Eternal Cultivation of Alchemy

Alex sat in the audience seat for the first time since the tournament's start, and only now did he get to see the other perspective of the competition. The sudden cheering and shouting were something fun and not so stressful as when you were part of the competition.

Down on the stage were two giant pedestals created to put the interview more at an eye line for everyone.

At the moment, the one being interviewed was a middle-aged man in his late Immortal Transcendent realm, someone Alex didn't remember much about. He had to be talented to get this far, but he was still quite forgettable overall.

As for the one interviewing, it was a middle-aged woman with a not-so-stunning face and hair for a god. What she did have was a fabulous cloak made out of thin iridescent pieces of wood, made to look like dragon scales.

They had arrived in the middle of the interview, so Alex hadn't managed to catch her name. But he didn't need to wait long to find out who she was when there were tens of thousands of people calling out her name every so often.

The Puppet God.

Alex counted how many gods this made in total. With the Alchemy God, Formation God, Artifact God, Winter God, Poison God, Archery God, and now the Puppet God, he had seen 7 gods in total.

A question burned in him now; one that he wasn't sure if he should ask while here.

"Why Alchemy?" the Puppet God asked the alchemist. "Why not anything else?"

The man began answering how his father was an alchemist as well, and one of the only good ones in his city. So he was swamped with work and thus didn't have much time for his family. So, as a kid, the only time he did have to spend with his father was when he helped him with his alchemy sessions.

That was where the man's love had begun, and that was when he decided to become and alchemist and help people like his father..

"I hope your story is equally as heartwarming," Silvermist said from the side.

"I'm not sure what I can say that will make it heartwarming, but I'll try," Alex said with a smile.

As the interview continued, Alex was a little bored from the simple questions and answers, so he turned toward Grimsight.

"Senior Grimsight, do you mind if I ask a question about gods?" he asked.

Silvermist turned toward him with a clear expression of ordering him to stop whatever he was going to do.

Grimsight paused for a moment and nodded. "If the question is personal to any god, don't ask it. If not, go ahead."

"I don't think it's personal," Alex said. "I just wanted to ask how many there are."

Silvermist relaxed when he heard the question. No god would get angry at that question—even if they did hear it.

"I do not know how many there are at the moment, or who they are even," Grimsight said. "I do not keep track of all the changes."

"Oh," Alex said, a little disappointed to not get an actual answer.

"But," Grimsight continued. "There should be 33 gods in total if all things are going right."

"'Should be'?" Alex asked with a curious look. Pearl and Momo turned with curious expressions of their own.

Silvermist turned to look at Grimsight too. "What do you mean by that? Is that deliberate?"

"Yes," Grimsight nodded. "If everything is going right, there should be 33. As for how many there really are, Her Greatness can tell you."

Alex furrowed his brows. "Her Greatness?" he asked.

"Yes, there are 33 of us right now," a voice answered from behind their seats.

Everyone but Grimsight turned around and was surprised to see the Archery God sitting behind them. None of them had noticed how she had come there without their knowledge, or how long it had been.

"Y—"
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Alex and the rest were about to respectfully greet her when they found their words stuck in their throats.

"No one knows who I am," Killshot said. "Let's keep it that way, shall we?"

Once everyone nodded, the grasp around their voices lifted, and they could finally speak.

"So it is 33 right now, huh?" Grimsight said. "Well, as expected of the time of peace."

"Yeah, the last god we had was the Alchemy God and the Sword God. No one else has been deified since then," Killshot said.

Silvermist and Alex slowly nodded, simply taking in the information. Grimsight, on the other hand, frowned.

"There is a new Sword God?" he asked.

"Yes. He's such a nice guy. You will love him," Killshot said with the thickest filling of sarcasm she could muster.

"Don't try to get me into trouble, Your Greatness," Grimsight said. "Or I might just have to openly beg you not to."

"Tsk!" Killshot moved away from the topic of the Sword God.

Alex, however, found it a little difficult to move on. There was something here that bothered him, but he couldn't make sense of it so easily. What was it?

All of his thoughts went away when he processed what the conversation had moved on to. Something about the fact that they might have to start looking for another god.

'Another god?' Alex wondered why that was.

"Find another god?" Grimsight asked. "That only happens when a god dies. Has one died recently?"

Killshot shrugged. "Might as well have died. We don't know what is up with the Divination God. Haven't seen him for the longest time. As in long before the war even ended. We've tried having other people find his location, but no one can."

"At first, we thought he was hiding, but now we're starting to believe that he might really be dead," she said.

"I see. So regardless of his living status, you must now find another one," Grimsight said with a deliberate pause in the middle.

"That's the plan, I believe," Killshot said. "I don't know if they will do it though. It's hard to find someone as good as the Divination God, though."

Alex and Pearl did an excellent job of showing a look of incredulity on their faces, hiding every single other emotion that could have let their truth slip.

They knew where the Divination God was, and the truth was he wasn't here. He wasn't in this universe. Along with the Godkiller, he had left for another world.

But that wasn't something they could casually reveal to this god. In fact, Alex began thinking of other things to not let anyone read his mind at the moment. It would be troublesome if someone did.

"Once they find the replacement, there truly will be 33 gods again, huh?" Grimsight said. "I don't think there have been exactly 33 in hundreds of thousands of years."

"Yeah. Between the war and… that other thing, it's been difficult to reach that number for quite some time," Killshot said. "Finally, we might have it."

Silvermist was just as curious as Alex now. "Why 33? Is there a reason for that specific number, Your Greatness?" he asked.

Killshot simply shrugged. "Because there are 33 Immortal worlds in total. One god for each world."