Eternal Cultivation of Alchemy

"So, will you take it?" Alex asked the man. "Should I take it out of my Soul Space?" He didn't like the idea of parting with the two seeds, especially the Yang Tree as it was meant to be his.

However, if he had to, he would.

The man thought for a moment, going through everything he had learned. 

"No," he said in the end. "There is a chance that both of them will die if I bring them out. I would have to sow them in the ground to let them live and I cannot do that here. I cannot take plants in my storage ring either, they would die."

"But you said they are surviving as they are," Alex said. "That they don't need anything as long as they have each other."

"Maybe," the man said. "I will have to check it all some more, but we don't have to do that. You're the one most likely to enter the Immortal realm next, so you can take the two of them with you."

Alex nodded. That was good enough.

He asked a few more questions to the man. He asked about his Nascent Soul, about his Daos, about swords, about the ones that came from the heavens, and anything else he could imagine.

The man answered all questions easily, without any hesitation.

His Nascent soul would grow along with his cultivation base until it was big enough that it would break free from the dantian and start joining with his body, merging with it, transforming it. 

Learning more Daos would make it harder for him to ascend certainly, but the man didn't know if the lightning ever got too strong for one to handle. At best, they would be at the peak of what a person could handle during their tribulation. Only, that would happen multiple times, which was the problematic part.

To improve his sword, he would have to improve his Intent. Alex had learned that, but he was surprised to learn that just improving his Intent wouldn't improve his Sword Intent. One had to train in the sword with the Intent to hone it. A sharp wooden blade could cut far better than a dull wooden blade could.

The man did not know about the ones that came from the heavens. He had assumed they had been for him, but they weren't. And now, he wasn't even sure if they had left or not. Alex had only sensed them leaving for certain because he was close, and he had learned Space aura.

The man congratulated him for learning how to paint, and for being able to produce masterpieces as well as improve his Intent through it. 

He explained that the level of artifacts in this realm was not very high and that they were constrained by the mindset of mortals. 

The man did not know anything about the Gold and Green aura and why that would be a result of what he did. None of the other continents had that happen to them.

He couldn't guess why the beasts would close their borders. The man assumed it would have been to protect themselves. One of their leaders had died, and they may have done it to defend themselves. Or they did it to not leak the news outside. The man couldn't make up his mind.

He was sorry that Alex couldn't find his cousin.

"I cannot keep my Defensive technique on you," the man said. "The Tiger has made a pact to not harm anyone in this world, so the world is more lax when he uses his Qi. I, however, do not have that luxury. The most I can do is create artifacts that do what I want them to do."

"Even then, I need to be careful," the man said. "I don't think the snake can help you either. He isn't ready to fight the Heavenly Judgment yet, which he will bring down on himself if he uses his Qi. Don't worry, though, I will send a message to the tiger. He will come here some time in the future when he has to."

Alex nodded. The tiger's defensive technique on his body had been destroyed when he fought the Golden Lion back in the Beast Paradise, so he could only wait to replace it on him.

He needed something to protect him while he was in the midst of monsters that could level mountains in a single strike and evaporate a storm for a dozen miles just because of a clash between the two.

A few days passed in which every time Alex was fully rested, he would have to send senior Yang into his Soul Space to learn about the plants as much as he could.

About a month later, they finally stopped.

At that time, the man had learned one crucial thing. The growth of the plants had stagnated and anything they gave to them would only amount to little help. It needed more nutrients.

"For starters, we need spirit water," the man said with a thoughtful look on his face. "Spirit water, and then spirit dews. Although, I'm not sure if the latter can be found or not in this realm."

"What is spirit water?" Alex asked the man.

"Water that is filled with Qi," the man answered. "It should be easy to find."

"Ocean water?" Alex asked in surprise, remembering the city he visited in the Emerald Kingdom where they flooded land with water from the ocean after removing salt and other aspects that would harm a plant.

"Ocean water is too diluted," the man said. "Spirit water is usually found above a spirit vein in a small pond. Although it depends there too."

Alex thought for a moment and his eyes widened in slight surprise. "Wait, I might have something like that," he said, bringing out something.

He presented it to the man, a green flask with liquid inside that amounted to a total of a million liters. "This is Bottomless Jade Flask," Alex said. "It—"

"Collects Qi," the man said curiously. "A flask made out of a Qi Swallowing Jade, how peculiar." 

Alex hadn't known that it was a type of jade that had the property to drag in Qi from the surroundings. He had been wondering how it functioned for a long time and had assumed it had to do with some Qi lines he could not see.

The man looked inside to see the water. "How long did you keep it inside your Soul Space?" he asked.

"Ever since I could access it," Alex said. "So… about a year."

"Hmm, and before that, it was outside?" he asked.

"In the ring," Alex said. "But I did occasionally bring it outside just in case it wasn't working inside the ring."

"It wasn't," the man said. "You should have left it out for longer, maybe it would take in more Qi then."

Alex felt a little saddened. He knew he had done something wrong.

"But, placing it in your Soul Space was a brilliant idea," he said. "While it has been there, it has absorbed a lot of the Life aura from its surroundings. While there isn't a lot of it, it's certainly way better than any regular water."

"This should speed up the growth of these seeds by at least half of its current growth rate."