Eternal Cultivation of Alchemy

The purple crocodile's scales glowed brightly as the textures on them changed. The crocodile was using Qi to harden its scales, so Alex could notice it with his sense.

He smiled and dashed forwards once again.

The crocodile, this time fully aware of Alex's strength, decided to use its tail to attack him. Its hardened tail had scales growing in all directions like thorns on a flower stalk.

Alex realized that this could be deadly and immediately poured all his metal Qi into his sword and slashed at the tail.

The tail and the sword clashed, and as expected, Alex was thrown back into the sand.

Alex quickly stood up from the flying sand everywhere and noticed something. The scales on the tail of the crocodile, which was growing in all directions, were now all facing him, and they started shaking a little.

Alex frowned. He could guess what was going to happen. Just as the tail's scales started shooting out like bullets, he dashed to the side, dodging the volley of scales.

The crocodile pulled its tail back. Its scales would take a bit to grow back before it could use again.

Alex then dashed back at the crocodile again. The crocodile's mouth opened up as if wanting to eat him.

'Did this beast not understand already that I—' just as Alex was thinking that, he saw a giant illusory crocodile, made up of entirely blue color appeared on top of the crocodile.

The illusory crocodile's lower jaw was missing, and its upper jaw was now coming down, slamming onto him.

This was the attack of a True lord 4th realm beast. Alex couldn't underestimate it at all.

A wall of 5 colors appeared in front of him that contained the five elements. This was a technique that could stop a lot of the incoming attacks.

At the same time, he strengthened his body with the Jade Skin technique as marbled texture appeared all over his body.

Then, finally, his hand glowed with yellow light and he sent out a palm strike to stop as much of the damage as he could.

Then, the crocodile's upper jaw slammed on him. A cloud of sand blew into the wind, causing a giant sound that reached far into the forest and deep into the river.

The crocodile harrumphed, thinking it had won. However, not very long after, when the sand settled down, he saw Alex still standing there, with no damage to him at all.

When the remaining power of the illusory crocodile hit him, it felt like he was hit by a truck. With a True Lord 1st realm level body, he could handle a truck.

Alex ran after the crocodile again, with his sword glowing green this time.

The Crystalscale Crocodile was a beast with Water and Earth elements to it. To even negate some of the effects of both of those elements, Alex needed to use an appropriate technique of his own.

Since he had to use a sword for the additional damage of the Sword Intent, Alex could only rely on sword techniques. While he had sword techniques for all 5 elements, the only ones that were strong were the Elusive Heavenly Sword with its Wood Element, the Penta Sword technique as well as the Smiting blade with the Metal Element.

The Metal element could weaken the Earth element, but it did nothing against the water element, instead of acting just like a non-Elemental attack against it.

Meanwhile, Wood Element could both weaken the Water Element and control the Earth element, so he decided to use that instead.

As he reached the crocodile, Alex appeared right underneath its jaw and slammed his sword into it, releasing the green slash at point-blank range.

The crocodile was sent flying upwards into the air. Seeing the school-bus-sized crocodile flying was quite a sight.

The crocodile slammed into the water, making a giant wave in the river. The beast that was close by quickly ran away.

Alex saw this and smiled. Then, he got his sword ready once again. That attack just now would have hurt the crocodile quite a bit, but it would have done nothing to harm it at all.

It only worked to make it angry.

The crocodile swam out of the river in a surprising speed and looked at Alex with disdain in its eyes, then it slammed its legs.

Alex wondered what was happening when suddenly, his feet started sinking into the ground. He tried to pull it out, but his feet wouldn't accept that. Instead, the more he moved, the more he was getting pulled under.

'Dammit! The crocodile used a quicksand technique,' he thought. Then, he looked up and saw the crocodile preparing to do something.

He could feel Qi being gathered in front of its mouth. It was going to attack something soon.

Alex saw a blue ball of water spiral in front of it, and then, it let it loose. A massive stream of water shot out of the crocodile's mouth towards Alex who was still stuck to the ground.

Then, the stream hit him… and Alex's body tore into a thousand pieces.

The crocodile was surprised at how easy it was, and he saw the pieces fall to the ground. Then, the pieces vanished in a bunch of yellow light.

BAM!

Something struck him underbelly with so much strength that the crocodile was once again sent out flying. However, Alex didn't stop this time.

He hit the crocodile again in mid-air, throwing it further away. The crocodile tried to turn itself in mid-air, but Alex kept hitting it and sending it further and further down the river.

When Alex was about to hit it again, the crocodile this time enforced its scale in time and managed to swing its tail around.

Alex tried to block it, but that was not all he needed to do. The crystals on the tail's end were already turning towards him.

He would die if he let that hit.

Suddenly, a tongue of fire appeared in front of him, while he enforced himself with his Jade Skin technique, then he thought of a single word.

'Explode!'

A massive boom rang in between him and the crocodile, sending the crocodile slamming down into the water, while he was sent flying away and landed in the river as well a good 100 meters down the line.

Alex's body hurt a bit, but that was the price of survival. 'The crocodile is coming for me,' he thought and prepared to fight when he saw something not far from him that shocked him beyond belief.

Deep in the river, about 70 meters away from him in the opposite direction of the crocodile was a golden ball of light. This was something that shouldn't have existed in nature and was definitely man-made.

However, that was not what had shocked him at all. No, the thing that shocked him more was what was within this ball of golden light.

Floating within the ball of golden light was something made up of mostly green and gold. Alex smiled when he saw this, and his eyes gleamed with joy.

"My Cauldron!" he shouted in happiness. He had finally found the Golden Jade Cauldron.

He wanted to go get it, but he didn't yet have enough space to keep his cauldron in his ring. Not unless he wanted to throw away the stuff that he had gathered until now.

So, he was forced to leave it be just for now. 'I'll get it back soon,' he thought and turned around to the approaching angry crocodile. 'Right after I kill it.'

Alex stepped on the surface of the water, and it solidified underneath him as if he were stepping on stone. Then, he shot off, leaving a massive explosion of water.

The crocodile saw this and jumped up to attack him. Alex's sword shined with a green light which he sent flying before even arriving close to the crocodile.

He knew it wouldn't damage it at all. He just wanted to distract it a little. The crocodile slammed the green slash with its tail, only to realize that it did no damage.

When Alex arrived, it wasn't ready to attack with its tail again. So, it instead roared, sending columns of water flying out of the river to disrupt Alex.

Alex, however, only said a single sentence. "I'm sorry, but I don't have time to keep playing." Then, he disappeared.

When he reappeared, he was right below the crocodile, its underside fully vulnerable to him with no scales.

Alex swung his hand, but there was no sword in it. He had already stored the sword.

Instead, a sword formed on its own made up of misty white color with a slight hue of yellow. A sword only he could see.

The sword lagged just a bit as his hand swung, but not enough to make a difference. Then, it stuck the crocodile's body.

The illusory sword passed through the crocodile's stomach, and the crocodile fell into the water.

The crocodile felt nothing wrong with itself at all, so it suddenly turned around towards Alex and tried to send out a water blast.

A column of water shot out from its mouth but it was very weak.  The damage it did was almost negligible to Ning.

Ning smiled. "I told you, I am done playing."

Then, 3 Heaven's Impact hit the crocodile one after another. With its scales not working properly, it couldn't block the damage at all.

Alex got close to the unconscious crocodile and opened its mouth. He then created a tongue of fire and sent it inside the crocodile's mouth and closed it.

As it did, he spoke a single word again.

"Explode!"