Eternal Cultivation of Alchemy

Alex slowly drifts down to the grassy land and stands some distance away from the majority of the crowd.

Seeing so many young men and women accompanied by the many Saint realm was very surprising to Alex.

"I thought reaching the saint realm was a hard task for cultivators in the Western Continent," Alex said. "But there are so many of them here."

Alex started counting and he found nearly 20 different Saint realm experts here.

20… that was nearly 7 times more than what he had seen in the Crimson Empire. Given how many more must have been hidden, Alex couldn't help but show shock on his face.

"Only 20," Shen Jing said. "Such a sad fate for the Western Continent."

"It's still 20 you know," Alex said from the side.

"Do you understand how bad of a number that is?" Shen Jing asked. "There should be close to 15 billion humans living on the Western Continent alone."

"Even if 150 of them end up entering the Saint realm, that is still 1 in a 100 Million entering the Saint realm. Do you think that is many?" Shen Jing asked.

When put like that, no, that was not that many.

"By comparison, the northern and southern continent would have around 1 in 10 Million people enter the Saint realm. As for the Eastern Continent with their better Spirit veins and resources, I wouldn't be surprised if there were 1 Saint realm in every Million people."

"Do you still think these measly 20 is a lot?" he asked. There was a sense of sadness and disappointment in his voice that Alex couldn't understand.

"It's all because of the other continents, right? They stole the resources," Alex asked.

"That is correct. From what I hear, all of the saint rank spirit veins were taken away for themselves, lowering the chances of any Saint realm cultivator to improve in this continent," Shen Jing said, shaking his head from side to side.

That got Alex thinking. "If they took away all the spirit veins, then how come there are Saint realm cultivators here now?" Alex asked.

"Ah, they took all, but more appeared." Shen Jing said.

Alex looked curious. "Can spirit veins simply appear?" he asked.

"Well, some appeared from the remaining True spirit veins upgrading to Saint spirit veins," Shen Jing said. "But that was rare."

"When I say more appeared, I am referring to that," Shen Jing said as his fingers pointed somewhere.

Alex followed the point and saw the large, nearly 10 meters tall, yellow column with words written on it.

"That monument?" Alex asked, wondering how a monument could have created spirit veins.

"No, not the monument itself, but what's inside of it," Shen Jing said.

"What's inside?" Alex asked with a confused look. But a moment later he realized what Shen Jing must have been talking about.

"The demon realm?" Alex's eyes changed.

"Yes," Shen Jing said.

"So it is a secret realm?" he asked.

"It's a pocket space created by the demons to hide themselves during the… Eternal War for Dominance," Shen Jing said, slowing himself down on the last words. He seemed to be contemplating if he should be saying those words or not.

"Eternal War for Dominance?" Alex's curiosity was piqued. "What is that?"

"It's… a war of forgotten times. It was so long ago that it doesn't matter anymore," Shen Jing said. "It was a pointless war."

Alex saw that Shen Jing didn't want to say anything about it, so he didn't push any further.

"What's a demon then?" Alex asked.

"Demons are just humans with two small red horns, weird colored eyes, and a slightly better physical body," Shen Jing said.

Alex frowned. "That's it?" he asked. Just two horns and weird eyes… that was enough to get yourself to be called a demon?

"Yes, that's it," Shen Jing said.

"That's not enough to have an entirely different word for you," Alex said.

"Tell that to the people who started that war so many years ago. If you can see how pointless this distinction is, you can likely understand how pointless that war back then was too," Shen Jing said.

"Well that's what I heard at least," Shen Jing said. "I wasn't alive or anything during that time to know exactly how pointless it was."

"What was the war for?" Alex couldn't help but ask.

"What all wars are for," Shen Jing replied. "Land and resources. However, neither the humans nor the demons had ever lacked land for themselves."

"So you can see what I mean when I say it was pointless right?" he asked.

Alex nodded. He understood… to a certain extent. But there had to be something more to it.

Alex changed the topic back to the secret realm. "So that demon's realm, that provided the western continent with Saint rank spirit veins to help produce Saint realm cultivators?" he asked.

"Yes," Shen Jing said. "They never cared for this tiny realm when the Western continent was just as good as the rest of the world, but once it was no longer as good, they all hounded on it until nothing of worth remained to them."

Alex's face narrowed. "If there is nothing of worth there then why am I here?" he asked.

Shen Jing gave a bright smile. "What is not of worth to a Saint realm cultivator is usually treasure to a True realm cultivator," he said.

"Besides, it's been 5000 years or so since the saint realm experts robbed this place. Since then, they have only sent in True realm cultivators to train them, have them cultivate in the rich environment and find what treasures were left behind," Shen Jing explained.

Excitement swelled up in Alex's heart when he heard all of this and looked at the many young men and women that were gathered in the area.

They were all here to train themselves and find treasures as well.

"Wait a second," Alex said. "It's been 5 thousand years since the secret realm opened and people have been going inside all the time. Are we sure that there is even anything worth taking in there?"

"Oh, you don't need to doubt that at all," Shen Jing said. "The realm opens once in every 10 years, so there will certainly be quite a few resources still in there."

"Also… the secret realm is covered in seals all over that are so powerful that even Saint realm experts can't break through them."

"And… it's been so long that every few decades, a few of the seals end up dimming and whatever is behind it opens up. Do you want to guess what the demons were hiding in there with seals that made Saint realm expert return?" Shen Jing asked.

Alex's heart started beating faster and faster as he heard that. He looked back at the monument, unable to wait for it to open up.

However, since there was still some time, according to Shen Jing, he had to wait.

More and more figures came to the island with a cool breeze flowing from the south. Alex could hear the splashing of the ocean against the island from quite far away.

Shen Jing handed Alex back his storage bags, which Alex checked and found that not a single thing in them was missing.

He transferred all the valuables in those storage bags into his ring in a way that only Shen Jing could see, and he noticed Shen Jing's eyes flash for a split second when he put one of the items into his storage ring.

'What was it?' Alex wondered, but he had too many important items to realize.

In the next 6 hours, as the sun began to fall, and everyone started setting up their own tents and stations, Alex had sat down to cultivate with Shen Jing protecting him.

Pearl wanted to cultivate as well, but Alex didn't want to show the wounds that would appear on him to the outside world right now, so he stopped Pearl from doing anything.

Alex circulated a poison flower of yin element in his body as he got rid of the Yang energy that was building up because of his body.

After a round of cultivation that lasted somewhere until midnight, Alex stopped once his Qi was full again. That was when he looked around the humans that were spread throughout the island, and wondered if more Saint realm experts had appeared.

As if on cure, Shen Jing told him that there were 27 Saint realm experts on the island now.

Shen Jing also told him that there were likely going to be about 200 or so, maybe even more young people that would enter the secret realm from what he could sense.

Alex didn't dare release his spiritual sense amongst these crowd of Saint realms. It was scary enough doing that with just a few around.

"Oh, interesting," Shen Jing said.

"What's going on?" Alex asked, curiously.

"I am just surprised that a lot of the disciples here are quite talented. I have found at least 5 people other than you that have unlocked their spiritual sense," Shen Jing said.

"Although, it seems that they unlocked it later than you, so their senses are much weaker than your own," he said.

"Woah!" Alex thought. He was surprised, but he shouldn't have been.

Compared to the Luminance Empire, the Crimson Empire was like a children's playground. A beginner's town for users in a game to level up before they went out to venture into the real world.

Alex had come to this real world, and he was starting to see just how terrifyingly difficult the real world was going to be.