Eternal Cultivation of Alchemy

Alex sat in the rattling carriage that slowly moved towards its destination, Silverleaf city.

Pearl was still to the side, making quite the friendship with the little girl named Xue.

He sat cross-legged on his seat, sending all of his focus onto his meridians. They… they were almost twice as wide as what his meridians would normally be.

Considering it was smaller than normal already due to it not properly healing, this was actually quite massive.

"Will it really heal?" Alex asked.

"Yes, yes, you don't have to worry. Everyone had to go through it once in a while to understand the pain of overinflated meridians. Only then do they realize that it's something bad that one shouldn't do" Shen Jing said.

By now, Alex had come to accept the fact that Shen Jing wasn't really a bad guy. The way he had killed the 5 men without Alex feeling a trace of his power… Shen Jing had no need for these petty tricks.

'Unless he likes tricks,' Alex thought but didn't say it out loud.

"It's like a little curious cubs touching Yin-fire for the first time. Once they do, they will know not to do it again," Shen Jing said looking outside the carriage.

"Yin-fire? What's that?" Alex asked. His curiosity was piqued.

"A type of fire," Shen Jing said. "But you don't have to worry about that for now."

Alex wanted to learn more, but he didn't dare ask and simply nodded. "How long do you think it will take me to heal the meridians?" he asked.

"Hmm… hard to say really," Shen Jing said. "Everyone is different. That is especially true for you. Given your body cultivation… I will give about a month of time before they can return to normal."

"Another month?" Alex exclaimed. He had already spent nearly 3 weeks trying to heal it back to normal, and yet, the time increased by another 4 weeks once again.

4 weeks of continuous cultivation.

"It would take a month… if that is what we wanted to do," Shen Jing said.

"Huh?" Alex got confused. "What do you mean by that? Should I not heal my meridians?"

"No," Shen Jing said. "You should keep them as it is."

"I don't understand," Alex said.

Shen Jing suddenly lost his casual stance and leaned forward towards Alex.

"Your Meridians are different from everyone else. When people body-cultivate, most of the time, they only manage to improve 3 things. Skin, muscles, and bones."

"Only rarely do people improve their organs. Improving Meridians? You would be luckier finding a Phoenix that can't regenerate."

"So, you are in a unique position where your Meridians are very strong. Strong enough to handle your recklessness multiple times."

"If you keep up the recklessness, they will certainly be destroyed. However, if you were to do it in a controlled environment. That is, widening your meridian from time to time. Slowly, but surely, they will start healing themselves to that size."

"Then, you will have meridians so widely open that you can pump out a lot of Qi in a very little time. I don't know if that is useful to an Alchemist or not, but to a cultivator, one couldn't ask for something better," Shen Jing said.

Alex's eyes went wide as he understood the implication. If he could do what he did yesterday, and create suns like that without breaking a sweat, he could use stronger attacks that require more wind-up time very easily.

The amount of time it took to pour his Qi into swords, or formations would halve. Creating fire entities would be very quick as well.

There were a lot of benefits and Alex couldn't even think about them yet.

"That sounds amazing," he said. "When do I start?"

"Let's wait until it stops hurting as much. 2 days should be fine. Cultivate until then," Shen Jing said.

Alex nodded and cultivated. Time passed slowly, and Alex cultivated both the Five Yang Divine Path and the Winter Moon technique interchangeably.

Whenever his body started to heat up a bit, he would change to the Yin technique to cool it down. The Yin also felt cool on his meridians and gave a comforting feeling.

During this time, Shen Jing went out twice for a few hours before returning. Who knew where he went during this time.

On the second time, Alex decided to ask.

"Where do you go for hours?" he asked.

"I'm searching for places," he said.

"Places? Are you out here searching for something?" he asked. He thought he was finally seeing why Shen Jing was in this remote corner of the continent at all.

By now, his theory about him being a player had already disappeared. There was no way someone could reach the saint realm and have this much knowledge on cultivation as a player.

"No, I'm not looking for something out here. You can stop trying to guess who I am and what I am doing here. The world is way too vast and you haven't even seen the smallest of them to figure out who I am," Shen Jing said.

That shut up Alex. So, he went back to cultivating.

On the second day, Shen Jing brought Alex far away from the caravan to do his Sun trick again.

Alex prepared himself and instantly drew out a massive amount of Qi from his body that passed through the meridians, making them look like they were bulging at the seams.

The sun formed in front of Alex, the dazzling red and orange it that shined just like the sun above him.

It was about a meter in diameter and was fully constructed with Qi.

Any more heat and he would likely die from burning himself. Alex felt a bit of fear, wondering if he would injure himself using this sun.

The sun itself wasn't as dangerous as Alex. Since it was produced from his own cultivation base, the damage it could deal was the same as his cultivation base too.

However, for some reason, its aura gave off an aura that made it look more dangerous than it was.

From what Alex could see even Shen Jing was having a hard time keeping his chilled personality in front of the sun.

He breathed in and out heavily, more so than Alex. 'Is he…scared?' Alex wondered.

Shen Jing wasn't scared. In fact, he was the exact opposite. He was excited.

The sun in front of him gave him a sense of excitement and nervousness, something he had actually felt not so long ago.

Actually, that event was much more exciting… or rather fearsome than this small sun. That event he went through a few months ago, now that was something else.

But still, seeing the sun gave him a sense of need to bow down in front of it, which he resisted.

"It truly is incredible what you can do," he said. "Although, stop it or you will hurt your meridians."

Alex nodded and quickly stopped the sun. The sun lasted for a few more seconds without his constant Qi input and disappeared.

"If you were to give that a percentage, how much Qi would you say you have used to make this sun?" Shen Jing asked.

Alex felt his own Qi reserve and gave a rough estimate of 10%.

"10%? That's so much better than what I would've expected of you. And here I thought I was already overestimating you with 15%."

"So if the fight lasted longer and your meridian were fine, you could've kept going, right?" Shen Jing asked.

"Yes, I still had enough to fight," Alex said.

"Great! Absolutely great. Hahaha, I'm so glad I found you," Shen Jing said.

"How did you find me?" Alex asked. "I'm still curious. What about me attracted you towards me?"

Shen Jing smiled and shook his fingers. "You are not going to be able to make me answer like that. Why I decided to help you, you will find soon enough, hopefully."

Alex shook his head. They always said that. Get stronger, and I will tell you, or it's not time for you to learn about it yet.

Couldn't they just give him the information straight on? What was the reason behind all of this secrecy?

"Are you not hurt? Your meridians should be feeling like they will burst at any moment now," Shen Jing asked.

"It does, but I've learned to live with the pain," Alex said and walked back to the carriage, ignoring the curious look of Shen Jing.

Once he reached the carriage, Alex started cultivating once more, using the two different methods alternatively.

Shen Jing looked at this point with a bit of surprise too. He wanted to ask what Alex was doing, but he believed he had a very good idea of what was happening.

'Well, since he already has a solution, he probably doesn't need mine,' Shen Jing thought and decided to keep quiet.

Alex cultivated for an entire day and only opened his eyes when he felt the carriage stop.

"What's going on?" he asked, opening his eyes for the first time in hours.

Shen Jing opened the door and jumped out.

"Come on out, we are here," he said.

"Here?" Alex asked for a second before realizing what he meant. "Oh, we already arrived in Silverleaf city, huh?"

He got out as well and looked at the city. Surprisingly, the city had no defensive walls like all the cities of the Crimson Empire had. Or even the Riverweed city from not long ago.

"How much further is your destination again?" Shen Jing asked as if to remind him.

Alex couldn't help but chuckle when he remembered that he was barely 3% of the way done with his journey.