Eternal Cultivation of Alchemy

"Give me back my ring," he shouted at the old man.

"Haha, do you think mere words will make me give you back your ring? Keep dreaming young man," the madman said as he tried to see what was inside the ring.

"Eh, you\'ve refined it well. It\'s gonna take a few minutes for sure," he said. Just then, Alex moved.

Midnight grew thrice its size as Alex slashed it at the old man. The old man wasn\'t very worried, but when the sword did fall on him, he couldn\'t help but stagger a bit.

"Woah, Woah, that\'s a strong sword," he said. There were scratches on the skin when the sword had struck but other than that, he wasn\'t very hurt. Still, he didn\'t have time for this.

He swung his arm and the wind alone slammed Alex against the wall, making his entire body hurt.

"The only reason you are alive right now is that you have a lot of talent and mysteries that I want answers to," the old man said. "Aside from that, you will also do well as being my personal alchemist that can heal me when I need to. If not for that, you would be dead for trying to attack me."

"Now, be obedient and stay here for a while. I will return in a few days," the old man said. Alex attacked him once more, but the old man left through the door and restarted the formation behind him.

Alex glared at the door angrily.

"Brother, wh—"

"Don\'t talk. I need some quiet," Alex said as he quickly sat down and closed his eyes as he started understanding the dao that he had been forcing back for so long.

The old man arrived outside the room and then left outside the underground palace.

He was out in the storm as dozens of lightning bolts struck down around him. For some reason, this gave him a calm that he couldn\'t explain despite it being the lightning strikes that took away everything from him.

Normal lightning seemed to not affect him at all. Almost as if they didn\'t even notice his existence in the air.

"Now, where should I start?" he thought. "There\'s the Blue Spring branch to the north that\'s the closest, or I can go to the Blazing Earth branch to the west."

The old man was too excited to think of which sect exactly to go for. "Ahh… I should definitely start with… hmm?" His eyes fell back towards the sky, looking through the lightning strikes.

"Is that… a dao?" he was surprised.

His senses suddenly entered the palace underneath and were surprised. "That young man is trying to learn a dao at this time? Why?" the old man thought.

Even as he did, worldly laws started falling from the sky and going into the underground palace. "What the hell?" the old man couldn\'t help but frown. "How is he so fast?" he thought.

His frown only got deeper when he sensed the dao that the young man he had locked away was learning. It was the same Dao he had learned a long time ago.

Space.

"What terrifying talent to learn about such a complex dao within moments. No, he must\'ve been learning about it for the past 10 years," the old man thought. "So his teleportation dao wasn\'t a fluke."

Just then, the worldly laws that had descended, receded as the job was done. Alex had learned the Dao of Space.

The old man felt a spatial shockwave as the separation in space between the palace and the outer world was destroyed and the two merged into one.

With learning the space dao, the barrier alone could hardly hold back Alex now that he could freely manipulate space. The old man saw the barrier fall and both the human and the beast come out of the room.

"Heh!" the old man smiled from up in the sky when he sensed Alex\'s spiritual sense in him. "Congratulations, young man. You\'ve learned a dao that many can hardly ever learn. No, they can hardly ever even feel the aura of space at all. You must\'ve been incredibly lucky to come across a space treasure."

"Still, I\'m afraid you did it all for nothing. Unless you have a treasure to hide from this lightning rain, you cannot even come out of that place, let alone think of stopping me," the old man said.

"I am still very young," Alex said. "I\'ve barely hit my 40s, but even so, I\'ve come to learn something that is fundamental to human nature in a way."

"Oh, and what is that?" the old man said.

"I\'ve learned that people usually let their guards down against others that they deem very much weaker to themselves," Alex said.

The old man\'s smile lessened a bit before coming back in full. "Are you trying to say that I\'ve underestimated you?" he asked. "Are you saying that you have the strength to beat me?"

"Of course not," Alex said. "I\'m only just saying that you let your guard down."

The old man couldn\'t help but frown. Alex\'s words made it sound like he had poisoned the old man while he wasn\'t aware, but that wasn\'t possible with his oath.

"What are you trying to say?" the old man asked.

"You see, I learned something about this barrier recently. You said that someone teleported out on you before, right? Which was why you added a space-constraining effect to the barrier," Alex said.

"Yes," the old man said. "Is that what you\'ve learned?"

"Yes, that was exactly what I figured out. I learned that the barrier and space are intricately linked. So, whenever the barrier was up, the space was up too."

"Or more accurately, whenever the barrier was down, the space was down as well," Alex said.

The old man still couldn\'t understand what Alex was trying to say. He had already broken down both the space and the barrier, so these conversations made no sense to him at all.

"Of course," Alex said. "You needn\'t worry about me leaving when the barrier was down. After all, you were always in the room, and with you being there, how could I possibly leave, right?"

"But you made one mistake in your little preparation here," Alex said.

"Oh? And what is that?" the old man asked. Just then, silence filled everything around him.

The sudden silence made the old man feel unnerved. He turned around to look at the source of the silence.

Just then, he realized something. Sunlight was starting to pour in through the sky as the storm above disappeared.

The lightning rain that had been the defining feature of this land for the last 8 thousand years disappeared.

The formation disappeared.

Alex smiled. "Your one mistake was that you thought I was all alone."

The old man\'s senses suddenly spread all around him and in one of the nodes that were responsible for the lightning formation, he saw a small mouse making its way away from the place.

"THAT DAMN RAT!" the old man shouted as he reached towards Whisker with his left hand. The space contracted so much that there was barely any distance between him and Whisker.

Alex saw this, but he wasn\'t worried.

Back when he had just finished making the pill, he had told Whisker to get ready. Since the barrier was down, Whisker could leave if no one focused on him.

Since Whisker was so weak, and since he had the Earth movement technique that allowed him to travel through the ground, he could get away from the location without being caught by the old man as long as he was distracted enough.

The distraction came in the form of the old man\'s pain, which gave Whisker the perfect opportunity to go.

For the next few minutes, he went around searching for the nodes. Alex had a guess where it could be, but he wasn\'t sure. So, all he could do was wait for Whisker to find it and disrupt it.

Then, the only thing he needed to do was keep the old man there long enough for Whisker to find the node.

That was the exact reason why Alex spoke so many words. He needed to keep the old man there just long enough.

And now, his wait had given fruit.

The old man grabbed Whisker and pulled him away from where he was. At the same time, Alex teleported back to the outside as he rushed toward the old man.

Midnight made no glow. Instead, it was pitch black as Godslayer empowered it with the death aura he had absorbed from the old man he intended to attack now.

The old man crushed Whisker without hesitation, killing him in his hands. However, Whisker wouldn\'t die so easily.

His body instead turned into Qi and flew back towards Alex, going into his shoulder plate to regrow again.

At the same time, Alex moved his left arm to constrict the space around the old man. The old man fought back against the space, but he found Alex\'s intent to be not as easy to fight against.

Even as he tried to break it, Alex arrived in front of him, and with him, he brought a sword full of death.

"Don\'t hold back on me now, Godslayer!" Alex shouted.

"Do it! I\'ll give you everything I can," the sword spirit shouted.

Then, Alex swung his sword.