Eternal Cultivation of Alchemy

Alex accepted every battle for the next 12 hours, half of them fought by Pearl, and half of them fought by him. In some cases, when someone was too strong for Pearl, but too weak for him, they fought together against that person.

As such, out of nearly 35 different battles they fought through the night, they only lost 3 times in total. Once Alex gave them their pills, they left.

He finally got another breathing period after those battles and got to take a break. He had found out that his location had been spread through the secret realm, so many more would be coming to where he was very soon.

Not to mention that Teng Roukang was still following him while challenging people along the way.

The sun had already risen and was making its up the sky, slowly reaching noon. Around that time, Alex came across a rather large river on a depressed land. There was no flow to the river from what he could tell, and he could see a few beasts flow through it.

"Hmm? Aren't those sea creature?" Alex thought when he saw one of those beasts come to the surface for a few seconds. Curious, he made his way down to the river. As he came close, he could smell the salty air around him, and tasting the water only confirmed his suspicions.

"Oh, it's ocean water," he thought. Now that he thought about it, there was a river that went through the island. "This must be the same river"

Thinking a bit more, he remembered seeing the river go through the middle of the island, or close to it. "Then… I must be around the middle areas of the island."

Just then, his talisman buzzed.

Alex looked around, confused at what had just happened. "Huh?" No one had challenged him. So, he took his talisman out to check.

"Oh!"

Reading through it, he understood what had happened.

"It hit reset, huh?" he thought. The talisman had reset, not just for him, but for everyone. A new day had started, which meant a new day of Challenges and a new day of Losses. 

'But it hasn't been 24 hours,' Alex thought. It had only been around 20 hours according to his Voidsand Hourglass that he could see in his Soul Space.

"It's noon, so they must have synced the reset with it," Alex thought. "Will the next one be in 24 hours? Or will that be in 20 hours as well?"

"Your Majesty!"

Alex turned around, hearing someone shout for him. Teng Roukang made his way down the slope toward him, stopping only moments before him.

"Hahaha, Your Majesty! We can fight now!" he shouted.

Alex felt his talisman buzz and immediately he hated it. "Couldn't you have come a little later?" he asked. "Now I'm going to have to get allocated a Loss."

"Oh," the man looked at him sheepishly, scratching his head. "We can fight now though, right?"

Alex sighed and brought out his sword. The man grinned as well and brought out his staff. Both of their talismans buzzed as Alex accepted the challenge.

The man rushed at Alex first, stabbing Alex with the butt of the staff. Alex swung Midnight, sending the staff aside. Light flashed as both Sword Intent and Staff Intent clashed.

He made a swiping attack, targeting Alex's feet. Having watched so much of Alex's fight, he had concluded that Alex wouldn't fly for some reason. He didn't know why, but he would use it to his advantage.

Alex flipped back in time, but that was what the man wanted. The moment Alex was still in the air, he ran forward, extending his hand which held the end of the staff, and dropped the other end deep into Alex's stomach.

Alex managed to place his arm in between at the last moment and the attack only fractured his wrist. He landed rather ungracefully and rolled a few times before coming to a stop.

The man was about to continue when suddenly the river exploded with water and a large crab jumped out of it, its claws grasping for Teng Roukang.

The crab was only in the Saint Soul 2nd realm, so it was nowhere near strong enough for the man, but still, it dared to attack him.

The man jumped backward in time and dodged the claws right in time. "Stay out of this, bastard!" the man shouted at the crab, hoping to deter it, only to have to frown.

"Dammit! It can't understand me," the man shouted and attacked the crab.

Alex flicked his wrist a few times to make sure it was healed. The pain still remained, but he endured it and looked at the fight in front of him.

The Crab was a large red crab with spindly legs like those of a spider and had rather sharp claws. "It's not intelligent?" Alex thought. He had known that most ocean beasts, despite reaching the saint realm didn't gain much intelligence.

Even if they did, they would still act like a beast, attacking and killing anything they wanted, making territories, and generally acting like they were still the same beasts without intelligence. 

The Wyrm they had to fight before coming to this continent was the same, and this one seemed even worse.

The man struck aside the crab's legs that tried to stab for him and then filled his staff with golden energy, something he hadn't used in the fight against Alex until now.

An illusory staff with golden intricacies was crafted around the regular metal staff and suddenly it grew in size, nearly 10 times as large as the staff, the man swung the illusory staff down on the crab.

The crab was strong for its cultivation base, especially when it came to its defense. Even then, against someone 4 realms higher than it, it could do nothing.

The large golden staff landed on the crab, crushing its hard exterior at once. The pieces of the crustacean stabbed into its body, blue blood pouring out of it. It still lived and now tried to make its way back to the water.

However, just then, Alex jumped on top of it, and stabbed his sword right through it, killing the crab at once. The crab's nascent soul flew away, but Alex let it be. He dug his hand into the crab's body and pulled out its beast core.

"Do you mind if I keep this?" Alex asked the man below who was staring at him. 

The man shook his head. "If we can continue our battle, absolutely not," he said as his grin returned to his face.

"Let's continue then."

The two of them fought for another 20 minutes. Alex did his best to fight, but he was hit a few too many times, and once he even got hit in the head rather badly. Thankfully, it didn't crush his brain, or else the man would've gotten the nasty surprise of seeing his head heal right in front of him.

After those 20 minutes, Alex was beaten badly enough that the talisman considered him to have lost the match. The battle was over, and he was awarded his first Loss.