Eternal Cultivation of Alchemy

Once he was fully done with his cultivation, Alex finally checked the mountain he was upon. Since there was a forest here, he could only hope for there to be some ingredients here that he could use to make pills.

Since he was lacking in money, he needed to sell pills to get them again.

Alex stood up from under the tree and looked towards the north where he could still see a bit of land that was the Wastelands.

He needed to find his father and since he already had enough Qi he had thought of going there. However, he still needed to prepare a few things, so he was first going to a town from the south.

A slight feeling of fear grew in Alex's heart when he thought of going south.

During the last few days he was here, occasionally he would sense the spiritual sense of a sea beast pass through him. He didn't know just how strong the beasts were but he could tell that if they were to attack him, his only method of survival was to run away.

'Dammit, I hope I don't get caught,' Alex thought.

He looked towards the south and the mountain ranges there. As long as he went there and flew on land, he would be safe from the sea.

He quickly went around the island, looking for anything worth taking with him. There were a few True rank ingredients and even one Saint rank ingredient, but that was the most there was.

Most of the ingredients were Common rank, and that was just not something Alex wanted to be bothered with. Since he was doing it for money, making common rank pills would be useless.

Alex did think of trying out pill veins with common rank pills, but he could do the same with True pills as well. In the end, there wasn't much from the mountain he could take anymore.

Alex quickly flew away from the island before immediately teleporting away. He had gone invisible and concealed his aura, but if a single Saint beast were to send out their spiritual sense, they would notice him immediately.

Which was why he was teleporting multiple times, even going as far as to push himself to teleport over a kilometer a few times.

He did feel slight headaches when he pushed himself that far. His Intent was strong, but not that strong.

Thankfully, he managed to reach the land without being caught by any of the beasts.

Alex landed by a cliff and looked back at the mountain he had just left a couple of minutes ago. When he saw how far it was, he couldn't help but laugh.

Had he tried to cover the same distance without flying, it would have easily taken him a day or more.

'Flying is so much better,' Alex thought.

He turned around to look past the cliff into the mountains lying in the south. He couldn't see any Qi with his eyes, so he could be sure that there was most likely some Phoenix fire that burned here that was constantly sucking in the Qi from the Spirit vein and the surrounding air.

Alex sighed and flew away.

He hugged the mountain to his right as he flew, going further and further deep into the south.

At some point, he had to finally stop. The road was blocked by a barrier that didn't let entry. This was the same barrier that had stopped him from entering the south a couple of weeks ago.

"So this barrier goes this far around, huh?" he thought. "That mad did tell me something like that but I didn't think it would be so far. I wonder how much Qi they are using up by constantly using this barrier."

Alex continued flying, his Qi reserve barely dropping because of how full he was. After an hour or two, he finally arrived at a certain bay where the barrier seem to end.

By now, the Qi had returned and it didn't seem like any of the tribal men had made it this far.

Alex stood by the edge of the mountain where the barrier ended and looked down. He was on a cliff so there was an ocean many meters below it. He could see people towards the end of the ocean where there was a relatively massive beach.

Beyond the beach were another few mountain ranges, but Alex could already see a city built onto the mountains themselves.

Finally, he had arrived somewhere with cultivators.

He quickly flew away from the edge and flew down to the beach. A few people looked at him with curious eyes, but most weren't bothered by his arrival.

Alex looked at the people here and their fair skin. They hadn't lived in the sun forever as the people from the tribes had, nor had they battled with pain and torture every day to gain their strength.

If these people had half the determination the people from the wasteland did, would most of them already be Saint by now? Alex could only wonder as he walked past them.

He didn't release his spiritual sense, nor did show off his cultivation base. As a result, he wasn't welcomed by anyone or got himself involved with anyone either.

Alex looked at the mountain that was the city and smiled. Was this the first time he was seeing something like this? Every other place that was a city either lay inside a mountain range or on some flat land.

He could only think of sects that lived in mountains, so this was a bit of a surprise to him.

Alex quickly found someone and asked where he was, along with asking for a place where he could possibly gain more knowledge about this city.

"Oh, are you from another continent?" the man accurately assessed his situation.

"Ahh… yes, I am," Alex said.

"Huh… we rarely get outsiders from another continent coming from here. Most usually enter through the Eastwatch city. You're the first in a few years," the man said.

"I see," Alex said. "And about my questions?"

"Ah, right. This is Hiddenbay city. Named after that bay that rarely anyone comes from," the man said. "There is an information center in the city halfway up the mountain. You can pay for more information there. Definitely a lot more than what I might be able to."

"I see," Alex looked at the mountain. "Thank you."

He left the man and walked towards the mountain.

There were houses at the foot of the mountain already. The sprawling city was larger than it looked like from up in the air.

Alex looked at the children that played in the open space, cultivators that fought each other to train, and mortals going by their day carrying various things.

He saw houses made up of wood, stone, mud, and even some that were made up of some sort of sand mixture that looked suspiciously like concrete.

These houses looked newer than others, so Alex could only guess that some players who had knowledge of concrete had already spread the knowledge far and wide and now there were mortals from this continent that were starting to use that knowledge for themselves.

Alex looked back at the beach and understood why they would be spread so fast. After all, this was a place with a lot of beaches, so the concrete wouldn't be that outside the realm of possibility.

There was also the desert in the wastelands, but Alex wasn't sure if those sands worked in concrete or not. After all, they were reddish in color, so there was likely something different about that sand.

Alex took the spiraling road up the mountain.

He could've flown up, but he wanted to see the scenery on the way up. He wanted to see more of the houses, the people.

After all, it had been nearly 10 years since he had seen a civilization like this that wasn't just a tribe living off of nothing.

Alex finally ended up in front of a place known as the Insight Pavilion. This was the place that was apparently full of any and all information that he could want.

A thought crossed for him to ask about his father, but where would he even begin to ask such things?

Besides, there were other things he wanted to ask about.

He walked into the building that didn't hold many people at all. There were about 5 people in total in this relatively large building that weren't staff members.

Alex walked up to a clerk that was free.

"Hi, I'm looking for some information. How much do they cost?" he asked.

"It depends on the information you are looking for, fellow Daoist. Can you tell me what you are looking for?" she asked.

"I'm a little low on money and want to earn it by selling some pills. Do you know what the best way to go about it is? Also to add, I do not have much money on me," he said.

The girl pulled out a few talismans and started looking through them. After half a minute, he had the information ready.

"It will cost you 15 True spirit stones," she said.

Alex currently had about 100 True spirit stones, so he paid the price without hesitation.

The girl quickly transcribed everything he needed to know on a piece of talisman and handed it to him. "Is there anything else I can help you with?"