Eternal Cultivation of Alchemy

Alex returned back to the Tiger sect late afternoon. He wanted to go practice his spiritual weapon technique.

By now, he was able to somewhat effortlessly create a sword, but using the sword was still a problem for him. As he couldn't hold it in his hands, and since Qi didn't work on it, he needed to think of something else.

However, before he could go anywhere, he got a message on his communication talisman telling him to go to the Disciple's hall as soon as possible.

Alex wondered what the reason was and walked to the sect crater before making his way to the Disciple hall.

The Disciple's hall was also the Elder's hall, so when he reached there, he sent a message to his master, telling him he was there.

He waited a few minutes before Wen Cheng walked out with the First Elder. Alex greeted them both, hiding his curious expression as he wondered why the first elder was with them.

"Come," Wen Cheng called him and took him along away from the sect crater. However, they weren't walking towards the wall or either path that lead to the crater.

Rather, they were walking towards the back half of the mountain, the one that was half gone when the crater formed.

"I've never been to this part of the sect before," Alex said as they walked up the side of the mountain.

There was a staircase that lead a bit up the side and was quite indistinguishable from far away, so Alex was seeing something new today.

"Let's go," Wen Cheng said and walked up.

Alex followed behind and looked up. There were a few elders standing guard in front of a couple of houses built into the walls.

Alex knew this was where the elders that weren't numbered stayed, but this was his first time seeing this.

However, Wen Cheng and the First elder didn't seem to be bringing him to an Elder's house.

Instead, they walked past the houses and went to a massive stone door. There were 2 more elders standing guard in front of the door.

They bowed towards Wen Cheng the moment they saw him and stepped to the side.

Alex curiously looked at the patterns on the door. At first, he thought it was a normal stone door, but it didn't take him very long to realize that it actually had a formation carved onto it.

'It's a seal,' he thought.

Wen Cheng brought out a circular metal plate that had the word 'Leader' written behind it, and placed it onto the stone door.

Suddenly, the door lit up and opened inwards, revealing a dark cavern that was dug into the mountain itself.

Alex could see no light coming from inside the room so it was as dark as he expected it to be.

"Let's go inside," Wen Cheng said and walked in, followed by the First elder and finally, the curious Alex.

"What is this place, master? I didn't even know a place like this existed before," Alex said.

Alex heard a slam just then and turned his head to look behind him. The stone doors had shut themselves and the metal plate flew past him back to Wen Cheng's hand.

When Alex turned back to the front, he suddenly saw light flickering all around him.

Before he knew it, the lanterns that were present in the wall started glowing all around him, illuminating the place like they did the crater in the nighttime.

"This is the sect treasury. Everything the sect has ever owned is stored in this place," Wen Cheng said.

"Sect treasury?" Alex couldn't help but make a shocked face. He looked around in awe as he saw the glistening armors, the stacks of books, and the various other treasures in the room.

"This is your first time here right?" The first elder asked with a smile.

"Yes," Alex said. "What are we doing here?"

"I explained your deeds to the other elders. They know what you did for the sect. Not only did you save the various disciples while nearly dying on your own, but they also know that you killed the Second Elder, Su Chen who was a dark spot in the sect's history."

"So, to reward you for this I persuaded the elders to let you have something from the treasury. This… is my graduation gift to you," Wen Cheng said.

Alex looked around the treasury in shock once more and turned back to Wen Cheng to ask, "I can take a thing from this place?"

"No," the first elder said, killing Alex's excitement in one go.

"You can get 2 things," he said.

Alex's excitement came back in full swing. "Two things? Are you sure?"

"Yes, see what you like, and choose two of the. We will sit here," Wen Cheng said.

"Thank you, master," Alex said and walked forward to see what he could find that he would like.

The treasury room was long and narrow. To his right was a wall full of armor and shield. To his left were formation plates, kept in a stack.

Adjacent to the formation plates were some talismans, and opposite to them was a group of weapons, adjacent to the armors.

Going further up, there was a stack of various different things, including books that were kept in a very orderly manner as well as a few pills.

Alex walked forward and started checking the various things that were on the shelves.

He started with the armors and shields. They looked shiny in the lantern light, and some looked very strong, but… for some reason they didn't appeal to him.

Shields would be useless for a one-handed man like him, but the armors also felt useless once he thought about the fact that he was a body cultivator with a True Lord 1st realm of body cultivation.

'Yeah, I will have to skip these,' he thought. He went past the armors and looked at the weapons. There were spears, sabers, axes, and even hammers, but barely any swords.

Any sword that was there made him feel like they just weren't for him. 'They just don't seem as good as the steel sword,' he thought.

"Sorry about the swords. Those are some of the things that get taken away the most when we do reward students and elders. After hundreds of years, those are the only ones that have managed to get left behind," Wen Cheng shouted from the back.

"I see," Alex said. 'So in a sense, these are the bad bunch, huh? Better not choose it then.'

Alex turned around towards the formation and talisman shelves and looked around. He picked up a few and noticed that the formations were mostly True ranked formations. Which meant… he could easily make it too.

He wasn't sure what grade he could make, but as long as he was given the blueprint and a metal plate, he could easily recreate them for himself.

As for the Saint ranked formations… he didn't have Saint Qi, so it would be impossible to use it anyway.

He looked towards the talismans and… yeah, they were impossible to decipher for him. The runes required to make the talismans were not something he had knowledge of at the moment, so he couldn't choose amongst them.

Alex shook his head and walked forward to look at the final giant shelf on the wall at the end.

He looked through the various things, hoping to have something here that he would like to keep.

"Do you not like anything?" Wen Cheng asked from behind while Alex was still looking.

"Not yet, but I have yet to look at the books. Hopefully, they have something," Alex said.

He randomly picked up a book and tried to dust it, however, no dust came off of it.

"Oh, these are quite clean," Alex said. He turned around to look at the items that he had walked past, and they were equally clean.

"Do people come here often?" Alex asked.

"Hmm, no. Maybe once a few years," Wen Cheng said, a little confused why Alex was asking.

"Oh, I'm surprised this place managed to gather no dust with barely any visitors in years," Alex said.

"Ah," Wen Cheng understood. "No, it was opened 3 months ago. That was when we cleaned it. Otherwise, it gathers quite the dust."

"Oh," Alex was curious now. " 3 months ago… wasn't I still here at that time? I didn't know someone did something to be rewarded," Alex said.

"I believe you were in the Hong Wu sect at the time. And no, nobody got any reward. We opened the place because there was some commotion inside here," Wen Cheng said.

"Ahem, brother Wen, you are a little wrong about that," the First Elder said from the side.

"Hmm? I'm wrong?" Wen Cheng asked.

"Yes," the First Elder said. "There was another commotion not two weeks ago. It happened the night after the bandits were defeated."

"Oh," Wen Cheng said. "I didn't know something like that happened."

"Yes," First Elder said. "It was quite problematic timing too since the commotion happened right as we all lost the ability to use the Qi. It was only later we got to come in to check when I assumed the sect leader role for a few days."

"Commotion right as the Qi disappeared?" Alex asked. He thought of something and started recalling the days in his mind.

3 months ago… that was about a week or two before he was taken to the Beast's realm. If the two commotions were to be caused by the same thing, then there was something that connected them.

'That was the same day as the sand storm in the desert, wasn't it?' Alex realized.