Eternal Cultivation of Alchemy

The room Alex entered on the 13th floor was one where a massive formation diagram hovered in the air. There was a simple description of the formation to the side, and the challenge was to figure out what was wrong with either the design or the description.

Alex got lucky with not many there having any knowledge about formations, so he managed to answer the 2nd one correctly and moved up a floor.

On the 14th floor, he waited for his turn and entered a room where the challenge was dueled between two people randomly chosen by the room. To Alex's surprise, half of the 20 people that entered this room were allowed to go up.

Depending on the lottery, some of them could move up without having to break a sweat. Unfortunately for Alex, he wasn't so lucky.

His opponent was a 2-foot-tall woman with a Saint Core cultivation base. Unlike many others before him, he couldn't just swing an arm and be done with the fight.

"Are you not giving up?" the tall woman asked him when she saw him preparing to fight.

"Of course not," Alex said. "I'm here to win."

The woman smiled and brought out an axe of all things. Alex was surprised but he brought out midnight as well.

The two of them clashed for a while, with Alex on the defense for the first half of the fight.

This battle was too coincidental to be with an assassin, but he still defended for most of the fight to see if she was one or not.

Once he was sure that she was not, he went on the offensive. With his cultivation base, he barely edged her out in the battle. The woman was very surprised by his fighting capabilities and she couldn't help but try to learn more about him.

"What's your name?" she asked. "Do you want to join our sect? Our Rising Phoenix sect is one of the best in the continent. You should join us."

Alex rejected her proposal each time she asked, and then beat her in the end. Then, he was teleported to the next floor.

The 15th floor.

He stood in front of yet another black pillar. "Is there going to be a black pillar every 5th floor or what?" he couldn't help but ask.

Most of his knowledge regarding the sanctum had been from the elders who had never come here since long before the space had started crumbling. The only thing they could tell him was hearsay in the first place.

As such, there was a lot of information that Alex didn't have. While he was fine with it for the most part as he had the important information on how to stay safe, his knowledge on how to proceed through the floor was quite lacking.

"Use some Qi on the black pillar," Alex read what was written next to it. He couldn't help but sigh after reading it. "Let's get this over with."

He walked up to the pillar and poured a little bit of Qi into it. Then, he was teleported to the 16th floor.

The number of people on this floor was almost negligible. With only a hundred or so remaining and 3 usable rooms, Alex was sure his turn would come within the hour.

And as he expected, he did get to enter very quickly. 20 people including him, entered one of the rooms and were given the challenge of the room through a voice.

"The challenge of this room is to find the human amongst you," the voice said.

'What?' Alex thought and looked around. Almost all of them were just as confused as each other, but some of them seemed to know what was up.

"Your image will be copied to create 10 different illusory clones, who will all be walking around as realistically as possible. Your task is to figure out which one of them is not the illusion."

"You will have 3 chances in total. If you guess the human, you will be teleported away to the upper floor, but if you guess the illusion, you will be sent back to the first floor."

Alex thought he understood what was up.

"For this challenge, you will not be allowed to use your spiritual sense," the voice spoke. Suddenly, everyone found themselves unable to use their spiritual sense anymore. That made a few people nervous as they didn't know what to do anymore.

"And you are not allowed to attack the person at all," the voice said. "To choose, simply place your arm on the person you think is real."

"We will begin in 5 seconds."

Everyone got ready and 5 seconds later, they were teleported. Suddenly, they arrived scattered around the room with other various illusions of themselves walking around the room.

There were 11 of them each, and with 20 people, there were enough to fill the whole room and to massively confuse everyone.

The people looked around, trying to figure out who was the illusion and who was real. Without their spiritual sense, it was a little hard, but they were sure they could find someone.

One of the girls looked around, trying her hardest to act normal. He walked around, as everyone did, and fit in the best she could.

As she walked, one of the people in front of her looked slightly agitated. Then, she saw him move and place his hand on someone, but his hand fell through the illusion.

'Yes!' the girl thought and grabbed that person instead, however her hand fell through that person too.

'Shit!' she thought as she realized that she had been found. Someone else grabbed her behind and that person won.

Everyone in the room saw what happened and couldn't help but be surprised that the illusions were playing tricks on them.

After the person that just won was teleported away, the girl and all of her illusions suddenly teleported all across the room, and people could no longer tell which one of her was real again.

Alex watched from the edge of the room, sitting on the floor as the people walked right past him.

He used his eyes to see who was who, but everyone had the same aura around them so it was impossible to discern. Still, he was sure they would give away some sort of hint. If not, he could make them give some hints.

For now, he just watched to see if there was something other tricks these illusions could play.

'How are they all acting so real?' Alex wondered. 'Are they perhaps copying someone from the past that went through these?'

It was either that or the person who created this tower was so talented that he could add such real, human intelligence to these things.

His 11 illusions walked around the room, confusing people as much as anybody else. He watched each reaction he could see, each minor movement. And from time to time, someone stood out or they moved to grab someone. But he just didn't want to risk it.

He waited for a little longer, and by now 3 people had left for the upper floor and 6 were sent back to the first floor.

So, there were 10 people for him to find.

'No need to wait anymore I guess,' he thought.

As everyone looked around, one of the Alex there moved his hand and grabbed onto the person closest to him. The people waited for just the faintest moment to see how he would react, but instead, that Alex turned around and grabbed someone else.

His hand passed through that person as well. Then another, and another.

People were surprised and confused. They didn't understand what was happening at all. Either the illusion was going out of control, or the room had stopped working.

Alex grabbed 5 more people. For the first 4, his hands passed through their body. However, in the 5th person, the man's body moved through his hand.

Alex's face turned to a grin as he found the person and the illusion that he had created vanished.

Instead, a hand grabbed onto the person from behind as Alex came out of invisibility.

All this time, he had been using his Yang clone to not get caught while he himself had been sitting to the side, invisible to the eyes and senses.

This was the perfect place for him to do so with people not being able to use their spiritual sense, and so he took the chance easily go through this match.

The other 10 Alex suddenly vanished, and he was sent onto the next floor over.

"Agh!" he stretched a bit when he arrived on the 17th floor. "I should have done that from the beginning."

He looked around as the not many people once again, and after an hour entered one of the open rooms.

The task for this floor was simple on paper. One had to walk around the room in a circle around the edges while a formation put pressure on them with its aura.

The more they walked, the more pressure they would be under. The 3 people of the 10 that moved the furthest would be the ones to win this challenge.

With how his body worked under pressure, giving him power from deep within to fight against it, Alex easily won the challenge and moved on to the 18th floor.

His speed was quite good now, and he was nearly halfway through the tower. But, the challenges were certainly going to get harder from here on out, so he was ready for it all.

After an hour or two, he was allowed entrance to another room on the 18th floor and he went in.