, bearing all the pain and ache until only the final meter remained.

At this distance, he could reach out for the chalice and be halfway there. The artifact floated now before him, inches away, as there remained seconds on the clock.

Alex’s internal clock told him just how much time was remaining and just how far he still had to go. He pushed, barely ahead of time, and grabbed at the chalice.

Alex grabbed empty air.

The chalice was farther away from him now, not because he had miscalculated the distance, but because someone else had gotten to it before him.