Eternal Cultivation of Alchemy

Another finger came off the man and he tried to cry in pain. However, Alex's blood kept his mouth shut by crushing his throat with it.

Alex had the thought of collecting his blood for himself, but after seeing the blood that flowed out of the man, he decided not to.

It had a tinge of green in it after all.

"Tsk, what the hell did you actually do to have such blood? Not to mention your face is so ruined too," Alex said.

The man didn't speak at all, so Alex cut off another one of his fingers. "Do you like pain?" he asked. "Is that why you are remaining silent? Why don't you just answer me so we can be done with this?"

"You won't have an easy death!" the man finally spoke through his spiritual sense.

"Is that what you want to say to me right now?" Alex asked, cutting off another finger. "Just answer the damn question."

"Hehe, you want an answer?" the man asked. "Here is your answer. I was here to kill you because I was s-- se--"

The man's face turned strained. His blood vessels popped and green blood glowed out of the left side of his face that had already rotted to the bone.

"What are you saying?" Alex asked. "Speak clearly."

"S-- se-- se--"

The man's eyes became green with bloodshot, shocking Alex. Alex slowly backed away, not knowing what exactly was happening, but he wanted to stay away from it.

"Se-- se-- sent..."

The man stopped struggling. His eyes looked wide as green blood dripped out of them, and his blood vessel started to soften into his skin.

His entire body stopped moving and even his chest stopped moving. The man had died, just like that.

"He... he's dead?" he questioned. He wasn't sure. He couldn't be, as he had never seen someone die in this fashion. "But how?"

He walked towards the body and touched it. There wasn't a single shred of death aura in his body. This man was nowhere near a dying state and somehow he had died at once.

Alex feared what had caused it and backed away even further. He took back his blood as well and stayed the hell away from the man's body in fear.

"What did he say? Sent?" Alex thought. "He wasn't the one that wanted to kill me? Was he working for someone else?"

Suddenly, he sensed a spiritual sense going over him and turned around in fear. However, a moment later, he sighed in relief as the help he had planned on bringing was here finally.

The Flowerhall Sect's leader, Qiu Hanyu had come by herself, led here by Whisker who was with her. Whisker jumped from her hands and onto Alex after seeing him.

"Thank you for coming here," Alex said with a grateful look.

"You don't have to thank me. I would've wanted to come here on my own anyway," she said. She was naturally worried about Alex after hearing that he had been poisoned.

If she let him die, it would be a massive loss to the entire continent after all. Even her granduncle was relying on him.

"Are you okay? Are you hurt? I see blood on you," she said worriedly.

"It's alright," Alex said. "I've already eaten a healing pill, and I've killed the one that was trying to poison me."

"You killed him?" she asked while turning her head to look at the dead man. Up until now, she was focused on Alex as that had been her main source of concern.

However, now that she could see that he was fine, she turned over to look at the dead man on the ground.

Her eyes went to the green blood around the man before even looking at him. She was surprised and disgusted, but no other reactions came from her.

However, when she looked at the face, her eyes went wide in fear.

She backed off immediately and sent a mound of earth at the body to immediately drag it into the ground. At the same time, she used fire attacks to burn the mound as it heat up and started to solidify, and then melt.

She only took a sigh of relief after she was certain that the dead man's body had burned to nothing.

Alex looked at her curiously due to her reaction. "Do you know that per--"

"Stay away from me!" she shouted. "Eat an antidote pill right now."

Alex was surprised and quickly took out an antidote pill to eat. He didn't know what was going on but understood that the sect leader was worried about being poisoned.

After eating one, he handed another one to her. "Here, you should eat one too if you're so afraid," he said.

The sect leader nodded and ate it without hesitation.

"So you know who that is?" he asked.

"The Jade-Faced Assassin they call him," she said. "He's a master of poison, each of which is so dangerous that it can kill saints and mortals all the same. He is said to be so passionate about poison arts so much that he even tries it on himself."

"He makes sure to eat their antidotes, but the side effects usually remain. His green blood and messed up face are a sign of it," she said. "If you were to remove his golden mask, you would've seen a green face, hence his name, the Jade-Faced assassin."

"He's an assassin of much fame then," Alex said.

"He's very infamous amongst the people with high status as he only goes after people that could be considered high profile, like you," she said.

"He wanted to kill me?" Alex asked. "No wait, he's an assassin. So he took up a job?"

"Yes," she said. "How did you kill him? He should have been strong."

"He was," Alex said. "But he overestimated his poison. I had already taken in antidotes after the last event so his poisons didn't work on me. While he thought his poison was working on me, I managed to get him by surprise and beat him."

"I tried to ask him some questions, but he just died," Alex said.

"Just died? How?" the sect leader asked.

"I'm still confused," Alex said. "He was trying to answer my question saying that he was sent here by someone, but before he could get halfway through it... he... died."

Even as Alex explained what had happened, he realized what must have happened.

"He tried to tell you who sent him? Impossible. People like him are always made to speak oaths so they never tell the truth. The employers never like to be known and the assassins are fine that way too," she said.

"But if he did try to..."

The sect leader's face went blank. "He would die. He would die halfway through while trying to tell you," She said.

"Which is what happened," Alex said blankly. "So his answering me meant his death. That bastard, he answered me just so he could die. I shouldn't have asked him that question at all."

Alex regretted that he didn't ask about his father instead. How the hell would an assassin ever know about his father at all?

'This is hurting my brain,' he thought.

The Heavenly Silkworm's silk thread, the assassin that was infamous even amongst the Saint realms, and the knowledge about his father.

Whoever employed him had to be so rich and powerful that they could have access to all three of those.

'And he wasn't after my pill recipes either, that was just a ruse,' he thought. 'His main objective was to kill me. Why would anyone that powerful would want to kill me?'

Up until now, Alex hadn't done anything that would make it worth killing him. Unless they were an assassin with great jealousy, Alex didn't see anyone employing an assassin just to kill him.

Besides, a normal alchemist didn't even fit the criteria.

The assassin's employer had to be rich and they needed to have connections. However, most of all, they needed to know about him and his father.

'The Alchemy Association's leader doesn't give out my information while having people search for him, and I never search about my own father when I'm at the Insight Pavilion,' he thought.

Then, the only other ones that knew about him and his father, and fit the other criteria were the 10 Council members and their sects and families.

'Someone from that group wants to kill me,' he thought. 'And I need to know why.'

Alex looked at the unsettled Qiu Hanyu and started to get suspicious. 'Is she acting right now? Is she the one who sent him? Is that why she burned the body so quickly so that I don't find any evidence?' he thought.

Both reasonable and unreasonable suspicions grew in his head as he understood the implications of what it meant to be a target of an assassination attempt.

'I will have to be careful at every moment now. I do not know where my enemies are anymore.'

"We should return now," he said and turned around to leave. He knew now that he needed to stay away from anyone, even the 10 elders of the Council, as anyone from there could be his enemy.

'Maybe it's the Huang family,' Alex thought as he walked. 'That makes perfect sense, considering our grudge.'

His oath against that family would have definitely created a grudge that couldn't be quelled so easily, so it was highly likely that they were the ones behind this event.

However, Alex couldn't stop doubting the others. Unless he had concrete evidence as to who it was, he would have to be suspicious of everyone.

'This is going to be annoying now.'