Eternal Cultivation of Alchemy

Organ Tempering 3rd Realm had hurt Alex a little through the Jade Skin technique, but he could keep going.

He waited for the 4th realm attack to hit and braced himself. "Mmm," he screamed as the hit just now actually hurt. It wasn't enough to make him suffer or anything, but it did hurt quite a bit.

Alex started to wonder if taking the next shot was a good idea or not. Alas, he took a little too long to decide. The puppet had already spun, swinging its staff at him.

Alex prepared his Jade Skin technique the best he could and blocked the attack.

BAM

He was sent flying back to the wall when he hit and fell down. "Argghhh," this had hurt him quite a bit. He immediately looked up, scared another attack was coming, but the puppet had stopped moving at all, and its body had nothing written on it.

It took a few minutes for the pain to subside. "I can barely take the 5th realm attack, which I can easily survive a 4th realm's attack. Maybe I can do better if I cultivate my body," he thought. But the thought alone was enough to make him shiver.

"I will think about that later." He went to the puppet and switched off defensive mode. "How does movement training work though? Will it tell me what realm my movements are at? But that doesn't seem like a quantifiable value, unlike cultivation base, which normal persons have the equal amount."

Still, he decided to check it out, so he flipped the switch.

Suddenly, multiple holes appeared on the white walls around the room. Alex prepared for what was coming. A burst of small air appeared near his face that he managed to dodge easily.

Another burst of air came from behind him. He ducked to dodge this one as well. After that, burst upon bursts of air were sent out of the holes at a steady rate.

Alex started with Elusive Heavenly sword's evasion skills but soon realized that it wasn't going to be enough. So, he started to use Fluctuating friction dance as well.

He kept on dodging for at least 15 minutes, before finally, the number of air shots was just too much for him to dodge. Without a way to move out of the way, he got hit.

All the openings in the wall closed off and Alex heard a 'click' sound. He looked around to see that the Movement training switch was turned off.

"This is actually quite a good way to train your movement technique."

Alex left the room and walked out of the training hall after paying the spirit stones. He looked at the time and realized not much had passed since he logged in, so he went to the library.

The library wasn't as different from the library in the Hong Wu sect. It was in a pagoda shape with around 8 floors. He walked in to see not that many shelves of books. However, there were quite a few disciples in here, sitting around a table, reading the books. Somewhere even copying them into a talisman.

"Finally, this feels like an actual library," he said out loud. He walked around looking for the different things to read. "Oh, most of these are just introductory books," he realized as he saw that most of them were just basic knowledge regarding the fields they were about.

Cultivation books taught how to cultivate, Alchemy books taught how ingredients were required, and so on. So, he skipped the first floor and walked up to the second floor.

"I can't waste much time here today. I still need to go register a fight."

The second floor was much the same. With the content being a little more advanced, it was still there for outer sect disciples to read. Alex wanted to skip this one too, but he found a beginner's guide on beast companions so he quickly read it.

There were other fun books too, but he had to ignore them for today. He walked up to the 3rd floor and found more books on beast companions, but they were still very basic.

They mostly just explained how beast companions worked, how they formed bonds, and how they were stored. Although, he did learn the beast companions required no sustenance to survive after bonding with a cultivator, which relieved him regarding not feeding Pearl at all.

"Still, I should give him some food from time to time just for enjoying a meal," he thought.

He decided to go to the 4th floor. An Elder stood guard on the staircase that led to the 4th floor and asked for a spirit stone.

"It costs me a spirit stone just to enter the 4th floor?" he asked in surprise. The elder seemed to be used to this question so he answered in a very practiced manner.

"No, you do not. We will remove the cost from the book you will borrow. However, if you won't borrow anything, you will not get the spirit stones back. This is a way to not overcrowd the upper floors with people who don't mean business. All the books on the 4th floor cost 5 spirit stones. If you don't have it, you can return back."

The elder had a very monotone voice when he explained this. Alex decided to just go up and read whatever he could find there. He started searching for 3 different things in here. First, he looked for books on beast companions. Second, he looked for books on alchemy. Third, he looked for books or records that could give him the knowledge that was more trivia-like.

He actually wanted to find information on the different bodies and see if his body was written in it or not. He sent forth his spiritual sense to check for everything in the area. Once he found what he was looking for, he started reading it. Time slowly passed, and before he knew it, it was time for him to leave.

Since he had just used a single spirit stone, he didn't bother renting anything else and just left the library.