Eternal Cultivation of Alchemy

Alex remained open-mouthed as he wondered what had just happened. He looked down on the black, charred hands once again that should have been burning with pain. Instead, he felt nothing.

Or more accurately, he felt numb, like the nerves in his hands was unable to feel anything for the moment.

It was like those times he held the ice from the freezer a little too long, and could no longer feel the flesh for a bit. It was indeed similar to those times as he could see ice forming on the surface of his palms.

The black, charred palm had a slight layer of frost on the surface. "How…?" he couldn't help but ask in surprise. That feeling he had gotten at that last moment… the connection… felt so new… yet like it was always meant to be.

Ma Rong was back on her bed, with no more heat coming off of her. Instead, cool air surrounded her.

GASP!

The ladies all around him suddenly made a gasping noise in surprise. Most of them had a hand on their mouth, unable to believe what they were seeing.

"What happened?" Alex asked, only to see them pointing below him.

He looked down at the puddle of water and found that it was frozen solid. "Ice?" he said in surprise. 'So it wasn't just my hand,' he thought.

The ice spread a little bit further than where he was standing, at which point it stopped. Beyond that, the floor remains water.

Alex quickly pulled out a pill from his bag and ate it. The cloth he had shoved in his mouth had already fallen somewhere halfway through the second time.

Unlike Fan Ruogang's pill, this was a True rank pill, so a single one of it was enough to heal his whole body, let alone only his palm. The energy of the pill passed through his entire body, a little of which was eaten by Pearl.

Once the energy passed through his palm, the charred part of his skin flaked off, and a newer skin appeared, completely healing him.

In fact, he even got 200 thousand Qi afterward as notifications flared to let him know.

Once all was done, he walked forward to wake his master up. He grabbed her by the shoulders and shook her. "Master! Master!" he shouted. Touching her this time, however, did not trigger the connection he had felt just moments ago.

He shook her for a little while more, but she did not wake up at all. With nothing else he could do, he looked back at the girls for ideas. "What should we do now?" he asked.

Zhou Mei walked forward and checked Ma Rong a little. "It doesn't look like she's in trouble anymore. It looks like she's just resting. Let me call my master and grand elder," she said and took out a talisman. She immediately placed it on her head and called out to her master, who would then call her grandmaster.

Within minutes, Alex felt two figures appear outside. The second elder quickly walked into the room with the Grand Elder behind him and asked, "is it true? Is sect leader hea—"

His eyes went wide as well. "What?! Yu Ming— Ho-How are you here? You are alive!!" he shouted out in surprise. "Is it really you?" he asked.

"Yes, Second Elder, I am back. But let's not talk about that for now. Please check master," Alex said.

"Oh right," the Second Elder walked towards him and stopped once he reached close to Ma Rong. "What… why is it so cold in here?" he asked as he reached the point where the frost began on the surface of the room.

"What's going on? Why is sect leader so cold? Wasn't she hot earlier? Hmm… is her temperature changing in cycles? I've never heard about that happening before," the second Elder said.

"No, the second Elder, her body had a lot of Yang energy in it, so I took it away. Now she should be back to normal, only…" Alex gestured towards his master to say he didn't know what was happening.

"Yang energy? So that was the problem huh. Hmm… maybe she came in contact with one of those Yang jades she was talking about. You took away the yang energy from her body?" the Second Elder asked a little.

"Yes, I have a yang-aligned spirit root, so I can handle a bit of yang," Alex said.

"Oh, I see. Let me check what's wrong with her then."

The Second Elder went forward to check Ma Rong a little. He checked his wrist, her head, her breathing, and then her eyes.

"Hmm… that's surprising," he said with a curious face. He didn't speak anymore and kept on checking her once again to see if what he found out was real.

He didn't speak any further than that, so the rest of the people got curious too.

"Little Song, what's going on?" the Grand Elder asked from the side.

"Hmm… I-I think she's fine. I can't find a single problem from her body," the Second Elder said.

"Fine?" the Grand Elder got curious too, and at the same time confused. "How could she be fine, little song? Look at the surrounding," he said as he gestured the ice around the area.

"Yes, the surrounding is cold, Grand Elder, but her body is warm. Exactly the temperature a human body should be at. Her breathing is fine, and her eyes are responding to light in a good manner too. All I can say is her body fought hard for the last 10 days, so it is tired and needs rest."

"As long as we let her stay alone for a bit longer… she should be back to normal," the Second Elder said.

"Then what about the ice, master? What's that about?" Zhou Mei asked.

"That's a little interesting too, but before that, Junior Yu, what exactly did you do to sect leader?" he asked.

"Oh, I just caught her hands and took away the yang energy that was on her body. That was all," Alex said.

"Yes master, we saw that too. Junior Brother Ming had his hands charred fully and were in very intense pain as he stole away whatever it was that sect leader had. I even took him away from sect leader once because he seemed to be feeling a lot of pain," Zhou Mei said.

"Hmm… anything else?" the Second Elder asked.

"Anything…. Oh right, Sect Leader was awake for a split second before falling unconscious. It was at that point all the ice started forming," Zhou Mei said.

The Second Elder took what he just learned in and made no sound as he contemplated on the stuff. After a while, he suddenly started laughing.

"Hahaha!"

The people around him got curious. "What's going on, little Song? Why are you laughing?" the grand elder asked.

"I… I just had a theory, grand elder. I don't know if it is true or not, but it makes a little sense," the Second Elder said.

"A theory? Let's hear it," the Grand elder said.

The second elder nodded and turned to the girls in the room. "All of you girls, go out for a while. I will call you later," he said and sent out the girls in the room.

"You two can stay," he said to Zhou Mei and Fan Ruogang. "It will help you if you know about it."

The second elder then turned towards the grand elder and said, "Grand Elder, you know how Sect Leader has a body with Yin constitution, right?"

"Yes, that was one of the reasons I took her as my disciple, to begin with," the Grand Elder said.

'Constitution… is that the word used for bodies?' Alex wondered. He did remember Ma Rong using that word once in a while, but never explicitly when talking about the bodies.

"You see," the second elder continued, "I think sect leader's constitution might actually have been a dormant constitution that actually never showed itself. And now, for some reason, maybe due to fighting off the yang energy in her body, her constitution has become active."

"Thus we are seeing the current phenomenon. The ice and cold are just her awakened body passively giving off yin energy while she's not in control. Which also means, that she is alright now," the Second Elder said.

"What? Little Rong's dormant constitution awoke? Is such a thing possible?" the Grand Elder asked with a face full of surprise.

"Yes, I've read somewhere that people's constitution can indeed change after some fortuitous encounter. This must be one of the cases," the Second Elder said.

He then turned to Alex and said, "Good Work, Disciple Yu. Now because of you, your master will become stronger."

A rush of happiness shot up from inside as he beamed with a smile on his face. "Thank you, Elder. So, the master will be wake up soon, right?" he asked.

"Yes, yes. Let her rest a few more days. I will have the girls outside look after her for a few days. Once her body is no longer tired, she should be back," the Second Elder said.

"That is good," the Grand Elder said. "Alright, let's leave now. Also, come along Yu Ming, tell us what happened. How are you still alive," the grand elder asked.

"Yes, Grandmaster," Alex said and followed behind them.

The Second Elder told the girls to look after the Sect Leader for a few more days until she woke up. Only this time, they would just have to watch and not do anything else.

The girls nodded and got back to work.

Once the three men were away from the house, the Grand Elder asked Alex to explain what had happened.

Alex nodded and told him everything. He told him how he was captured, how he was trying to look into his memories, and how he died from trying to look at his memories.

The elders, especially the higher ones, all knew about Alex having a Spirit Cleansing lily and thus were sure about him having Spiritual sense. So, Alex had to hide almost nothing at all.

The only things he did keep to himself was that he told them that he didn't know who his kidnapper was and that the kidnapper's cultivation base was in the low True Qi realm.

"I see… so you weren't actually killed during the beast hoard, but actually were captured, huh. Who would've thought? Here we were sure you died."

"Do you know why the person kidnapped you in the first place?" the Grand Elder asked.

Alex had the explanation prepared so he just said, "He was either someone who saw my result in the Annual Sect Competitions or was someone who saw me buy this True rank Armor and wanted to get it. I believe it was the first one, but he never said anything, so I can't be sure."

Alex mixed a lot of truths with the lie, so neither of the two elders detected any flaws in his explanation. The Grand elder sighed after hearing that.

"The city was under attack from the beasts, so we had to fight them ourselves without best disciples and many elders missing. So, when Ma Rong and Wen Cheng heard that, Wen Cheng made Ma Rong return back here, or so I heard. He's still back in the capital searching for you I believe," the Grand Elder said.

"Yes, Grandmaster. I visited Tiger sect before coming here and so they already know about it all," he said. "I rushed here after learning that Master was in trouble."

"Huh? How would they know? We've completely kept it under wraps," the Second Elder said.

"Well, it was my senior brother that told me that Master was absent during the 2nd beast attack and that when asked, the elders never gave a clear answer. So he believed something was wrong and notified me," Alex said.

"Ah, I see. That would make sense," the Second Elder said and sighed as well.

"At least one of you returned back."