Eternal Cultivation of Alchemy

Bai Jingshen quickly turned around upon hearing what Alex said.

"What did you say?" he asked.

"These murals," Alex repeated. "The one with just the Sun God and the original 5 beasts is different from the rest. I think they were drawn by different artists, drawn at a different period of time."

Bai Jingshen's eyes slowly narrowed. "How can you tell that?" he asked.

"It's easy to tell when you know what you're looking for," Alex said. "Different painters have different styles of painting, different ways of holding brushes that result in different strokes, or different points of beginning and different ends. Depending on whether they choose to draw it all at once or layer the colors, it also ends up with an entirely different feel to someone who can see the difference."

"Whoever painted these murals tried to emulate the art of that which already existed so as to not create a contrast between the two arts. And I believe that even avid art enthusiasts would easily fall for their bluff. But at the end of the day, it is still a bluff, and these two are in fact painted differently."

Alex turned around. "That is to say that the two murals are separate."

Bai Jingshen's face slowly broke out into a smile. "That is precisely correct," he said with a slight chuckle. "I don't believe most White Tigers are even aware of that. In fact, almost all of them don't know that. I only found out after I came here with my master and had him see everything."

Alex turned around. "The Godkiller was good at art too?" he asked.

"No, I don't believe he was," Bai Jingshen said. "He had something better than that. He had the truth."

Alex paused for a long moment before slowly turning back toward the mural. He looked back at the mural, trying to find what truth it was that the Godkiller knew about.

The cluster of uneven objects on the first segment of the mural gave no information at all. The second segment, where the objects came together to clump up, just spoke of the next step in the process of whatever was going on.

Then the third segment was the Sun God. And the fourth and final segment was that of a single whole object, depicted with a circle.

"There is much contention as to what this means," Bai Jingshen said from the side. "Ask any White Tiger what this means, and they'll tell you this is a prophecy, a mark of a future yet to come."

"A prophecy?" Alex turned. "This is a prophecy?"

"That is what they say," Bai Jingshen said.

Alex raised an eyebrow. "And what do you say?" he asked.

"I don't say anything," Bai Jingshen said. "But my master says it is no prophecy at all."

"Then what?" Alex asked. "Just a simple piece of mural with no meaning?"

"No. My master says that it does not depict an event of the future, but rather an event of the past," Bai Jingshen said. "It is no prophecy, but rather history."

Alex frowned. "This?"

He turned back toward the mural, unable to unravel either of the truths—how it could either be a message of the upcoming future or a record of the long-gone past.

"I don't understand," Alex said. "What is this picture even meant to represent exactly? What are these things? Is that a pill? Is it a prophecy of me being an alchemist?"

Bai Jingshen couldn't help but laugh out loud upon hearing that. "You think in small terms," he said. "But then, what else could you do? You do not have the context."

"What context?" Alex asked.

Bai Jingshen turned around. "Follow me. You'll learn soon enough."

Bai Jingshen walked away, leaving Alex and Pearl behind with not much information.

Alex turned toward Pearl who could only shrug. Neither of them understood what was happening. They quickly followed Bai Jingshen, who led them straight through the western hallway.

At first, Alex and Pearl had assumed that they were going to be led back to Pearl's or Bai Jingshen's room, where he would tell them the truth in private. But to their surprise, the beast skipped past the rooms and walked out of the western gate.

Bai Jingshen led them down the streets of the palace, walking past the many beasts and half-beasts of the place, getting further and further away from the main palace.

"Where are we going, brother Shen?" Alex asked, still not entirely sure.

"You'll see soon," Bai Jingshen said, not explaining it.

They arrived at an open field a while later, where flying vessels took off and landed from. This field was designated as the place for that, so when Bai Jingshen arrived there, he pulled out a giant vessel from his Soul Space.

It was an impressive flying ship of white and gold, covered all around in a layer of Transmigration cloud—a type of cloud that was extremely resistant to the Sun's blast outside of the atmosphere—which made it an excellent vessel to travel between the worlds in.

Alex couldn't help but sigh upon seeing that. He himself had a flying vessel in his Soul Space, one of Divine rank with Transmigration cloud around it too. But compared to Bai Jingshen's ship, it felt inferior.

"Get in," Bai Jingshen said and got on it himself.

Alex and Pearl got onto it, looking around at the ship. It was quite a massive ship, meant to fly around at least a hundred different individuals. He could only imagine the amount of Qi needed to fly this thing around.

Bai Jingshen whispered something to one of the workers who worked beasts around the field, and turned around.

"We're ready to leave," Bai Jingshen said.

"Okay…" Alex said in a weird tone, not understanding exactly what it was that was going on.

"Where are we going, grandpa?" Pearl asked, equally confused.

All Bai Jingshen did was smile and say, "Wait just a bit longer. You'll find out soon enough."