Eternal Cultivation of Alchemy

Alex handed over a healing pill to Teng Roukang this time around. 

"Are you going to challenge me tomorrow as well?" Alex asked.

The man couldn't hide his grin. "It's such an easy way to get pills, Your Majesty. Please don't mind if I do," he said.

"Okay, but can you at least not do it right after reset?" Alex asked him. "I need to win my first match of the day so I don't get a Loss."

"I will try not to," the man said. "I'll see you tomorrow, Your Majesty."

Alex didn't believe he could trust the man's word and was mostly sure that he was going to see him as soon as the talismans reset once again.

He turned around to see another group of people approach him, most of whom were ones that had defeated him yesterday, along with a few more. He couldn't help but sigh as his talisman buzzed again.

He couldn't complain though as this was what he brought upon himself. 

5 hours later, felt a pained expression. This wasn't working. He had lost 5 times in the dozen or so fights he fought. Pearl had fought 5 of those, and his was the fight that were the longest.

"We aren't getting any time for ourselves," Alex thought. Pearl agreed as well. He needed to do something. He had been left alone for some time, and now was the time for him to come up with something.

"I need a routine. I need some free time of my own," he thought and brought out a canvas. The people who were giving him some free time looked at him, curious about what he was doing.

After spending 5 minutes on it, Alex finished writing everything he wanted from the fights. Once done, he brought out his pupped and pasted it on its body, letting Whisker control it.

Everyone curiously read what it said.

"What is this?"

[I will only accept battles 5 days a week. The last remaining 2 days will be for me to train and cultivate.

The battles will now be based on a first come first served basis. My Mouse, Whisker, will handle the queue of fighters, so join through there.

If reset hits, I will pause all battles until someone whom I can easily beat challenges me. You can also circumvent this by choosing to give me a Win for the day, for which I will give you a pill. 

If your Cultivation base is above the Saint Soul realm, You will fight me. If it is between Saint Core 6th realm and 9th realm, Pearl and I will take part together. If it is below that, Pearl alone will be the one to fight you alone.

I will take a 10-minute break after every fight unless it is one where I or Pearl am switching.

Finally, and most importantly, if you do not follow this rule, I will give you an Out of Bounds.]

"Whisker, handle that," Alex said and sat down by the grass, close to the slope that led to the river.

Whisker looked at what was written, took a moment to understand it, and jumped on top of the puppet before speaking to everyone. "Gather around if you want to challenge my brother!"

The people saw the tiny mouse speak to them, surprised that even the mouse had a cultivation base in the Saint realm. They read through the text on the canvas, unsure what to do next.

"Is he making a competition out of this?"

"What does he mean by he will give them an Out of Bounds? Did the kings and Queens give him the power to do that?" 

"He must be tired of having to fight one after another. Understandably, he needs a bit of a break. I am all up for this sort of setup."

One person ran to Whisker before anyone. "I will challenge him next!" he shouted.

Whisker looked at him and nodded before taking a talisman out. "What is your name and what is your cultivation base?" he asked the man.

Suddenly, the other people started shouting as well, saying they came here before the other person and whatnot. It took nearly 10 minutes for the chaos to turn to order before the first person who came through got to go in.

He was only a weak man with a cultivation base in the Saint Core 4th realm. As such, he got to fight Pearl.

Pearl was improving quite rapidly. The third battle he felt all this time was slowly being quenched and with it came satisfaction he hadn't felt in a long time.

His battle lasted for half an hour, during which he did everything but use the techniques that would give him away as a White Tiger. So he didn't use White Tiger's Domination Body, or White Tiger's claws, or White Tiger's Steps.

Pearl won with his last attack, which was a direct slam onto the man's body. Alex's talisman buzzed and he had won.

Pearl moved to the side to rest and Alex looked toward Whisker. "Who is fighting next?" he asked.

Alex was very happy to have made the rules as he had.

The battles went on accordingly and Alex found himself improving ever so slightly. After nearly 2 days, he could sense that his Sword Intent was touching the threshold of Saint Core 7th realm. By sometime tomorrow, he should have properly landed on the 7th realm.

If he could improve as steadily, he was hopeful about reaching the most he could reach as of yet by the end of the 2 years he had to stay inside the secret realm.

Sufficient time had passed so that people could judge how strong Alex was. As such, more of his information had been passed around the secret realm. At the same time, the ones who had lost had no intention of challenging him again. As such, they had to leave.

The battle was only going to get tougher, Alex assumed, and he was going to have to waste a lot more pills than he had hoped. Still, he hoped his sword improved along with that. 

Some people left, and some joined, and the fight continued. Pearl got quite a bit of a chance to fight as well, improving him. 

Night came and went, and day started once again, Alex and Pearl hadn't stopped fighting since yesterday, but the gap they let themselves get had made this training a lot more healthy than it was the previous day.

Alex fought a man in the Saint Soul 3rd realm, fighting sword to sword. He struggled a bit against this man and was certain he would lose, but he intended to stand strong until he could.

As he fought, his talisman buzzed, catching him by surprise. The man's attack managed to land on him during his moment of surprise and he was sent flying back.

His talisman buzzed once again.

"Dammit!" Alex grunted softly. "Did it reset mid-battle?"

He quickly checked the talisman and as he had expected, the talisman had indeed reset at noon. But thankfully, he didn't receive any Loss. It seemed any battle that started before the reset did not count toward the Loss.

Alex sighed in relief and got back up, looking at the people who were waiting for their turn.

"Anyone want to give me a free win?"