Eternal Cultivation of Alchemy

Chapter 3259 A Simple Method

"We should decide who is staying behind," Scarlet said after some thought.

Alex had been staring at the Black Spire and Wu Tanglan, lost in his own thoughts, when he heard her speak. "What?" He turned around, belatedly catching up on the conversation. "Oh, we'll decide that once. we're at the center."

Scarlet narrowed her eyes. "You want us to go all the way to the center before deciding on that? Wouldn't it make more sense for us to decide right here?"

Alex shook his head. "There's no need for that."

Pearl narrowed his eyes. "I'll stay behind," he said after making the decision. "Sister Scarlet has a higher survival rate than me with her phoenix flames, so it makes sense for her to continue on."

"Nonsense," Scarlet said quickly. "I have already been a burden to you two. I only reached this far because you brought me along. If not, I would've already failed at the 5th trial."

"I'm not that different. I would've failed at the 6th one," Pearl said. "Since we're both out of our safe zone, it makes sense for you to continue."

"No, it can't be me. Just because I pass this time..."

Alex closed his eyes, letting the two beasts' bickering wash past him. He didn't wait for them to come to a decision and turned around. He raised his arm, applying a Dao.

Pearl paused as he sensed spatial manipulation and turned to find Alex using a Dao.

"Brother?" Pearl asked, worried. "What are you doing?" "Testing," Alex said.

"Testing what?" Scarlet asked.

"Teleportation is suppressed in this place," Alex explained. "But we never really tested for the other spatial daos. Earlier, when I used the Limitless Void Slash, I realized that there was little restriction on spatial manipulation itself, so I figured I should test it out."

Pearl used the Dao of Spatial Contraction and found it working quite well. "You're right," he said. "It does work. Although, I can sense a hint of pushback."

"That's with every Dao in here for some reason," Alex said. "At least we know now that spatial manipulation is allowed."

Scarlet tilted her head to the side. "And that helps us how exactly?" she asked. "It won't let more than 2 participants pass at the same time, will it? And forgive me if I'm wrong, but contracting space still won't let you skip past things, will it? If there is something in between, you will still have to go past it, right?"

Alex nodded.

"Then it won't help us travel through the poisonous plants," she said. "So what can it do?"

"I have a theory," Alex said. "And I want to test it out."

"What theory?" both Scarlet and Pearl asked, growing curious.

Alex smiled. "It's not fun if I tell you right away," he said, turning to move toward the forest. "Come, we only have a day to get to the center, and I don't want to waste another second."

He walked straight toward the forest, not a hint of hesitation in his steps.

"Wait, brother. You might be safe, but we need to be careful," Pearl quickly said. "We need to figure out which one of us is stay-"

Pearl's words ended right away as he watched what Alex did next with great shock.

Scarlet was the same, having never realized there was such an option to begin with.

Alex did something very simple. He walked up to the first poison plant, a large red flower of some sort, and instead of walking past it, he plucked it away from the tree branch and stored it into his Soul Space.

He took one step forward, arriving before a patch of poison grass, and stored it away too.

A flower here, a branch there, an entire tree over there-the poison plants weren't an obstacle for Alex, but instead a treasure trove. He was no different than a kid at a candy store, having free rein over

everything his eyes could see.

Alex excitedly moved through the forest, not heading toward the center, but rather moving around the outer edge since he wanted to take as many of the poison plants as he could.

Both Immortal and Divine-rank poison plants lay in the forest, and every single one of them was for Alex to take away.

There were certain methods to harvesting the plants without getting poison on one's person. Alex cared for none of that. He was constantly poisoned, and his body constantly burned it away, turning it all

instead into Qi for him to use.

Pearl and Scarlet remained behind, a constant look of disbelief on their faces. They looked at each other, as if trying to ask the other person if they were seeing what was happening.

They had nothing else to do there but to walk carefully in places where the poison plants were gone. They had antidote pills at the ready to make use of whenever it was needed.

Wu Tanglan had moved away from the spires after some time. He had been so focused on it all that he had nearly missed the absurd scene of Alex moving through the forest while gathering every single plant

he came across.

The forest was beginning to look sparse as everything colorful was taken away by Alex.

'What the hell is he doing?' the monkey thought, unable to come up with an explanation. 'Is he... storing the poison?'

Alex's performance from the earlier trial had left him stunned, and he had thought that was it. But this one was even more ridiculous. He had spent nearly an hour around the spire, convinced of his own failure. He could not activate the Black Spire, so he had moved on to the White Spire, only to fail to deactivate it as well.

Since he had failed exactly here the last time as well, he was sure he would fail once again. But with what Alex was doing, shocking as it was, it also gave him hope.

Now, there were no poisonous plants standing as obstacles before him. Soon, a path would open, and he would get to the center.