Eternal Cultivation of Alchemy

Alex flew along with his aunt to the outside of the city and went to one of the plateaus in the east.

He landed at the edge and saw over a thousand different disciples there ready to train.

As soon as Liz landed on the plateau, every single one of them greeted her. After all, she was the highest-ranked disciple of the sect and everyone looked up to her.

They all returned to their task, and as soon as the sun was up, they brought out a bunch of staff and before Alex's eyes, started striking at each other.

They stayed in pairs and while one of them hit the other, the other one took the attack without flinching. Alex could see the signs of pain on their face as most of the ones being hit took the swing to their body while biting on their own lips.

"What… are they doing exactly?" Alex asked. "Trying to hurt themselves?"

"Have you never seen someone cultivate their body? Keep watching," she said.

Alex focused on a pair not far away from him. His spiritual sense landed on the two men as he checked what was happening to them.

Aside from getting hurt, Alex really didn't see anything in particular that changed. But of course, they weren't doing it for no reason so he waited.

Getting hurt was part of the requirement for improving one's body, but surely there were better methods than this right?

Also, getting hurt was half the task from what he could understand. Aside from getting hurt, you needed to be able to heal quickly too.

That was the part Alex was curious about more than anything. 'They don't have pills, and excessive uses of medicinal pastes should have diminishing effects if they use it too frequently. And if they do heal slowly, taking their time, that will overall slow down their body cultivation, right?' he thought.

He continued watching as the group hit themselves continuously. At some point, Alex and Liz had to sit down and talk about various things as it took a very long time.

"I heard there weren't many disciples that were willing to body cultivate, but from what I see, that's not true," Alex said.

"Where did you hear that?" Liz asked.

"Elder Xuan, from Frozen Heart sect," Alex replied. "Was she wrong?"

"No, she just had outdated information. It was true about a decade ago, but once the players started taking the spotlight slowly, the others needed to show them they weren't any worse too, so everyone started to body cultivate after that."

"Ah, that makes sense."

Finally, after a few hours, after both of them were beaten and battered, the two disciples put away their staffs and sat down in a meditative posture.

They pulled out various different natural treasures and started cultivating them.

Suddenly, Alex could feel the energy from the treasures being drawn into their body, slowly healing their wound. It was a slow heal, but quite definite.

"That's… are they using a technique to heal?" Alex asked.

"Yes," Liz said. "It's a sect secret though. You will need to speak an oath to never reveal the technique."

"It seems they require quite a few ingredients though," Alex said and he looked at the items that were being siphoned off.

"Hmm… do you need a source for every single one of the 5 elements?" Alex asked. From what he could see, that was most definitely the case.

"Oh, is it?" Liz asked. "I never realized. I never really bothered about improving my body. It seemed pointless and too painful too."

"It most definitely is painful," Alex said. He looked at the thousands of disciples in front of him and wondered how strong their body cultivation actually was.

"Who's the strongest body cultivator here?" he asked his aunt.

"I… don't know actually. I don't really mingle with the disciples much," she said.

Alex nodded and walked forward to one of the disciples and asked them the same question. Feeling his saint aura, the disciples who were merely True Lord realm cultivators could not refuse at all.

"If you count elders, then it will have to be elder Jiang over there," the man pointed to a rather buff man towards the center of the plateau.

Alex slowly treaded through the group of people and appeared in front of the man.

"Greetings brother, I hear you're the strongest body here," he said.

The man, who was way older than Alex, opened his eyes. He sensed the Saint aura coming from Alex and was confused. When he saw him with his black robe and white mask, the man was even more confused.

"Can I help you?" the man asked. Seeing a masked man looking for the 'strongest' person in the place wasn't something he had expected to see this day.

"Would you mind hitting me?" Alex asked.

"… what?" the man was confused.

"I was hoping you could help me understand how strong the body of a normal body cultivator can become," Alex said.

Alex sensed a few spiritual senses landing on him, each one of which originated from way deep in the sect, close to the outer ranges of his own spiritual sense.

He smiled but ignored them.

"What are you doing?" Liz quickly walked up to the two of them. "Why are you trying to get hit?"

"Is he with you, little sister?" the Saint asked.

"I'm sorry if we disturbed you, elder," Liz started apologizing.

"No, it's fine it—" the man stopped speaking and his head shifted a little to the left, looking towards the sect with a confused look.

He then looked back towards Alex, who was unreadable thanks to his mask, and sighed. "You want me to hit you?" he asked.

"Yes," Alex said.

"Without my cultivation base, right? Just my body?" he asked.

"That is what I want," Alex said.

"Okay, then get ready."

The elder stood up while taking back the entirety of his Qi from his body back into his dantian, as his body became the same as that of a mortal.

Of course, it wouldn't be exactly the same as a mortal, as the man had body cultivation after all.

Alex stood with his arms behind his back, seemingly on guard, waiting for the man to punch him.

"Well, here I go then," the man said and wound up his arm before violently punching Alex directly on his stomach.

Alex had put up a 'guard' of Qi to block the man's arm with soft Qi so that it didn't actually strike his body and get hurt.

So, by the time the man's punch landed on his stomach, most of the power behind the punch had already dissipated.

'True Disciple… 3rd? No, 4th,' Alex judged the power behind the punch.

"Do you want me to punch you once again?" the man asked.

"No, that's alright," Alex said. "I must congratulate brother on having such a good body cultivation base on top of being a Saint. If you don't mind me asking, how many years have you been body cultivating?"

"Let's see… about 5 centuries now, I think," the man said.

Alex paused for a moment. "Sorry, did you say 5 centuries? You meant 5 decades instead right?" he asked.

"Hahaha! You can't become this strong with your body cultivation without putting in a few hours," the man said. "Of course, I could've done it faster had I focused on body cultivation, but I had to focus on my own cultivation too."

"I see," Alex said. "Thank you for answering. Have a good day."

Liz walked forward at the same time. "Let's go, Master is calling for us," she said.

Alex nodded and left the plateau.

They soon arrived in front of a rather large building with multiple stories and entered.

Liz took him to one of the rooms on the upper floor of the building that was covered with red carpet and curtains.

Inside were 3 people waiting for them. The first one was Tai Guan, Liz's master.

The second one was a man with white hair, braided along the side of his temple.

The third person was also a man who wore glowing red robes. His short hair with a shaved face made him look younger than he was.

"Come on, let me introduce you," the old woman said.

"This is the Grand Elder of the sect, Yuan Chi," she showed the white-haired elder. "And this is Bai Qiyi, our Sect Master."