Eternal Cultivation of Alchemy

Chapter 3416: Around the Palace

The Fire and Yang aura, while similar, were in no way the same as the regular Fire and Yang aura that one learned to understand in a Dao. Alex couldn’t be sure if they were actually different or if their presence within this unique energy was somehow affecting the aura.

Either way, Alex had no way to actually manipulate the aura. That was likely the main reason why his Intent failed to do anything at all.

Since he couldn’t extract the energy from the Qi, and he couldn’t remove its aura, Alex was stuck right out of the gate. The only other option he had was to use the energy itself to convert the energy. However, he didn’t wish to waste any energy right now since there was so little of it, so he decided to wait for now. There were a few things he would soon learn from the Wine God, hopefully, so there was no need to rush.

After some time, he decided to continue his cultivation session right there. Since Battlesage was busy with many things inside of his Soul Space, it would take a while before Alex needed to do anything else.

Alex’s cultivation base progressed at a steady rate, but there was still a long time before he was remotely close enough to break through to the Immortal Transcendent 3rd realm. He had barely managed to break through to the 2nd realm back in the Sun’s Talon realm, and there were still a few of his Creations that were straggling behind that he needed to pull forward.

So, for the next few weeks, he did just that in between his cultivation sessions.

Alex also needed to work on his Sun Fire, but it was just another choice for him at this point, so he decided to stick with Creations for now. Everything else could wait until he met and remained with his family five years from now.

With Sun Fire pushed back, there was no point in creating a Sun Fire Dao Sword just yet either. It would be more productive to learn Sun Fire before he learned the Dao Sword, after all.

The following weeks passed by in a flash, during which his assistance was required maybe three times in total. Whisker, Battlesage, and Ray did all the heavy lifting, slowly forming ideas on how best to deal with the existing land and how the scripts should be created.

The old man seemed genuinely excited at getting to work on runes and scripts once again, to form formations just like he used to all his life. Roaming the world was fun for him, but this was his true calling.

After a few weeks passed, the old man came out of Alex’s Soul Space.

If he could, the old man would stay there for many more months, but unfortunately, he needed to come out so Alex could leave this room without arousing any suspicions from those who may be keeping tabs on the whole thing.

Whisker came out with him so together they could work on a plan without even being in Alex’s Soul Space.

Alex left the room, slowly walking around the palace as he sought a way out. A beast in human form arrived a minute later, explaining that the Beast God was away for the moment, gone to Jade Lotus Island, and so was Flamestrider. In the meantime, the woman was there to be his guide and helper, and he could ask her for anything.

She called herself Strongclaw.

The woman didn’t appear to be of much note, except that she had a high Divine Realm cultivation base, likely somewhere in the Divine Manifestation realm, and that there was something familiar about her aura.

"You’re not a White Tiger, are you?" he asked. Strongclaw didn’t look the part, but she had a hint of the aura.

"I have White Tiger ancestors, but I myself am not one," the woman explained.

"I see. Are you one of the Beast God’s children too?" he asked.

Strongclaw nodded. "I am one of the younger ones," she said. "Is there any place you would like to visit?"

Alex shrugged a little. "I don’t have any particular place in mind, so why don’t we just roam for now?"

Strongclaw agreed, and together they walked around the palace, looking through the various locations. The inside of the palace wasn’t as grand as Alex had expected it to be, but that seemed to be by design.

The older Beast God, Soulmother’s master, was the one who had built the palace, and from the sound of it, she wasn’t a woman who believed much in materialism. Except for the things that one couldn’t live without, there were only a few other objects in the palace.

Alex got to see the image of the woman and had a vague recollection of seeing her in the Artifact God’s memories, but nothing substantial.

They walked outside a while later, arriving under the mid-afternoon sun, where the disciples of the palace were busy training. With both humans and beasts training together, Alex couldn’t help but wonder if they ever ended up forming bonds with each other.

"That is kind of the whole point of this," the woman explained with an awkward smile. "Instead of forcing humans and beasts to bond from the start, we create an environment where they can live and train with each other and get to know one another before forming an actual bond. Since the beasts always end up with the worse half of the bond, the previous Beast God found it integral, for the sake of the beasts, that they knew who they were bonding to."

Alex raised an eyebrow in surprise. "What about the Bond of Equals?" he asked. "Why not just have the beasts form that bond instead of a Bond of Master and Servant?"

Strongclaw gave him a look as if she had just witnessed a madman.

"Do you know how incredibly difficult and how incredibly rare it is for a Bond of Equals to be created?" she asked. "You can’t make it happen just because you want it to."