Eternal Cultivation of Alchemy

In front of the might of an Immortal, Alex stood alone. All sounds were lost to him, all sight blinded by the brilliant lightning. A tempest of wind and aura buffeted around him, daring to whip him around like a rag doll in a storm.

But he stood still and his focus was all on his sword. 

He was given enough time by Sarah, and he used all of it. Even as the attack came, even as every fiber of his being told him the world around him was being torn apart, he still stood there, doing his best to compress as much Qi and Sword Aura as he could into this one strike.

Then, he released it.

A thin black splinter appeared in the space before him where the attack passed through, shown clearly by the bright bolt of lightning that was making its way toward him. 

He saw the attack rush forward and cut into the lightning bolt, nearly splitting it in two. Without waiting, he teleported away, disregarding the sudden buzz to his talisman as he watched what happened from where he had teleported away from.

Even as his head ached with agony, he kept looking at the attack and even managed to see the single bolt of lightning fork into two, although both bolts still flew to where he had been.

While he had been unable to do anything to destroy the lightning bolt, he had managed to affect it in some way. For someone with his current level of strength, that was quite an incredible feat.

The lightning bolt flew into the distance, terrifying everyone in the vicinity before it disappeared into nothing.

Sarah still stood in the sky, haggard by an attack that she herself used before trying to desperately search for Alex. As far as she could tell, he had been standing right in front of the attack when she had launched it.

She had been hesitating for the majority of the time, and the only reason she had even gone ahead with the plan to attack was because Alex had a talisman that was hopefully still useful.

She felt her heart settle in her chest when she found the awe-filled Alex on the ground with no visible wounds. She let out a deep breath before going over to where Alex was.

"Your Majesty, are you alright?" she quickly asked.

"Hmm? Oh yeah, I'm okay," Alex quickly replied, although it had taken a moment for him to move his attention from his own thoughts.

"You weren't hurt?" she asked.

"No, I got out of the way in time," he said. "I wouldn't have asked you to use such a strong attack if I had no way of protecting myself."

The girl nodded slowly. "Then why did you…" she paused for a second, checking her talisman quickly before realizing she had won. Only then did she understand why he hadn't attacked her after dodging.

It wasn't long before she found out that Alex had received an Out of Bounds, but with only a day more to go, nobody would truly care about such a thing.

Zhao Boqin watched the two from far away, his mind still going through their battle. A few thoughts went through his head regarding something that only he could know about. The coterie of people surrounding him had no idea what he was thinking about.

Alex talked to Sarah for a while before leaving her to go cultivate. He had tired himself with the battle, and the last attack especially had been straining. He had given everything but all into that last attack.

Giving all he could into it would've meant using strength so strong that it brought backlash to himself.

He could hear battles going on all around him, people fighting in the sky throughout the day and night, and even noticed more people joining. Zhao Boqin and Sarah's battle, and subsequently his and Sarah's battle had most certainly caused tempestuous aura to alert everyone in the entire secret realm.

Not to mention the Immortal attacks that nobody had ever seen being used twice now. 

Alex found it difficult to concentrate on cultivating on multiple occasions but managed to go through the night without having to pause. 

Early next morning, as the sunlight was taking away the night's dew, Zhao Boqin came up to Alex.

Alex stopped cultivating and looked toward the man, a gentle smile on his face, mirroring the one that Zhao Boqin seemed to be holding at the moment.

"Your Majesty, are you fit for fighting today?" he asked. He sat beside Alex, close enough that they seemed to be together, but far enough apart that a normal voice they spoke in could be heard by everyone in earshot.

"I have been looking forward to our fight today," Alex said before giving a hesitating look. "We will be fighting, right?"

Everyone's eyes and ears perked up at that, and even the ones who were discreetly hearing their conversation now turned fully to stare at the two of them.

Zhao Boqin took his time to answer the question. "Whether we will fight or not will depend on you, not me, Your Majesty," he said. 

"On me?" Alex asked curiously. "I already agree to the fight."

"Yes, but you have to agree to something else as well," the man said. 

That caught Alex's attention. Curiosity bubbled inside him like milk on a stovetop. It was about to overflow. "Something else? What is this something that I will have to agree to?" he asked.

"A bet!" Zhao Boqin said. He made no show of hiding his voice. It was for all to hear now.

Alex was taken aback. "A bet? On who wins?" he asked, feeling amused about it. "I can accept if it's that. What do you propose the bets to be?"

"Before that, I have to ask," the man said. He took a deep breath and spoke, "You have the Mirror of Barren Truth, don't you?" 

Alex looked at the man's serious eyes and slowly nodded. "I do," he said. "How did you know?"

"I have known for a while," Zhao Boqin said. He hadn't known exactly, but after hearing what had happened when he attacked Alex back then and how it reflected back to him, someone had mentioned seeing a mirror come out.

After digging around a bit, he came to learn about a treasure that was sold in the last Golden Auction. Of course, he wasn't going to mention that it had been luck that helped him figure out what the treasure was exactly. Someone who had seen the list of treasures being sold had happened to be there.

"You want my mirror?" Alex asked in a grim voice.

"That's what I want you to agree to before we fight," Zhao Boqin said. "If I win, I take the mirror."

Alex thought for a bit and asked, "What if I win?"

Zhao Boqin knew Alex had no chance of winning, so he didn't care what he would get upon victory. "What do you want, Your Majesty?" he asked.

"Give me a moment," Alex said, his head already running through ideas. "I will have some time to decide what I want exactly."