Eternal Cultivation of Alchemy

Alex tried to use the invisibility skill himself to hide just like that old man did, but due to his low cultivation base, he couldn't successfully employ it.

The light that cover him would break open at places randomly, allowing others to see him through invisibility.

'What do I do?' he thought. He needed a bit higher cultivation base to properly go invisible.

The old man was invisible, but it was impossible for his movements to do the same as well. No matter how good he was, his footsteps would leave a mark on the dune.

Alex looked at the sand around him to look for the old man. Just then, he saw a bunch of indentations on the sand. The old man was moving.

Alex waited for a bit and sensed the old man entering his spiritual sense range. He immediately slashed at the incoming old man and blocked his thrust attack.

Alex used the momentum to back off and looked at the sand again. Suddenly, something hit Alex from the front and sent him flying.

Alex immediately stood up, the attack doing almost negligible damage to him. The old man came with a straight thrust once more and Alex blocked him just in time. He had managed to see the footsteps in the sand in time.

"Tsk!" Alex could hear the old man getting annoyed by him blocking his attacks.

"Congratulations! You can see my footsteps and predict my attack. Let's increase the difficulty then, shall we?" the old man shouted from in front of Alex.

He saw the old man's footsteps in the sand and got ready to block once more, however, no attack or the old man came towards him.

Instead, they started moving around him. The old man sped up quicker and quicker, and soon the sand started flying all around him.

"Shit!" Alex cried out. He had realized what was happening. The old man, in his plan to make his footsteps invisible, had started throwing the sand in the air.

That way, no matter where he looked, Alex had no way of seeing the old man… or so the old man thought.

Realizing that he couldn't rely on his vision or sound or touch for that matter, he understood that the only thing he could rely on was his spiritual sense.

However, given how fast the old man was, he couldn't reliably depend on his mere 15 meters spiritual sense to tell him when the old man would arrive next to him.

So, the next thing he needed to do was give himself more time to react to the old man entering his spiritual sense's range.

Alex smirked. He had the perfect way to do that.

He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. Suddenly, time slowed down, and all of his senses were amplified.

The sound of the sand blowing around him got louder. He could hear the old man's footsteps cooking up a storm around him.

He could feel the dryness of his mouth, his chapped lips. He could feel the hot air hitting his face, slightly cooling him by taking away his sweat.

He could feel the minute grains on sands hitting his skin. They hit his hands, his face, and his legs.

He could smell the scent of hot sand, as well as some iron in the air from the crusted blood on his own lower pants.

He could feel the weight of his sword, slightly imbalanced on his single hand when it was meant to be held with two.

Finally, he could sense the slowness of everything around him. He could feel the sand flying through the air, and in then, the old man running at him with the sword at the ready.

Alex's own movements were incredibly slow, however, that was enough to do what he needed to do.

Alex struck away from the sword thrust and used the same momentum to hit his neck. The sword barely managed to graze the old man, but that was enough to make him bleed.

The old man jumped backward and looked at the close-eyed Alex in fear. 'How the hell is he seeing me? How the hell is he fighting back?' the old man wondered.

Alex hadn't used Focus mode in a long time. Once he stopped controlling the Focus mode like he had come to do by muscle memory, he once again realized just how effective it was.

Focus mode was something only players could use, so the old man had no idea how Alex was doing any of it.

Alex nodded to himself when he realized that it was just as effective as he wanted it to be and smiled. The fight would be a lot easier now.

The old man kicked up a dust storm once more and ran around Alex to juke him. Then, he thrust his sword from behind Alex.

Alex could feel the sword coming towards him in slowed downtime and moved just out of the way of the attack. Then, he slashed at the old man's legs.

The attack reached deep and he felt like he struck the bones. However, he couldn't go beyond that.

"ARGH!" the old man cried out in pain. Alex pulled his sword back and struck at the old man again, but the old man ran away.

Alex waited for the old man to come to him once again, so he could attack him. 'Just a little more and I can go invisible too,' Alex thought.

With the Yang energy around him slowly disappearing, he would soon be able to properly use his technique. That way, even though the old man would get stronger as well, he wouldn't have to worry about him.

Alex waited for a bit longer, but he didn't hear the old man moving at all. The sand in the air was also starting to settle down.

When all the sand fell to the ground, Alex realized— the old man wasn't there anymore. 'Fuck! Did he run away?' Alex thought.

He looked around him and saw no indentation in the sand anymore. 'I was so close,' Alex thought and ran behind him.

The old man was likely to stay invisible the entire time, so he remained careful as well. He kept his eyes open for any change in the sands in front of him or any incoming attack.

Alex felt his cultivation base lowering once more as he got closer to the source. He would have loved it if he had no cultivation base at all and the old man had barely any. That way, defeating the old man would be pretty easy.

However, that was just a hopeful thought. Given how strong Alex was, it was likely that the old man wasn't going to go somewhere where his cultivation base dropped below the threshold of a Mind Tempering realm, so Alex had to be extra careful when his own cultivation base dropped to the lower realm of Muscle tempering realm.

Very soon, Alex saw the footsteps again. The old man had indeed not made it very far, be it intentionally or not. He was still invisible, but his footsteps movement showed Alex that he was moving.

'Wait!' Alex thought. There was something wrong with those footsteps. By now, the old man should have heard and even seen Alex running up to him, but not once did the footsteps slow down to turn and see, or speed up to run faster.

Also, the indentation they made on the sand was too uniform. There was no sand spilling over the foot as it was happening to his own foot.

'It's a trap!' Alex thought and immediately got ready for an attack. He closed his eyes to solely rely on his spiritual sense to see.

Just as he was thinking, he felt a movement over him. Not front, or back, up above. The old man had been flying this whole time.

The sword entered his spiritual sense, followed by the old man's hand, head, and the rest of the body. His neck and foot would be gone by now, likely healed by the same paste as earlier.

Alex rolled to the side and dashed to go on the offensive. The old man saw him coming and sent out a palm strike at him. The attack did no damage, but it halted his movement for just a bit. The old man took the moment to get out of his spiritual range.

The old man knew Alex was using his spiritual sense, he could sense it too. However, his spiritual sense barely went anywhere past 8 meters, so he was inwardly surprised at how large Alex's spiritual sense was.

He remembered back in the mountain where the brat had sensed him so high up in the sky, despite having never put out any aura at the time.

The old man hadn't thought about it at the moment, but that had been quite weird at the time too. He shook his head to forget about it for now and proceeded to attack once more.

He just needed to stab him once and this miracle poison of his that he had stolen from the sect treasury when he started a coup 50 years ago would certainly kill the brat.

He waited around for a bit for more of his Qi to return to him, and when it did, the old man dashed forward at a speed that was his fastest yet to kill Alex.

Alex noticed the old man come into his spiritual sense range, but his speed was too fast. He hit the sword to parry it, however, at the last moment, the old man used the momentum of the parry to spin around and hit Alex on his right shoulder.

Alex felt pain in his right arm as he saw the poison sword cut into it.