Eternal Cultivation of Alchemy

Alex was the first to be called to the platform, with another person who was to be his opponent.

Once he arrived, he saw that there were 5 small formations on the podium, each of which he could press to throw out a different elemental attack.

"Start!"

As soon as the voice said that, Alex used the Metal attack.

A projectile of no color flew out from his podium, shooting toward the other side. He looked to the other side and saw another projectile flying towards him, that too of no color at all.

When they collided, A flash of blue shined suddenly, and the resulting projectile hit Alex's podium.

'Shit!' Alex thought. He had realized that a water attack was flying towards him and had tried to send out a fire attack of his own to stop it, but it looked like there was an internal cooldown to the podium so that one couldn't continuously send out attacks.

'That was unlucky,' he thought as he shook his head.

He had chosen Metal on a whim, and his opponent had most likely chosen water on a whim as well. When they collided, the Water element was empowered by the Metal element, making the water attack come hit him.

'So I not only need to send out an attack, but I also have to be careful of what I send out, huh?' he thought.

This felt like a Rock-Paper-Scissor challenge in a sense. From what he could guess since each attack had the same power, each element of the same strength, there was going to be 3 results for each interaction possible.

First, his energy would Empower his opponent's, giving his opponent the point.

Second, his energy would Ruin his opponent's, giving him the point.

Finally, they would both choose the same element, and neither of them would get a point.

'But this is definitely not luck based,' he thought. 'Such high into the tower, they are definitely expecting at least some of us to be able to do something.'

Alex suddenly felt a spiritual sense barely lingering around him, not trying to alert him at all. However, he could still sense it rather easily.

'Right, we can check what the other person is going to choose too,' Alex thought. It wasn't a game of elements at all. It was a game of knowing your opponent's next move.

An illusory hourglass appeared in front of them suddenly. "If you don't fire off another attack within this time, you won't be able to fire one at all," the voice said.

Alex saw the sand fall through the hourglass and smiled. 'So it's a game to see who can remain unmoving the longest too,' he thought.

His Elemental Interaction understanding wasn't very useful here, but he didn't care for that. He was having fun.

He openly let his spiritual sense spread around his opponent's podium, letting them know that he was seeing their every move.

His opponent did the same. The both of them waited until the last grain of sand fell from the hourglass.

Then, without having any time to think, they randomly activated two of the formations.

Two white blobs of attacks flew at each other and slammed. A flash of green shined, and it landed on the opponent's podium this time around, giving Alex a point.

Alex smiled. He had gotten lucky.

Still, that made his opponent hesitate a little. They couldn't help but wonder if that had been intentional.

This was definitely a mind game.

Alex decided to have some more fun. He decided to take it a little further.

Suddenly, he took in his spiritual sense, letting his opponent see everything clearly without any obstruction. His opponent on the other hand couldn't help but be surprised that he wasn't looking at what he was choosing at all.

And that made them suspicious.

Alex had both his hands on the podium, ready to press one of the buttons there. Then, he looked towards the hourglass that flipped again.

They were on a timer once more.

He looked straight at his opponent, smiling in the process. His hands were on the podium, but his spiritual sense was nowhere.

His opponent was sure that he couldn't see what they were going to choose at all, but they couldn't help but be hesitant about what Alex was doing.

Still, as the timer reached nearly zero, they pressed something, and their podium attacked.

Alex pressed something as well, attacking back. A flash of red shined and the opponent was hit again.

"What?!" his opponent couldn't help but shout in surprise. "How did you know?"

Alex smiled, saying nothing.

He waited for the timer to start again, and when it hit nearly zero, as soon as his opponent's attack was released, he pressed one of the formations.

With a flash of blue, his opponent lost again.

His opponent couldn't understand at all. They had no idea what was happening.

Alex was having the time of his life as his demon eyes saw everything from the movement of the grain of sand to the color of the attack that was launched.

He didn't even need to know what was pressed as he always did know, just by what the attack was.

His decision to take back his spiritual sense was just to screw with his opponent's understanding of how he was doing this, and that was enough to make his opponent wonder if he was cheating.

A few minutes later, he won and went back to his spot.

'That was rather fun,' he thought. 'It would be more fun if we could truly make it random.'

Of course, in a competitive situation, no one was going to agree to play fair with him. And neither had he.

3 more games were played, some of which were rather close, unlike his.

Then, he was called once again, to fight another of that had won. He easily won against that person without messing up a single time.

Once he had won twice, he was sent to the upper floor.

Alex arrived on the floor and paused. He realized that he was the first one to arrive here.

'Just 2 more floors,' he thought. After he was done with this and the 39th floor, he would be able to enter the 40th floor, from which point on it was all solo challenges. Then, he was going to easily win it all.

Alex looked at the only 2 rooms that were usable and obviously chose the first one to the left.

He went there and started waiting, and sometime later, the other winner from his previous challenge came as well.

Together, they had to wait for the next 30 days before the 8 spots were all filled up and the challenge was ready to begin.

"This is a painting challenge," the voice said. "Please draw on the canvas in front of you the best painting you can within the hour. Every color you need can be changed using the formation."

Alex looked at the white canvas in front of him and a few brushes next to it. Then, to the side, there was a small formation that glowed with a soft black color.

'Why painting?' he thought. He felt somewhat annoyed. 'I've never painted at all.'

Still, since that was the challenge, he had to do it. He sighed and thought of a scene to draw. He remembered the view he saw, standing in the middle of one of the flower fields in the Forbidden Orchard, and started drawing that.

He could freely change the color he needed for the scene with just a simple movement on the formation next to him, and with that, he didn't even need to dip the brush in paint, like he knew painters did.

However, all the features wouldn't stop him from making the art appear very ugly. He had absolutely no idea how drawings were even made in the first place.

"That's as good as I can do in the first round I guess," he thought and stopped painting.

The 1-hour timer ended, and everyone's painting on the canvas suddenly vanished. Instead, it was replaced by 7 other smaller paintings.

"Rank the paintings you see in front of you from 1 to 7. 1 is the best, and 7 is the worst," the voice said. "You may write the number on the painting itself."

Alex nodded and looked through the paintings.

'Damn,' he thought. At least half of the paintings there were better than his. What the hell had he even done this past hour to come up with such a bad painting as his?

He was definitely going to get last place, wasn't he?

Once he ranked the pictures in front of him, the paintings were showcased in the middle, with everyone's overall ranking.

He came 7th.

2 of the 8 people were sent to the next floor, while Alex had to now wait for 2 more people to come in before they started the next round.

2 days passed and the next 2 people were here. Everyone was told the same thing again and this time, Alex decided to go with something a little less complex than a flower field. That had too many colors for him.

He decided to go with something just black and white.

He thought of another scenery. 7 frozen mountain peaks that were illuminated by the silver moonlight.

He drew it as carefully as he could. In the end, it came out as garbage once again.

He failed this round as well.

The final round started 3 days later, and Alex drew the scene of Pearl breaking through to the saint realm in the Lightning Tribulation.

He managed to get to the 5th place this time around, but that wasn't enough at all.

With 3 losses, he was unfortunately sent back to the first floor.