“Are you okay? Can you heal?” Alex asked the young man.

“Ah, yes. I-I will be fine. I just have to… um…” the man fidgeted around, looking for something of his own.

“Well, if you will be fine, then I will leave,” Alex said. “Take care.” He stood up and turned around to leave.

“Wait!” however, the young man wouldn’t let him go.

“Do you need anything else?” Alex asked.

“Um… I will need some time to heal, and… um, those people will most likely come and attack me again, so… would it be alright if I stayed with you for a while?” the young man asked.

“Hmm, I’m not sure if you can stay with me with where I’m going, but it would be very remiss of me to leave you here wounded after I just saved you,” Alex said. He hated himself for not having any healing pill on himself.

He believed he didn’t need it, so what few he had, he had given to his aunt before she had left for her training.

‘I seriously need to start making pills soon. I will do so immediately after I leave here,’ Alex made a mental note of that.

He would have to find a place where they wouldn’t hate him for making pills, which for now felt was only the State of Dong.

As Alex thought that, the young man brought out a pill of his own and ate it himself.

“Huh?” Alex looked confused. “You have pills?”

“Uhh… yes,” the young man said with a confused look on his face. “I don’t have many, but if senior wants I can give them to you.”

“No, I don’t want your pills,” Alex said. “What’s the Blue Spring Sect’s official stance towards Alchemy?”

“Uhh… nothing? They let you be but won’t associate with you or save you if you get into trouble,” the young man said.

“Alchemists get into a lot of trouble?” Alex asked.

“I don’t know,” he said. “I only know what the sect says.”

“Aren’t you the sect master’s disciple? I thought I heard someone say that,” Alex said.

“Yes, I am,” the young man said. “However I don’t have much footing in the sect besides being the sect master’s disciple.”

“So you don’t have any information about why they try to dissociate themselves from alchemy?” Alex asked.

“I’m afraid not, senior,” the young man said.

Alex sighed. Just when would he be free to practice alchemy the way he wanted to?

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The young man looked at the white cat beside him, then at the man in front of him who wore a black robe and a white mask.

“Senior, are you the one I hear people talking about?” the young man asked. “They say you learned Sword aura in a single day, is that true?”

“Oh, you heard about me from somebody else?” Alex asked.

The young man nodded. “They use your name to encourage people to try and learn something in here. You are also famous for being incredibly strong without being in the Saint realm, although I see that has changed.”

“Well, it’s good that people are using me to encourage others, but this fake information might actually end up demotivating them instead,” Alex said.

“Fake information?” the young man asked.

“I didn’t learn Sword Aura in a single day. I had all but a single thing to produce Sword aura for the last 10 years. It was only after 2 months of meditation next to the gorge that I understood what I was missing.”

“Once I knew that, I produced Sword aura in a day,” Alex said. “People see what I did there and say I did it in a day, when in fact it was a decade-long work. If others come here expecting to learn what I did in a few days, they will leave back demotivated to try it ever again.”

“Oh…” the young man was surprised. “Thank you for enlightening me, senior.”

Alex chuckled. “Don’t call me senior. I’m neither older than you nor have a higher cultivation base than yours,” he said.

“Eh?” the young man looked at Alex. Sure his cultivation base wasn’t truly at the 1st Saint condensation realm, right? Even if it was, how could he possibly be younger than him?

“I’m actually only 35 years old, senior,” the young man said proudly.

“Congratulations,” Alex said. “I’m 34.”

He was technically 31, but he liked saying his age based on how long time had passed for everyone, rather than how long he had lived.

“No way,” the young man said. He didn’t accept it for even a second and was pretty sure Alex was lying.

Alex let it be that way. “Anyway, let’s talk about what happened back there. Why were those people after you exactly?” he asked.

“Sigh, you heard them, didn’t you? They want me to break off my marriage pact with my fiancee,” the young man said.

“Is she so pretty that many men would kill you for her?” Alex asked.

“Of course, she’s very pretty,” the young man said passionately. “But that is not the reason why they were trying to kill me.”

“My fiancee, she… she is the daughter of the sect leader, my master, and as such she will inherit the bond to our Sacred protector in the sect, making her the next sect leader. In the instance where she doesn’t want to be a sect leader, the signs of which she’s showing at the moment, the bond with our Sacred beast will move onto her husband, which if everything goes well will be me.”

“Ah,” Alex finally understood. “So they wouldn’t have tried harming you had shown more interest in being a sect leader. However, since she’s not, they want to be her husband very badly and would do anything to become the sect leader.”

“Yes,” the young man said.

“Have you spoken to your master about this?” Alex asked.

“I did not,” the young man said. “None of these men showed any signs of greed beforehand, not even through their eyes. I should have known what they were up to when they decided to come here all of a sudden to train. I wouldn’t have come had I understood that.”

“You’re safe now, so you can complain to your master afterward,” Alex said. “For now, since you are here, focus on getting stronger. Come on, let’s pick up the pace.”

The two of them walked even faster as they made their way forward. Along the way, Alex slowly tried to send his spiritual sense into the sky to see what aura there was.

He was ready to pull it back if the intent was strong, so he felt less fear doing so. As he did, he couldn’t help but wonder… why were there so many immortals fighting here?

Immortals would immediately be struck down by the Heavenly Judgement if they fought here with full power, and yet they did so. Did they have some way of concealing themselves while they fought with all their power?

As Alex wondered about this, his group of 4 reached the location of the gorge, where  Alex was ready to train his intent even further.

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