Eternal Cultivation of Alchemy



"It's so strong," Yao Ning couldn't help but say. "No wonder people here reach Saint realm so easily."

"It truly is something," Liang Shufen said. "I haven't sensed air this potent with Qi in all my life."

"This is comparable to some places I've been to," Alex said, looking around. The beast realm and the ancient sects of the Northern Continent were similar to this. His palace was slightly weaker, but not by much.

However, this was just a random city at the edge of the continent. He could only imagine how much stronger the Qi would get when they got in closer to the center. 

A few carriages seemed to have been prepared as everyone got on it and went towards where the teleportation formation was.

Alex watched out of the window, watching everyone outside who was watching him. They first crossed a bridge, and he could see the people in the ocean looking back at them.

Kids that looked as if they were 12 years old had a cultivation base already. Teenagers were at the peak of the common realm, and some were even in the true realm. Most adults were in the True realm entirely.

Alex saw a few Saint realms too on his way to teleportation formation.

He observed their cultivation base, their clothes, their mannerisms, and many other things on the road.

The people of the Eastern Continent wore robes just like them, but they seemed to have quite a few things hanging from their clothes, like little trinkets or a small piece of cloth.

The women wore colorful dresses, with patterns or flowers or other prints on their robes. Their sleeves were mostly flimsy and transparent, which seemed to be the fashion these days. 

They also seemed to wear quite a lot of jewelry that wasn't even artifacts.

The people here were slightly scared of the soldiers it seemed, but that was to be expected of anyone anywhere. Even if you did nothing wrong, seeing a soldier would freak you out most of the time.

The architecture of this city was quite amazing too. The inner they went, the more compact the city became. The roads were large all the same, but they started to look better and better, all covered in walking stones.

They were so uniformly placed that the carriage didn't even rattle as they rode on top of it.

"Commander, how would you rank this city overall when compared to all the other cities of  the empire?" Alex asked.

"Rank?" the commander thought. "Let's see, it would say it's a little below average. It might have been average if there was at least a large sect or something close by, but as far as I know, there isn't much of that here."

"Still, if I were to rank it just a place to live in, it's definitely above average," the commander said.

"I see," Alex said as he looked around. "It sure does seem like a place to stay in."

After a bit more time on the carriage, the carriage arrived in front of a place that was wide and open. Alex could see the teleportation formation from where he was and it seemed no one was using it at the moment.

"Surely you didn't reserve the teleportation formation for us, did you?" Alex asked.

"You are our precious guests, your Majesty," the commander said. "This is the least we can do to not inconvenience you."

Alex gave a smile, not feeling like saying anything to that. If someone important came to his continent, he would do the same as well.

Alex moved to the side, along with the elders as he waited for the rest of the carriage to stop one by one and the alchemists to get off it slowly.

As he waited, his eyes wandered around the place, looking at the designs of the buildings that weren't that different from the other continents. These people were so strong that they probably hadn't had to change anything in ages, so it was obvious that this place would remain similar to everything.

Even if something did break, no one would want to rebuild something into an aesthetic that didn't fit the city just due to fear of being singled out by others.

Still, there were a lot more buildings with curved, slanted roofs like pagodas than he was used to. This place hadn't seen a change in ages for sure.

As he was looking around, his eyes moved towards the sky where he saw something he hadn't noticed before. A giant floating cube was in the sky, with screens on each side that were showing something the same on each of the screens.

From what Alex could see, it was mostly words, but there were images there from time to time as well.

"What's that?" he asked the commander, pointing toward this cube. 

The commander looked up and said, "Oh, that's just a formation we use to broadcast news to the people everywhere. It's all connected throughout the empire, and shows everyone the same news."

"News," Alex was surprised to hear that. It was like a newspaper from the central continent or even the internet. Except, one didn't have to go look for it, as it was always here.

"Yes, there's a group of people in the capital that gather news from throughout the day and verify it, then send it to every city in the continent to show it like this."

"It's a recent thing that we've set up after getting some suggestions from a few Players, so we implemented it," the man said.

"Ah, you took ideas from Players, huh? Not bad," Alex said. It made a little more sense now. He continued looking at the cube and the words that flashed on it.

'Teng Xuegang of the Realms Beyond school has recently broken through to the Saint Transformation 2nd realm at the young age of 1200 years.'

A young man could be seen in the image, standing in a regal pose with his strong and fit body, and a long weapon strapped horizontally behind his waist, which was hard to make out based on the fuzzy image.

'Fang Yimu of the Cloud Iron sect, who emerged victorious in this year's opening of the Eternal Shadow Abyss, has commented that she wishes to go back again to prove to everyone that it was not a fluke.' 

The image following that news was of a slightly older woman with tanned skin, with long flowing black hair that had gold and jewels all over her head and neck. She was wearing a fashionable white and black robe and held a very thin sword in her hand that was hard to make out in the image alone.

The text shifted to something else this time. 

'The envoy from the Southern Continent that includes the King of the Southern Continent, Alex Benton, as well as 20 great alchemists under him have arrived in the Great Wind region. They should be reaching the Dragon Capital very soon as well.'

There were no images this time around.

"Oh, they already know about us," Yao Ning pointed. "We just came. How do they know about us?"

The commander gave a sheepish laugh. "News travels fast here, I'm afraid," he said. He then saw that every one of the alchemists had arrived and was standing, so he turned to Alex.

"Your Majesty, we should leave now."