Eternal Cultivation of Alchemy

Alex sat in a relatively empty room in a restaurant, waiting for someone. He hadn't ordered anything and was contemplating if he even wanted to bother with this meeting at all.

He had been so excited about the Realm of Trials just the other day, and there were still 2 more days to go, but the Crown Prince had contacted him this morning, reminding him of something that he did not want to be reminded about.

The Snowthorn Valley was home to a great family known as the Ren Family. They had tens of thousands of years of history and were known as one of the oldest families to still exist.

In recent times, they hadn't made much news at all. However, there was one news that had spread with relative importance that people would certainly have heard about, even if they did not care as much.

That was the fact that the current family leader of the Ren Family had adopted a young girl with incredible talent as his daughter. That girl's name was Ren Wujin.

She was known as the Golden Fox of the North, that was who he was here to see.

Ren Wujin was another one of the potential queens that the Crown Prince had searched for.

After Talia, Alex didn't care much about meeting anyone. He hadn't even wanted to meet Talia at all, since the reason he had asked for potential wives in the first place was to see if he could secretly find his sister Hannah.

However, knowing that none of the 4 that had been presented to him had been her, his interest in the girls was… nonexistent.

Alex sat in the empty room, slightly annoyed that the girl was late. He had arrived in time, and yet he was already made to wait 15 more minutes.

And he didn't like that it gave him time to spend on something that he wasn't ready for just yet. It gave him time to think about his sister, who he was starting to accept was dead already.

Each day he had spent dealing with the knowledge that she could be dead and there was no way for him to do anything if that was the case. Even the Dao of Death did not allow him to bring back the dead.

Coming to these meetings made specifically to find his sister undid that and it pained him to know that. Every time he looked at the names, even though he knew that these girls weren't her, there was a part of him deep inside that hoped that this was indeed her. He hoped that this was his sister with a different name and a different face.

He did not like having that hope. Hope was what gave way to disappointment and heartbreak, and that was what had caused his Qi deviation last time. He was absolutely sure of it.

He had wanted to refuse the Crown Prince's proposal this morning, but finding out that he had already told the Ren family about his wish, he couldn't refuse anymore.

As a result, he decided to let this meeting happen. He did make sure to tell the Crown Prince that he wasn't as excited about meeting these girls, so he no longer had to spend any time trying to fix these meetings.

As Alex sighed and waited, the door to his side and a woman walked in slowly. She immediately noticed Alex as soon as she walked in and was transfixed when she saw him. It truly was the King of the Southern Continent.

"Greetings, your majesty," the girl spoke. "I am Ren Wujin, and it is my pleasure to have finally met you."

The girl had a tall body with a beautiful face. Her golden hair was braided intricately with multiple golden ornaments hanging from them. On the side of her face was a golden fox mask that she placed there at all times.

Alex could tell at a glance that the mask was some sort of artifact as well. That was what had given her the moniker, Golden Fox of the North.

She wore a multilayered red robe with a falling golden leaves pattern through it all. The leaves were made with real gold threads and the red robe itself wasn't made with anything of lesser quality.

Alex stood up and greeted back. "Greetings, Lady Ren," he said. "It is nice to meet you too."

The girl smiled back and made her way toward the seat on the other side of the table.

"Please refer to me as just Wujin, Your Majesty," she said. "Also, My apologies if I was late. I wasn't made aware of this meeting until it was too late, so I had to take some time. I had only just come out of training."

"It's alright," Alex said. "It was only a few minutes."

The girl smiled back, but it held a bit of uncertainty that Alex could see through.

"Is something bothering you, Lady Wujin?" Alex asked curiously.

"I'm just a little curious, I suppose," the girl said. "I was told that you wanted to meet me, but we have never come across each other as far as I can tell, so I was wondering why you even wanted to meet me?"

"Ah," Alex realized. It was the same thing with Talia. "I see." He hesitated to explain for a brief period, but he had to. "I had let the Crown Prince know that I was looking for someone to make my queen, and the Crown Prince gave me a small list of potential candidates."

"You are one of them."

Ren Wujin frowned for a brief moment before gathering herself to a more lady-like state. "You… wish to test me to see if I am worthy of being your queen?"

Alex shook his head. "I'll be honest, I do not wish to give you any hope. I have no intention of taking you as my Queen or anyone else for that matter."

"I had given up on that idea after I met the first candidate, and decided to no longer go on these meetings. But, I forgot to relay that to the Crown Prince, and… well he set up another meeting for me."

"I apologize that it caused you to have to come here for no reason at all," Alex said as he sent forth something. "Please accept these pills as my apology."

The girl caught the bottle and looked inside with her spiritual sense. Her eyes widened the moment she saw 5 pill veins on every single one of those pills.

"These are…"

"Those pills will help you with your cultivation," Alex explained. "They are designed to help your training speed increase by nearly 20 times for a single cultivation session, which lasts around 2 days."

The woman's eyes widened even further and her breathing got uneven. Her shock was clear on her face. The golden mask on her head glowed slightly, but Alex caught its glow.

Then, the woman's face relaxed and her emotions lessened. She took a brief moment to collect herself.

"Please forgive me if I'm impudent for not refusing to take the pills," she said. "Thank you for these, your majesty."

Alex smiled. "Since we're already here, why not make use of our time properly? Would you care to tell me about yourself?"