Eternal Cultivation of Alchemy

"Is there any way to know which of the two causes is more likely?" Alex asked Rosemist.

"As i mentioned before, I cannot help you there," Rosemist said. "It is beyond my capacity. But that may not be true for you, though."

Alex nodded. "What must I do?" he asked.

"Discard one of the two hypotheses," she said. "And the other one will likely be more true."

Alex thought for a moment, his mind racing through what he could do.

Discard that which he was—his body that was similar to the Gods of old? Impossible. He couldn't get rid of what was a part of him.

Discard Godslayer? Impossible too, but for a different reason entirely.

In the end, Alex could only give a dry laugh. "I may not ever find an answer then," he said. "Still, thank you for telling me this all. It is helpful."

"It wasn't much of a help though, was it?" Rosemist asked.

That caused Rosemist to smile back. "Then, I'm happy to have been of help."

After a day of chatting with Rosemist, talking about everything he could, everything he wanted to, he decided to go.

He had come here looking for answers, but he was leaving with two hypotheses instead. And yet, he wasn't disappointed.

What he had received were hypotheses, not a dead end. A hypothesis was something that could be verified to be true or untrue with the right experiment. And Alex was an expert at that.

Every single Alchemist was an expert at experimentation.

Discarding his body was impossible, yes. But discarding Godslayer was... not entirely impossible. It was only impossible now because he couldn't get rid of such a great source of power that he could use at the right moment.

But, should Godslayer wake up, he could do things on his own too. He was no inanimate object floating in his Spiritual Sea forever. He was a Spirit that would soon have more power than Alex could hope for in the next 500 years.

At that point, maybe he could tell Alex if it was him that hid from the Heaven.

At that point, the second hypothesis would be either proven or disproven, and Alex would know, for all but certain, which of the two hypotheses was likely the truth.

"I have to wait until I reach the Immortal Transcendent realm then," Alex thought. "Or until Whisker reaches the Immortal Origin realm. I have a lot of time to find out the right answer."

It was one more thing for Alex to do in the future, but it wasn't as much of a burden as he would've expected it to be. Instead, he looked forward to it.

Alex arrived at Hardrock City half a day later while the sun was still high in the sky. After a few tests at the entry point to prove his identity, he was allowed into the city.

He found the way to where his master and the rest were staying. It was the apartment they were provided the first time they had come around. It would be theirs until the tournament came to an end.

"Did you learn anything, Master?" Alex asked. "What were they talking about regarding priority?"

"I cannot tell precisely," Silvermist said. "But I have learned from the staff that you will need to head over to the park at the center of the city to go into the secret realm in two days."

"Exactly a month before the next competition," Alex said slowly. He wondered what they were planning. Certainly not something annoying, right? Master had said that the next competitions wouldn't require him to leave this city all that much. He hoped his master was correct.

Two days later, Alex met up with Aethersage, Killersky, Jai Heiyun, and Riveroak.

He had contacted them earlier that day, hoping to know if they had arrived or not. Four of them had, but one wasn't there.

Thousandleaf, one of the alchemists from Firestar's guild, was missing.

At first, Alex believed the man had just not made it in time, but it turned out that he was completely wrong.

"No, he's not late," Riveroak said, seeming somewhat surprised. "Did you not check the competition results?"

Alex shook his head. He had been cultivating near the Voidgate most of the time during those months, and afterward had only bothered to see the top 100. He hadn't really cared much for the others, including Jai Heiyun, who hadn't made it into the top 100.

He didn't tell her that, though.

"I was quite busy," Alex said, which was true. He had been busy around the same time the competition had ended.

"Brother Thousandleaf failed," Jai Heiyun explained. "He did average by comparison, but sadly average wasn't good enough in the last competition."

Only 40,000 out of 92,000 could continue onward. She was right; doing average wasn't good enough to make it ahead.

"I see," Alex said. "That is unfortunate."

"He failed. Nothing for us to worry about," Killersky said rather callously. "Let us go to the park, or we will be late."

Riveroak glared toward Killersky but said nothing. Eventually, they made their way toward the park.

The matter of the first competition came up during their walk to the park. Alex had already noticed that both Jai Heiyun and Riveroak were still wearing their medallions.

"You're not done with the competition?" Alex asked.

"I can't find what I need. Everywhere I go, someone has already gotten to it before me," Jai Heiyun complained, her voice sounding exasperated.

"The first competition is still not over?" Killersky asked. "It's been 20 years since it started."

"If it was, we would've known, right?" Aethersage asked. "They would've denied entry for the others."

"Then it must still be going on," Killersky said.

"They did get rid of 50,000 potential finders last decade, so there are fewer people that need to find everything and get back," Alex said. "What ingredients are you missing? Maybe we can be of help. You can get our help, after all."

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