Eternal Cultivation of Alchemy

Alex looked at the book that taught the 21 Sword Array technique and was surprised. "Wasn't this the technique that Jin Tengfei used?" he mulled as he thought about the fight against him.

That was indeed the technique he had lost his hand to in the tournament. "Huh? I wonder if this came from him," Alex thought.

He quickly started reading up on the technique and found that the technique was rather simple.

One simply had to have 21 swords, which they would put in 3, 6, and 12 groups of swords, in 3 different layers, one behind the other.

Once the sword was in place, using a certain way, Qi would flow into the swords, binding them into something that could be considered a single artifact.

It was this binding power that was the most important here, and it made the attack one of the strongest attacks Alex had seen until now.

"Woah, it can increase one's strength by at least a realm?" he thought as he continued reading. He couldn't help but wonder why Jin Tengfei wasn't as strong when the two of them fought, but Alex quickly realized that was likely because he had been using illusory swords during their fight.

By the time he was using real swords, Alex was already way better than him and had killed him.

"I should learn this," he thought. Now that he had so many swords, it was easy to see why this would be helpful for him. If he was capable of adding Sword Qi to it, that would make it so much better.

Alex took some time to learn the technique and then some more time to practice it.

Each of the swords he used was a True ranked sword for now as the Saint-ranked swords weren't refined by him. Once he did that, his power would only get stronger.

21 swords flew in a pattern inside the hollow dome as they moved around attacking imaginary enemies.

Unfortunately, he wasn't yet adept at using Sword Qi with swords he wasn't in contact with, so he couldn't use it during his practice.

'I will have to focus on that in my free time,' Alex thought and continued practicing what little he could.

Slowly, Alex was starting to get fast and precise with the sword. Half a day later, he was done learning the technique and moved on to other books that were in there.

"More insights. Earth grade techniques. Mortal grade techniques? Why the hell would you even have this?"  Alex shook his head and looked through.

Nothing of interest showed up in the many books that he still had. Until he grabbed onto one and something stirred inside him.

Alex grabbed on a book that was unnaturally heavy. Even before he had his vision on it, he smelled something that made his eyes go a little wide.

'Blood?' he thought and brought the book in front of him.

The crimson book was nearly 15 kilograms in weight as if it had been made up of pure iron. The outer cover was intrinsically designed to look like the mouth of a monster with thousands of sharp teeth.

Alex tried to flip the book, but it wouldn't open. Suddenly, a tongue flew out from the middle of the teeth and wrapped itself around Alex's left hand.

"Ahh!" he shouted in surprise and threw the book to the side of the room in reflex. "What the fuck was that?"

He looked at his hand, a bloody saliva had left a trail behind where the tongue had wrapped itself around him.

"Was that a monster? Or a book? What the hell is this?" Alex thought. He pulled the book back to him and looked at it again.

"What is this?" he couldn't help but ask.

Once again, the tongue flew out from the cover of the book and wrapped itself around Alex, but this time he was prepared enough to not get scared.

The tongue was rather weak as Alex could easily unwrap it, but he waited to see what would happen.

The tongue suddenly turned sharp at the tip and struck Alex's veins on his wrist. However, Alex's body was too strong for it to insert itself.

"BLOOD~ BLOOD~" a voice spoke directly into Alex's head, originating from the book.

The book wanted blood and even spoke to Alex. He had never had this happen to him before. "Blood? Did this belong to Song Shing? Or maybe the Song matriarch?" Alex thought to himself.

"BLOOD~" the tongue struck his arm continuously, but it couldn't break through at all.

"You want blood?" Alex asked. 'Is that a good idea?' he couldn't imagine what would happen if he did give the book blood.

"The entire Song family is still alive and thriving despite being blood users, so I should be fine," Alex said and took out the sword to cut his wrist.

As the tongue tried to reach for the veins on his write, Alex sliced his veins open and the tongue touched blood.

Immediately, his hand started healing and within the next 3 seconds, the wound was completely gone. However, from the looks of it, the book had gotten enough blood as it fell to the ground with the tongue going back into its mouth.

Alex picked the book up and suddenly, the front cover started shifting. The many tiny teeth that were at the front slowly moved around until they fell into place and for 3 different words.

Blood God's Manual.

"Blood God?" Alex's eyes sharpened. Before he could read any further, the book flashed, and he felt it disappear into his body.

"What the hell?" Alex quickly grabbed everywhere on his body to see if he was hurt, but he wasn't cut at all. The book simply… vanished into his body.

"What's going on? Is the book gone?" he thought. He tried to feel the book in his body, but that was not possible for some reason.

"Dammit, what happened? And here I was just about to read what it said," he spoke out loud and in a flash, the book reappeared.

That surprised Alex a bit again. "What the hell is going on? Where are you hiding at?" he asked the book, but of course, it wouldn't answer.

"Disappear…?" he said awkwardly to see if he could repeat what had happened. The book flashed once again and disappeared somewhere that Alex couldn't follow even with his spiritual sense.

It was definitely in his body, but he couldn't sense where.

"Reappear," he said and the book arrived back in his hand.

"How is it doing this?" Alex wondered. He measured the heaviness of the book again and the metallic material it was made up of.

Was it perhaps not a book but an artifact? It didn't seem that out of the realms of possibilities given the name of the book.

Blood God's Manual. He didn't think he would get something belonging to one god right after he got the Undying God's Physique.

He took the book and tried to turn the page. The iron book unfurled itself and floated in front of Alex as crimson words hung on the pages.

'Feed the book vast quantity of blood of strong aura to open the latter pages,' it read.

"Blood?" Alex thought and looked around in his storage bag. There were a few large bottles full of blood that were his own. While that was blood that he used to make the Body Regeneration pill, and had likely lost a lot of blood aura, Alex still wanted to see what would happen.

He brought out the blood and started feeding the book. His blood barely had any blood aura remaining, but it still managed to do something.

Suddenly 2 different metallic lights shined from the side of the book and 2 thick pages of the book opened up.

Alex turned the first page that read 'Page 1: Blood Absorption'. He quickly read through the page and understood what Blood Absorption was.

It was a skill that was used to absorb blood aura from a victim's blood, whether it be human or beast, and use it to advance your cultivation base.

Not only would that help one advance in their cultivation base, but it would also make their blood aura thicker and stronger.

Alex frowned when he read this and would have to think about using something that he felt was so morally wrong.

Then, he flipped the page and went on to the second one.

Page 2: Blood Manipulation