Eternal Cultivation of Alchemy

The moment Alex saw that the paw print on his left bicep was gone, he immediately jumped into action.

He spread his spiritual sense in a wide area, locating many of the important people in the palace. "I'm going away for a while. I'll be back soon," he told them.

Then, he teleported away, arriving on top of the teleportation platform behind the palace. He activated the script without hesitation and in the next moment he was gone.

Alex arrived in the northern desert of the Western Continent and immediately flew away from there, moving in the direction of the Beast realm.

His speed was far faster than any boat artifact he could use, and as such he would arrive by the Beast realm in just an hour.

Alex checked his arm again, to make sure he wasn't mistaken. He even hoped he was. However, the mark was still gone, which meant… Alex didn't want to think about what that meant.

He continued flying for a while, keeping all thoughts away from him at the moment, and arrived by the teleportation platform outside of the secret realm.

He flew down and quickly asked the beasts there to let him in. After contacting someone inside, Alex was finally taken in.

As soon as Alex arrived in the underground palace, he had to follow a beast who was taking him to Bai Jingshen. Alex was in a hurry, but he couldn't overstep his boundaries.

He wasn't taken to the Throne room, but rather to the palace hall where he arrived and entered. As soon as he entered, he saw Bai Jingshen in his massive beast form, sitting on top of a large chair.

Next to him were his 7 women who were sitting to the side, seemingly waiting for Alex to come.

Then, Alex saw the 9th beast in the group.

"Pearl!" Alex called out as soon as he saw the white-furred beast with golden eyes.

"Brother!" Pearl shouted and ran off toward Alex. He jumped onto Alex, hugging him in the process. "You finally came, brother."

Alex hugged the giant Pearl with his arms not even reaching halfway around his body. "You scared me," he said, holding him tightly. "I thought you were dead."

Pearl let go of Alex. "Dead? Why?" he asked.

Alex quickly showed his bicep. "Your beast space is gone, so I thought you had died," he said. "I was so worried, but you're still alive, so everything is fine."

"You only noticed it was gone now?" Bai Jingshen was gone.

"Ah, brother Shen," Alex quickly spoke. "Greetings." He turned to the others as well as greeted them. "My apologies, I was in such a rush that i—"

"It's fine," Bai Jingshen said with a bit of a chuckle in his voice. "I would have been worried if you weren't so emotionally occupied with seeing Pearl."

Alex nodded and looked back at Pearl. He stared at him for a few moments with a confused look on his face. Pearl's cultivation base seemed to have gotten a little better, and his aura seemed stronger, but there were no other changes that were apparent to him.

"He… evolved, didn't he?" he asked.

"He did, but he didn't change physically," Bai Jingshen said. "It's a common occurrence in beasts that have a very strong impression of who they are. So, when they evolve, they remain the same."

"But mistake not, this Pearl is completely different than the Pearl you used to know. His strength, skill, talent, everything is on a level beyond that of a regular beast. After all, he is now a bonafide Heavenly beast with a bloodline comparable to that of the progenitor of the White Tiger."

Alex felt a chill pass through him when he remotely realized just how important that made Pearl.

"So everything is fixed, right?" Alex asked. "His bloodline is great and his spiritual root is fine?"

"His bloodline is greater than ever, and his spiritual roots are back to being how they were before he ruined it in the Central Continent," Bai Jingshen said.

"I see, that's a relief," Alex said and a small smile formed on his face. "You did it, Pearl. I knew you could do it."

Pearl gave a smile as well.

"Were you busy? Why didn't you come sooner?" Bai Jingshen asked.

"I was busy," Alex said. "I only recently became free and was going to move on to my next work, which was when I noticed that the tattoo was gone."

"So," he turned toward Bai Jingshen. "Can you tell me why the tattoo is gone? Not only that, but I also can't feel Pearl even though he is right in front of him. Is it why I think it is?"

Bai Jingshen shrugged. "You seem to have realized already. It's simple, isn't it? You two lost your bond."

Alex knew that was most definitely the answer, but he was still surprised. "We both lost our bond?" he asked. "I didn't initiate it, so does that mean Pearl broke the bond with me?"

He found it hard to believe Pearl would do something like that.

"No," Bai Jingshen said. "You could say it happened on its own, or if you want someone to blame, blame the heavens."

"I… don't understand," Alex said, hoping for a better explanation than that.

"Simply speaking, your bond was with Pearl, the White Cat. What he became after evolving was a White Tiger. Since he's an entirely different being, the Pearl you were bonded with no longer exists in Heaven's eyes. So, the bond broke. Does that make sense?" Bai Jingshe asked.

"Uh… yeah, actually that makes a lot of sense," Alex said. "So Pearl really did evolve into something else other than what he was before, huh?"

He smiled and pet Pearl a little. As he did, he noticed something.

"Huh?" Alex got curious. For one thing, Pearl's muscles were far stronger than they were before, but that wasn't what surprised Alex. What surprised him was Pearl's skin.

As he pet him, he noticed the skin underneath the fur, which didn't seem to be some plain skin at all. Instead, it looked like there was some black pattern across his skin.

It was only on his body, and couldn't be seen that easily even with the fur moved. The markings were also quite disconnected, so it didn't seem like they were something recognizable.

"What is this?" Alex asked Bai Jingshen.

Bai Jingshen looked closely and shook his head. "I don't know. This is the first time I saw this," he said trying to understand what it was.

The female beasts looked at the black spots and were surprised. "Maybe his skin got the black stripes of a tiger, but not entirely?" one of them asked.

"It could be the black spots or patches of a normal leopard or a clouded leopard," one of the women said. "Maybe from his father?"

"Maybe it was something in this young man's blood that affected the evolution process," another one answered.

Not a single one could truly come up with a satisfactory answer, so they all gave up in the end.

"If we don't know, then there's no point in figuring out. I'll have them look up what it could be later. For now, since you are here you might as well tell me when you are leaving for the Eastern Continent," Bai Jingshen asked.

Alex thought for a bit and answered.

"There should be less than half a year before we leave."