Time passed, but Alex couldn't tell how much. His perception of time had been muddled as he fully focused on bringing himself back to his proper condition.
Slowly cultivating, he had come to understand just how bad the possession had left him with.
Torn muscles, splintered tendons, and even fractured bones seemed to have been a side effect of the possession. Fortunately, he had solved most of the immediate problems with his pills.
However, the latent problem of his body being drained out of itself wasn't something he could fix immediately.
As he cultivated, his meridians slowly started healing. From being a third of the original size, they opened to be half the original size.
If he continued, he would surely bring them back to their proper size in no time.
'I will have to cultivate for a long while now,' he thought.
Once he was well enough that he didn't have to focus on cultivating itself, he decided to go and check the other problem he might have missed in his spiritual sea.
With a thought, he appeared inside his spiritual sea, floating atop the sea, looking at the massive mountain that floated in front of him.
The minute threads of silver light floated all around him, giving him a bit of a shock.
"So many," he thought. "This much amount… has it already been 2 days since I started cultivating? Maybe more?"
Hundreds of such threads floated aimlessly around the giant silver mountain which didn't seem to have lost any of itself at all.
'Just how many threads can this thing even produce?' Alex thought. He was used to absorbing anything in this place to gain more mental strength, but somehow this was the only thing he couldn't absorb at all.
He had to wait for the wisps of light to float away from the mountain before he could absorb it.
"Well, that's not the only thing I can't absorb now," Alex thought and made his way towards the floating piece of spherical crystal that was not far away from the mountain.
Alex went up to it and grabbed it.
He felt something viscous black goop coming out of it, coloring it black again.
He willed a little bit of yellow fog to appear on his hands and burned it away.
Finally, the crystal was clear once again.
Alex hadn't had the time to look at it previously, so he brought it up to his eyes and looked at it.
The crystal was mostly colorless aside from the slight bluish hue to its body. At around the size of his fist, maybe a little larger, the crystal ball looked completely normal.
However, Alex knew it was anything but.
He could feel life inside of it, which was something he hadn't sensed since Zexi had tried to look at the… clone's memories.
'I'm still having trouble coming to terms with it,' he thought. For nearly 7 months now, he had slowly come to terms with the knowledge that he was a clone.
And yet, suddenly learning that he wasn't one and was actually the real Alex was… certainly confusing.
Just then, he noticed something inside the crystal that he hadn't seen earlier.
At the center of the crystal was a small black… flame?
Alex couldn't tell what it was at all. Sometimes it looked like a flame, but then it would change to liquid. Not long after it would turn solid and then suddenly vanish, making it seem like there was nothing in there to begin with.
That… was very weird.
"I can make you strong, boy," a voice came from deep within the crystal ball.
Alex was a little surprised to hear it. He didn't think it was still conscious enough to talk.
"So you are alive," Alex said, after realizing he was correct.
"I can make you strong. Stronger than anything you can think of," the crystal ball said again.
"Don't bother. Your temptation only worked because I was in a desperate situation. Now that I am free, it won't work on me."
"Still, thank you for saving me from that situation," Alex said.
The Crystal ball didn't speak for a while. Alex waited for a while and it finally said, "you really are unique. Your… soul is quite strong. Who are you?"
"Just a normal person on the path of cultivation," Alex said.
"Hah! You are anything but normal," the crystal said.
"Who are you, then?" Alex asked.
"I am GODSLAYER!" the crystal spoke with a really loud sound.
Alex frowned a little. That name was… he didn't like it for some reason. Probably because his constitution contained the word 'God'.
He then asked, "What are you?"
"Hmph! Filthy backwater mortals. They can't even tell what they're looking at," Godslayer said.
Alex suddenly brought out the yellow fog and started burning the crystal again, hoping it would work this time.
It did work… for a few seconds before the black flame-liquid thingy returned to the middle of the crystal.
"HAHAHA! You can't kill me. I'm immortal. All the gods will die before I ever do," the crystal spoke.
Alex was surprised at this. He didn't know if it was because he was currently weak or if the crystal was speaking the truth, but… it really didn't seem like it would die.
"Tell me clearly, what are you?" Alex asked.
"Tsk, you backwater folk won't even know what I am even if I tell you," the crystal said.
"Are you an Artifact Spirit?" Alex asked suddenly.
"What?" the Crystal sounded surprised. "How do you know about that?"
"I guessed," Alex said. He had remembered a conversation with Lady Ren where she talked about the Artifact spirit inside the Ebony sword that belonged to the Eastern Continent.
At that time, one of the saint beasts had asked if that sword was similar to the other one.
Given that this was the only other sword Alex had seen in the storage room, he guessed as such.
"So, Artifact spirits can actually talk and even take over people, huh?" Alex asked.
"Of course not," the Crystal sounded offended. "Only I can do that. I, alone am the greatest Artifact and artifact spirit ever created. I was crafted by the best to slay gods. What other spirit could stand up to me."
Alex narrowed his eyes listening to the crystal. "You call yourself Godslayer, but have you really killed any gods?"
"Of course," the crystal spoke. "I've killed many."
"I killed the Artifact god, the Spear god, the Fire God, the Alchemy god. I even killed the Swift god, although killing him was pretty hard with how fast he moved."
"It was only because the Sword G—"
"Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait! You killed… the Alchemy god?" Alex asked with wide eyes. This was the first time he had even heard someone else use the name 'Alchemy god' aside from the manual he had gotten.
"Of course. Killing him was very hard, but I did it," the artifact spirit said.
Alex's mind started swirling with thoughts he couldn't put together. "Who… was the Alchemy god?" he asked.
"One of the vermin that shouldn't have been alive in the first place," the Crystal said.
"Answer me properly," Alex demanded.
"I don't know who he was. Do you think I care about his name? I just fought with him and killed him because he dared to call himself a God."
