Eternal Cultivation of Alchemy

Pearl ate the pill and meowed, making an 'ew' sound in Alex's mind.

"Haha, you don't like the taste?" he asked as he smiled seeing Pearl's disgusted face.

"No," a sound came back to his mind. Alex waited for a few seconds and just as he thought, sharp claws appeared from inside Pearl's fingers that were about 2 centimeters long.

'20% gives 2 centimeter long nails, 16% gives 2 centimeter long nails and now 26% gives 2 centimeter long nails as well. Does that mean that the 2-centimeter increase in the pill is a constant regardless of the increase in harmony?' Alex wondered.

'No, I don't know if there is a difference in the pill's effectiveness between humans and beasts, so I can't make any conclusions right now. I need to wait until my nails go away so I can take another one. After that, I need to test if taking in 2 pills back to back causes anything. For that I might need to go find the swine again since that is too dangerous to check on my own,' he thought.

"Meow!" Pearl said from the side to urge him to keep on moving.

"Alright, Alright, let's go," he said and followed the path once again.

He walked for another half an hour and was starting to doubt if there was something wrong with his luck, or something was wrong with this place in general.

"There are just too few beasts in the forest for some reason. Did the rest die during the 2 previous invasions?" Alex wondered. Not only that, there weren't any disciples in the forest from either of the 2 sects that he came across.

"Damn, is there a curfew I didn't know about? That would make sense considering that the beast attacks happened twice already," he wondered. Still, he was out already, so there was no point in thinking about this problem.

He searched through the forest and found a lot more alchemy ingredients than he would have imagined. While their potency and number weren't to the same level as the ingredients from that one place in the southern forest, they were still better than what he had gotten the last time he had come to this place.

This time was especially better since he had nearly 45 meters of distance covered every second he moved. So, his harvest was a lot higher than before.

The ingredients he got started to refill the larger storage bags he had gotten in the cardinal city, while Pearl fought off the few beasts they came across.

They were now at the precipice of where the Organ tempering realm beasts started showing up. Only once they went deeper and deeper did the number of beasts start to increase once again.

So, Pearl got plenty of chances to fight the beasts and won almost all battles in a single attack. Only a few beasts needed more than a single paw attack to kill.

The beast corpses and ingredients were also now slowly filling his storage bag as well. They walked for an hour collecting both dead plants and animals as they made their way deeper into the forest.

Alex looked at his right finger once again. It had been nearly 4 hours since he ate the pill and it still didn't show any signs of changing. It didn't elongate, shorter, get weaker, or just fall off.

'This lasts for quite a significantly long time,' Alex thought. Since he knew the pill worked and make the nails stronger at least, he was starting to think of names to call it.

This was a pill he discovered, and he had full intention of naming it himself.

"Nail Elongating pill?… probably not. That sounds boring. Long Nail Pill… is also bad. Strong nail pi—" Suddenly, something entered Alex's area of Spiritual sense.

"Oh!" Alex sensed and slowed down a little. About 20 meters in front of him was a lioness-like beast that seemed quite strong. Alex smiled a little when he saw its cultivation base.

[Cloverstung Lioness - Meridian Tempering 1st Realm]

They were now at the Meridian Tempering realm. That was the perfect realm for someone to be Pearl's opponent.

Sensing the high cultivation realm, Pearl got wary too, but he was still confident in his own strength and walked forward to challenge the lioness.

The lioness got confused for a second watching the kitten walk out to fight, but soon discovered that Pearl wasn't as simple as he looked.

She got into a stance, ready to fight and so did Pearl. Suddenly, both of them clashed against each other and started hitting each other.

Pearl's 8th Organ Tempering realm Qi and Body cultivation based were just as strong as the Lioness' 1st Meridian Tempering realm, if not more.

They both slammed their claws at each other, but Pearl's body was smaller, so he was more nimble at dodging, while the Lioness got hurt by each strike.

Her patch of skin on the back that looked like a giant clover, the origin of her name, was starting to bleed. Alex could see that Pearl was doing quite a lot of damage, most of which he could associate with the new pill due to the long gashes in the lioness' back.

Slowly, but surely, the lioness started to get weaker and more fatigued, while the small Pearl was just as energetic as ever.

'He really is stronger than a 1st Meridian Tempering realm beast, albeit not by much. I guess he can be compared to a 2nd Meridian Tempering realm beast in terms of strength. Now I wonder what would happen if we put elements into the mix. It doesn't look like that lioness has any elemental attacks though,' he thought.

It didn't take much longer for Pearl to fully defeat her and finally the fight ended.

Suddenly, Alex heard movements. Another Lioness appeared in his spiritual sense, this one a little stronger. Alex was about to tell Pearl to get ready for the next fight when a much stronger lioness appeared once more.

He frowned a little. Pearl couldn't fight this one at all. After that, another appeared, then another, then another. Soon, there were around 10 lionesses standing in a group about a few meters away from them.

Alex hadn't managed to keep the body inside the storage as Pearl had just finished fighting, so the pride of lionesses saw the dead body of their companion and started to get angry.

"Pearl, come back here," Alex said as he noticed that even the weakest of them were at 1st Meridian Tempering realm, while the strongest was around 6th, the same as him.

So, he didn't think Pearl could fight them at all this time. Pearl quickly returned and jumped into his place in the tattoo. Now that Pearl was out of harm's way, Alex was free to fight by himself.

He took out a simple Common rank sword and got ready to fight.

One of the lionesses jumped at him and he simply cut towards it without moving an inch. The sword didn't cut very deep, but it did manage to send the lioness flying back.

"Tsk. That's not it. I need to make my blade sharper. Make it one with me," he thought and took a deep breath. He needed to forget about techniques and skills, and just focus on fighting with a sword. Only that way could he possibly get better as a sword fighter.

Once he felt like he understood what he needed to do, he dashed into the midst of the pride and slashed at one of the lionesses.

The lioness tried to go back but it wasn't fast enough.

THUD

The sword didn't cut enough of the lioness' head and instead just caused a massive open would. If he had used Smiting Blade, the damage would've been much higher, maybe even a one-hit kill.

The lionesses on the side jumped at him, and he twisted his body just enough to dodge most of the attack. Still, some of the attacks landed on him, and his clothes tore up.

However, the lionesses weren't strong enough to make him bleed, especially with the armor inside of him.

'This won't work,' he thought. He quickly took off the armor and stored it in, he then did something that most people would call idiotic, but he felt was necessary if he wanted to improve.

He took in all the Qi around his body and took away hid his cultivation base. He was now going to fight these strong beasts with nothing but his body cultivation.

Despite the chances of his being fatally injured right now being zero, he was in quite a lot of danger of being hurt badly. However, that was exactly what he wanted.

It was only at the depths of despair that one's talent truly shined.

Alex jumped back into the fight and started attacking the closest lioness. He slammed the sword on one of the lionesses and then twisted to jump over it before attacking another one.

He pushed that lioness back and blocked the attack from another one. He then twist his body to dodge the 4th one and sent back the one he was using his sword to block before attacking the one he just dodged.

He then kicked the ground before jumping backward to dodge two of the beasts. As soon as he landed, he immediately stepped back in to attack the two that were attacking him.

But midway through, he twisted his body to block the attack of the 6th realm beasts. He heard a crack as the sword he used to block the attack just now was broken.

"Tsk."

He clicked his tongue as he took out another one. He had many such swords in his storage and he would fight with every single one of these.

Then, he jumped back in once again. The 10 lionesses couldn't all fight at once and only 4 or 5 could really attack him at once realistically. He took advantage of that to jump into places where it didn't look like they could fight properly.

He ducked as he dodged one of the paw strikes and instead rammed the sword directly at the lioness. It took a bit of effort, but he managed to ram the whole thing inside the lioness.

The beast coughed up blood as it was half dead. Alex tried to take back his sword, but that was stuck on the beast and wasn't coming out at all.

He immediately let go of the handle and jumped backward to dodge to paw attack. He then ducked and rolled to dodge another one as he took out a sword.

'This isn't working at all. I need intent. I need the intent to wield a sword, the intent to fight with a sword, the intent to kill with one,' he thought.

He tried to feel the length of the sword without seeing it. He wanted to know where it was at all times without seeing it. He needed to know that.

He needed to know what part of the sword was cutting at the beasts, how long that part was, how far away that part was. And he needed to know it all instinctively.

He jumped back in to fight. He spun to the right to dodge as the first lioness attacked him, and stopped to slash at its neck. The attack cut more than a chunk of the neck and the lioness was starting to bleed profusely.

He turned around to parry away the paw of another lioness and cut the stomach of this one. It wasn't a deep cut, but it still would make them bleed a lot.

Alex felt like he was going somewhere. He felt like he was in the zone and the sword that he wielded was something he had with him all the time.

He suddenly dashed forward, dodging the attacks of multiple lionesses before he appeared next to the one that was breathing slowly on the ground, waiting to die.

"I shall make it quick for you."

In a flash, Alex brought up his sword and slashed it at the neck of the dying lioness. The slash cleanly separated the lioness' head from the body in one clean sweep, easily killing it.