Eternal Cultivation of Alchemy

Alex stared at his sword. With a thought, an outline formed on top of it full of white light.

This was his Sword Intent.

Then, with another thought, the outline increased to the point that it covered the whole blade and all of it glowed white this time.

This was his Sword Qi.

But then… what about when sparks flew out of the white light that surrounded a person? Alex had seen it with Du Yuhan. When he used Sword Qi, sparks would flow around him before converging on the sword to form the sword Qi.

'Am I doing it wrong? Or is my path of the sword just that different?' Alex wondered.

Du Yuhan had told him that his path had been one where he cut everything in his path. So… maybe it was different?

Alex decided to stop thinking about it now and simply rejoiced at the fact that he managed to get past the bottleneck and established his own Sword Qi.

He sat at the foot of the tree with Pearl protecting him as he cultivated to gather up his Qi once more.

By the time he was done, night had already fallen. Alex could leave, but he didn't.

Memories of the day flooded his mind and tear welled up in his eyes. His mother and father... he hadn't seen either of them in over 3 years.

Only after remembering them, seeing them care for him did he realize just how much he had missed them both.

'She did at least one thing nice before she died,' he thought and stood up.

Just like his father said, Alex wouldn't let even this pain stop him. He had to keep moving forward.

So, he stood up from the place and left. The rest of the remaining 3 days felt empty to him.

He couldn't think of what there was in this place to do. He went to the 6th mountain, but it was the same old.

He went around the forest, but aside from finding some ingredients and treasures with a lot of Qi, there was nothing more to find.

Some rogue cultivators as well as normal ones tried to rob him, but they were usually too weak for him even without his elemental Qi, or his sword Qi.

As such, the 8th day passed along as well with nothing of value happening in the land around him.

Alex had returned to the 5th mountain on this day, but there were too many people looking for some treasures, so he could sneakily open a few doors and steal what he could find.

So, he had to leave that place too.

On the 9th day, while roaming around the place, Alex returned back to the 3rd mountain that still had a host of people that looked ready to attack the cultivators belonging to sects and clans that were blocking the route.

Alex shook his head when he saw that and ignored it to go around the mountain. He walked up the side of the mountain, trekking in between the trees as he saw everything around him.

At the top of the mountain, there was another plateau. Alex half-expected a house to be there, but there was nothing there really.

All he could see were tall grasses and short trees.

"Hmm… weird," he thought for a second as he looked at the trees and something looked misplaced there.

He turned around and looked at the other areas and immediately realized what it was. "Right, the trees are too young," he thought.

The grasses and trees filled the area, but they were young.

'Why is it young?' he wondered and sent out his spiritual sense.

At first, nothing seemed abnormal. The Qi was fine and the trees were healthy.

However, it was then that he noticed something.

'My spiritual sense won't' go underground?' he thought in surprise. He tried to force it into the mountain, but he simply couldn't.

'Is there a barrier around this mountain?' he wondered and stumped his legs beneath him very hard.

Suddenly, the surroundings vibrated as a blue barrier that appeared around them pushed the entire soil and plants above it.

Alex then took out his sword and slashed using his Sword Qi. He didn't know exactly how strong his attack was at the moment, but he knew it was in the True King realm.

He would go check the damage on the next mountain after this.

When the white slash landed on the ground, the blue barrier appeared once again to block the attack, but his sword Qi wouldn't budge.

The Qi diminished by the second and until the very end, they kept attacking the barrier.

In the process, they destroyed quite an area around them as soil and plants both were ripped away from the area, revealing the true thing that lay underneath.

A giant cluster of complex runes.

Alex recognized part of the runes in the cluster as the ones he could find in any door.

'So this is a door?' Alex thought. 'Where does it lead to?'

He kept away his sword and placed his hands on the runes before pouring in his own Qi.

When the Qi flowed into the gate, Alex got his spiritual sense ready to peer into the place and see what it held.

After all, it wasn't like the gate would just op—

Suddenly, a familiar feeling took over Alex, and before he could say anything, he was teleported away.

When he reappeared, Alex found himself inside a relatively bright room that had runes that burned with bright light.

"Where the hell am I? Why did I teleport?" he immediately started freaking out. He really hadn't expected the door to suddenly teleport him.

None of the other doors had done anything like that. Why did this one do such a thing?

When he sent his spiritual sense out, he found that he couldn't bring it out at all. It was as if spiritual sense was suppressed in this room.

"What the hell?" he thought. He started looking around and soon found a complex rune of the same type outside

'Sigh, there's a way to leave,' he thought.

He relaxed a little after learning that he could leave it whenever the hell he wanted to. But he still couldn't help but wonder where the hell he was.

Alex was standing in the midst of a relatively grand hall. The walls seemed to be made up of something that looked like limestone but was harder.

The floor was made up of the same material and had bright red carpets on top of it.

He walked around the room, looking through it everything and that was when he noticed a door at the corner of the room.

'Oh, what's that?' he thought and walked towards it.

This time, the door looked incredibly simple. There were no runes on it at all. "It's a simple door?" Alex couldn't help but be surprised.

He tried to push on the door, but it seemed to have been lodged somewhere, and didn't want to be pushed.

It was either that or the door itself was very heavy. "Screw it, I will cut it," he thought and brought out his sword.

White light covered the sharp sword in his hands and he directly struck the door. When the strike landed, Alex's eyes went wide.

Somehow, even with his strongest attack at the moment, the best he could do to the door was put a small cut on it that was merely half a centimeter deep.

Alex half expected to find the sword with chinks on it, but of course not. His sword was one of the best ever.

If only it accepted Qi, that would have been awesome.

Alex tried a few more times, but all he could do was make some cuts. He sighed a stopped.

At this rate, it would take him 5 days at least to break through the door. He didn't have that sort of time.

'What the hell is this place exactly?' he thought one last time before deciding to leave. If he couldn't open the only door that could lead him to possible treasures, then he didn't need to remain here.

He walked back to the front of the room and placed his palm on the runes before pouring Qi into it.

The runes glowed bright yellow, and then… nothing happened.

"What?" Alex was confused for a second. He poured in his Qi once again, but the same thing happened once again, which was nothing.

"Oh, you can't do this to me," Alex said and he poured in more Qi and even punched it a couple of times.

However, he still couldn't teleport at all.

"What the hell is going on? Am I stuck here now?" he asked with shock. He couldn't help but start blaming the Alex from 5 minutes ago for being so stupid.

But, when he thought back to the event that took place then, he had no reason at all to suspect that such a thing could've even happened.

Even if he was twice as cautious as he was now, he would still have done the same thing.

"There's no point in bothering then," he thought and let out Pearl.

Pearl came out with a meow and asked where they were.

"You can speak freely here," Alex said. "Also, we are stuck somewhere with no way to leave."

"We're stuck? What do we do now?" Pearl asked.

"Well, I think the best thing to do now, is to do nothing," Alex said. "There are only 2 more days left for this realm to be over. All we have to do now is sit tight and wait for the world to teleport us out."