Eternal Cultivation of Alchemy

The current location he was heading towards was the 6th mountain to the north. For some reason, he could only see rogue cultivators on his way to the 6th mountain.

As he walked along, he couldn't help but wonder what the purpose of the 6th mountain was.

The 1st mountain to the south was a library that likely held books and techniques for the demons that lived here.

The 2nd mountain from there was the Training and Crafting mountain. It was a location where people could go to train their techniques or create artifacts from what he could understand.

Since the demons weren't known for making pills or formations, Alex suspected there was no such room there at all.

The 3rd mountain was the Cultivation mountain. From what he had heard, it had rooms there for people to cultivate. He had heard people saying that time slowed down in those rooms, but he wanted to see that for himself before believing it.

The 4th mountain was the Resource mountain. It was where the different plants and animals were reared and given a dense Qi environment to grow properly.

Finally, the 5th mountain was where the demons lived. Those demons had to be strong as each of the houses was protected with Saint rank runes.

Now, Alex couldn't help but frown as he thought of what was possibly left for a hiding clan to have.

They had enough resources to do whatever they wanted here. Had places to live and cultivate, as well as train and craft. They even had an entire mountain dedicated to just a single library that wasn't even very large.

'The leader's mountain? But the house from back there looked like that would be it. Then… a place to pray? I can't think of anything,' he thought.

He decided to stop thinking about it as he would learn very soon.

When he reached the peak, he would know for sure.

As he went further along, he saw the disappointed looks of the people returning.

Someone even told him not to bother going there and that the door was locked.

That only increased Alex's curiosity. He quickened his pace and reached the mountain in just the next hour.

There weren't many people here, just a few rogue cultivators who were returning down from the mountain.

Even from where he was, Alex could see a small stone door halfway up the mountain which was where these people had likely been too.

Alex walked up the mountain, ignoring the other people's disappointed looks, not letting it bother him at all.

When he reached halfway up the mountain and saw the stone door, he stayed back and let the young man there do what he wanted.

The stone door was a single stone slab, that seemed to be placed right where the room was carved into the mountain itself.

It was about 4 meters tall and 2 meters wide, with a bunch of runes on it that were a little more complex than the ones he saw on the houses back in the 5th mountain.

The young man placed his palm on the door and blue light filled the rune. Then, the young man struck it with a sword, in which case the blue barrier appeared around the door.

This barrier was nothing like the flickering barrier from the House of the Undying. This one was perfectly healthy and would continue to be so for days to come.

Once the young man left, and Alex realized he was alone, he walked up to the door and placed his hands on the rune just like that young man did.

Then, he passed along his Qi into the rune, and it glowed yellow.

'Why is it glowing yellow, if it glowed blue for that young man?' he thought.

He would have assumed that it was because the young man had a Water attribute to his Qi just like he did with the young woman who had tried to open a door, but Alex had gone beyond that thinking.

Now that he realized that the barrier itself was blue, he gave up on the thought of it being related to the person's Qi, but to something about the rune itself.

'Why is it shining Yellow though?' he thought. He decided to see if the barrier was blue when he hit it too. So, he punched the door with his only hand.

As expected, a blue barrier spread around the door.

"Wait, so it is blue? What?" None of this was making sense to Alex at all.

He sent out his spiritual sense but it was blocked by the barrier. He had expected as much.

He thought for a moment and decided to test what happened if he hit the door while it glowed yellow.

As he placed his only hand on the door and poured in his Qi, he struck the stone door as hard as he could with his feet.

BANG!

"Argh!" Alex fell to the floor as he clutched his foot with his only hand as he writhed in pain. 

When he looked down, he saw blood spilling through his shoes. He quickly took it off and checked his feet.

The toes on his right foot were completely mangled.

"Meow?" Pearl cried out from his robes in worry. "Are you okay?" drifted onto Alex's mind.

"Yes, I'm fine," Alex said while he gritted his teeth. He hadn't expected to feel such sudden pain.

He then quickly took a healing pill and the toes on his foot immediately healed, relieving him of the pain.

Then, he looked back at the door in shock.

The barrier on the door had not appeared at all, and there was a dirty smudge on the door itself where Alex had hit it.

He had made direct contact with the stone even when he was trying to hit it.

His eyes went wide. Did the barrier not work because he was pouring in his Qi?

He decided to try once again. This time, he hit a little less hard.

As his foot hit the stone door, he could tell that it was working. He was at the very least getting rid of the barrier.

However, the stone door itself was super strong, to the point that he couldn't imagine breaking the door until his body reached Saint realm.

'Just what sort of stone is it made up of?' he thought as he hit the stone again.

Dirt fell on Alex's head, which he cleared from his hair. Then, he looked up to where the dirt had fallen from.

There was writing on the top of the stone door that Alex hadn't noticed before. he tried to remove it with his hands, but a barrier appeared.

Alex was confused. He placed his hands on the door, but no barrier appeared there. But when he tried to touch outside, the barrier popped up to stop him.

It didn't take Alex very long to go around testing how far the barrier extended to, before realizing that it was a barrier that covered the entire upper half of the mountain.

He didn't have evidence to support his theory, but he was sure that if he were to dig through the ground towards the bottom of the mountain, he would surely find a barrier halfway through as well.

This mountain… it was likely more important to the entire realm than any other, even the House of the Undying.

Alex circled back to the stone door and placed his hand on the barrier, then started hitting the door continuously.

Since he couldn't touch through the barrier, he wanted to use the vibrations of the kicks to dislodge some of the dirt in the writing to make it clear.

'If only I could use my spiritual sense,' he thought.

As the dirt was more and more dislodged, Alex could finally make out the outlines of the word.

'North' it read.

"North?" Alex looked at the name weirdly. He looked around the word and saw if he missed something.

"Did they really just name the mountain in the north, North?" Alex thought. "They could have at least named it after what its purpose is."

"Hmm… or was this on purpose and they wanted to hide the purpose of the mountain?" he thought.

That certainly seemed plausible. If the Library mountain's door was named 'South', people wouldn't be able to tell what it was for until it opened up.

'They must have been prepared to have intruders then,' Alex thought.

'I wonder what they were trying to hide here,' he thought. 'I wish I could see insi—'

"Oh wait, maybe I can," he thought and quickly placed his hand on the door. Once the rune glowed yellow, he tried to send his spiritual sense inside.

To his disbelief, it did. His spiritual sense entered the door and into the room.

From what he saw with his sense, it was a long and wide hallway that led all the way to... Somewhere.

The hallway was longer than his senses could reach, unfortunately. In the end, Alex was forced to stop as it yielded no result.

He waited around the mountain for a little longer, but nothing seemed to be working anymore.

However, he did gain some ideas on what he could do in the houses back in the 5th mountain.

So, with renewed vigor, he walked back and left the North mountain.