Eternal Cultivation of Alchemy

A bunch of light gathered at the center as things floated in the air. Alex recognized them for what they were.

Runes.

"You have 20 runes here," the voice said. "Using only the runes available here, make a talisman design that can absorb a sword attack in it to be used for later."

Alex and the rest of the people in the room were surprised when they heard that. "That\'s possible?" he couldn\'t help but wonder.

He knew normal attacks could be stored in talismans, but sword attacks were different, especially if you were to include Intent and Qi into the mix.

Just like every else, he too was given a piece of talisman to draw the design into.

A timer appeared in front of all of them and from what he could see, there were 30 minutes on the clock.

He looked away and started working.

\'Take in a sword attack,\' Alex thought. \'I will need the Storage rune, combine that with the Capture rune. The attack will have to be preserved, so the Preserve rune should be helpful. I can\'t let the attack hit the talisman, so I need a distance rune.\'

He started working on the talisman, just like everyone else in the room.

Alex had practiced runes after he entered the Saint realm just for a short period of time when he was under the imprisonment of the False Immortal.

That hadn\'t been that comprehensive of practice, so he didn\'t have as much knowledge on it as he would\'ve hoped to have gathered by now.

Still, seeing as how many of the people here didn\'t even have a single clue how runes worked, he had high hopes of passing.

These people had only ever bought talismans, and never really delved into how the talismans did the things they bought them to do. As long as it worked, they were fine with it.

Alex came across a few complications as this particular sort of design was not something he had worked with as much, so it took some outside thinking to solve them.

In the end, about 20 minutes later, he was finally done. He submitted the result and the voice spoke.

"You have passed."

The people around him looked at him with weird looks on their faces, almost unbelieving that someone had done it.

Alex himself had a bright smile on his face as he happily went up the floor and entered the 40th floor.

The floor looked empty, aside from 2 people that seemed to be in deep cultivation. There seemed to be a single room in the center of the room, while everyone else was made to stay outside.

Alex could see the cracked space far behind the room and shook his head. He didn\'t know how long it was going to take to continue moving, so he found himself a place to stay and cultivate.

He didn\'t eat a pill or anything, but the cultivation still felt so very fast. Perhaps because he barely had any Qi left, it felt like getting to drink chilled water after a hot day of work.

He relished the experience that lasted for a few minutes before he was back to cultivating normally.

He wondered what the task of this floor was. As another 5th floor, the 40th floor was bound to be special. As the last 5th floor with a challenge in it, he wondered if it was something very difficult.

He didn\'t doubt there was something he would be bad at when compared to what a normal cultivator was supposed to be capable of, but he still couldn\'t help but be slightly nervous.

If he failed here, coming up would take a long time, and in that time, someone might already have completed all the floors.

The door opened a few hours later and one of the people went through it. He continued cultivating and in that time 2 more people arrived on the floor, who found a place to stay.

Alex suspected everyone he saw now to be part of the assassins, but it didn\'t look like they were.

After waiting for some more time, the door opened.

He stood up and went up to the door. As soon as he passed through it, the door was closed behind him and the dark room glowed just enough to show the outline of a massive humanoid status.

The statue moved a bit, surprising Alex. He got on guard, ready to block if it were to attack him.

"WHO DARES WAKE ME FROM MY DEEP SLUMBER? WHO DARES STEP FOOT IN MY DOMAIN?" the statue thundered with a deep voice that sent the words reverberating through the room.

Alex gulped a little, wondering if the 40th floor was going to be the deadliest floor yet. He reached into the storage ring, ready to take out Midnight, although he wasn\'t sure how helpful that would be.

"SUCH AN ACT OF DISRESPECT SHALL NOT GO UNPUNISHED!" the voice continued. "ANSWER ME, CRETIN, OR I SHALL HAVE YOUR TONGUE PULLED OUT AND— oh, Master White Tiger, it\'s you."

The deep voice suddenly changed to a soft, sweet voice that belonged to the spirit.

Alex let go of the breath he was holding. "Spirit? Is that you?" he asked.

The lights returned in the room. "Yes, it\'s me, Master White Tiger. I\'m happy to see you have finally arrived here," he said.

"That voice just now…"

"That\'s something I do to make the challengers feel danger and judge their actions," the spirit said. "Forgive my actions if they seemed disrespectful just now."

The attitude from the spirit was a complete turnaround from the monster he was expecting to fight a moment ago.

Alex relaxed a little. "Geez, I thought I was going to have to fight you," he said.

"Oh, you won\'t have to fight me on this floor," the spirit said.

"Then what am I supposed to do in here?" Alex asked as he looked around the room. "It\'s so small compared to the other rooms. Was I supposed to not be threatened by you?"

"That\'s where it would start," the spirit said. "Once you passed, I would check your potential and decide whether to pass you or fail you from there."

"Sorry, check my potential?" Alex asked. "You base the result on that?"

"Yes," the spirit said.

"And you expect people to be able to change their potential when they come back here?" he asked.

"Of course not," the spirit said. "If you fail in any of the following 5 floors, you fail the overall challenge, master White Tiger."

"What?" Alex shouted in surprise. He wasn\'t told that at all, most likely because they didn\'t expect him to ever get this high.

"Does everyone know this?" he asked.

"They would after I told them now," the spirit said. "But there have been people who have known this before coming here."

"I see," Alex said. At least he got to know it now. Nothing could\'ve changed in the result anyway.

"So, how do you test my potential?" Alex asked. "Is there a formation or an artifact?"

"I don\'t need to," the spirit said. "I have information on everything you are capable of, so I know how much potential you hold Master White Tiger. You have already passed."

"Oh…" Alex wasn\'t expecting that at all. "So… I move up now?"

"Not yet," the spirit said. "We will have to wait until the ones above us are done."

"You can\'t have more than one on a single floor above?" he asked.

"I had to make the 41st floor one due to reasons, but every floor above that is a solo challenge floor that takes up the entire floor. So, while there are ones above you, you can\'t continue," the spirit said. "That is until someone fails in any of the rounds, but at this stage, it\'s quite hard to find someone like that."

"I see," Alex said softly. "So, how long do I have to wait here?"

"Usually that depends on the 42nd floor," the spirit said. "Since that is the floor that can take days to pass."

"Oh, what\'s in there?" Alex asked.

The spirit only smiled instead of answering. "That\'s for you to find out," it said. "Oh, and speaking of which, looks like someone failed on the 41st floor. Up you go then."

Alex felt the teleportation power envelop him and found himself on the next floor. He found himself in a dark room, not even on a wide floor.

"Use a Dao, or you will fail."

"A Dao?" Alex was surprised. He looked around and was glad that there were no spatial cracks in this room. If there was, he would have definitely failed.

He wasted no time and used a fire Dao. The Qi from the atmosphere moved towards him to prove that he was in fact using a Dao.

"You have passed."

He passed, but he still had to wait for whoever was on the floors above him to pass as well.

\'This is my one and only chance,\' he thought.

He waited for a while and was eventually sent to the 42nd floor. He looked around at the floor with some more spatial cracks in the distance.

And then the voice spoke.

"Sit down and start cultivating."