Eternal Cultivation of Alchemy

Alex hadn't expected to find a Fire Coral in this area of the sea at all. But then again, being a coral, this would be where it would grow.

Surprisingly, he didn't know much about Fire Coral. The only information he did have in his mind was that it was an incredible Fire Elemental treasure and that it grew on the ocean floor around locations with intense fire aura.

'There must be a magma vein around this area then,' Alex thought, and just as he presumed, he found it close by. The Coral drew in the fire aura from that magma vein and used it to grow itself.

The Fire Coral was tiny in comparison to the several regular corals in the coral reefs Alex had seen on the way, with a somewhat glowing red body. It stuck out from the ground, a single coral with many tentacles clumped together and moving around in the water.

'Incredible,' Alex thought. 'I can finally make the pill.'

He quickly dove even further down below, moving toward the coral. By now, he was several kilometers underwater and the pressure was starting to become more than just a small annoyance.

He was going to have to be a bit more careful.

As he dove down, a sense of unease filled Alex. 'Where is the beast around this area?' he thought. This was clearly a territory of something, and yet Alex couldn't find it anywhere.

'Is it hiding itself?' Alex wondered. If it was hiding itself, then Alex would have to find it before it managed to land a sneak attack on him. He was in no mood to be surprised.

'With such an incredible treasure right here, there has to be something here protecting it,' Alex thought. He knew he had caught onto the beast's plan. It wasn't going to catch him off guard.

However, even when he was just a small distance away from the Fire Coral, nothing appeared.

Alex frowned a little. 'Was I wrong?' he wondered. 'No, I can't doubt my instincts. Something has to be here.' Yet the eerie silence of the darkness underwater lingered with only the Fire Coral being a singular beacon of light down there.

Alex waited some more time and slowly closed in on the coral while constantly being ready for the attack. He sent his spiritual sense through the sand beneath him and the water around him to keep a lookout.

Then, he got closer to the Fire Coral, his hands right next to it, ready to grab it. 'So there's nothing?' Alex thought. There was no point in delaying it any longer in that case.

Alex grabbed onto the Fire Coral, and then the Coral exploded.

Alex felt the shockwave shake his organs while the explosion tore away the arm. The amount of water displaced by that explosion was high and the heat alone had caused enough steam to create a giant pocket around the coral without water.

Alex looked at his arm in shock or what was left of it. Everything from the elbow down had been gone, decimated, and the portions above them weren't in much better condition either.

His Undying Physique worked to heal him, but that did not send away the pain he felt from losing his arm just then.

'What the…' Alex found it hard to believe what had just happened. Had the Coral just attacked him? 'A defense mechanism?' he wondered.

Just as he wondered the Coral glowed bright red and its tentacles suddenly grew out around it, leaving behind boiling water wherever it passed.

That was when Alex finally sensed something that the Coral had been doing its best to hide.

A cultivation base.

The Fire Coral had a cultivation base of Saint Transformation's 4th realm.

'Of course,' Alex thought as everything started making sense for him. 'No wonder there was so little information about it. It's not a plant. It's an animal.'

That was the reason for the lack of beasts around this area too. Alex had assumed the treasure to have a guardian protecting it. What he had not guessed was that the treasure was also the guardian itself.

'And it's a damn strong one,' Alex thought.

Now that he knew more about the Fire Coral, killing it and taking it away felt a little wrong. "Let's not fight," Alex said quickly. "Can we talk instead?"

Dozens of fiery tentacles fluttered around the coral, each tentacle glowing on the ground as it passed close by. "What is there to talk about?" the Coral asked sending a mental answer. "You were here to try and take me away."

"I was," Alex answered. "But that was before I knew you could talk back. I don't want to kill someone who only wants to do nothing but defend themselves."

The only thing the Coral had done was explode when he tried to touch it, so it didn't feel right for Alex to just attack the thing. Every other beast he had killed the last few days had been one that had been overconfident and wanted to hurt him first.

This was different.

The coral didn't immediately answer. "Then will you just leave?" he asked.

"Unfortunately, that will be difficult too," Alex said. "Now that I've found you, leaving here without—"

"I've heard enough!"

The Coral wasted no time and attacked. 3 tentacles lashed out strongly, blocking paths of escape for Alex.

Alex struck out with Midnight, sending an attack with Sword Aura that cut through the 3 tentacles that were coming for him. The fiery tentacles dissipated after being cut, with the remnant growing back to full a short moment later.

Alex attacked before the Coral could respond again, sending another attack at the Coral.

The Fire Coral put out all of its tentacles to block and lost a couple of them while doing so. They took some time to grow back, but they didn't wait and attacked with the remaining tentacles.

'It can't move,' Alex realized. The Coral was stuck to its original location and was incapable of changing its location. So, the best it could do was defend when instead it needed to run away.

Alex could exploit this.

He swam back away from the Coral's reach and prepared his nameless attack. The coral frantically tried to attack Alex, but its attack wasn't strong enough to cause him anything more than annoyance once they made their way through the water and struck his body.

After the first explosion, Alex had been constantly enforcing his body with his Qi, so his defense was quite high.

He ignored what little discomfort, or even pain he felt from the attacks, and then finally released his attack.

The only thing to reveal the existence of Alex's attack was the torn space it left while it passed through the water.

The Coral hadn't even realized what had happened when its giant tentacles were cut down, the fire in them dissipating.

Then, they struck its body to the side, cutting off a few tentacles from its physical body.

The Coral realized it was in danger and prepared what Immortal Qi it had to get ready to attack. However, before it could do anything with it, Alex arrived right next to it and grabbed onto the floating tentacles before teleporting away.

Before the Coral realized what had happened, Alex had already gone far away.