Eternal Cultivation of Alchemy

The Intent was the Heavens. What did that mean?

Alex knew what that meant, or at least thought he did. But surely that couldn't be true, could it? How could that possibly be? The possibility itself felt absurd to Alex.

Intent required intelligence and that came from… 

No, what he was thinking could definitely not be possible. He must've been misunderstanding once more. After all, he had made a misunderstanding last time as well.

Surely this time he had assumed something wrong in the process too. It was better to be absolutely sure he wasn't letting his mind roam into places he would rather it not go.

"What do you mean?" Alex asked Godslayer.

He was inside his Spiritual sea now and was looking at the small white crystal sphere with dark clouds of shadow aura floating around him. He had no face and thus Alex couldn't see any expression on his face.

But the sound came from the sphere nonetheless.

"I mean what I said," he said in a deep voice. "The Intent is the Heavens."

"Yeah, you said that," Alex said hurriedly. "But what do you mean by that? Surely you don't mean that the Heavens are a product of someone's Intent."

"That is exactly what I mean," Godslayer said softly. As soft as his voice was though, the confirmation rang like giant gongs in Alex's ears.

The Heavens, the thing that could be said to be the biggest thing of all the worlds was simply someone else's Intent? How was that possible?

And how strong did someone have to be to be that strong?

"Who…" Alex slowly asked. "Who does the Intent belong to?" 

Or was it a 'what' again? He had thought the Intent belonged to the Heavens before, but if what they called Heavens was the intent, then who or what did that Intent belong to?

"We don't know," Godslayer said. "It's one of the great mysteries of the world."

"Mystery?" Alex asked. "So people in the other worlds, these so-called false Gods, do they not know the answer either?"

"To my knowledge, no," Godslayer said. "But my knowledge isn't as extensive as those gods. The most I know is what a regular late Divine realm cultivator would be knowledgeable about. Maybe a bit more due to my… circumstances at the time, but not a lot."

Alex was about to speak when Godslayer continued.

"But, I do not doubt that a few of these individuals would have inklings of what is going on," Godslayer said. "I, myself have a theory, although I cannot prove if it is true or not."

Alex was in shock and nearly missed what Godslayer said. After the disappearance of the True Gods, the false gods were the greatest power in the collective realms. And yet, they didn't know who created the Intent.

"Wait, could it be the True Gods?" Alex asked as soon as his thoughts reached there.

"That's… what was I getting to," Godslayer said slowly. "That is my theory too, but proving so is difficult."

"Why is that your theory? Any evidence suggesting it?" Alex asked.

"None that I can think of," Godslayer said. "Maybe I was just thinking about the gods all those years that I believed it to be the case. Mind you, this is not a rare theory."

"Everyone who can feel the Intent once they're strong enough and is aware of the existence of True Gods comes to this very theory. Only they can never prove it," Godslayer said.

"What other theories could there be?" Alex asked. "An existence that was stronger than these True Gods?" 

"There are theories of existences greater than them creating this Intent, but those are rare," Godslayer said. "Rather, the major theory is that billions of different weaker Intent are coalescing for a specific goal. In this case, survival. The combined Intent of every human existence of a realm forces the world to form a barrier and protect them."

Alex was slightly stunned. "That's… that sounds plausible," he said. "Subconscious Intent for survival, huh?" He gave it some thought.

As Alex thought, Godslayer spoke once again. "There is another theory too, one that is in some ways major too, but not as strong as the first too."

Alex stopped in his thoughts and paid attention to Godslayer. "What theory?" he asked.

"The possibility that we are wrong about sensing Intent in the first place," Godslayer said. 

Alex paused to give his words some thought. They made no sense. "I'm feeling Intent. I'm sure of it," he answered.

"You are feeling something, and I'm not denying there is something out there," Godslayer said. "But are you feeling Intent? Or are you feeling something that makes you think it is Intent?"

"You're going to have to elaborate," Alex said.

Godslayer grumbled for a bit and started speaking. "You put a human's hand over a flame and he screams that it burns. Then you take his other hand and put it in extremely cold ice and he still screams that it burns. Two different scenarios, same result."

"That's what I mean. Something completely different from Intent could be happening here, and we only believe it is Intent because that is the only thing we can associate this feeling with," Godslayer said. "I don't believe that to be the case, but many do."

Alex was stumped for a while. The explanation of something so extravagant was surprisingly… sound. "So these people who have this theory, do they have some idea of what instead could be happening?" he asked.

"They mostly believe that it is just a property of Qi that no one knows about. Something that you don't have to worry about as Qi does what Qi does," Godslayer said. 

"Whatever the case may be, whatever made the Heavens had to be someone or something Intelligent. That is the scariest thing here. The possible existence of someone or something so far stronger than you that he could command the world and it would obey him."

Alex shuddered at the thought. That would be scary. But he quickly put the thought out of his mind.

He had to deal with the fact that there were individuals far scarier than him for most of his life already, and he had gone by fine. He would continue to do so.

If they were so strong that they could destroy the world he lived in with a simple command, then there was no point in being scared at all. Scared or not, if that death came, it would.

"Now that you've learned the truth, what do you think?" Godslayer asked.

Alex stopped there for a while, thinking to himself what he thought. The first thing he remembered was the thing that began this whole conversation. 

He had felt the Intent, something that even Immortals shouldn't have been able to do. Why?

Was it because he called the Worldly laws so close to where the Heavens were? Certainly not. He had felt it before that, vaguely. The Worldly laws had just made it stronger.

If it was just a property of the Qi, then everyone else should've felt it too. 

If it was the human's collective strive for survival, then everyone else should've felt it too.

If it was the True God's Intent, however… yes, that was possible. The Sun God was one of the two True Gods. If he was feeling this feeling because of him then…

"I agree with the theory about the True Gods more than the others," Alex said.

"Oh," Godslayer said. "So you believe the same theory as me then. Did you come to the conclusion on your own, or was it because I said I believed it?"

"I have my own reasoning to believe them," Alex said. "But the other theories have merit too, so I won't dismiss them immediately. It is possible that what is happening is either one of the three theories, a combination of the three theories, all of them, or something entirely different."

"Chose one for your own sake," Godslayer said. "Chose one and let your heart be calm."

"No," Alex said. "I do not need false consolation to be calm. I was scared, and might still be, but the fear I felt was irrational. Fearing this is no different than fearing that the sky would fall. If it does somehow become a problem, then fear will be a luxury."

"For now, I will fear what is right in front of me. The damn Dragon Emperor," Alex said.

Godslayer was astonished by Alex's words. "I…" he slowly spoke. "You should leave."

Alex thought for a bit and nodded. "If there is no more, I will go. I need to check on the plants," he said and quickly looked around. "I should suppress the Yang too."

He disappeared.

Godslayer remained where he stood for a long while before speaking to himself softly. "He handled it so much better than I did," he said before quickly stopping. "I did? When?"

For a while now, bits and pieces of his memories were returning to him. Not from when he was consumed by hatred and went around killing Gods. But one from much before.

Memories he didn't know he had. Memories that he thought should not exist. Since Alex had cleansed the corruption in him so long ago, he was being healed in more ways than one.

His memories were returning to him, and he didn't know if he liked that very much. Sometimes, it was so much better to just know these things without the memories.

Now, he questioned who he was before the corruption got to him. Had he always been like this, or had the corruption changed him?

If he had become different, could he ever return to a time when he was someone else?

Lost in deep thoughts, Godslayer drifted through Alex's Spiritual sea, to see if he could jog some more memories up for answers.