Eternal Cultivation of Alchemy

"No… can it be? Really?" Alex was too stunned to think clearly. His mind showed him the same image over and over as he remembered the face.

That was the same.

She wore something different from the farm clothes he saw her in. Now she wore magenta robes with light blue linings on the side.

She was thinner, much thinner now, but Alex could easily reason that to be something that came from her cultivating.

Despite all that, despite all the changes she had gone through, Alex felt very certain.

That was his mother.

That only brought on more confusion. 'How? How is she here? Why is she here? Is she okay? Am I going mad?' Alex couldn't think of anything else.

"Fellow Daoist, is anything wrong?" one of the staff members came up to him when they saw him standing still inside the formation circle.

Alex jolted out of his daze and looked at the staff member.

"That group right now, what city did they teleport to?" he asked.

"The one just now? It should be the same place you came from. We only swap with a single city every time," the staff said.

"Same city? So they went to the Lightborn city?" Alex asked.

"Yes," the staff said.

"I need to go there right now. Can you teleport me there?" Alex asked.

"I'm afraid not, fellow Daoist," he said.

"I will pay for it. I will pay the price of 50 if I have to. Fellow Daoist, please, I really need to go back right now," Alex said.

The man seemed to notice Alex's troubles and shook his head. "I'm afraid that's not possible, Fellow Daoist. The formation can't work for another hour and needs to recharge before the next transfer."

"Besides, even if it was ready, we cannot teleport you anywhere without the other formation activating at the same time, and it only happens once a day for each location," the staff member said.

Alex knew that, but he still couldn't help but hope the information was wrong.

'Should I just do it?' he thought to himself. He had many tests to do with his own Qi, but one thing he knew for certain was that he could activate runes that others couldn't.

Since he had noticed similar situations for formations over the last few years, he had reasons to believe that his Qi did the same thing for formations too.

There were still many caveats to this theory of his, but he really wanted to test them out right now.

In the end, he calmed down and thought logically. 'I can't do something so radical out of nowhere,' he thought to himself and walked out of the teleportation formation.

As he did, he started thinking of how he could go back to the Lightborn city as fast as he could.

That wasn't only it. Lightborn city could be just another stop in their journey. He didn't know where his mother was actually going or who she was with.

"Can I register for tomorrow's teleportation?" Alex asked the staff member.

"To Lightborn city?" the staff thought to himself. "I don't think you can go there for another 3 days, Fellow Daoist."

"You see, due to the talisman competition, the number of people coming to the capital was quite high. So, the formations are already booked for the next 3 days," the staff member said.

"If not for normal travel taking less than 3 days for most people, I'm sure the list of people leaving using formations would have lasted for days."

Alex sighed when he heard that. The staff member wasn't lying or anything, but he still couldn't help but find the answer unpleasing.

Just as he was about to leave, the scene of him seeing his mother played in his mind once again.

Only this time, he didn't focus on her but on the other things he had missed.

There were nearly 50 people standing there. Most were random men and women who just happened to be here at the same time as his mother.

However, he could see a few figures that wore Magenta robes with a light blue lining on their robes.

'That's definitely a group of some sort, right?' Alex thought. If he found what organization that robe was from, he would certainly find where his mother was.

"Brother, do you know what organization be it clan or set wears Magenta robes with light-blue linings like the ones that just left?" Alex asked.

"Uhh… I'm afraid I'm not knowledgeable about organizations and their uniforms, fellow Daoist," the staff said.

"I see, thank you anyway," Alex said and turned to leave.

"It's my pleasure to help a customer," the staff said. Just as Alex was about to leave, the staff remembered something and said, "I don't know if it is any help, but I'm pretty sure that most of the people who left just now were here to watch the Talisman competition."

Alex thought for a second. Many people would come to watch such a competition, so that wasn't really any help. But still, he had someplace to start from.

"I see, thank you," he said and left the place.

Alex walked out of the building into a majestic city full of a million colors all around him. It was 3 pm in the afternoon, but the city looked like it radiated as brightly as other cities would in the nighttime.

The atmosphere was like a festival with people moving from left and right with no regard to anyone else causing a crowd so big that Alex was stunned that this many people could even live in a single city.

But then again, this was the capital. If many people didn't live here, who would?

Alex sighed. He couldn't enjoy these sights at all, not with his mother's situation being on his mind all the time.

'Where do I start from?' he wondered. 'I need to find someone from the competition. If there was someone amongst them that gathered information about the guests, then I will have a much higher… chance…"

Alex's words trailed off as an idea grew in his head.

"Wait, this is a competition set by the guilds, right? Doesn't that mean they are the ones who would be responsible for the guests?" Alex thought.

A glimmer of hope rose from his heart as he immediately went into the crowd to make his way towards the guilds.

After half an hour of searching and asking for directions, Alex finally made his way to the location in the capital where the 7 guilds were located in.

Unlike the other cities, the capital held all 7 of the guilds.

The very first thing that surprised him in the location, even more so than the number of customers was the amount of space each guild took.

The guilds in the capital were at least 5 times as large as any other guilds he had seen in any of the cities.

Following that, there were nearly 10 times more receptions as well. Alex could only begin to imagine just how many experts each of these guilds held.

Without hesitation, Alex entered the Talisman guild. While he wanted to go check the Alchemy guild, the Talisman guild was more important to him at the moment.

Alex found the shortest of the queues for the receptions and stood there. After about 20 minutes of waiting his turn finally came.

"Excuse me, I have an unusual problem that I hope you would help indulge me in for a few minutes," Alex said.

The receptionist in front of him looked confused. "How can I help you?" he asked.

"I need to find the identity of someone who may or may not has been at the competition grounds. You guys keep track of all the audience, right?" Alex asked.

"Uhh… if they entered the competition ground, yes," the receptionist said. "We can't tell if they didn't enter the competition ground and instead watched from outside."

"Outside?" Alex looked confused. "You had screenings set up outside the competition grounds too?"

"Yes, that's how a majority of the people watched the competitions," the staff said.

'Shit,' Alex thought. 'I don't even know if mother was here to watch the competition or not. This may just have been a complete coincidence as far as I know.'

'Shit, to begin with, I am not even absolutely sure if that is my mother, or maybe someone that just happens to look like her,' Alex thought and even started to doubt himself.

He quickly shook his head. 'No, there's no way I can't recognize my own mother. That was definitely her,' he thought.

"I don't know if they were inside the competition grounds or not. Is there anything else you can do to help me? I can tell you what their robes looked like," Alex said.

"Um," the receptionists thought for a moment and said, "Ah, there are recordings of the matches from the competition currently being sold right here. Would you like to buy them to see if the group entered?"

"I cannot guarantee if everyone was recorded or not, but you may get lucky and see them in the crowd," the receptionist said.

Alex felt the knot that was growing in his stomach softening a little. "Do you have such a thing? Please, I would like to buy one," Alex said.

"Yes," the receptionist brought out a small stack of talismans containing about 20 individual talismans.

"All of this?" Alex asked.

"Yes, it's over the course of multiple days and consists of multiple perspectives over the stage," the receptionist said.

Alex sighed. He needed them all it seemed. "How much for all of these?" he asked.

"300 True spirit stones."