Eternal Cultivation of Alchemy

Sun had come up and Alex was not the least bit exhausted. The two men next to him were pretty jovial and were talking to each other, while the woman in front of him made a slightly disgusted face from time to time.

The old man next to her was drenched in blood by now and had done nothing about it. Thankfully, he hadn't attacked a single ally during the 3 different bandit attacks last night.

The woman had told Alex that 3 attacks were surprisingly very low for the night.

"After 3 beast attacks in a row, anyone would be scared. Especially if they lived in the forest," the woman had said.

Alex looked around and realized that nobody really cared about his existence, and it didn't look like they were going to get attacked any time soon.

So, he decided to log out real quick and get his breakfast. He closed his eyes and got into a meditative position for a bit to see how they reacted, and after realizing that the people didn't care, he left.

He quickly did his business in the bathroom and went to eat. He gorged down the food while telling the people how precarious of a position he was in and how he could not really leave.

Then, he returned back to the game and found himself perfectly fine. Still, it was quite scary to leave his body alone like that.

The day passed by and Alex was bored with nothing to do. He tried sleeping but even that didn't really work since he wasn't tired at all.

Back when he was with the princess, he at least had a friend to talk with. If not that, he could spend his time learning about the different formations.

Now, he couldn't even do that.

'Making pills in my mind is boring and hard,' he thought. 'And there's really nothing else I can do.'

He was seated on the left side of the carriage, so when he stuck his face out to get fresh air, he couldn't even see any of the southern forests.

Instead, he saw the farmland to the south. The cool breeze of the upcoming winter hit his face and reminded him of the changing seasons.

He started spending the rest of his time doing just that, looking at the different lands to the north, instead of focusing on the south.

'That's where the ocean is right?' he thought. 'I wonder when I will get to see that and just how far it is.'

The day passed by and night fell once more. The bandits would soon attack once more.

Alex could hear the gasps of people from all around him. Even one of the men sitting towards the right window gasped.

At first, he thought it was the bandits again, but there wasn't any shout.

"Just look at that. So much damage," the man mumbled under his breath.

Alex looked over on his side and saw that massive, almost wave of destruction all around him.

Lands were torn to shred, trees missing all around, and even the Souther forest was in a mess.

'Oh, are we back around the place where I left?' he wondered. 'This must be where that saint realm beast showed up through with its entire beast army.'

"This is seriously getting too dangerous. We can't keep risking our lives for this small sum of money," the man said.

"Sigh, we will quit after this job and wait until the beast attacks settle down. No need to die for a little money," the woman said.

"Ssh! Did you hear that?" the other man said.

Everyone got quiet and tried to listen to what was going on. They heard the trees rustling and then someone shouted.

"BANDITS!"

Alex was used to this by now and opened his side of the door before walking out.

The bandits surprisingly didn't charge at them, and instead slowly appeared from what remaining bushes there were and lined up against the caravan.

Alex was surprised why they were not attacking, but then he saw the woman's face.

She was worried. She wasn't scared or horrified, but she was definitely worried. Alex looked at the other members of her team as well, and they seemed worried as well.

'This one is not going to be so easy, is it?' Alex thought. He realized that the only reason the guards could be worried is if they didn't have the ability to protect their employers.

"Damn it, it's the Black Venom bandit group," one of the men said.

Alex didn't know bandit names, but he could see where the name came from. All of the bandits had black robes and had long black hair.

'That explains the black part… so, is the venom part that they use something venomous?' Alex wondered.

"Surrender your items now, and we will let you go along just fine," the man with a thick mustache spoke. From the looks of it, the 20 or so bandits seemed to follow him as if he were the leader.

"Don't worry guys, this is not the Black Venom Bandits. At least… not the real one," the woman said.

"What are you? An off-shoot of the main bandit group? You certainly have to be related to have this much strength, but I know who the leader of Black Venom bandit group is, and you are not it," the woman said confidently.

"Hah, just because I lead the weaker members of our group doesn't mean that we are not part of the group. Anyway, enough talking, will you give us the items or not?" the man asked.

Alex looked at the group of bandits and saw that most of the people, including the leader had a cultivation base in the True Realm. They were very weak in the True realms, but it was the True realms nonetheless.

Only about 3 people were in the self tempering realm, but it was still quite high.

"Sister, let's fight them. We've got the force to beat them to a pulp," one of the men said.

The old man looked at the bandit group with furious eyes. Even when he couldn't fight them, it seemed like he hated the bandits too much to care.

"I'm not worried about them. They couldn't hope to hurt us with how overconfident they are. I'm just worried what will happen if the Black venom himself learned about this."

"He is not someone we can mess with," the woman said.

"Miss Gong, you must protect us," Zhang Xie said from behind them.

"Tsk. It seems you all don't really care. Whatever boys, kill them," the leader of the bandit group shouted.

"It seems we have no choice. Listen up, if they live we will be in trouble. So, make sure to kill them no matter what," the woman shouted.

Alex went for one of the weakest of the bandits, a 4th Mind Tempering realm cultivator.

The bandit seemed to use two axes, so he came running towards him with just that.

The bandit swung the right ax towards Alex which he blocked with his sword.

At the same time, the bandit attacked him on his right shoulders with his left ax.

Alex lifted his right hand so that the target was no longer the shoulder but the chest.

CLANG

The sound of the ax hitting something hard rang loud and Alex smiled. His True Mortal T-shirt armor was working just fine.

Without hesitation, he started attacking the bandit. Left and right, front and dow, he tried the attack everywhere the bandit couldn't block in time and immediately change position if he did.

The bandit had one of the best close combat fighting weapons, so Alex had to be extra careful with how he approached the fight.

Alex slowly started having trouble when the bandit started using techniques of his own. First of all, the movement technique of the bandit was too hard to understand for Alex.

Secondly, there was a weird green glow that shot out from the ax every time he blocked it and hit him. Fortunately, they weren't strong enough to truly hurt him, and only pricked him a bit.

Finally,  the man started using some defensive techniques of his own and Alex had a hard time penetrating through that defense without using something unusual in his arsenal.

He tried to fight it out normally for as long as he could, however. He wanted to take it slow, but then he heard someone shout in pain and anger.

Alex looked to the side and saw the burning flesh of one of the weaker bandits. However, the shout was not coming from one of the bandit's allies.

Alex immediately turned around to block the attack of the bandit and used Heaven's impact on him.

The bandit lost consciousness and Alex hit him with the side of his blade to send him next to the woman who had just finished her opponent.

She cut the incoming bandit without worry and looked at Alex. But Alex no longer cared about it.

Alex was now looking at the person crying in anger and pain near the burning bandit, the old man.

Except, the voice coming from the old man wasn't old… it was young.

The old man looked towards Alex by sheer coincidence and Alex saw the look of pain, anger, and now quickly building shame in his eyes.

Alex's heart started racing when he realized he recognized those eyes. "You…" he said.

"Go away," the old man shouted in a young man's voice. By this time, most the of bandits were dead and the leader of the group was injured in his fight against the people.

He hadn't realized how much of a mistake he had made in underestimating the caravan.

"No!" he shouted and suddenly ran away.

"Stop him. We can't let him report back," the woman said and ran in.

The old man ran behind the leader too.

"Brother Li!" Alex shouted as he ran behind the old man.

The old man stopped for just the tiniest fraction of a second before running behind the running leader

The leader was mostly injured, so he couldn't fly or run at his fastest speed, so everyone followed him. Letting the man return back alive and report who killed him was not a choice.

The leader, however, knew the jungle more than the guards could ever hope to.

Even Alex who had tried to keep track of him using his spiritual sense missed him. However, the old man kept running into the forest.

Ale changed his direction and ran towards the old man, getting closer and closer until he was right next to him.

"Brother Li, stop!" he shouted, and the old man finally stopped.

He looked back at Alex and said, "Please go back, brother Yu. I don't want to involve you with this petty revenge of mine."

Wan Li finally decided to speak up to Alex.