Rise of the Alchemy God

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Ethan had simply thought that if his spiritual sense based on positive energy wasn't working, perhaps the one relying on negative energy might work.

After all, the sensation he was experiencing felt as though spiritual energy wasn't in its usual sphere of influence, which made it impossible for him to use it here.

He wasn't entirely sure how to describe the situation, but trying wouldn't hurt.

Even if it didn't work, that would be fine; after all, he still had his own strength. He could fly, explore the area, and so on.

What was initially just a guess turned out to be correct. Ethan could immediately perceive the vastness of this land.

His demonic sense, as he decided to call it, traveled rapidly in all directions, covering an increasingly wide radius.

One mile, two miles, three... six miles.

At first, Ethan expected that the place he had ended up in was a part of a continent or something similar.

But soon, he realized that the total dimensions of this so-called piece of land were only six miles, and not uniformly so.

It was six miles in length and a little over four miles in width.

The shape of the landmass was irregular for obvious reasons, but the issue was that this piece of land didn't have anything else beyond itself.

In the sense that there was no sea not ahead, not around it, not even underneath.

It was as though this piece of land was floating in a void, and he said "void" because he could literally perceive nothing else.

"What kind of place have I ended up in?" he thought as he continued to expand his sense to see if he could detect anything else. And then...

'Are those... chains?'

Ethan kept expanding his sense and soon discovered that the piece of land to the east of where he was located was connected to what appeared to be gigantic chains stretching forward for several miles.

He wasn't sure what was at the other end of these chains, but he decided to try and find out.

At that moment, as he was expanding his sense further and further, an oppressive presence seemed to notice his spiritual sense. The moment Ethan sensed the existence of this entity, he stopped immediately.

'That thing is stronger than me,' he thought, instantly perceiving the vast difference in power between himself and the presence he had just felt.

He knew that, unlike the stages of the mortal realm, where even if the gap in strength was significant, it was nothing compared to the disparity between stages in the spiritual realm.

In fact, even within the first stage, the increase in power between grades was substantial, and according to Bai Yu, the difference between stages was even greater.

It was so vast that even for an anomaly like Ethan, who could fight against someone one or two stages higher than him, it would now be problematic to do so.

The presence he had just felt possessed a level of power many times greater than his. Even though he wasn't sure precisely what level it was at, he could tell it wasn't just stage three or four.

'did I just risk dying?' he thought, acknowledging his mistake.

He had thought that probing the area with his spiritual sense wouldn't be anything too dangerous, but he had forgotten that he was no longer in the mortal realm but in the spiritual realm instead.

He still knew too little about this cultivation realm, and this, combined with the fact that he was in an unknown land where demonic Qi seemed to be the functioning energy, made it easy to understand that this place was extremely dangerous.

He wasn't sure if the other party had pinpointed his location, so he decided to move away from here while suppressing his presence to avoid being tracked.

He disappeared and reappeared in a small grove a few miles away from where he had been before.

He had decided to come here because earlier, while examining the area, he had discovered that there was a small town nearby. So, he decided to head directly there and see what he could learn about this place. After all, even though the place seemed to be floating in a void, it still contained life. He might be able to discover something about this place and perhaps even find a way out.

From then on, he walked, as he had sensed the presence of what seemed to be guards near the town.

When he had first noticed their presence, he hadn't paid much attention, as he had been scanning the area as a whole and hadn't bothered to examine every detail. But now that he felt their presence again, he could tell that these guards were all at the third stage, and some were even at the fourth stage of the mortal realm.

"For a town, they certainly have a lot of high-level experts," he thought.

He would have expected this level of security only in a high-level sect.

In fact, not even high-level sects in the mortal realm had guards of this level.

At most, they would have cultivators at stages one and two. But stage three and above? That was too strong for mere guard duties. Yet here, it seemed that these power levels weren't given much significance.

'I really need to find time to deal with those three,' he thought, recalling that he might be able to gain a better understanding if he took care of the three demons defeated by his clone, who were currently sealed and stored in his minor dimension.

Just as he was a little over a mile away from the town's entrance, Ethan sensed presences approaching his location.

He had already felt these presences some time ago but had ignored them since they weren't on his path. He did, however, wonder why their movements were so irregular. Now, it seemed that they had ended up heading in his direction.

He didn't bother changing direction and continued walking forward.

Finally, after a few more seconds, he heard noises coming from one side of the forest, and soon a small figure emerged.

When Ethan saw the small figure, he couldn't help but notice her rather poor condition. He could tell that she was a young human girl, probably no more than fifteen years old.

'Hm? she's not human,' he thought, noticing a particular detail he had almost overlooked earlier.

The slim figure, slightly malnourished as though she hadn't been properly fed for some time now, had silver hair cascading over her shoulders, a small, delicate face that was slightly gaunt with dark circles under her emerald-like eyes, and most importantly, on the sides of her head, she had two long, pointed ears.

Ethan recalled that even Bai Yu had slightly pointed ears, but he knew that was one of the traits of her human form.

He remembered almost mistaking her for an elf once.

But this girl was clearly not from the beast race.n/ô/vel/b//jn dot c//om

"Is she an elf?"