Eternal Cultivation of Alchemy

Chapter 2224  Hollowvine City

Momo's cultivation base improved steadily over the next two nights. On the second night of her cultivation, she broke through 2 more times, and on the third night, she broke through once.

Altogether, she had managed to reach the Skin-Tempering 8th realm by morning on the 4th day. The lack of multiple breakthroughs a day made her understand what Pearl told her about.

She had taken a night of cultivation to break through today. The next day, she would take more. And then more. And more. Before she knew it, she would be taking weeks to break through.

If she knew how long it took to reach the cultivation base Pearl and her master had, she would probably want to give up right away. She did not know if she could spend that much time doing nothing. After all, she was only just 17 years old. The amount of years she still had to cultivate for was absurd. She vaguely understood that it was going to take a long time, but she was glad she didn't have the exact idea of how long, which was helpful.

"You can stay for more days if you want, senior," the old man said, outside of the house. "We would be happy to have you even."

"No," Alex said. "I must leave now."

He brought out a few spirit stones. "Here, for your trouble. And a bit for the people who made sure to feed my disciples." He then brought out two small bottles.

"These are common pills. This will help you should someone get wounded or poisoned. A single pill will help you save the person." n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om

The man looked at the bottles in his hands, his mouth agape. He wanted to refuse, but he couldn't speak.

"Goodbye," Alex said, not waiting for the man to speak. He gathered his aura around his disciple and Pearl and teleported away, leaving the man unable to refuse.

He did hear the man's thankful shouts once he left and smiled.

They had arrived in the middle of the forest. Momo moved around, a little disoriented from the teleportation but doing fine. The space here wasn't so thin that teleportation caused people to have nausea from sudden travels.

"Where are we?" Momo asked.

"About 30 kilometers away from where we stood before," Alex said. "We should get moving."

"Where are we going exactly?" Pearl asked. "Did you find out where we were?"

"A bit," Alex said. "As we thought, we are moving west, but we are way south than I initially thought. People have told me about the closest city here, which is the Hollowvine city. I just hope their 'go west from here' advice is enough for us to find the city."

"How far west?" Pearl asked.

"The man said a day's travel, so… an hour?" Alex said.

"Oh, it's close enough then," Pearl said. "But we should fly slow. For Momo."

"Why? You can fly fast. I won't mind. I don't really think there is anything I need to see, is there?" she asked.

"Very well," Alex, holding Momo by the waist. "Don't try to move away from me while you're in the sky, okay?"

Momo nodded. Alex's Qi enveloped him and her, while Pearl flew to the side on his own. They looked in the general direction that was west and immediately flew. Momo immediately heard an explosion in the air as they broke past the speed of sound, going multiple times faster than it in fact. She could feel the inertia, feel her heart slowly sink into her while they flew.

She had her eyes closed the entire time but tried to open it after a while. When she opened it, what she saw below was just streaks of green, brown, and the occasional blue. Most other colors didn't lose long enough for her to notice at all. She had told them they could go fast, but… this was not what she had expected when she thought they would be fast. This… this was impossible.

Alex looked at Momo and couldn't help but smile while reminiscing the feeling he got the first time Bai Jingshen took him to train as well. He had done the same thing, taking him flying through the sky at such a speed.

At the time, he had believed the man to be a Saint. It was only later that he changed his idea of his identity and understood him to be an Immortal. And even then, it had taken him being an Immortal to find out the truth that he was truly, in fact, a Divinity.

Surely it wouldn't happen that he would become a Divinity in the future, only for him to find out that the beast was in fact a Celestial the whole time, right?

No, that was too absurd, even for Bai Jingshen. That would put him above Senior Yang, and he was too respectful of him to be stronger than him. If the beast never hid one thing, then it was his pride. It was hard to tell if Momo enjoyed her flight or was scared the whole time. Either way, when they arrived at the city and landed, she was shivering the whole time. "Tha-that was incredible, master," she said. "Immortals can fly that fast?"

"They can," Alex said, not bothering to explain that he hadn't reached full speed for her sake. Any more and even with his Qi, he would have knocked her out the whole way here.

He had slowed down just enough for her to stay conscious the whole way through.

"This is the city, huh?" Pearl said, looking at Hollowvine City.

The city was massive, a size that Momo couldn't comprehend with her limited scope and understanding of size. Alex compared it to Newsky City where he had opened his store, and it was quite small by comparison. He believed that this was one of the lesser-known cities on the continent. The city was built in the valley of a mountain range, most of which was filled with thick forests that were filled with all sorts of beasts. The Qi here was thick enough that Alex could search for ingredients and find quite a few that could be useful for him.

He looked around, seeing a lot of Hollowvine trees in the forest. He wondered if that was a reason for what the city was called.

The city itself had no walls, and all of the buildings within it could be easily seen by anyone who stood outside of it. But there were gates, and guards stood at the front of those gates.

People had to go through those gates, so Alex got Pearl and Momo to get in a queue. After a while, it was their turn to pass the guards.

The guards looked at them and said, "Participants of the tournament must pay 20 Immortal Spirit stones for entry."

Alex paused. "What?" he asked.

"You heard me. If you took part in the tournament, you must pay 20 Immortal Spirit stones."

"Yes, I heard you," Alex said. "Why must I pay that much?"

"Rule of this city for the participants," the man said. "Every city has its own rules for the participants as they wish. This is our city's rule. If you won't follow it, you can't enter."