Eternal Cultivation of Alchemy

The city smelled nothing but fantastic with all the floral scent that the wind carried around. Alex walked through the streets looking at the various vendors and even bought a few things using his newly made fortune.

Clothes were the things he needed to buy the most as they would often tear up during fights or even just simple practice sessions.

Aside from that, Alex stocked up on wooden boxes, pill bottles, empty talisman papers, inks, formation plates, and various other items that he had lost when he came over to the Southern Continent.

Many of the things he lost were irreplaceable, but the ones that were, Alex replaced them.

"Let\'s go to a weapons store," he said to Whisker, who was sitting inside his robes, and walked along.

The artifact store sold swords, which was what Alex was looking for. As of right now, he only had midnight, and as such he was incapable of using the 21 Sword Array in any of his battles.

With the various other attacks he had, he didn\'t really need to use that attack, but it was nice having options.

Besides, he had always been planning on using that precise skill to help him learn more about the Dao of techniques, which was one of his goals for the recent future.

If he could learn that, it would open up various different opportunities for him in both normal cultivation techniques and Alchemy.

The 20 different swords Alex bought were all similar in size to the Midnight and as such were easier to make work together.

He looked at Armor and various other artifacts, but none looked as appealing to him. Armor was useless to someone like him who had the Blood armor, and mental defensive artifacts were in general quite useless for Saint realm cultivators as they could easily destroy it.

The materials to make actual mental defensive artifacts that stopped a Saint\'s attack were near impossible to find after all.

Alex looked at the other artifacts too and bought a few just because he had the money too. Even if he didn\'t use it, he could give it to his mother, aunt, or his father when he got back to them all.

After leaving the artifact store, Alex went to a restaurant of some fame in the city to try out their delicacy. He sat down on an empty seat and looked at the menu.

"Oh, most of the special ones involve rare flowers only grown around this city," Alex said as he read what was written. "And they say they are good for your health. That one is good for the liver, and this one for the heart."

He went through his knowledge base to see if the claims made in the menu were actually things that the flowers could do for real. "Eh, close enough I guess," he thought. The restaurant was exaggerating, but they weren\'t wrong in what the flowers and fruits did.

Alex didn\'t care about it though. He was here just for the taste anyway.

He quickly ordered his food and waited around for it to come. The waiter returned immediately with some appetizers, but the main course would take some time.

"Come, let\'s eat," Alex said. Whisker came out of his robe and went by the plate to start eating.

The appetizers were a bunch of Graddus fruits that were cut up and boiled in a broth made up of Star Ember flower petals along with Crystal Ginseng.

Every bite he took of the fruit not only had the enhanced taste of the fruit, but also the smell of the flower alongside it.

"Wow, this tastes so good," Alex said out loud. Whisker nodded in agreement and continued eating. Alex went for another bite, but just then he heard a scream.

"AAAH!"

He quickly turned around to see a bunch of girls that were screaming while pointing at him. "There\'s a rat in this restaurant. Eww!"

The other customers also pointed it out and started saying things. The staff had heard the scream as well and were already on their way to Alex\'s desk.

Alex looked dumbly at what was happening.

"We apologize for letting a rat into this establishment sir. Please forgive us," the staff said and started prepping some sort of attack to capture Whisker.

"Wait! Wait!" Alex quickly stopped the man. "This is my pet beast. He\'s eating with me."

The staff paused. "A pet beast? A rat?" he asked. He was a little confused. He could not understand why anyone would make a rat their pet.

"Yes, this is my pet beast," Alex repeated. "You don\'t have to apologize. You didn\'t make a mistake. He\'s just here because I want him to eat with me."

"Uhh…" the staff was a little confused as to what to say. There was something wrong here, but he didn\'t know how to approach it.

"Uh, dear customer," an older man came up to them. "If this is your pet beast, then would you mind putting it away? It is making the other customers feel disgusted to eat with it out."

Alex looked at them with a rather offended look. "I would not," he said. "This is my pet beast and he\'s like a brother to me. Please don\'t call my brother disgusting."

The old man frowned. "Customer, please consider the situation. The other customers will lose their stomachs if they see a rat in the restaurant. Please consider putting it away," the old man asked.

Alex frowned as well. He was slightly angry at how the old man was addressing Whisker, but at the same time, the old man was being as polite as he could, making it impossible for Alex to start saying anything rude in return.

He sighed in the end. "Come Whisker, you can stay in my robes," he said. Whisker ran up to Alex and got into his robes where Alex handed him a small piece of the fruit.

Whisker ate the fruit while Alex looked at the old man. "That\'s fine, right? He\'s not in view so that it won\'t be problematic," he asked.

The old man had only nodded when the other customers started speaking again.

"Oh my god, he\'s still feeding the rat."

"So disgusting."

"Why are the restaurant owners not just throwing them out."

"God, I can\'t understand how some people function."

The old man\'s face turned awkward again. Somehow, the other customers weren\'t satisfied with the rat being out of sight. However, since Alex had already done what he had asked, it felt awkward to ask him to take it even further.

Still, the will of the majority took precedence for him, so he had to speak again.

"Would it be possible for you to put your beast back in its—"

"HE!" Alex said. "Not it, he. He is my brother, and I will not have you call him as anything else. I already put him in my robes, but since the others are still complaining, screw them."

Alex brought out Whisker again and placed him on the table. "Eat freely," he said.

Whisker nodded and started eating. At the same time, the restaurant was starting to get noisy. The customers were speaking all sorts of things, all negative, and all driven towards Alex and the restaurant.

The old man didn\'t know what to do anymore. The only thing he could do now asked Alex to leave in hopes of calming the crowd.

However, before he could do so, Alex spoke. "So noisy." He put on a disgusted face. "Whisker, tell them to shut up."

The old man was suddenly confused and looked towards the rat. Whisker was confused as well and looked at Alex.

"I can\'t speak," he replied using his spiritual sense.

"You are speaking right now," Alex told him.

Whisker paused for a moment and finally understood what Alex was saying.

Suddenly, a wave of spiritual sense spread out from Whisker, reaching all the different corners of the room and reaching into everyone\'s mind.

"My brother says you are all noisy. Shut up!"

No sound was made out loud, but the words reverberated in their mind, stunning everyone into silence.

The only ones that would come to eat in a restaurant like this were usually mortals or weak cultivators who still needed sustenance. It was rare that a high-ranking cultivator came to a place like this.

However, today one had, and the people had heard words spoken directly into their minds.

"S-Saint realm!" one of the wiser cultivators said as they immediately recognized Spiritual sense.

"Saint realm?"

"No way!"

"That rat?"

The people didn\'t believe it, but when they remembered the words being spoken directly into their heads, they had little doubts.

Realizing that what they were doing was actually courting their own death, they quietly turned back and quickly finished their meal before leaving the restaurant.

Alex on the other hand took all the time in the world, enjoying the various appetizers, main dish, and dessert along with Whisker.

Once he was done an hour or so later, he finally left the restaurant.

The restaurant owners insisted on not being paid, but in the end, Alex still handed them their money.

After that, he left to visit more of the city, arriving by the Floral Lake at the end of the day.