Eternal Cultivation of Alchemy

"So I just activate the formation and I'm done here?" Alex asked to confirm.

"Yes," the spirit said.

"Will I be sent out along with everyone else too?" he asked.

"Yes," the spirit said.

"Then… what about the treasure? I thought I would get to become the new owner," Alex said.

"You do have my approval for it… but I'm not sure you can do it right now, master White Tiger," the spirit said. "The tower is an Immortal Treasure, so refining it will take a rather long time."

"Can I at least try?" Alex asked.

"Sure," the spirit said. "How about I keep you here after you succeed? That way I can check and see if you can refine the treasure right now. Although the right period would be after you break through to the Immortal realms."

"I see," Alex said. "Is that why you haven't had an owner yet?"

"Well, that and the rule that my new owner can't have demon blood in them," the spirit said. "Although there have been a surprising number of Humans in the last 2 or 3 times I opened the playground. It was quite surprising how the numbers increased."

"Alright, I will go activate it," Alex said. "Even though it looks like I will die just going near it."

"The Void does look scary," the spirit said. "Especially the fact there is no opening to the void, it's just there like we're in it."

"Stop scaring me even more," Alex said and started walking towards the small podium next to the void.

As he did, he noticed small cracks along the floor that lead to the podium. He stopped for a moment to make sure they were not spatial cracks and lightly stepped through them to go near the podium.

He arrived next to the podium and was immediately entranced by the void beyond where he was. His eye couldn't tell how far the swirling lights he was seeing were at all.

One second they looked as if they were a hundred kilometers away, and in the next second they looked like they were 10 meters away.

The whole experience was very surreal to Alex, far more so than staring at them through a small crack in space. Now, he felt like he was inside the void.

"Master White Tiger, look ou—"

Alex heard the Spirit's shout and was brought back from his trance just in time to notice the floor slip right from under him.

He flew backward immediately, arriving inside the room, but the floor he had been standing on had crumbled and fallen through the void. Along with that, the podium where the small formation lay.

"Damn," Alex thought. "That was close. Thanks for warning me, spirit. I was too lost in my own thou— spirit?"

Alex looked around the room but he saw no sign of the spirit at all. "Spirit? Where did you go?" he called for him, but there was no answer.

He heard a bit more crumbling and saw the floor at the edges was falling into the void. Alex couldn't help but be worried now.

"Spirit, are you really not there?" he asked. "This better not be a sick joke of yours."

However, after not getting any answers this time around, Alex was certain of one thing. He had lost connections to the Spirit.

Meaning, this entire room had lost connection to the spirit and all the other functionalities of the room had most likely gone as well.

"Wait, how do I get out of here then?" Alex asked. He looked around, but he could think of nothing at all.

"Are you stuck?" Godslayer asked after realizing there were some problems.

"I think so," Alex said as he walked around a little. "The spirit can't hear me, and  the formation that is supposed to send us all out is broken."

"So you are stuck here forever?" Godslayer asked.

"Hopefully not," Alex said. "But I don't know how I can get out of here if the spirit can't help me."

"What about the others? Can they do something?" Godslayer asked.

"I don't know," Alex said as he thought a little. "Such a small formation on the podium was definitely not the formation that was meant to teleport us all out. It was most likely the trigger."

"As for the actual formation, it can't be on this floor either. It is likely on each floor since they all have teleportation formations from what I've experienced. If not, then it's at the base of the tower, and will be used on everyone in the tower."

"So you're safe?" Godslayer asked.

"No, that doesn't help us at all. There is a very high chance that the floor can't see us currently. We are now what floor 38 is. We're completely cut off from the tower. So, even if everyone gets to leave, we will still have to stay back."

Godslayer looked around through Alex's eyes, trying to make sense of the situation himself. "Then I guess we are stuck."

"You sound like you came to terms with the situation rather quickly," Alex said.

"It might surprise you, but this is not the first time I was stuck somewhere I didn't want to be for a very long period of time," Godslayer said.

Alex nearly chuckled. "But this time you're in a mortal body. You sure you want to relax so much?"

Godslayer grunted. He didn't like being reminded that Alex's life was tied to his own now.

"What about this floor? Can you cut through it?" Godslayer asked.

"It's tough, but I can try," Alex said. He tried to bring out Midnight, but then realized how hard it was. He tried to force out the space aura in him, but he could barely bring out any at all.

"Damn, why is it suddenly so hard? It wasn't that hard on the previous floors," he said.

"That's because you were still outside the Void until then," Godslayer said. "But now, you are fully inside it. Look, that's why there are no spatial fractures here at all."

Alex looked around in shock. "I'm in the Void?" he asked. "Isn't that the opening to the void?"

"No, an opening to a void is always a crack in space," Godslayer said. "Basically, you're in a pocket of Void, I think that's what they call it."

"Pocket?" Alex asked.

"Void is mostly an ever-moving blob of space and time from what I know," Godslayer said. "But at some places, there form pockets where the energy does not touch. These pockets are all around the void, constantly moving around. If you don't move along with it, you get swallowed by the energies."

Alex gulped. "What happens if you are swallowed by the energy?" he asked.

"I don't know," Godslayer said. "You will have to ask someone with more knowledge about the void."

"Okay," Alex said. "So wait, you said we are in a pocket right now, right? So is this pocket moving too?"

"No," Godslayer said. "These pockets also form in other places, primarily being the portals to our dimension."

Alex thought and bit and remembered his own experiments with the Void. The void was fine for a small distance, but then it ripped everything away.

"I see, we are in the void," Alex said softly. "I should have known when my spiritual sense stopped working long ago."

Alex was about to make a blood sword when he paused. "Wait, didn't you say we're in a pocket in the void?" he asked.

"Yes," Godslayer answered. "What about it?"

"Then how will breaking through this floor help us at all?" he asked.

"I can't say for certain, but since you were not in the void on the other floor, there are likely spatial cracks running in this very floor, separating this floor from the other one," Godslayer said.

"I see," Alex said. He brought out a blood sword and started attacking the floor. However, he soon realized that the floor was way too tough for him. Whatever the material was, it was likely Immortal rank, and so a Saint like him couldn't destroy it at all.

"What now?" Alex asked.

Godslayer thought for a moment. "I have an idea," he said. "Force out as much Spatial aura as you can and try to pull open the spatial cracks inside the floor."

"But I can't push out spatial aura at all," Alex said.

"But you could bring it out before, right?" Godslayer asked.

"A little," he said. "Like barely thick enough to make me look like I'm wearing an oversized glove."

"Still try," Godslayer said.

Alex nodded and tried to push out his space aura, but it simply couldn't penetrate far into the floor. He tried multiple times but failed all the same.

"Dammit!" he thought. "It's not working. Why the hell is it so hard to push out my space aura here?"

"You're trying to fight the space energy that has been in the void since primordial times. Of course, it's going to fight back and make it hard on you," Godslayer said. "Dammit, you were so close. If only you could directly grab onto the cracks, then maybe you would have had a chance."

Alex nodded and paused. "Wait, I might have a way," he said as he slowly made his way to the edge.

"What? Are you trying to kill yourself?" Godslayer asked.

"Wait for a second," Alex said while slowly making his way to the very edge that had crumbled away just moments ago. He made sure to be very careful as he slowly lay on the floor and moved his head out of the edge and down below.

"Look!" Alex said excitedly as he gestured at what was below him.

Surrounded by an energy of purple and silver, there were a few random cracks in the Void that lead back to the tower.

To the 44th floor.