Eternal Cultivation of Alchemy

"Young man? You\'re back already?" Yao Ning asked when she saw him. Hou Xinya was surprised as well.

"What happened in the Sanctum? Did you find your father?" Hou Xinya asked him.

"Forget my father, the entire Dark Phoenix group was waiting for me there," he said.

"What? Are you fine? Are you hurt?" Yao Ning asked worriedly.

"Not really," Alex said. "I was nearly killed, by none other than Zhu Shaofan. Turns out, he\'s the leader of the Dark Phoenix assassins group."

The two elders looked at him with a confused look.

"I can make an oath if you want," Alex said.

The other two looked at him suspiciously. "Zhu Shaofan nearly killed you?" they asked.

"Yes," Alex said.

"How did you survive?" they asked.

"He thought he killed me, so he left," Alex said, not bothering to tell anymore. "I\'m sorry, I don\'t have time for this. That man thinks he\'s killed me and is most likely on his way to get his payment. Can either of you come with me to go catch him? I can\'t do it alone."

The two hesitated a little. "Wait for a while. Once the others are out, we can discuss it, and then we can go," Yao Ning said.

Alex frowned for a second and only then remembered that the members of the Council couldn\'t leave the capital unless they all previously agreed to it.

"Is it true that you guys can\'t kill anyone on this continent?" Alex asked.

The two elders frowned a bit. "How do you know that?" they asked.

"Zhu Shaofan told me," Alex said. "He told me that the oath you had him makes stopped him from killing people. He said his family members were attacked once in the past and he had to watch helplessly since he couldn\'t kill his enemies. He has been despising you since then."

The two elders thought for a bit and remembered the past. "That can\'t be… but he seemed so…"

"He established the assassin group just so he could kill people he didn\'t like," Alex said. "He told me that and then revealed to me that he could kill people, as long as they were not from this continent, just before he went for my head."

The elders heard him and slowly realized that everything added up. The truth was still not decided in their minds, but the evidence was there for now.

"We can\'t leave right now, but it doesn\'t look like there\'s a hurry," the old woman said. "We will call everyone out and make a decision to leave. Just wait for a while."

"But we might miss out on the people that are trying to kill me," Alex said.

"Have you figured out who they are?" Yao Ning asked.

Alex hesitated for a bit. He reached into his storage and prepared his new gift just in case it was needed.

"I have a good idea," he said. "It\'s someone strong and rich enough to employ the Dark Pheonix group, and someone who also knows the connection between me and my father."

"Who?" Hou Xinya asked.

"All 10 of you and your families," Alex said. "You all are my suspicion."

The old woman\'s eyes widened for a second before narrowing for a second. "So you have been suspicious of us," she said. "I would be too."

Alex was a little surprised. "I would\'ve expected you to get angry, and maybe even throw a fit as to how disrespectful I was being."

Hou Xinya was halfway there, but he quelled his rage.

"I had a guess," the old woman said. "Back when you mentioned that someone had sent you a visual recording of your father, I wondered why they would do such a thing. Rather, I wondered how they even knew who your father was. And the Heaven Silk thread, that\'s not a common item."

Alex nodded. "That\'s why almost all of you were under my suspicion," he said.

The old woman nodded. "But not all of us are your enemies, the 10 of us are certainly not. We old people have been holed up here for generations, and everything we do, we do for the sake of the Southern Continent. It\'s part of our oath that can only be broken under a single condition that hasn\'t been fulfilled yet."

Alex gave a thoughtful look. "So… it\'s the sects or families then," he said. He didn\'t trust her words entirely, but it was better for him to start with the families and sects anyway. His father was most likely being held hostage by them after all.

"You now have 10 groups of enemies in your mind," the old woman said. "Even if we leave right now, we won\'t get to them all before Zhu Shaofan would get to them. The chance of us and Zhu Shaofan being there at the same time is near impossible after all."

Alex thought for a bit. "I do have a way," he said. "I just need the Saints of each of these places to gather together for a bit."

"Alright, then just wait for a while. We will for everyone to come out, then we will have a meeting, and then we can leave," the old woman said

Hou Xinya nodded behind her, as that was the most appropriate response to this. Anything else would be reactionary and thus not very well thought out.

"Also, someone sent this to you about 3 months ago. I think they were trying to poison you again," Yao Ning said as she tossed a wooden box to Alex.

Alex grabbed the box and was surprised that it was slightly heavy. "This has poison?" he asked.

"Something poisonous," she said.

"You\'ve opened it?" Alex asked.

"Yes," the old woman said. "Lei Zhong got it and it\'s well packaged, so unless you break it open, you won\'t be poisoned."

Alex slowly opened the body and found something wrapped inside of it, something heavy. Used his senses to look past the wrapping and saw that it was an ore.

A reddish-white ore that Alex didn\'t know anything about.

"This ore is poisonous?" Alex asked curiously.

"Apparently," the old woman said. "The ore is toxic and remains that way until it\'s turned to metal. I didn\'t know about it until sister Lei told me, which she heard from old man Kang."

"You can obtain the Blood-tainted Lead, a crimson metal that is very unique and expensive because of how durable and how rare it is. That little ore alone should cost you upwards of tens of thousands of spirit stones," the old woman finished.

"How did you get this?" Alex asked.

"It was put outside the Alchemy Association with your name on it, just like the box you got from before," she said.

Alex frowned. \'This doesn\'t make sense,\' he thought. \'Why would anyone send this to me? That too 3 months ago. I was already inside the Sanctum by that time, so I would have most likely been considered dead at the time with 4 different assassins coming after me.\'

"Anyway, you should throw that ore," the old woman said.

"No, I\'ll keep it," Alex said. "Please have the rest of the seniors leave their cultivation as quickly as they can."

Once he said that, Alex went to his room while thinking about the ore he had received. Why had he received another blatant murder attempt on his life while he wasn\'t even around?

\'Is it not a murder attempt then?\' he wondered.

If it was not, then what did the ore represent? Alex looked at the box, the wrappings, everything, but there was nothing written on it at all.

\'Blood-tainted Lead,\' he thought. \'A rare ore that\'s also so toxic that I was warned about it.\'

Alex paused. He quickly went to his room and opened the box. And then, he tried to crush the ore with his palm. He couldn\'t really feel anything from the ore in terms of its toxicity, but he did notice how incredibly crumbly the ore was.

Of course, he could crumble it so easily because of his strength as the ore itself wouldn\'t normally crumble, but with an ore this brittle, the powder would get everywhere.

As he went down that thought process, something struck him.

"Can it be?" he wondered.

He quickly left his room and went to find the two elders.

"Young man, why are you out right now?" Yao Ning asked.

"I… I think I have an idea," he said.

"An idea?" the old woman asked.

"Can either of you leave right now?" he asked.

"Didn\'t we plan to leave after everyone is out?" the old woman asked.

"I can\'t wait," Alex said. "I will be leaving soon and going to Sureheart city."

The old woman\'s eyes narrowed. "Because of the ore?"

"Yes," Alex said. "I believe it came from there, but I\'m not sure they had any malicious intent behind it."

The old woman frowned. "Can\'t you just wait? It might be dangerous," she said.

"Don\'t worry, I won\'t go near anywhere that is dangerous," he said.

The old woman still tried to stop him, but Alex had already made up his mind. He left the palace that very second and made his way to the teleportation formation.

Very soon, he arrived at Sureheart city which was one of the most northwestern cities of the entire continent, not counting the Wastelands.

He looked at the mountains the city was surrounded by and a massive mansion that was built there.

That was his goal today.