Eternal Cultivation of Alchemy

"Plan 0?" He Liwei looked at Song Shing weirdly from the side. "I didn't get notified on any plan 0? Weren't there only 3 different plans?"

"Oh, plan 0 is something I just came up with," Song Shing said as he strode forward without must care. "It's the plan where we just ask him nicely and he tells us everything."

"Isn't that right, brother Yu? You will tell us nicely so we don't have to go through our actual plans, right?" Song Shing asked.

Any other time, Alex would've wanted to say something witty, make fun of them for even thinking that he would give away anything. Right now, however, he wasn't in the mood to do that whatsoever.

He wasn't worried about himself, but Pearl was stuck outside and was already getting ready to fight. But, with nearly 20 people outside the barrier, Alex knew he couldn't let him do that.

He needed to fight.

Alex was about to turn around and hit the barrier behind him when Fu Tao saw him move and brought the weight of his energy spiritual sea on top of Alex.

Alex nearly felt his knee buckle as a force far stronger than his own, nearly twice as strong fell on his spiritual sea.

His mind started hurting from the force, but somehow this wasn't as bad as the first stage of the mask.

He could fight through it.

Just as Alex was distracted from the mental attack, Song Shing threw 3 bottles on the ground near him, from where blood erupted like vines and grabbed onto him.

Alex tried to pull away, but a saint realm attack wasn't something he could easily get away from. Even when using his Saint Qi, he could barely pull his right arm out of the blood constriction when Jin Tengfei arrived with his sword.

Alex parried the sword with one hand and swung back, but the man managed to get away.

He Liwei threw an entire volley of rocks at him, but Alex cut them to pieces before they even arrived at him.

'Strong!' the two non-saints thought, while the two Saints were smiling at the fact that it was a bit more entertaining than they would have expected it to be.

"Since Plan 0 doesn't seem like it will work, why don't we go for Plan 1," Song Shing said.

"Finally, my turn," Fu Tao said and once again crashed his entire spiritual sea on top of Alex. It wasn't just the spiritual sea however that was the problem. The main problem was that Fu Tao was using a technique to do so.

Meaning that his spiritual energy was far more potent than just slamming it normally.

Alex was still constricted by the blood on all sides so he couldn't leave. He tried hacking at the blood, even while his mind was in pain, but Song Shing arrived next to him before he could do so.

Alex swung back at Song Shing who protected himself with a blood shield. Even then, his eyes went wide. 'Strong!' he thought. His eyes only blazed with more greed when he felt that. 'I want that.'

"Eat this or your cat will die," Song Shing said.

Alex frowned and looked at Pearl who was already surrounded outside. 'How did they know?' he thought for a moment before noticing Fu Tao grinning from ear to ear.

He was the one Alex told about saving Pearl from the beast realm. Which meant he was the only one here that could've possibly given away any information.

Fury blazed in Alex's heart. He couldn't believe anyone was capable of going against someone just because they were jealous of them.

He had called the man brother at some point. He felt disgusted he had even thought of him as that.

"Eat this pill," Song Shing forced a pill next to Alex's face.

Alex saw the pill, sniffed it a little, and immediately knew what it was. It was a Truth Seeking pill.

As soon as he ate it, he would be in a state of mind where he would blurt out every truth hidden deep within him without any possibility of stopping himself.

They wanted him to spill his secrets.

"Okay," Alex said and ate the pill.

Song Shing was a little surprised that Alex agreed to this. After all, when they were planning, this was one of the throwaway plans as it could have never worked on anyone.

Who in their right mind would willingly want to eat a truth-seeking pill?

It was really Plan 2 that they were relying on because the chances of Plan 1 working were really, really low.

'Hey, I can't complain though,' he thought and flicked the pill onto  Alex's mouth.

Alex gave him an angry look and swallowed the pill. As he did, he remembered the face the clone Song Zun made after he had eaten the pill.

When he burned the pill in his stomach until it was nothing but Qi, he looked back up and emulated the emotions that were on Song Zun's face all those years ago.

"It worked? So easily?" Jin Tengfei held his sword in his hand and a look of disbelief on his face.

"Yeah, we can start asking questions now," Song Shing said. He too was having a hard time believing it worked.

Sounds of fighting rang out from behind them where Pearl had started fighting against the True Emperors, but these 4 had never really cared about Pearl.

"Tell us your secrets," He Liwei asked impatiently.

"I…" Alex started to speak. "I…"

"Yes, go on," he urged.

"I haven't taken a bath in years," Alex said.

"What?" He Liwei looked confused. Was that the secret behind his strength? No way. Cultivators never really took a bath. They could clean themselves with just Qi.

"Idiot, ask specific questions," Jin Tenfei said from the side and looked towards Alex. "Can you use Sword Aura?"

"No," Alex said without hesitation. There wasn't even a need to lie here.

"Then how do you have Sword Aura's property with only Sword Qi?" he asked.

'What?' Alex looked at the man with a confused look. 'Sword Aura's property with sword Qi? What does he mean?'

"I don't know," Alex said, unable to hide away the confused look on his face.

"What do you mean you don't know?" Jin Tengfei asked.

"I don't know anything about Sword Aura aside from the fact that it comes after Sword Qi," Alex said. To his own surprise, he hadn't lied yet.

"How is your spiritual sense so strong?" Fu Tao decided to get his question in as well.

"I ate a lot of pills," Alex said without hesitation.

Fu Tao frowned. He had done that too, but his spiritual sense wasn't nearly as big as Alex's. Did Alex really eat an amazing pill… or was he lying?

"How is your blood aura so strong?" Song Shing couldn't wait at all. He wanted that answer right now.

"My blood aura?" Alex was too taken back to even think of an answer immediately. How was his blood aura so strong? He didn't have a definite answer himself.

Maybe it was his constitution? Maybe it was his dense Qi? Or maybe it was even the fact that he had the White Tiger's blood essence in him.

However, none of these answers was something that he could tell.

"I don't know," Alex said, trying not to make it sound like it was a contemplated answer.

However, Song Shing wasn't duped. He couldn't help but feel that the answer was wrong and in fact, he was most likely lying.

Which was to say… "did the pill even work?"

"I thought so too," Fu Tao said from the side.

Alex frowned, but he didn't show it on his face. He couldn't let them know he wasn't telling the truth or they would hurt him.

He wasn't worried about death, of course. There was no chance these people would kill him and miss out on so many secrets.

But, there were other things they could do to him, that he didn't want to suffer from.

The most important one of them being losing Pearl. He was already fighting, and Alex needed to get to him quickly.

However, going through 2 saints and 2 peak True Emperors wasn't an easy task even for him.

"Let me see if these are the truths," Fu Tao said and strolled forward. "Guard me."

Song Shing and the rest nodded and got ready to attack Alex anytime. A few vials of blood flew around Song Shing.

21 swords flew in the sky, all physical swords this time around.

He Liwei also put out a few artifacts that he had made in the image of weapons from his own homeworld. One of which looks suspiciously like a bazooka.

Fu Tao came close to Alex and while still pressuring Alex mentally, placed his forehead on Alex.

Alex felt something try and breach his mental area. Fu Tao was trying to pierce into his spiritual sea where he would get information on everything using the secret techniques of the Fu family.

Just like Zexi, the high prince of the Crimson empire did all those years ago.

Alex remembered the pain, the near-death experience he had to go through, even when he was just a suppressed soul, watching his clone's soul fight in the sky against Zexi.

That were some of the only memories he had of the spiritual sea from before he had gained back his control. A bad memory.

And now, Fu Tao was trying to do the same thing again. The same bad thing.

'You want to get inside my mind?' Alex thought and fully lowered his mental defenses.

'Come.'