Eternal Cultivation of Alchemy

"Why did you ask her that?" the Queen asked Alex as they flew back toward the palace. 

Even though he was a King, Alex was made to quickly leave the Ice Mist Palace as respectfully as they could. He had wanted to look around the place, but it seemed they truly didn't want him to.

Since he had little authority in this place, he said nothing and left. Not before getting the answer to his question though.

'After she got the evolved constitution,' Alex thought. 'She must have made it to the center after awakening her constitution.' He could see how she then activated the beacon at the center and called people from the higher realms into this world.

Alex wondered how such a thing could exist in this world, but this world originally belonged to the demons anyway, so it wasn't that hard to come up with an explanation.

One of the demons, or maybe even the entire upper echelon, might have set up this place for when their goddess was finally reborn. But then was it a coincidence that they put this place in this land?

Alex thought it would be better to assume that such places were built all over the lower realms.

"What do you think?" he asked Godslayer regarding his thoughts.

"Sounds probable," the spirit said, giving it a bit more thought after answering. "I'm more so questioning why they want their goddess at all."

"It's the goddess," Alex said. "They could do no harm getting her. Still, I'm sad that they got to her so fast. I didn't have the time to figure out if she remembered me or not."

"Don't let it turn into an Inner Demon," the spirit said.

Alex shook his head. "I know it won't," he said. "I'm just a little sad about it is all."

He remembered the white-haired young girl one last time before it was time to forget about her, whether or not she was the reincarnation of his master.

There was no point in dwelling on the past if he knew he couldn't do anything about it. He had to keep moving forward.

Alex stayed with the queen for a while longer, giving her some pills as he had done with all the other monarchs as well as letting her use his Mountain Crushing artifact, before leaving the capital.

He had toured the capital, so he wanted to go tour more of the other cities. 

The cities in the Ivory Kingdom were surprisingly more easily accessible than the ones in the Gold Kingdoms. Where one had to fly through mountains and storms to reach other cities, here they just had to fly past a bunch of snow-filled plains.

Not that Alex even got to do so as he was teleported everywhere.

Every new city Alex arrived, he would look at the newsboard and make sure to note that his arrival had been noted. Then, he would stay a few weeks there before moving to the other cities.

He did so for a few months until one day, his plan worked and someone contacted him so discreetly that even he barely recognized someone had met him.

The man appeared as a guard of the City lord in the city and notified Alex about an event that was taking place. He then gave him a talisman that described the event that was being held.

No one suspected anything, but the talisman held another piece of information aside from just information about the event. It held a message from Yan Yating, the leader of the Oathbreakers.

"I have heard about your 3 demands," the man's voice entered Alex's mind through the talisman. "We accept those demands."

"I should note that anything and everything about your first demand, what my people can give you is mostly under oath, so you might end up with barely anything. Still, I will keep up the demand to the best of my ability."

"Secondly, about this… person in your other demand, I did not know such a figure even existed at all, but I can understand what you must be feeling right now. We will try our best to give you what we can find."

"Finally, while I highly disagree with what you ask, I will still accept it," he said. "Find the girl and you can get started. We will exchange the product with the information the next year. I hope you can be done by then. Good luck."

Alex took down the talisman and was surprised at how forthcoming the man was. Still, he had managed to hide everything they had talked about while talking about everything. A normal person coming across this piece of talisman would have had no idea what he was talking about.

Alex read through the talisman once again to make sure he didn't miss anything and then destroyed it completely.

3 days later, it was time to go to this event.

General Fan and 2 other strong soldiers followed Alex to the party. They weren't going to leave them out of their sight no matter where he went. It had been happening ever since he had returned and Alex was starting to believe that the Emperor had a hand in this.

He was almost sure that the Dragon Emperor had started suspecting his involvement with the Oathbreakers. If not, these men were extremely protective of him.

There were nobles and high-ranking figures from all over the city and wide in this small party that the City lord had planned. 

At first, Alex had believed that the Oathbreakers had their hand in organizing this party, but it seemed they were only taking advantage of it.

The party was instead regarding the City lord's daughter successfully entering the Saint realm at the age of 200. That was considered fast here and extremely fast everywhere else.

This sort of person would have been considered one of the greatest talents in the Western Continent, and a high-tier talent in the other two continents. In the Eastern Continent, however, she was just an upper middle-grade talent. 

Her true talent would show itself once she started her Saint cultivation journey. That was where their cultivation speed would slow down to almost nothing and they would take generations to break through to anything.

If she was able to reach the Saint Transformation realm in 1,000 more years, her name would be sung through the entire continent for generations to come. Alas, Alex could tell that was impossible given how slow her True realm cultivation speed itself was.

He looked around the room, searching for signs of the girl he was supposed to meet, and he knew who the girl most likely was. But he couldn't find her at all. She was nowhere to be seen.

That was until he noticed a girl with a completely different look, but of similar build and height staring at him from time to time from a distance. She was looking for a way to get close without drawing suspicion.

"I'll stay here, you two go mingle with the crowd. Many seem to be wanting to talk with me, but I don't want to talk with them," he told his two elders. "Deal with them on my behalf."

"Yes, Your Majesty," the two Elders said and left. 

Alex stayed behind at one corner of the room, looking at the party. "Do you all not want to go get involved in the party?" he asked the Generals and others who followed him. "It's a good party."

"Our job is to look after you, Your Majesty," General Fan answered.

"Still, you can enjoy," Alex said. "I doubt anyone would want to kidnap me in this place." He looked at the soldiers and saw no reaction from them. They hadn't found it funny at all.

"Actually, it might be better if you all stay here," he said. "It deters the others from wanting to come talk to me. I don't want to talk with them."

"Is there a reason?" General Fan asked.

"Too many people," Alex said. "I give way to talk to one and soon we'll have a tidal wave of people wanting to talk to me. It might make me sound bad, but I have no interest in that."

"It makes you sound reasonable, Your Majesty," the General said.

Alex nodded. "We should be leaving tomorrow, yes?" he asked.

"Yes," the General said. "We will be heading to the East Ivory Tundra region starting tomorrow. There are a bunch of cities there."

Alex nodded. "Don't make plans for anything after that," he said. "I want to enter closed cultivation soon."

"How soon, if I may ask, your Majesty?" The General looked at him curiously.

"A month at best," Alex said. "I want to enter closed cultivation. My pills are running low and I need to improve my cultivation too. So I need to make some preparations for the future."

"I see," the General said. "I will plot out routes to only the most important and impressive cities in the tundra."

Alex nodded.

The two elders returned sometime later and spoke about the various people they met. "They seem satisfied getting to talk with us," Yao Ning said. "You don't need to bother meeting them, Your Majesty."

"Good Job," he said. "Can we leave now?"

The General looked around. "I'll tell the City Lord," he said.

Alex nodded and watched him leave. He then turned to Yao Ning who gave a very subtle nod.

A small imperceptible smile formed on Alex's face that the other soldiers had not noticed at all.

He had received the Package from Yao Ning. It was time for them to leave.