Eternal Cultivation of Alchemy

"Get in," the sect leader said.

"What if I don\'t want to?" Alex asked.

"A weakling like you doesn\'t get many choices, unfortunately," the sect leader said before pricking Alex with the sword, pushing him forward.

Alex could see Talia saying something, shouting even, but he couldn\'t hear the words. It wasn\'t just her either, the others were speaking too, but Alex could hear no one.

He turned around, looking at the sect leader, who didn\'t fear him for in his eyes, Alex was weak.

The sect leader was in the late Saint Soul 5th realm, so he didn\'t find any reason to fear Alex. As such, even when he turned around, he was unphased.

"What exactly are you doing here?" Alex asked. "It doesn\'t look like something that the Kingdom or the Empire would ever let you continue. You have thought this through, haven\'t you?"

"What I am doing here is of no concern to you," the sect leader said. "Waste one more of my second and I will kill you."

"You\'re surely not doing this alone, are you?" Alex asked. "Did the other sect elders agree to whatever is happening here that you want to hide? It must be quite something to agree to walk down this evil path with you."

"That\'s it," the man said and swung his sword at Alex.

Midnight appeared on Alex\'s hand as he parried the sect leader\'s sword, surprising him with a strength that was beyond what he could sense. The sect leader stumbled a few steps behind before coming to a stop.

He looked at Alex and then at the sword in his hand.

"How… did you…?" the sect master found it hard to make sense of.

"How did I what?" Alex asked. "Take my sword out of my storage? Did you think I wouldn\'t have realized that there was something messing with space, making it hard to bring out your items?"

"How could you?" the man couldn\'t help but ask.

"Well… it\'s hard to explain," Alex said. "And you are the one that is supposed to be explaining here. What is going on?"

Before Alex could continue his words, he saw the sect leader prepare and attack him.

Shards of ice flew at him, pelting him without stopping. Alex did nothing but use his Jade Skin technique, and none of the attacks hurt him at all. 

Then the sect leader sent out a gust toward him, carrying illusory flowers, all of which started falling on him. Once again, he easily protected himself by using the Jade Skin technique.

With the Jade Skin technique, his body became as strong as Saint Soul 7th realm, which was more than enough to handle the sect leader Sikong. 

Alex didn\'t attack back immediately and instead just blocked the sect leader\'s attack. The sect leader couldn\'t help but frown when he realized that he couldn\'t hurt him at all.

"What… are you?" he asked.

"Just someone who wants you to answer a few questions," Alex said. "I won\'t kill you if you answer me seriously."

"To hell with your answers," the man shouted and quickly did something, that Alex concluded was requesting aid. As expected, 12 different individuals quickly appeared inside the room and surrounded Alex immediately. 

Each individual was with a cultivation base of at least the peak of the Saint Soul realm, if not higher. Each one of them was stronger than the sect leader, with even the weakest one being able to fight toe to toe with Alex even if he went all out.

"Well, this is troublesome," Alex said as he looked around at the 13 men that had gathered around him. They were so strong that Alex would most likely have problems escaping without revealing his hands entirely.

"He\'s a weird fellow, kill him," the sect leader said.

"He\'s up to something, don\'t kill him," Alex said just as the sect leader said.

For a second everyone was confused. However, a moment later, something flew into the room, destroying it all as it did so. 

The man that was guarding Alex, an officer of the Head Legion of the Azure Imperium, had arrived and was ready to fight now that Alex was in danger.

"You should leave, your majesty," the man said. "I will take care of this in your stead.

"Just take care of the other 12 if you can," Alex said. "I\'ll handle this sect leader."

The guard thought for a moment and nodded. He had seen Alex fight just now, so he wasn\'t as worried as he should have been. He knew how strong he was.

Alex looked toward the sect leader. "Now then, we can enjoy our battle without anyone ruining the moment, can\'t we?" he asked. He pointed up the sword and the sect leader realized that he had screwed up big time.

Immediately, Alex started attacking the sect leader, who could only remain on the defensive. 

Alex sent a few slashes, one of which was his Heavenly Static Slash, sending a strong lightning bolt directly in the sect leader\'s direction.

The sect leader tried to fight back, but he was only standing target in front of Alex, despite his cultivation base which should have been clearly stronger. "Who the hell are you? How are you so strong?" the man shouted.

Alex paused. "Do you really wish to know?" he asked. "Very well then."

He pulled off his mask, revealing who it was under it. The sect leader looked at Alex for a few seconds, trying to comprehend exactly who it was that he was looking at before realizing who it was.

"King of the Southern Continent?" the man couldn\'t help but ask in surprise. 

"That is me," Alex said. "Now, shall we continue?"

Fire Qi flowed into Midnight, giving it a slight red glow. Alex needed to add nothing else to the sword but that as he unleashed one of the other altered techniques that he hadn\'t been able to test in real combat for a while.

Once the sword was filled with Fire Qi, he swung it in the sect leader\'s direction, throwing a flaming slash at the sect leader.

The attack flew in an arc and landed on the sect leader who had already used techniques to protect himself. Even as he did so, the fire slash landed on him and the technique activated.

~BOOM!~ 

A Fiery explosion covered the sky, seen from many different locations. It was Alex\'s Burning Blaze technique that had made such a commotion.  It was a technique that was created to cause an explosion, so Alex wasn\'t phased at all.

He looked for the smoke to settle as the sect leader barely handled himself while threatening to fall unconscious at each waking moment.

Alex smiled.

"Now that you are at the end of your ropes, please explain what exactly it is that you are doing here," he said.