Eternal Cultivation of Alchemy

Alex moved forward sharply, looking at the girl up close. The girl flinched and stepped back in fear, but stopped out of her need.

Alex stopped before he got too close as well. "You are one of the Oathbreakers?" he asked.

"Yes," the girl said.

"And you decided to reveal yourself to me?" he asked. "I will hand you over to the military. There are some members of the Head Legion that came with me."

The girl looked terrified and brought out a talisman that she held onto without using. Alex looked at the talisman and from the faint aura alone, he could tell it was a teleportation talisman, sent to send her somewhere.

If he could get his hands on it, he could most likely find a way to where the Oathbreakers were hiding. He could easily stop the girl from leaving if she used it too, but she didn't know that, so she felt safer.

"O-our leader said you wouldn't do it," she said.

"And you trust your leader that much?" Alex asked the girl.

The girl hesitated but nodded in the end.

"I see," Alex said. "You shouldn't have trusted him on that." His Qi grabbed hold of her, his aura claiming her from all sides.

The girl panicked, realizing that she had messed up. "Your majesty, please—"

"If you thought I was your ally, you are wrong," Alex said, his aura crashing around her even more. Just a little more and she would start crying.

The girl's eyes squinted with pain, her cheeks growing pink from it as well. She looked at Alex, understanding that he would kill her without any doubt if given the chance. She decided to not give him any.

This mission was a failure.

She activated the talisman, silver energy flowing out from around her, grabbing onto her. However, the light suddenly disappeared and she remained where she was. She looked around in confusion and saw the world twist around her, space itself folding as if it were made up of layers.

She looked toward Alex and saw him in control of what was happening. She saw him in control of space itself.

Her fear grew wilder. She did not understand how he did what he did, but now that he had done it, she couldn't fight back. The crushing aura around her would kill her at any moment.

She did not understand how it was that she could leave.

Suddenly, the space returned to normal and the aura around her disappeared as well, her breathing normal once again.

He huffed the cold air around her, fog escaping her lips with each exhale. She looked up in fear at Alex and only saw his mischievous smile. "What did you—"

"I'm sorry," Alex said as he moved toward the girl and helped her up. "Are you hurt?"

The girl was stunned, but she moved back the moment she got the opportunity, arriving at the edge of the soundproof barrier. She looked at Alex and then at herself, confused.

"What is this?" she asked. "Why did you not kill me?"

"Why would I kill you?" Alex asked.

"You were just trying to—"

"I was just trying to see if you were who you said you were," Alex said. "I needed to make sure you're not someone that the Emperor sent to check where I stand against him."

The girl frowned. "Is this some sort of trick?" she asked.

"No trick," Alex said. "I mean every word I am saying right now."

Jiaolun still found it hard to accept everything that was going on. While Alex's suspicion of her had faded, her suspicion of Alex had increased. She couldn't help but wonder if it was a ploy of his to keep her from running away.

Alex brought out something, ignoring whatever she was thinking, and tossed it to her. The girl caught it, a pill bottle, and looked at him with concern.

"What is this?" she asked.

"A Saint Truth Seeking pill," Alex said. "For that extra layer of confirmation that you are what you say you are."

The girl looked at the pill in her hand with confusion in her heart. She opened the top of the bottle and looked at the single pill inside. Inside, she saw a greenish pill with some darker green specks all around the pill.

She looked at Alex and then at the pill. Hesitating, she thought for a moment and then pulled out the pill to eat it. If that was how she had to get his trust, then that was it.

As someone weaker than him, she had no more rights in this conversation than what she was already getting, especially with her teleportation escape method already thwarted.

She swallowed the pill and felt the pill dissolve in her stomach, the energy from it moving through her body, going to her brain. She felt her mind grow dull as if she were drunk, but she could do nothing about it.

Her eyes grew dazed and her mind was not as conscious as she hoped she would be.

"What is your name?" Alex asked her.

"Guan Jiaolun," the girl said, surprised that she spoke her surname. She never gave that away when someone asked for it.

"Are you part of the military?" Alex asked.

"I was a part of the Tail legion," she said.

"Was? Are you not still?" Alex asked her.

"I left the Tail Legion a long time ago to become what we now call ourselves Oathbreakers," the girl said.

"When?" Alex asked.

"Over 50 years ago," the girl said.

Alex's eyes flashed with excitement. That was the time period he wanted to know about after all.

"So you know about the Azure Dragon's status," he said.

The girl paused. She didn't know what to answer.

"You don't have to hide," Alex said. "I know the Azure Dragon is dead. Your oath won't stop you from speaking about it to me."

The girl's eyes widened in shock. "What?" some lucidity returned to her. "Who… who is dead?"

Alex looked at her with a confused look, surprised that she was surprised by the revelation. "Wait, did you not know about it before?" he asked.

The girl shook her head. "This… is the first time I'm hearing about it," she said.

"Huh?" Alex was confused now. He had thought that everyone who became an Oathbreaker had known about the Azure Dragon's death, but as it would seem, that was not the case.

"Then why did you become an Oathbreaker?' he asked.

"Because… " the girl paused abruptly, her face turning to grimace as if she had swallowed something and it stuck in her esophagus.

She could not speak.

"Do you have an oath stopping you?" Alex asked.

The girl nodded, taking a deep breath in relief as she had not been forced to speak about something that was against her Oath.

A truth-seeking pill would force out the truth from her and the Oath would pull it back, hurting her to do so. As a result, it was the worst combination to deal with as someone being questioned.

Alex thought for a moment, curious that she had been made to speak an oath, but it had not been about the Azure Dragon.

He was getting curious about what other events had been in this continent in the past 50 years that had not only resulted in the military being forced into speaking oaths, and at the same time causing people inside it to turn against the Emperor.

Another question to add to the ever-building pile of questions that seemed to surround his journey in the Eastern Continent.

"Can you tell me anything about your oath or the events around it?" Alex asked.

The girl shook her head at first, but then paused and thought a bit. Then she said what she could.

"The Tail Legion were brought out of their waiting to… get… something," the girl said, each word carefully thought of so she didn't go against her oath.

"Oh," Alex said. "And you cannot tell me what this thing is?"

The girl shook her head.

"Was it a bad thing?" Alex asked.

The girl thought and shook her head. "It is not the thing that made me and a lot of us leave, it is the…" the girl thought for a moment and shook her head. "No way of answering."

Alex nodded.

"Did you get it?" he asked.

The girl shook her head. "We were stopped by someone strong," she said.

"Who?" Alex asked.

The girl seemed pained and immediately Alex stopped her, seeing that he was entering oath territory again.

"Alright, tell me what exactly is it that Oathbreakers plan to do?" he asked.

The girl's breathing got harder. This wasn't something she could so easily speak to someone else, but right now she was being forced to.

"To get rid of the Emperor from the throne," she said.

"So you plan to kill him?" Alex asked.

"That is our choice of priority, but if that doesn't work, we will accept forcing him to ascend as a form of victory as well," the girl said. "Either way, he cannot remain on the throne or in this world."

Alex nodded. He asked her a few more questions but got nothing out of it. She had made an oath to neither reveal the status of the Oathbreakers nor where they were all hiding.

"Alright, I understand as much as I am allowed to," he said. "You want pills, but I need something in exchange as well."

The girl nodded. "What do you want, Your Majesty?" she asked.

Alex put up 3 fingers. "I have 3 conditions or favors that I will require to work with your group."