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Chapter 129: Senior Brother
Alex looked at the badge numbered 168 and kept it in his storage bag.
"Argghh…" he softly cried in pain. "Goddammit that hurt," he said as he held his left arm that he was sure was broken even without looking at it. Although it hadn't looked like it, he had taken quite a bit of damage.
He took out a Common Healing pill of 38% harmony and ate it. Slowly, he felt the energy from the pill dissolve in his stomach and move all over his body as it healed what was harmed. His broken arm quickly got fixed as the energy washed over the left arm. He felt a bit of energy disappear when it reached his wound, but most of it still continued onward.
Sun God's Divine body disintegrates everything
Common Healing Pill's energy aligns with your spiritual roots
You have obtained 26,000 Qi
"Ah… that's much better." He said in relief as the pain went away. "I probably should have used the Flickering Shadow technique, but I don't want to reveal it yet. Thankfully, I learned the Jade Skin technique."
Jade Skin technique, a defensive technique, was one of the 7 techniques that Wen Cheng had brought for him. Although the name of the technique contained Jade, it had no elemental alignment to the Earth element or any elements for that matter.
When used, the Jade Skin technique would increase the defensive capability of the cultivator's skin allowing them to block attacks up to 2 realms higher. But even then, the bone in his arm was broken.
"That man's saber must've at least been a Common Heaven rank artifact to damage by bones through the Jade Skin." Alex had blocked off most of the energy of the saber, but the saber itself had damaged him quite a bit. He had taken the opportunity to dash forward at the time and knock out the unprepared opponent.
"Do I go to master's today as well?" he thought. In the end, he decided to just go. If not needed, he would simply return back to his home.
"Ah, you're here." He heard a sound before he even reached the training facility. "Hmm… why can't I see you thought?" Wen Cheng said as he walked towards him from around the corner.
Alex dropped his invisibility and showed himself to Wen Cheng. He curiously looked at Wen Cheng and asked, "Did you unlock spiritual sense, master?"
"Oh yes. It's all thanks to you. Hmm… why were you invisible just then? Is that a sort of technique?" he asked.
"Yes. It's a technique I learned a few weeks ago." He simply said as he walked towards the training facility.
"Okay, what ranking are you now? Did you improve at all?" Wen Cheng asked as he also went to the training facility.
"Uhhh…" Alex was a little stumped as to what he could say right now. "I… spent the entire day cultivating my spiritual sense master. I only fought one match to get back my badge." He decided to lie a little.
"Oh, you have a spiritual sense too? How many lilies did you use?" he asked.
"Huh?" Alex got a little surprised. "How many? Don't you only need one lily to unlock Spiritual Sense? Why would I use more than one?" he asked.
"Oh, is that what the records in Hong Wu Sect say? Haha," Wen Cheng gave a hearty laugh and followed it by saying, "No. While it is true that you require one to unlock your Spiritual sense. Using more, you can increase your spiritual sea and thus improving your spiritual sense."
Alex was surprised. "Thank you, Master. For telling me about it."
"It's alright. I have already used 2 and given 1 to your senior sister. I don't know how many you have, but if it's possible, save one for your senior brother as well. He might want it as well?" Wen Cheng said.
"Senior brother? I have one?" Alex said in surprise.
"Hmm… he didn't introduce himself to you? But he should have already met you. He became an elder a few years ago, and is currently working in the sect as the leader of the guards," said Wen Cheng.
"Leader of guards? Him? He is my senior brother?" Alex asked with a surprise.
"Yeah. I even gave him the sword to pass along to you. That damn boy should have introduced himself. Anyway, if you can save some lilies, save one for him too,' said Wen Cheng as he walked into the training facility.
"By the way, why haven't you taken off your changed appearance yet?" he asked.
"I don't know how to, so I have been wearing it for now. It should wear off in 7 hours though," said Alex.
"I see. I thought you alchemists would know about reverting the changes, but it seems I was wrong. Or maybe 2 weeks just isn't long enough for you to learn it. As Ma Rong about it when you enter. For now, let's proceed with the training. Since we missed yesterday, you can take a new book today out of these 4." Wen Cheng said as he brought the 4 books out from his storage bag.
Of the 4 books, one was a defense technique, while the others were offensive techniques. Alex decided to choose an offensive one today. He didn't have any offensive technique that he couldn't use without his sword, so he decided to learn one that didn't require a sword.
It was a metal-aligned fist technique that could be used from a long-distance away. He happily learned the book for the rest of the night and went back to his home at 3 am.
He took out a Spirit Cleansing Lily and tried it to see if it could indeed increase his spiritual sea just as the master said. He looked at the red flower in his hand. 'They are never the same color, are they?' he slowly closed his eyes and started to cultivate. Soon, he fell into a trance and went unconscious.
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Chapter 130: Battle of the minds
A red spot of light started floating from the brightly lit red flower in Alex's hands. They slowly entered his body, mixing into his bloodstream through his lungs, and went up to his brain. There, the little spots of lights started merging with the already available spiritual sea.
Little by little, the spiritual sea started to expand. By the end, the flower was completely gone, and the spiritual sea had nearly doubled in size.
Near 7 am in the morning, Alex opened his eyes. He looked down at his hands and realized that the flower was no longer there. "Did I use it?" he wondered. He sent out his spiritual sense to see how far he could reach with it. To his disappointment, it was still at 20 meters.
"But the spiritual sea has clearly gotten bigger. Why can't I expand my spiritual sense then?" he wondered. He tried different things like concentrating on multiple objects, sending out the spiritual sense as far as he could, and trying to deplete it to see how fast the sea would reduce.
'Hmm…' he hummed as he realized something. While his ability to concentrate on multiple things was still the same and the maximum distance he could stretch was still 30 meters, he could now keep the spiritual sense going on for double the previous time. Basically, his amount of spiritual sense had doubled.
'Oh wow, that means I don't really have to worry about it ending, huh,' he thought. Suddenly, he also realized, "Does that mean I can use Heaven's Impact 8 different times instead of just four times now?" he wondered. Unfortunately, he didn't have anyone he could try it on.
After checking his spiritual sense and spiritual sea for a little more, he decided to leave for breakfast. After half an hour or so, he finally returned back to the game.
As soon as he returned, he shouted "status". His status window appeared in front of him allowing him to view his current amounts of Qi.
"Enough to breakthrough once more, huh. I should be good enough to break through now." As he said that, he hit [Breakthrough].
Congratulations. You have broken through to 'Bone Tempering: 9th Realm'
————————
[Player Name: Yu Ming
Cultivation: Bone Tempering 9th Realm (1,000,000 Qi : 100%) [Breakthrough]
Body: Sun God's Divine Yang Body
Talent: God
Spiritual Roots: 5 elements Yin-Yang roots
Cultivation Method: Starry Sky Qi Absorption Method
Qi: 219,588
]
—————————
"Urghh… it's going to take forever to break through if I just use the cultivation method. I will have to resort to eating pills and cores now." Alex said as he shook his head. The upcoming breakthroughs were going to take forever, but with the right pills and cores, that shouldn't be a problem.
He reached into his bag and took out a monster's core. It was from a monster with the cultivation of Bone Tempering 9th realm, the same as his. He looked at it and ate it.
Sun God's Divine Yang Body disintegrates everything
The monster core's element aligns with your spirit root
You have gained 340,000 Qi
"Sigh. That's barely any. I will have to eat 2 more of these just to have enough to level up. Thankfully, my senior sister gave me a lot so I can just use them." He thought himself lucky when he realized he wouldn't have to waste days on end, just sitting in one place, cultivating.
He reached back into his storage bag and took out another core. This time, it was the core of a monster in the 1st realm of Organ tempering. Just like the last time, he put the core into his mouth and swallowed it.
Rawr!!
A beastly scream rang inside of him. He saw the silhouette of a monster with 8 legs and 2 horns that liked to crawl around like an alligator. The beast's roar started creating turbulences in his head as the spiritual sea started splashing around.
Alex suddenly found himself in another place. He tried to look around with his spiritual sense and realized he couldn't use it. So, he simply just looked around. It didn't take him long to realize he was inside his mind floating on top of the dark and cold-looking spiritual sea.
The only thing he could see around was himself with no clothes on, the sea itself, and a weird-looking figure up ahead. It was the figure of the same alligator. It was somehow in his head as well.
The alligator came lunging towards him with all of its 8 legs and tried to impale him with its 2 horns. Alex instinctively reached to his side to take out his sword and remembered that he didn't have his storage bags with him.
"Sh*t," he shouted. The alligator was still quite far away as it seemed to be very slow for some reason.
'Is it slow, or am I just fast?' Alex wondered. Since he had no weapons, he could only hit it with his arms and legs. And he had just learned the perfect technique for that.
The technique was called the Iron Fist Punch and allowed one to send out a punch with massive energy behind it. Being a heaven-grade technique, it was not something the opponents could easily ignore.
Alex brought his arms to a fist and out of nowhere, his fist started glowing yellow. He simply punched and a massive yellow fist-shaped energy flew out from his arms. It flew directly towards the alligator and hit it squarely in the head.
"Take that," Alex said as his first proper usage of the fist technique had landed. However, when he saw the Alligator moving again, he was surprised.
The alligator seemed to be a little hurt, but it still had a lot of fight in it. "Goddammit," Alex said as he went forward to accept the fight. Surprisingly, he realized that he could use all the techniques without care for Qi as they seemed to not use any.
He sent out punches after punches with the Iron Fist Punch and used the Elusive Heaven Technique to dodge the alligator's attack. The only thing he couldn't do in his mind was conceal himself and use his spiritual sense.
After a while of tumultuous fighting, he finally managed to beat the alligator and with a final Iron Fist Punch, killed it.
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Chapter 131: Meeting Senior Brother Again
Alex looked at the alligator's corpse in front of him, still somehow floating in the air, just like him.
"It was too weak. There is no way that was an Organ tempering realm monster right?' he thought. He instinctively related the monster to the monster core he had just eaten.
The battle had taken a while, but that was just due to how tough the alligator was. Its actual offensive capability or speed was nowhere near the level of what an organ tempering realm monster should have been able to do.
Suddenly, a yellow aura started to leak out from under the sea. It started off slow near a small shadow, but by the time it reached him, it had sped up by a lot. The yellow aura consumed both him and the corpse in front of him.
Alex realized that he was back in his body and wasn't in his mind anymore. Out of nowhere, a couple of notifications started popping up before him.
Sun God's Divine Yang Body disintegrates everything
The monster core's element aligns with your spirit root
You have gained 680,000 Qi
'What was that?' he started wondering. That fight was in his mind, but it felt so… Real. Almost like he would die if we weren't careful. 'Was that monster real? Did I really fight it? Why in my spiritual sea though?' many questions started running in his mind, but there wasn't anyone who he could ask about it.
He looked at the time and realized he had spent nearly 15 minutes fighting that monster in his mind. He simply shook his head wondering if that had something to do with his body.
'Since it's my body, I should try asking master just in case he knows about it,' Alex thought. He took a deep breath and decided to forget about it for now.
'Do I have to fight today?… No, today is Sunday, so everyone is free to do what they want. I should go and make some pills today.' He thought. 'But before that, I have something else to do.'
Alex got up from his bed and walked out. He walked out to the sounds of numerous noises from the area. Since no one had to go to the sect crater today, they were spending most of their time on the residential mountain.
Alex walked out of the sideways path and walked down the main path towards the main road. He walked up to the gate, however, instead of walking out, he went up to a guard.
"Hello elder, I am here to see elder Liu Xin, can I meet him?" he asked.
"You want to meet the leader? Do you have an appointment or something?" the guard elder asked.
"No, but the sect master sent me. Can you tell him that Yu Ming has come to see him?" he asked.
The elder was surprised when he heard that it was the sect master who had sent the inner sect disciple. He didn't dare go against the sect leader, so he just walked into the building.
After a while, the elder came back out and said, "the leader is waiting for you inside, go."
Alex thanked the guard elder and walked into the building. He found his way to the familiar room he had entered when he came here.
Inside the room was the young black-haired leader sitting in his chair with his feet on the table. "So, you said you came to see me?" he asked as Alex entered.
"Yes, senior brother," Alex replied. The man's eyes perked up when he heard that. He smiled a little and asked," How did you find out? Did little Mei tell you about me?" he asked.
"No, it was master," Alex replied. The man, Liu Xin, stopped acting like an elder and started acting like an elder brother. "So, did master really send you? He usually just called me in my communication talismans," Liu Xin said as he scrutinized Alex's expressions to see if he was lying or not.
Alex simply said, "No, I needed to meet you so I came up with an acceptable lie."
"Oh, needed? Not wanted? Why would need to meet me? Do you need something? Are you in some sort of trouble?" he asked curiously.
Alex reached into his bag and took out a pink flower. Liu Xin watched him take out the flower with a puzzled face. "What is this?" he asked.
"This is a Spirit Cleansing Lily. Cultivate with this in your hand overnight and you will unlock Spiritual sense," Alex sent the message directly to Liu Xin's head.
Liu Xin was surprised when he heard a voice right in his mind. He asked with wide eyes, "Do you already have a spiritual sense?"
"Yes," Alex replied. Liu Xin was still in awe as he looked at the flower in his hand. Hidden in that awe seemed to be excitement and nervousness.
They talked for a while longer and Alex returned back to his room around 15 minutes later. He logged out a little before lunchtime to talk to the dorm warden about leaving the dorm room.
The dorm warden didn't think much about it and simply noted his name down in his notepad while constantly mumbling, "how many more are going to leave because of that damn game."
Alex was surprised he wasn't the first one to decide to leave the dorm just to play the game. During lunch, he told Logan, Matt, and Eric about his ideas of moving, and surprisingly, they weren't surprised about it.
"Yeah, we are thinking of moving too," said Matt. "But, we will stay as long as possible since staying in a dorm is very much simpler than having your own place and taking care of it. Maybe the dorm will change its policy on the capsules, who knows."
They finished their meals and returned back to the game. Alex opened his eyes inside his room. He looked at his storage bags and started thinking of the many pills he could make.
Finally, after he finished choosing what pills he would make today, he walked out.
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Chapter 132: Production Hall
In a few minutes, Alex reached the sect crater. It was past 10 am in the morning, so there were many people here already. However, no one was in the fighting stages and was here for either getting a new technique from the library, training in the Training Hall, or creating something in the Production hall.
Alex wanted to take pills so he beelined his way to the Production hall. There weren't as many people in the Production Hall as he had expected.
'Maybe I'm just too used to seeing every disciple from the sect come down to make pills back in Hong Wu sect,' he thought.
He walked up and got into a queue. Very soon, it was his turn. He took out his badge and handed it to the elder.
"What are you here for?" the elder asked.
"Alchemy," said Alex as he gave a short and to-the-point answer.
The elder walked to the wall behind him and placed Alex's badge on one of the square outlines in a giant wooden board. A small wooden-token-like object fell from the square where the elder had placed the badge.
He came back and handed the wooden token to Alex and said, "Room 26." He then started tending to the other person in the queue. Alex walked into the hall and looked at the doors around the hallway. They all had numbers in them.
He quickly found his way to the 26th door and saw a small hole in the place where a keyhole should be. Alex slid in the wooden token and with a CLANK, the door opened.
"Oh wow," Alex said as he saw the inside of the room. The room looked exactly the same as the rooms in Alchemy Hall back in the Hong Wu sect.
"Did they copy from Hong Wu Sect?" he wondered. "Or did Hong Wu sect copy from them?" but he didn't need to know that. He went and sat near the middle and put aside the black cauldron that was already there.
He took out his own cauldron and put it down on the fire. It still smelled a little like the Blood Improving Pill he made last time, so he gave it a simple swipe with his Qi to get rid of any remaining odors and powders.
Soon, he started making his different pills. He hadn't made one in about a week, so he started off with something easy. And once he got back his habit, he churned out pills after pills.
Unfortunately, none of the pills he made ever crossed the Heaven-grade threshold. However, they did come very close to it. Two of the pills ended up with 47% and one got 49%.
But that only happened when the pill did not split into 2 different pills. When the powders in the cauldron did split to form two pills, the harmony level would generally stay under 40% for each of the pills.
Only on rare occasions when his ingredients were the right age, or when they had the right amount of energy would he get pills with very high harmony even when it split.
After a few hours, he stopped making the pills as he was mentally fatigued and decided to take a few minutes of break. He looked at all the pills he had made by now.
"Oh wow, 26 pills in just a few hours? I have clearly exceeded my record from last time and I could still go for a few more pills if I wanted to," he thought.
"Is it because I broke through so many times that I have so much more stamina? " He wondered. "I should level up more," he thought. But as he thought that, he shuddered a little as he remembered the fight in his mind this morning.
'Just what was that? Now that I think about it, the aura from the monster was definitely the same as the aura from the monster's core I ate," he thought. "Does that mean that the monster only arrived after I ate it?"
"Could it be the monster was already inside the core and it only came out because I ate the pill? If so then how did I not get them from the other cores I ate until now?" he had unintentionally started thinking of it again.
"Wait for a second, the only difference between the core I ate today and the core I ate before then was that none of the monster's cores before were of the Organ tempering realm."
He waited for a few seconds and thought, "Should I try it again?"
He took out a random monster core from his bag and looked at it. It was a monster core from a Bone Tempering 8th realm monster. Without thinking he put it into his mouth and swallowed it.
Within seconds he got a notification.
Sun God's Divine Yang Body disintegrates everything
The monster core's element aligns with your spirit root
You have gained 109,000 Qi
"So little. Having too many similar strength cores does reduce its efficiency," he thought. Then he reached into his bag and took out another core. This time, it was a core from a monster in the Bone Tempering 9th Realm.
He took the core and put it in his mouth. Similar to every other time, he swallowed the core as if it were a pill and within a
Sun God's Divine Yang Body disintegrates everything
The monster core's element aligns with your spirit root
You have gained 186,000 Qi
"Urghh… it dropped by so much."
He then reached back into his storage bag and took out another core. This time, it was a core from an Organ Tempering 1st realm monster. As he did, a small fear started spurting from deep within him.
"God! Should I do this? What if there really is something inside here and I can't kill it this time." He started worrying. But, in the end, he still needed to know if what happened last time was a coincidence or the norm.
So, he mentally prepared himself, put the core into his mouth, and swallowed.
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Chapter 133: Severe Itching
As soon as he swallowed it, he mentally prepared himself to find himself flying up above his spiritual sea, facing another monster in front of him. However, all he got was a bunch of new notifications.
Sun God's Divine Yang Body disintegrates everything
The monster core's element aligns with your spirit root
You have gained 540,000 Qi
'Huh?' he thought, 'what's going on?'. He saw the notification and was surprised that he just got the points with no problem.
"Was the last time a fluke then?" the thought of it made him scratch his head. "Ok, I will try this one more time and see if it really was a fluke or not. If nothing happens, I will go back to making pills," he said as he pulled out another monster core from his bag.
From the aura, he could easily tell it belonged to an Organ Tempering 1st realm monster. Without thinking, he put the core in his mouth and swallowed. He was half expecting to just see another set of notifications, but instead, he found himself in a familiar place.
'It happened once more,' he was shocked. 'Then that means that in front of me is…' he slowly looked forward to seeing something clearly visible in the otherwise black sky.
The monster was a bull-like monster with tusks. It suddenly saw Alex and started running towards him.
"Still slow for a monster that is supposed to be in the organ tempering realm. I wonder If I am the stronger here or the monsters are just that weaker in my spiritual sea?"
Similar to last time, it took some effort, but he defeated the monster. As he looked at the corpse, his spiritual sea started to glow. Yellow light started shining from the spiritual sea, surrounding a small shadow. The yellow aura started covering everything and just like last time, it devoured both him and the corpse.
Alex found himself back in the alchemy room as a bunch of notifications went off.
Sun God's Divine Yang Body disintegrates everything
The monster core's element aligns with your spirit root
You have gained 425,000 Qi
"So, it wasn't really a mistake, huh. Monsters do show up in my head when I eat the pills," he said as he sighed. "This monster was weak, comparatively, but what would happen if a strong one showed up."
"Would I die if I ate that one core?" he wondered. He sent his consciousness into his storage bags to search for it. He had never really taken it out or done anything with it as he had felt a bit guilty about it, but now he was thankful he didn't.
He quickly found it and took it out. The Mother cat's monster core. A very thick aura started to permeate from the core as it filled up the room.
Alex's body started to shake as he had two different feelings in his mind. One was an instinctual feeling of fear and made him want to get away from it. While the other was an instinctual feeling of eating, that made him want to devour the core.
Thankfully, the two feelings counteracted each other and helped him keep a clear mind. The aura was something he hadn't felt ever. When the mother cat died, her aura had all but gone, so she couldn't make Alex fear her. But now that he was looking at the core, he started to wonder just how strong the cat monster really was.
Just as he was thinking that his left arm started itching. He tried to scratch the itch away but it didn't go away. "Huh? Did the wound from the saber not heal properly?" he wondered as he kept on scratching it.
He put the monster core back into his bag, and suddenly the itching stop. "Huh?" he was surprised. "Did it…" he took out the monster core once more.
The monster core filled the room with its aura once more and his left arm started to itch as well. "What is happening?" he was surprised. He tried putting the monster core back in and taking it back out. Each time he did that his left arm would either start to itch or stop itching.
He stripped his upper half, revealing his smooth, white skin except for that one scar the wolf gave him. He took out the core once more and realized it was exactly this scar that was itching.
He slowly brought the core towards his arm and it started itching more and more. Finally, he tapped his scar with the core.
FLASH
A bright light flashed from his scar as something shot out. Alex stumbled back in fear as he tried to at what has just come out of his arm.
"Huh?" he was even more surprised now. "No way!! It's you. How did you?" he couldn't come up with any questions to ask.
In front of him was a small monster trying to nibble on the monster core that it took from Alex just now. The little monster was barely any bigger than his actual palm and had white fur all over its body. It was the little white kitten.
It was the same little white kitten that he fought for and nearly died saving. The mother and son pair of the cat monster had disappeared while he was near death and he had not been able to find where they had gone as not even the elders had found anything.
But now, the little cat was in front of him. He finally got out of his surprise and realized the little kitten was trying to eat its mother's core. Alex didn't care if the kitten ate its mother's core or not as it might end up benefiting it in the end. However, if the same thing that happened to him, happened to the little cat, It would certainly take a lot of harm.
"No, don't eat that. Give it to me," Alex said as he tried to take back the core.
"MEOW," the little purred and moved away from the core. Alex was stunned once more as he couldn't help but ask,
"Did… Did you just understand me?"
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Chapter 134: Pearl
Alex was a little surprised when he saw the little cat move away from the core. But once he stopped telling the cat what to do, it immediately gravitated back towards the core.
Alex swiftly pulled the core towards him and kept it in his bag. Now that there was no aura from the core available, the cat started blinking its black eyes around, not knowing what to do.
"Meow," it meowed a little.
"Come here, little buddy," Alex said as he gestured the cat to come towards him with this hands.
"Meow," The cat meowed as it clumsily jumped towards Alex and started nudging his head on his knees.
"Where did you come from, buddy?" he asked, and started to think back on what had just happened. 'My arm,' he thought as he looked at his arms once more. 'It's gone. Did my scar heal, or…' he finally remembered what his master had said that day in the auction hall.
'Beast companions are a little unique, in that they don't live in the physical world after they bond with a cultivator,' was what Ma Rong had told him in the auction hall just before showing the tattoo of her own beast in the nape of her neck.
'A tattoo… was my scar, not an actual scar, but a tattoo?' he started to finally understand what had happened.
'But, that would mean…' he looked down at the little cat and tilted his head as he asked, "Did you form a bond with me?" he wasn't expecting an answer and he didn't get any.
He pet the little cat on its back and scratched its belly. "Meow," the cat meowed once more.
"Hmm… don't I have to feed you my blood essence for you to make a bond with you?" he asked. He remembered reading records on beast companions in the library. Although they weren't extensive in knowledge, they did give a general idea of what had to be done.
According to the records, beast companions could only be bonded by the beasts themselves. The humans could only 'influence' the desire to bond. This was why people got cubs and other newly born monsters. So that they could influence them from early on and make them voluntarily bond with them.
"But, Master did say the bonding requires humans to present their essence to the monsters. And the bond is only successful when the beasts accept the blood and drink it. But I haven't given the little cat any blo— " his words stuck in his mouth as he remembered the day back then.
That was the same day he had managed to refine the Steel sword. And refinement process was only done when the artifact accepted the person's essence, an essence which meant blood from their foreheads.
"That's right. The wolf bit me in my head and I was bloody at the time. Did you take in some of the blood at that time? Now that I think about it, I don't remember much of what happened after I pulled out the sword." Alex guessed that the little cat must've accepted his blood essence when he was down and nearly unconscious.
He pet the cat some more and as he was rubbing its belly, he felt its stomach move a little. "Hmm… are you hungry?" he was a little surprised.
He tried to look up its name and suddenly a bunch of extra information came to his head.
[White Cat (Infant) - Bonded
Name: None
Cultivation Base: Skin Tempering 2nd Realm
Evolution Chance: 5%
Cultivation Method: None]
"Oh," he was slightly astonished when he saw the entire panel pop up. This was a new set of information that he had never seen before.
"Name? You want a name buddy?" he asked the cat. "Meow," Alex thought he heard some sort of affirmation in that meow just now.
"Okay then, let's see… should I use real-life names like Toby or Felix? Nah, that doesn't sound right? Can I not choose and instead use a randomizer?" he thought as he clicked on the name.
A panel opened up where he could type and at the bottom left was a randomize button. He clicked on it, and it gave the name 'lingling'.
'Lingling? I don't like that.' Alex went on to randomize once more. He randomized a few times before he saw a name that he liked.
"Hmm… Since you are mostly white, the name fits too." He clicked confirm on the panel. "Alright then, from now on, your name will be Pearl."
"Meow" the little cat gave a questioning look. "Yes, Pearl. That's your name now." Alex said with a smile on his face.
The cat smiled as well and started meowing about. It started running laps around him but after a few laps, it sat near him in exhaustion.
"Are you okay little Pearl?" he asked for a second. The cat purred a little, its voice very weak.
"Oh, right. You were hungry. What do you eat though, meats? I don't have any." Alex said. Any restaurants he could visit were outside the sect and that would take quite a while to reach.
"Ah, that's right, monsters eat other monster's core too, right?" he took out a core from a very weak Skin Tempering 3rd realm monster and gave it to the little cat.
"Here Pearl, can you eat this?" he asked the cat.
"Meow Meow," seeing the monster core, the little cat's eyes immediately lit up with hunger. Alex put it near its mouth and it started to immediately nibble on it.
Unlike its mother's core, however, it easily started biting off the low-level core. Within minutes, it managed to finish the entire core and started meowing like it was getting tired.
"You want to sleep buddy?" he asked. He wanted to put him in his robes, but then remembered that beast companions usually stayed on the person they bonded with.
"Alright, can you go back here?" he asked as he pointed to his left arm. Immediately, white light shone from the cat as it leaped into his arm, turning to a tattoo of a paw.
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Chapter 135: Beast Care
"What does a monster eat exactly? Meat may be?" he thought. "Urghh… I wish master had gone more in-depth when she taught me about the beast companions," he started whining a little.
He decided to go to the market outside and buy something for Pearl later on. For now, he would continue with the alchemy.
He proceeded to make a few pills before taking a break to get some food and returned back to make some more pills. He continued until it was 6 pm.
"I should stop now, and go do the other things," he thought as he left the alchemy room. He took the wooden token from the door and returned it back to the elder outside.
The elder looked at the time and calculated the price based on the amount of time he had spent in the room and the discount off of his badge number.
"168… that is 46% discount off of 2 spirit stones for each hour. Rounded off, you have to pay 8 spirit stones for the entire day." The elder said.
Alex took out 8 spirit stones from his storage bag and paid for it. The sky was starting to darken and since nobody was fighting today, most of the disciples had returned back from the crater.
Alex slowly made his way back to the other side of the mountain. However, instead of going back to his home, he left for the market in front of the sect.
After walking past the gate, he looked around to see if there were any restaurants there. Instead, he found something better. Towards the outer area of the market, he saw a small shop called 'Beasts Care'.
"Is that like a Veterinary?" he wondered and walked towards the shop. The shop was very small compared to the other shops in the market.
As he entered, he saw a very old man sitting in a chair, petting a little bunny on his lap. As soon as he realized someone had entered, he looked to the side and asked, "What do you want, boy?"
Alex was surprised when he saw the man be grumpy without even him doing anything. The man was wearing an elder's robes, so he decided to not say anything regarding his grumpy personality. Instead, he put on a friendly smile and asked,
"Hello elder, I got a new beast companion and it seems to be hungry, can you tell me if there is something I can buy here to feed it?" he asked.
The elder didn't look towards Alex at all and went back to petting the rabbit on his lap as he asked, "What beast?" he asked.
"It's a little kitten of a White Cat monster," Alex replied.
"Hmm… " the man turned towards Alex as he looked at him with a confused look. "What beast did you say?" he asked once more.
"A White Cat monster's kitten," he replied.
"A White… Cat? Show me," the elder said as he got curious.
"He is currently sleeping elder," Alex tried to say, but the elder just spoke back once more with a more authoritative voice, "I said show me."
Alex flinched a little. "Hey Pearl, can you come out?" he slowly whispered to the cat. However, the cat showed no response whatsoever. He tried softly calling it a few more times, but he was left unattended by the cat.
"What is going on boy? I told you to bring out the beast?" the older man started to get angry.
"I'm sorry senior, this is my first time trying to call out my beast companion, but he seems to not hear it when he is inside the tattoo," Alex replied.
"Your first time? Just pour some Qi into your tattoo and call it, let me check," the elder said.
Alex did as the elder said and poured some Qi into the tattoo. Surprisingly his tattoo swallowed in the Qi, never to be seen again. Alex faltered slightly when he saw that immediately found his footing and started calling Pearl out.
His tattoo suddenly itched and within a single second a white light suddenly shot out of his arms. Pearl, the little cat, was standing straight on top of the counter.
It turned around to look at Alex and meowed but immediately started purring with a serious face when it saw the old man.
"It's okay Pearl, he's not here to hurt you," Alex said calming Pearl down, and only then did pearl stop purring.
"Fascinating," the old man started mumbling as he walked up to Pearl and looked at him more carefully. "So fascinating. A monster I have never seen before. I never thought I could find one that I wouldn't recognize."
He suddenly turned to Alex and asked, "You said this is your first time taking the cat out, right? Then you must've gotten it recently. Tell me, Where did you get it?"
"Umm… it's actually been around 3 weeks since I saw him last. He bonded with me in the southern forest without me knowing and only came out today for the first time," Alex answered.
"Hmm… 3 weeks ago… southern forest… cat…" the elder's eyes suddenly lit up as he turned back towards the cat. "No way, the cat monster that was said to be in the saint realm. That cat?" the elder said with shock.
Alex was shocked too. 'He knows about the crater? I don't remember seeing him back there?' he thought.
"I see, no wonder I have never seen it. It's the child of a saint realm monster that came here from far away. Then that must mean that you were the Hong Wu Sect's Disciple there at the time."
The elder eyed Alex up and down and started saying, " I see, I see. You were the little kid they said Wen Cheng went out of his way to make a disciple."
Alex was a little shocked, "You know about me?"
The elder chuckled a little, "Hahaha, I am one of the few ones who do. In fact, I am even part of the reason why the other elders do not know about you."
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Chapter 136: Elder Xian
"You were the reason the other elders don't know about me?" Alex asked curiously.
"Well, a part of it, but yes. Basically, when Wen Cheng and the rest returned from the crater where the saint realm monster fell, they started talking about how Wen Cheng had gone far and out to make you a disciple even though you were a part of the Hong Wu Sect already."
The man reached into his storage bag and took out a small piece of what looked like dried meat. He put the meat near Pearl's nose and suddenly, Pearl started munching on it, meowing from time to time.
The man smiled and continued, "Wen Cheng justified his action by talking about how talented you were and some other things. So, the few elders that were there came to a decision to only spread the information about the monster, but nothing about you."
"If your information of you being the sect leader's disciple is ever spread, the other elders would target you and make sure you were never high in the rankings. All so they can fight at a chance to become the sect leader themselves."
He then looked at Alex and tilted his head as he said, " In maybe a year or maybe even half a year if she is lucky, little Mei will surely breakthrough to the True realm, at the time, the seat for the first place will be empty and in contention from everyone. Will you be able to do your best and take the seat by yourself?"
Alex was a little surprised, 'Will I?' he started wondering. While his initial speed of breaking through had been very fast, he was starting to slow down. And now that he couldn't eat monster cores as freely anymore, he was starting to doubt if he could reach the higher realms as quickly.
'No. I shouldn't doubt myself. I still have many other ways I can do that. Especially since I have the God Grade talent,' he thought.
"Yes, I am sure I can do it," he replied to the elder.
The elder simply smiled and said, "Anyway, let's get back to what you were here for initially. What exactly did you want to know?"
"Well, I originally came to buy some food for little Pearl here, but now I want to learn as much as I can about beast companions and how to take care of them," he said.
The elder thought for a little and said, "Let's see, I think it would be better if you just go and learn these from the library." The elder said.
"The library? Don't I just get techniques from there? Will knowledge like this also be available there?" he asked in confusion.
"Ah, it seems your time in Hong Wu Sect has clouded what is normal and what is weird. The library is originally made for information to be shared for free."
"You can just go to the library and read anything on the lower 3 floors for free. The techniques and other important records are kept on the 4th floor and up, and will cost you money."
Alex nodded in understanding as he said, "I see. I will do as you say, elder. In the meantime, can I know what I should and should not feed my cat?"
"Stop treating a monster like a house pet. They are used to living in the wild and will eat anything they can. As for beast companions, they need even less food as long as you give them your Qi from time to time. It was probably hungry in the first place since you never fed it your Qi since you didn't know about it."
"Now that you do know it is staying with you, feed in a little Qi every day and it will be satisfied." The elder said.
"Oh, and what about the different monster cores? I heard that monsters can eat other monster's cores to increase their own cultivation. Does that mean, I can feed the cores to my cat and he will increase in cultivation as well?" he asked.
"Yes and No. While it can eat cores to increase its cultivation, if it eats a core from a monster stronger than it, it will not be able to handle all the energy and will die. There have been cases where the monsters simply exploded from eating a monster core from a much stronger monster."
"Also it is better if you don't feed your beasts as many cores. Similar to normal cultivators, they also need to stabilize their cultivation base before breaking through. If you keep on feeding them from very early on without properly maintaining their cultivation, they will end up with a bad cultivation foundation and will end up much weaker than what they should have been."
"Well, that is all I will tell you. Learn other things on your own at the library," the elder said and went back to sitting on the chair and started petting the little rabbit he was petting when Alex first came in.
"I understand, Thank you … uh, what should I call you, elder?" he asked.
"You can call me elder Xian," the elder said.
"Thank you for the information elder Xian," Alex bowed a little in respect as he called back Pearl and started to leave the shop.
"Where do you think you are going boy?" the elder suddenly shouted from behind him.
Alex stopped in surprise and turned around to look at the elder with a curious face, "Do you have some more things to tell me, elder Xian?" he asked.
"No, I don't, boy," the elder simply said which confused Alex even more, but then he followed it up with, "But you should know I am not operating a charity here. You came into my shop and took information from me, it's time you pay up."
"Oh, yes elder," Alex was a little surprised, but still complied and took out some spirit stones and gave them to the elder. The elder took what was handed and simply said, "I have checked your little cat, he is perfectly healthy and you have nothing to worry about."
"I see, thank you, elder." Finally, Alex left the shop and went back to his room.
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Chapter 137: Blood Essence
Alex returned back to his home a little later and logged out to get some food. He returned back to the game after a while.
He logged back into his lit-up room and looked a the time. It was half-past 7 right now.
"Hmm… what should I do now? Just wait around for it to be 9 pm?" he started to wonder. There was still over an hour before he had to go train with his master.
"Oh right, the cauldron. It should be used enough that it will be refined now." Alex thought and brought out his cauldron.
He placed the cauldron in front of him and placed his palm along the side of it. He slowly pushed his Qi towards the cauldron and instead of sending it in, he started washing the insides of the cauldron walls with his Qi.
"I don't feel any resistance anymore. Should be enough," he thought and took out his steel sword. He looked at the giant sword in front of him and thought, 'I should get a dagger or something like a knife. I can't keep on taking out such a big sword for small things like cutting my skin.'
He proceeded to turn the blade's tip towards his forehead and slowly made a small cut on it. His forehead started to bleed, but it also started to heal immediately. Alex stopped and looked as his skin wound healed within 5 minutes.
But, blood had already flowed out of his head, so he was fine with the wound healing. He took the blood, which was his blood essence, and slowly dropped it inside the cauldron.
ZMMMM
A small vibrating sound appeared from the cauldron and it started to glow. The drop of blood inside the cauldron started to move around but then was immediately swallowed by the cauldron.
The vibrating cauldron stopped, and a pair of notifications appeared.
' Golden Jade Cauldron' has taken in your blood essence
' Golden Jade Cauldron' has accepted you as its master
Congratulation, you have successfully refined the True Earth grade artifact 'Golden Jade Cauldron'
"Yes!! For a second there, it scared me," he thought as he looked at the cauldron's stats now that it was refined.
[Golden Jade Cauldron: Refined
Grade: True Earth
Elemental Alignment: Metal - Earth
Weight: 22 KG]
"Oh, it actually has elemental affinity as well? Thankfully that doesn't harm my pill-making," he thought. Alex wanted to bring out the stiletto as well, but he didn't want to break the floor with how heavy it was.
"Uhh… I want to check if there are any differences when making pills with the cauldron. Maybe I will have to wait until tomorrow," he thought. Then immediately thought, "No, I have to look up the information about beast companions tomorrow. After school then? Uhh… I need to go sell those pills in the auction."
"I guess I will have to wait a few more days before I see if there is any more improvement. Although, I don't see why there would be any?"
He kept back the cauldron and started rubbing his forehead to get rid of the remaining blood.
"Is this a waste of blood essence?" he started wondering as he looked at the little bit of redness in his hand.
"Ah, that reminds me, if my blood essence can help refine objects, then what can the blood essences of other animals do?" He quickly thought back to the item that he still had with him. The [????? ?????'s Blood Essence].
"I don't think it's an alchemy material. If it was, I would've known its name, right?" he thought as he took it out the check it. He looked into his storage bag to search for it and found it very quickly.
He took it out and was surprised when he saw it. While it had said blood essence, it was actually a solid ball of blood. Almost like, all the liquid in the blood had dried off.
'Is this what monster's essence looks like?' he wondered. Immediately a thick bloody scent started to fill the room.
"What the…" Alex started to get shocked. The aura that the blood was producing was so suffocating that he almost felt like he couldn't breathe anymore. He tried to use his Qi to bring the essence back into his storage bag, but he couldn't even get his Qi out anymore.
'What is happening?' he wanted to scream, but not even his voice escaped his mouth. The most he could do was grunt in pain as he was slowly brought down to his knees.
Suddenly, a warm flow of hot energy burst out from deep within him, relieving most of the pressure he was feeling. However, he still couldn't stand anymore or even use his Qi.
All he could do was sit around and watch the blood essence float in the air.
"What do i— " suddenly, his left arm started itching and the little cat jumped out. "Pearl? Why are you out?" Thanks to the little relieved pressure he could speak now.
"Meow." Alex thought he could almost hear the eagerness to eat the essence in Pearl's meow.
He remembered back to elder Xian telling him how a monster could die if it ate cores with too much energy in it. If this blood essence was the same thing as the cores, Pearl would be in serious danger if he ate that.
"No, don't. You can't mo— " his words left stuck in his mouth as he saw Pearl walk freely in this intense pressure. He could barely not feel the pain thanks to whatever his body was doing, yet Pearl was walking forward like a fish in water, completely unobstructed by the pressure.
'Is it because the essence came from his mother?' he wondered. He stopped feeling the same panic and fear he felt before and watched as little Pearl stopped right below the floating ball of blood essence.
In a single jump, Pearl reached the essence and opened its mouth. And without a shred of hesitation, he swallowed it.
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Chapter 138: Changes in Pearl
Suddenly, the aura inside the room disappeared, leaving Alex finally free to move. He immediately got up and ran to where Pearl had landed.
He took pearl in his arms and started asking, "are you okay? Are you hurt?". But Pearl couldn't hear him. "What is happening?" Alex wondered as he looked at Pearl.
Pearl seemed to be asleep, but his eyes were fully open. His breathing was calm and there were no irregularities in his aura as well. Alex started to worry about what was happening to him.
Suddenly, Pearl jerked as he jumped down from his arms and started running around the room like crazy. "Meow," it screamed as if it was in pain.
"Wha-what's wrong?" Alex didn't know what to do. After a few laps around the room, Pearl finally stopped and released a loud growl, that sounded neither like a meow or a cat's purr. It almost sounded like…
Pearl looked up. His fur even more white, eyes filled with great intelligence and-
"Did you grow in size, buddy?" Alex said as he went up to Pearl to grab him. Pearl went from being about 15 cm in length to about 25 cm. He had grown a little bigger.
"Meow," Pearl meowed in confirmation. Alex got stunned. He could easily tell that Pearl was saying 'YES' to his question. Before, it was a vague feeling of an answer, but now, to him, it felt pretty clear. This was a chance he wasn't expecting.
"What happened to you? Why did you suddenly go to eat the blood essence?" he asked.
"Meow." A long meow came from Pearl and Alex once again was stunned as he could more clearly understand what Pearl was saying. 'I ate it because I had to.'
"Ho-How do I understand you?" He tried to think back to the records he had read and the lessons his master had given him. "Master said that once a beast companion turns adult, you can communicate with them. Did she mean that they could communicate both ways and not just the monster understanding the cultivator's word?" he wondered.
"But, that would mean that you are already an adult, and that is impossible, right? I just saw the system calling your infant this afternoon."
Alex nervously opened the cat's status page once again and was surprised by the difference from before.
[White Cat (Child) - Bonded
Name: Pearl
Cultivation Base: Skin Tempering 8th Realm
Evolution Chance: 40%
Cultivation Method: ????? ?????'s Dominating Body (Shared)]
Pearl had changed from infant to child according to the game. Also, his cultivation base had had a massive leap in the realm.
'Is this normal? Does a beast not need to be an adult to start communicating?' Alex started to wonder. He looked at the Evolution Chance stat and was shocked to see that it had gone from 5% to 40%.
"What brought along such a massive change? Could it be him breaking through? No way, right?" When Alex properly thought about it, he came to a single conclusion. "It was the blood essence, wasn't it?"
He looked at Pearl and thought, " That was your mother's blood essence, but it didn't belong to your mother. If it did, it would say White cat, wouldn't it?" He asked.
"Meow," Pearl meowed in confusion as none of what Alex was talking about made any sense to him.
"That must be it. What if that thing whose blood essence you took, what if this evolution turns you into that? Maybe you have a 40% chance to become something else." Alex felt pretty good about this theory and moved on.
Finally, he saw the new cultivation method that Pearl had acquired. "Dominating body?" he was slightly caught off guard. "Why is your cultivation technique a type of body? That should be its own thing no?" he asked.
"Meow"
"Yeah, you wouldn't know. I know. Still, it's weird that a body is a cultivation method. I would've never guessed that." Alex started to accept what was written and was about to close the status page when he finally noticed the 'shared' thing written on the cultivation method.
"What is this?" he was about to question it when suddenly, Pearl started coughing.
COUGH COUGH
"What's wrong? Are you okay?" he panicked as he started rubbing Pearl's back to relieve some stress.
COUGH COUGH
But he kept on coughing. "Is something stuck in your throat?" he tried to send his spiritual sense into Pearl's body, but it couldn't penetrate past his skin.
He started feeling more worried.
COUGH COUGH
COUGH
Suddenly, Pearl coughed out something red onto the floor and stopped coughing. Only then, did he start breathing normally with no more cough.
"It's okay, It's okay," he consoled Pearl while slowly rubbing his back. "What was that?" he turned to look towards the red thing that flew out of his mouth.
There, Alex saw it. Crimson red blood, floating in the middle of the air. Unlike the blood essence previously, it was all liquid. It was floating with an unstable form, constantly moving around, unable to keep a shape for more than a moment.
"Is that Pearl's blood or…" he started to wonder if this was the true form of the blood essence that Pearl swallowed.
Just as he was thinking this, he felt his body start heating up. "What now?" there were just too many things happening one after another for him to process.
"Pearl, get back," he said and waited for Pearl to go back to being a tattoo. Once he was inside, Alex started feeling more and more heat from the inside of his body.
Suddenly, a gravitational force erupted from him. The heat all rushed up to his head and that had become the source of the gravity. The shapeless blood suddenly stopped moving and immediately shot towards him.
It hit him right at the middle of his brows and pierced its way through.
Blood Essence discovered
Source not in database
Player is…
Alex never got to hear any of these as he fainted the moment it entered his head.
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Chapter 139: Time Skip
"Uhh… My head!!" Alex stood up, rubbing his forehead as he came back to consciousness. "Wha— Where?" he looked around.
"Game?" he looked around a little more. After rubbing his head for a few moments more, he finally started to think. 'The essence..' He finally remembered what had happened.
He released his spiritual sense to see if anything was different about him. He found nothing. Even his forehead where the drop of blood had pierced through was already healed.
"Is there really nothing wrong with me then?" He had expected to at least be hurt a lot, but after the first minute of intense headache, nothing happened.
"What's the time?" he looked to his top right corner to view the current time. "9:23? I'm late," he thought as he stood up and walked to the front door.
He was supposed to meet his master at 9 pm, yet over 20 minutes had already gone by. His master must've been waiting for a long time.
He immediately opened the door and…
"What?" he was surprised when he saw the outside. It was bright. As bright as the brightest day he could remember. He slowly turned his eyes towards the upper right corner of his vision once more and saw what he had missed at first.
AM. It was 9:23 AM.
"I slept through the entire night?" Not only had he missed his training with his master, but he had also missed the entire night. The only thing he did last night was sleep. Not even normal cultivation.
He walked back inside and got to thinking as to just exactly what had happened. The blood essence had hit him, and he had fainted. He saw nothing else happen.
He slowly poured his Qi into his tattoo and called out Pearl. "Pearl came out with a mighty 'Meow'. Thankfully, he hadn't grown since yesterday and was the same size.
He looked him over and felt his aura. "You look fine. Do you feel fine buddy?" he asked as he petted him.
"Meow," Pearl meowed in confirmation. "Alright, go back now. I have to go to my classes. I will see you later on, okay?" Alex said.
"Meow?" Pearl didn't understand what he meant but went back into his left arm without hesitation. "Alright, let's log out," he said as he logged out from the game.
He went to his classes as normal and studied them properly. Even though he was making a ton of money thanks to the game, he couldn't tell when it would all come crumbling down, so he needed to have some knowledge to get jobs later on.
After he was done with classes, however, he rushed back to the game. He logged into the game at 3 and a half o'clock and walked out of the home.
He walked out of the gate of the sect without saying anything. He quickly found his way to an empty alleyway and entered there. Once inside, he went invisible to change his garments. He took off the yellow robes that would identify him as a Tiger sect disciple and wore light green robes representing the Hong Wu sect.
Once he was changed, he turned off his invisibility and walked out. Then as swift as ever, he made his way to the Pink Cloud auction house.
He wasn't stopped at the entrance at all and was led to one of the rooms inside the hall without hesitation. After a few minutes, Cai Ping entered. It seemed that she was the only one told about his arrival whenever he came here.
"Hello, Daoist Yu. It has been a week since I saw you. We missed your pills during yesterday's auction. Quite a few people were disappointed." Cai Ping said as he teased Alex a little.
"Ah, I'm sorry. I have been busy this week due to something that came upon me unexpectedly. I have barely gotten any time to make pills now. However, I had free time yesterday, so I could make some more pills."
Alex slowly reached into his storage bag and pulled out a bunch of pills bottles. "Here you go," he said as he passed them along.
Cai Ping looked at the pill bottles and picked them up to count exactly 21 pills in total. She then proceeded to take out a pill tester to check every single pill he had brought in.
When she was finally done with all of them, she was dumbfounded. Half the pills among the 21 different pills were above 40% in harmony. 3 of them were even above 45% with 2 being at 47% and 1 being at 49%.
This was beyond what she had been imagining he would take out. The few other times he had come here, she was already shocked by the sheer number of quality pills he had brought, but now, the quality had gone up in level once more.
'I almost started to believe it was him who made this pill, but even if he is really a genius, that should be impossible. Did senior Ma Rong make it? That would make sense since he was together with senior Ma Rong during the previous auction, but her Common rank pills should definitely go above and beyond Heaven grade.'
'Did she send her failure with him?' she started to wonder.
"Daoist Yu, are you sure you want to sell these pills. They are quite amazing, so don't you want to keep it to yourself?" she asked.
"No. I'm an alchemist. I made those pills in the first place to sell. What would I do with them, if I just keep them in my storage bag, collecting dust?"
"I, see. Then let me set up your contract," Cai Ping said as she proceeded to prepare a contract using the talismans available on the table.
"Wait," Alex said as he saw her hand moving towards the talismans. "I have more to sell this time, other than just the pills."
"Oh," Cai Ping said in surprise. "Can I see what it is then?"
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Chapter 140: Selling
Alex reached into his storage bag once more and took out a small box from it. He then handed it to Cai Ping, who curiously looked at it.
It was a wooden box and quite small in size. "An alchemy ingredient?" she asked.
"No— " Alex stopped for a moment. 'Wait, isn't it an alchemy ingredient? Why else could I know what it was?' he felt like he was missing out on this core information for a long time now.
"It's a Spirit Cleansing Lily," he answered, still trying to calm his reeling mind. 'It must be an ingredient to a pill I have no idea about.' That was the conclusion he came to.
Cai Ping opened the box and looked at the orange lily inside curiously. "A Spirit Cleansing Lily?" she was a little confused. "I think I have heard about this somewhere before, but I can't remember. Please wait for a second, Daoist Yu, I will have to call someone."
Cai Ping took out a communication talisman and used it. Within minutes, an old, white-haired man walked in.
'It's him!'. Alex was surprised to see that the old man was the same person that had given them their spirit stones 2 weeks ago after the bi-annual auction. His master had even called him 'senior'.
'Who exactly is this person?' he couldn't help but wonder.
"Senior, " Cai Ping bowed to the old man as he walked in.
"What is going on? Why did you call me?" The old man said as he looked at Cai Ping and then towards Alex without a single bit of change in emotion. It seemed he was too used to meeting different people and seeing many different things.
"Here is the thing, senior." Cai Ping passed along the wooden box with the Spirit Cleansing Lily to the old man. She waited for him to open the box and see what was inside.
The old man, once again, showed no emotions as he opened the box and saw what was inside. He looked at the orange lily and didn't seem to realize what it was either. To him, it seemed like a normal lily.
"What is this?" he asked Cai Ping.
"Daoist Yu here wants to auction this flower. According to him, it's called a Spirit Cleansing Lily. I thought I had heard of it from the records but couldn't remember it. So I decided to call you senior."
The old man listened to this and then mumbled, "Spirit Cleansing L— " suddenly his eyes turned wide open. He immediately took out a communication talisman of his own and called someone else.
A lady came in with a stack of papers and left just as quickly.
The old man immediately flipped through the records and landed on an image of the Spirit Condensing Lily. He looked at the image, and then at the flower in the wooden box.
"It's the same!!" he screamed with astonishment. Cai Ping was now getting confused as to what exactly was happening. The old man looked at Alex, with emotions in his face for the first time, and asked," Where did you get this flower, Daoist?"
Alex was surprised that an auction house would actually ask for the origin. "Can I not sell this without revealing its origin?" Alex asked.
"Ah, I'm sorry. I was too excited," said the old man. "Of course you can sell it. I was just surprised since it's been forever since one of these popped up in the market. Are you sure you are willing to sell this?" the old man asked.
"Yes, please do." Alex was looking forward to having it sold since it could really bring him a lot of money.
"Yes, we will do that. However, it might take a while, Daoist," The old man said as he contemplated for a while and said, "I don't think we can sell it here."
"Huh?" Alex said with a surprised face. "Are you saying you won't sell it? Didn't you just say you will?" Alex asked with his head full of confusion.
"Oh, no. We will sell it. Just not here. We will have to send it to the capital to our headquarters where we can get the full benefit of selling this."
"The headquarters?" Alex remembered Ma Rong saying something about Pink Cloud auction house's headquarters being in the Cardinal City.
"Is there any special reason?" he asked.
"Well, the Auction house in the cardinal cities has a lot more guests on a weekly basis and also is used to dealing with objects of high value. We will transfer this flower over there during the weekend and as per the result, we will give you your spirit stones right here," the old man said.
"So, it won't take any extra time? I will get my spirit stones this Saturday?" he asked.
"Uh, it might be better if you come on Sunday. The auction in the Capital always takes a little too long." The old man said.
"I see. Please do that then," Alex said.
The old man himself set up 2 different talisman contracts for Alex, one for the pills and one for the flower. Alex thanked both the old man and Cai Ping and walked out of the auction house.
He looked at the time and realized it was barely 5 PM. "Should I go to the library now?" he wondered. He walked towards an empty alleyway and changed back to his yellow robes for the Tiger Sect.
Once he got out, he walked straight back to the Tiger sect. He walked past the gates of the Tiger sect, and as soon as he did that, his badge inside his storage bag started vibrating.
"Hmm…" he sent his spiritual sense inside his badge and saw that he was registered to fight with someone. 'Someone wants to fight with me?'
The badge said that it was someone with the number 173. 'Is this another one of Huo To's henchmen? I hope this isn't someone strong like that last guy.'
'On second thought, they do help me train. Let's see who my opponent is this time." Alex walked straight towards the sect crater.
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Chapter 141: Finally
Alex soon arrived at the sect crater. He looked at his badge once more and found his way to a fighting stage. He watched the fight on the stage go on and waited until it was over.
Once it was, he heard his number being called.
"Number 168 and 173," the elder screamed through the crowd.
Alex walked up to the stage and saw another man come up. It was a young man with short hair and a thin body build. He looked like he had barely anybody mass on him.
'Is he okay?' Alex wondered. He had never seen anyone this thin in his life. 'How does a cultivator even end up being this thin?'
"It's him, right?" a girl whispered a small distance away from the stage. Alex could barely catch her voice thanks to his spiritual sense.
"Yeah, I heard he had won all of his matches and breaks through very fast. Apparently, in the little time he has been here, he has broken through quite a few times already. It's honestly unheard of how fast he is progressing." Another girl spoke, answering the first girl.
'Are they talking about me?' Alex wondered. He was surprised that they found out about his breakthrough speed somehow. 'But they shouldn't know about my cultivation breakthroughs at all. I make sure to keep it hidden most of the time.' He was truly confused.
"Do you know his name?" a boy spoke somewhere else in the crowd.
"Hmm… I don't really remember. It's a very weird name. It A— something." Another person in the crowd spoke.
Alex was truly surprised now. 'How do they know my name too? I have never used the world Alex at all.' He was starting to wonder if the NPCs could see his real name or were bugged.
"But why is he so good at cultivation, when he has a body like that?" another voice came.
'Huh?' Alex got confused.
"I heard he was at 7th Bone Tempering realm just a couple of days ago and now he is already at 8th Bone tempering realm. Honestly, that Adam guy might end up becoming a core disciple at this rate."
Finally, it all clicked in Alex's head. "Oh," he said as he realized that they were talking about the thin person in front of him.
'Adam? He is a player, isn't he?' this was the first time Alex had ever met a player in the game, aside from the first day when that person had helped him.
'I wonder if that guy already left this place and moved on to some other location,' he couldn't help but be distracted.
"Ready," the elder shouted.
Alex slowly took out his sword and got into a proper stance. The thin man named Adam proceeded to take out nothing and just fighting empty-handed.
"Fight!"
Alex immediately rushed forward, with friction to slow him down, and did a horizontal slice on the young man named Adam. Adam was surprised by the fast movement of Alex, and also started to immediately move away from the spot.
He was somehow faster than Alex, who was moving around at incredible speed due to his strong legs and frictionless body, thanks to the Fluctuating Friction dance.
Alex started chasing with his movement technique but couldn't catch up at all. The man was just way too fast.
'Does he have an immortal grade movement technique?' Alex wondered. It was very much possible that during the first treasures that were gifted to the new users, they randomly got a technique.
Alex got [Alchemy God's Knowledge] from that. It could be possible that this guy got a movement technique.
Alex was starting to get annoyed seeing the man run away so much. So, he put his hands forward and tried to stop the man from running.
Qi Manipulation easily stopped the man for a few seconds, enough for Alex to catch up. Just as he was getting close, the thin man used his own technique.
Suddenly, an illusory wall of golden light formed in front of Adam. Alex didn't want to stop from running his way, so he simply swapped the blade to his other hand and made a fist.
His fist started glowing yellow as he immediately sent it to Adam's way. Given that both of the abilities had yellow colors and were thus metal aligned, Alex thought that his ability would at best create an explosion and destroy itself and the barrier in the process.
But, something very unexpected happened. Suddenly, the barrier made out of the golden light crumbled to pieces under the slightest touch of the flying Iron Fist Punch as it continued its way to Adam.
Adam tried to move away from the line of target, but he found out that he was still stuck in the place due to Alex's Qi Manipulation. Horrifying fear ran across his mind, thinking he would die now.
Out of nowhere, the elder got into the middle of Adam and Alex and with a single thrust of their palm, the elder destroyed Alex's punch.
"Fight is over," the elder declared. Adam took a huge sigh of relief and thanked the elder. He then took the badge and immediately walked down from the stage. But as he did so, he turned back to look at Alex with eyes full of Hatred, Surprise, and Fear.
Alex walked up to the elder and took his badge and left as well, leaving only the elder on top of the stage. The elder looked at his hands and then remembered the badge number.
'Number 168? What is his cultivation base? I couldn't see it at all. Given that the attack was so strong, he must be around Organ tempering 3rd realm at the very least. Someone in the organ tempering realm and someone who can use the Iron Fist Punch, I wonder why I haven't seen this disciple before at all.'
The elder suddenly remembered that he was still looking after the fights, so he proceeded to call along with the other 2 contestants and forgot about the previous match.
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Chapter 142: Revealing a bit
"Anyone knows who the guy was? I don't think I have ever seen him before."
"I think I have seen him fight a few times before, but I don't know his name."
"I believe, he too is like Adam, someone who joined recently and is gaining ranks very fast."
"Can you tell what his cultivation base was? I didn't see it."
"He must have a high cultivation base, his attack was so strong."
Even after he was gone, Alex was the talk among the people watching below the stage. His display of power was too great for him to not leave a lasting impression.
Alex, on the other hand, was himself shocked at what he had done in the match. 'How did my punch become so strong?' he couldn't help but wonder. Iron Fist Punch wasn't supposed to be very strong, a realm or 2 above his own. However, the display of power that he had just shown was far above that.
If his punch had been on the same level as the other guy's defensive wall, they would have most likely cancel out each other. If it had been a few realms higher, then the punch would have caused a big explosion where most of his attack would've hit the other guy. But, simply breaking the defense like it was a sheet of glass, that meant that his attack was very strong.
'How did I get so strong?' he couldn't come up with a reason at all. He gave the problem a bit more thought and finally ended up with a reason why that might have happened.
'Does it have something to do with the blood essence from last night?' he wondered. He was still confused as to what had happened to him last night. The most he could assume is that his body had to somehow fend off or absorb the blood essence, and that was what had knocked him out.
He decided to ignore the thought for now. "So, do I fight some more, or do I go to the library?" he was in a dilemma.
'Can I tell my master that I need to learn about beast companions and fight for now? Oh, or maybe master even knows a lot about them. Pearl should be fine for today. I will ask master about him later tonight.'
He went on to register some more fights. He fought around 3 more times and realized that he had gotten a lot stronger. Every single battle, he was able to overwhelm his opponents, and as such managed to win the 156th badge by 9 pm.
If he hadn't had to log out for dinner or his 2nd opponent hadn't taken forever to arrive, he might have reached a much higher ranking.
'Doesn't core disciples start from 50th ranking? I wonder how many of them are truly in the Meridian realm and above. The difficulty level will only get higher, so I will have to level up as fast as possible as well. I wonder when I can do my next breakthrough.'
Alex was on his way to his master's place. It took him a dozen or so minutes to go from the sect crater all the way to the training hall.
"You are here, finally." Wen Cheng said as he sensed Alex coming his way.
"Good Evening master," he greeted as soon as he saw his master.
"Why didn't you come yesterday? I kept waiting for you and you didn't come at all. Were you busy with alchemy or something?" he asked.
"No, uh… something happened yesterday and I fainted for the entire night. I only gained consciousness this morning." Alex replied.
"Lost consciousness? Did something happen? I didn't bother calling you yesterday because I thought you were exhausted from the day's alchemy and needed a break. Was I wrong?" Wen Cheng asked.
Alex thought for a bit about how exactly to explain the issue.
"We should go inside the first master," he said. Both master and disciple then walked into the soundproof training hall.
"Come out, Pearl."
With a bright shine, Pearl came out from his arm and landed between him and his master. Wen Cheng was surprised when he saw the little guy. Pearl was barely any bigger than his palm and that small size made him look quite cute.
Wen Cheng squatted down on one knee and started petting Pearl, who happily let him pet him. "Did you get a beast companion yesterday? Is that why you were absent?"
"Actually, no. But he is part of the reason." Alex said.
Wen Cheng looked at him with a curious face and said, "Explain,"
Alex went into detail about what happened yesterday, but still kept some of the happenings vague. He didn't tell about the Saint Monster core and kept a pretty vague explanation for how he came to acquire that ball of the essence. But everything else, he told his master without hesitation.
Wen Cheng was shocked for a while, so much information that just seemed so ridiculous that he had a hard time believing it, but he couldn't deny it since it was his disciple. While his disciple could also lie, he didn't see why he would decide to.
He then looked down to see the cat he was still petting. "So this is the child of the cat monster you talked about back in that crater?" he asked.
"Yes, master. The reason we couldn't find him back then was because he was bonded with me and had already come inside my arm to live with me." Alex felt better after informing what had happened to master. Finally, he didn't have to suffer the burden alone.
Wen Cheng's face lost any sort of emotion as he got very serious for a moment. "Have you told anyone about the cat yet?" he asked.
"Yes, I did take him to the beast care to see what he needed, so elder Xian knows about him," Alex replied.
"If it's only him, then that is fine for now. Remember, never let anyone know about the origin of your beast companion. That will only bring trouble to you."
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Chapter 143: Fighting Meng Yun
"Bring trouble to me? Is it because his mother was in the saint realm?" Alex asked.
"Yes. Since his mother was in the saint realm, he has a high chance of being able to break through the True realms and reach the saint realm as well. Since both you and he are very weak right now, people will either try to steal him from you or harm you both lethally." Wen Cheng said.
"They can steal my beast companion? How?" Alex asked with surprise.
"Yes, they can. they either make the owner break the bond willingly by force, or they kill the owner with the beast still out of him." Wen Cheng said.
"I will make sure to not reveal Pearl to the outside then, master. Thank you for telling me." Alex said. He then thought of something and decided to ask about it right now.
"Master, do you know anything about something called Sun God's Divine Yang Body?" Alex wanted to know more about his body.
Wen Cheng thought for a second and replied, "I don't think so. But then again, I haven't read every record in the library. Maybe you will find some if you read them."
"But, won't it cost a lot of spirit stones?" Alex asked. He was worried about having to spend too much money.
"Ahem… don't tell anyone what I'm about to tell you okay?" Wen Cheng said, lowering his voice to a whisper even though they were in a soundproof room.
"While the technique is all sealed, none of the records are. So you can just walk into the higher floors and read everything with your spiritual sense." Wen Cheng said.
Alex was surprised that the sect master of the sect would teach his student how to steal stuff in his own sect. "Can I go all the way up without being a core disciple or elder?" he asked.
"Yeah, there is no other restriction in the Tiger sect. As long as you can pay, you can go anywhere and get anything. So, you can walk all the way to the top of the library, while reading everything. However, maybe rent something just so it looks like you aren't wasting your time in there and are not so suspicious." Wen Cheng's advice seemed really enticing to Alex.
"I will do that tomorrow then, master," said Alex and finally started to train for the day.
"Alright, since you learned so many techniques, today you should just train in them. Let's hold off learning another one for tomorrow. Okay?" Wen Cheng said.
"Yes, master." Just as he said that he noticed someone coming near the door. So did Wen Cheng. Alex hurriedly called back Pearl.
"You guys are training already?" suddenly a voice came from the door. Luo Mei walked in with Meng Yun behind her. Alex hadn't seen her since that time in the forest and was surprised to finally see her.
"Hello, senior sister." He greeted Luo Mei and turned towards Meng Yun, "Hello daoist Meng, it's been a while."
"Hello," Meng Yun gave a small response too and immediately turned towards Wen Cheng to give the sect leader a bigger greeting.
"Little Mei, why have you brought along Yunyun? It's time for your junior brother to train. You aren't here to disturb him or worse beat him again, are you?" she asked.
"Of course not master, what do you take me for? I brought Yunyun along to test how strong little brother had become." Luo Mei seemed to want to have Meng Yun fight with Alex. He was quite shocked when he heard that.
He slowly focused himself and looked at Meng Yun, and was absolutely shocked at what had shown up.
[Organ Tempering 1st Realm]
'Wasn't she still in Bone tempering 7th or 8th realm back when I met her in the forest? It's only been 3 weeks. How is she already so high in cultivation?'
'Unless… she is a player as well,' He thought.
"Alright, little brother, you should fight Yunyun. She is one of the fastest up-and-coming disciples in the sect right now. She joined only a few months ago and is already in the Organ tempering realm. Within a few months, she is sure to enter Meridian tempering. If you don't focus on cultivating, you might never be able to catch up to her," said Luo Mei, who seemed to be quite proud of Meng Yun's achievements.
"Okay," Alex simply nodded and got into position. Under Wen Cheng's instruction, Meng Yun walked to the other side and prepared herself as well.
Alex brought out his normal sword, while Meng Yun brought out a not-so-simple-looking flute. 'A flute?' Alex has heard people fought using music but had never seen it himself.
Wen Cheng walked up to the middle and acted as the referee. With a single swing of his hand, he started the fight.
A sweet sound started flowing out of Meng Yun's flute that sounded very simple and sweet. Alex didn't immediately attack as he felt a little apprehensive towards an unusual weapon like a flute.
More sound slowly appeared and he started to feel something heavy pressing down on his consciousness. But, it was barely anything, so he ignores whatever it was.
He crouched a little and in a single leap, crossed the entire fighting hall, arriving right in front of Meng Yun. He decided to use not techniques to attack her vulnerable self, but before he could even do anything, the music coming out of her flute changed dramatically, and Alex was immediately sent far away, hitting the wall on the other side.
"Ow, what was that?" he asked as he got up once more. The flute's melody had changed back to the first one that put some load on his consciousness.
'Seems I can't attack just like that.' He started to pour his Qi into his sword. However, instead of turning yellow like how most of his Qi lit up things, the sword started glowing a not-so-dark shade of green.
Alex was preparing to use the second strike of the Elusive Heavenly Sword.
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Chapter 144: The Fight Continues
The blade glowed bright green as Alex prepared to unleash the second strike of the Elusive heavenly sword. Meng Yun got serious when she saw this. Apparently, she could tell that the strike was going to be strong.
Her flute immediately changed tone as she started to play an even more aggressive sound. Qi built up right in front of her, threatening to fly off at any moment.
Alex took one step forward and with a single slash let go of the energy in his sword, sending a green slash flying towards Meng Yun. At the same time, Meng Yun as well let the pent-up energy lose, and the aggressive energy flew off towards the green slash.
As expected, a massive boom appeared right in front of them, sending shock waves towards both of them. Alex somewhat stood his ground, while Meng Yun had to take a step back.
'Is he stronger than me?' Meng Yun was shocked. She had expected herself to be stronger in general since she thought she had the higher cultivation, yet, he was doing very well with the fight.
She immediately got even more aggressive. A sudden shift in tone caused a bullet-like energy projectile to be sent towards Alex. Alex barely managed to dodge the projectile, when another one arrived. He shifted his body to dodge that one as well when the next projectile arrived.
One after another, multiple energy projectiles were thrown at Alex who was starting to get more at ease with the dodging thanks to the Elusive Heavenly Sword's evasion footwork.
'Dammit,' he thought. 'My blade is low graded so I can't use my attacks to their full potential.' Up until now, he had been fighting opponents that were weaker or equal in cultivation base as him. Each time, he had used his mortal grade sword that was enough to fight against his opponents.
However, against Meng Yun, who was a realm higher than him, in fact, a minor realm higher even, the blade wasn't as effective. Wen Cheng and Luo Mei watched from the side, still wondering where the match was gonna go.
"Do you think little brother can win, master?" Luo Mei asked using Spiritual sense.
"Hmm… tough to say, it seems his skills aren't enough to break through Meng Yun's own counter-attacks. Even the 3rd strike of the Elusive heavenly sword shouldn't be enough for him to disrupt Meng Yun's momentum in any way. Especially, since he doesn't have a wood-type superior spiritual root."
Wen Cheng thought for a bit and said, "Although, if he had the same grade weapon as Meng Yun's flute, he might be able to win quite easily. Also, there are a few techniques he isn't using yet which would give him an obvious advantage. You could even say that he is fighting with both of his hand's behind his back."
Luo Mei's eyes turned wide when she heard this. "Huh? Haven't you given little brother a proper weapon yet?"
Wen Cheng shook his head as he said, "Ma Rong suggested that I teach him fighting without any external help. So, I gave him a common mortal-grade sword and hid his relation to me. That also helped him from getting into trouble with the other elder's disciples."
"Not really. That merchant Huo's second son is already after little brother for quite a while now." Luo Mei said.
"Huo Zemin's son, what was his name? Huo Tu. What does he want with Yu Ming?" Wen-Cheng asked with a confused look. He couldn't understand why someone like Yu Ming would be in trouble with a scum like Huo Tu.
"From what little brother told me, He tried to buy little brother's pill for 10 spirit stones, and when little brother denied it, he got angry. Apparently, he has sent a few of his lackeys after little brother, but the little brother has been able to take care of them easily." Luo Mei said.
"He never told me anything about it," Wen Cheng sighed as he said that.
"There was no need to, master. If little brother needed anything, I could have just interfered." Luo Mei replied.
"I guess so. Still, making everything in the sect available to one with spirit stones doesn't really work well some of the time. We get scums like Huo Tu who only know how to flaunt their parent's money and gather lackeys to do their tasks for them. He's probably never been rejected in his life on anything. Sigh, if I could, I would remove him from the sect right here and now."
"Alas, due to our trade with Victorious Snow merchant group, it's impossible. I can't understand how Huo Zemin can raise two children completely different in personality and talent." Wen Cheng sighed quite a bit.
"Let's forget about such matter, master. Tell me more about what you said about little brother." Luo Mei asked, trying to change the subject.
"What I said about Yu Ming? Which part?" Wen Cheng questioned.
"The part where you said that little brother is still not using quite a few techniques. Is that true?" Luo Mei was truly curious about this. From her perspective, her junior brother was having trouble with the fights, but if what her master said was true, then that might not have been the case.
"Oh yes. Let's see if the 5 techniques I have already given to him, he is only using 2 of them. And he is also not using a single of the techniques he learned back in Hong Wu Sect. Some of those would have the match over within seconds. He probably doesn't want that and is only trying to fight properly" Wen Cheng explained.
"Although, if he isn't going to use any of the other techniques, he might end up losing soon. Hopefully, he doesn't do that," Wen Cheng said while shaking his head.
Luo Mei brought her attention back towards the match that was taking place between her junior brother and her trusted aid, Meng Yun. She then mumbled to herself, "Can he really win against her?"
She would find that out very soon.
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Chapter 145: A Strong Fist
The barrages of the sounds-based projectiles from Meng Yun finally stopped. She put down her flute and started breathing a little heavier. Droplets of sweat had formed across her brow as she tried to catch her breaths.
The relentless playing of the flute was very exhausting, and worst of all, the damned guy in front of her had somehow managed to dodge every single one of the attacks.
'How good is his evasion ability?' she wondered.
Alex, on the other hand, wasn't tired at all. Training for over 6 hours every night had been a norm for him during the last couple of days and the fight right now didn't feel any different.
Now that her attack had ended, he could finally use his own. Instead of pouring Qi into his blade, he put his sword into his bag. Everyone in the room was suddenly surprised.
"Please be ready to intercept this attack," a familiar voice spoke in Wen Cheng's mind. He immediately got vigilant as Alex was starting to prepare for his next attack.
He made his hand into a fist and poured his Qi into it. A yellow glow started to appear in it as it started getting brighter by the second.
Men Yun immediately put her flute next to her mouth and started using more tones. A tone started playing that seemed to wrap around Meng Yun, pushing anything that came towards her, aside.
Seeing this, Alex finally let out his glowing fist, as he used the Iron Fist Punch towards Meng Yun. A large, golden-yellow energy in the form of a fist flew towards Meng Yun.
Meng Yun prepared herself to take the full force of the attack with her own technique, but suddenly, someone else appeared in front of her. He looked to see the back of the sect leader.
Wen Cheng put forth a palm and lightly sent it forward. That light palm immediately dispelled any energy the flying fist had, making it disappear as if it never had been there.
"You lost, Yunyun," Wen Cheng said as shook off his hands and kept them behind his back.
"I… lost?" Meng Yun was confused. She never even got to face the attack, yet she had lost?
"What is going on master?" Luo Mei came forward and asked. She was very confused with what had just happened as well. One moment her master was standing with her, the next moment he was in front of Meng Yun, saying she had lost.
"If I hadn't intercepted your junior brother's attack just now, Meng Yun would probably have been gravely injured," Wen Cheng said as he looked towards Alex. 'That attack just now… it was definitely in the 4th realm of Organ Tempering. But how did he get so strong suddenly?' Wen Cheng wondered.
"Congratulations on winning, Junior brother," Luo Mei came from the side and started patting him on the back.
"Thank you, sister."
"Whats your current cultivation base? I can't see it right now," Luo Mei asked. Alex stopped using the Immortal concealment technique and let his cultivation aura spread out.
"Oh wow, you're still at only Bone Tempering realm and you already beat Yunyun who is at Organ Tempering 1st realm. You really are very talented, little brother. More than me and senior brother ever were."
Alex got a little embarrassed, unsure of how to respond. " Oh, right!!," Luo Mei shouted catching the attention of everyone in the room.
"Master said you weren't using some of your techniques, brother, is that correct?" Luo Mei asked.
"Yes, that is true," Alex simply replied.
"Oh, Why didn't you use it then? Were you trying to use Yunyun as training?" Luo Mei kept on asking the question.
"Oh no, Of course not. I wasn't trying to handicap myself or anything like that. It was just that… the match would've been over immediately if I used them." Alex replied genuinely.
"You would've won immediately? Are you saying you can win against Yunyun immediately if you wanted to?" Luo Mei asked after hearing Alex's reply.
"Well, kind of. Yes."
"Oh," Luo Mei said with surprise. "How many techniques did you not use?" she asked.
"Umm…" Alex counted in his head, and said, "3 primary ones."
"Primary ones? What does that mean?" Luo Mei asked curiously.
"Well, there were 3 techniques I had thought of absolutely not using. Others I just didn't have to." Alex said.
Meng Yun's eyes turned wide. Not only had he admitted to having handicapped himself, he also said he could've been fine with a little more handicap. That was just an insult to injury for her.
"Really?? wow. You will be as strong as me at this rate." Luo Mei said. After chatting for a bit more time, Luo Mei took Meng Yun and returned back to their houses.
After the ladies were gone, Wen Cheng finally asked a question that was burning deep in his heart. " What is going on, Yu Ming? Why was your attack so strong?"
"Yeah. I wanted to tell that to you earlier but didn't get the time, Master. After I took in that blood essence, my Iron Fist Punch has gotten a significant leap in power.
"I did feel it. Go on, use it once more on me. Let me see it once more." Alex did as Wen Cheng said and attacked him with the full force of his Iron Fist Punch.
It was much stronger than last time, barely touching on the threshold of the 5th realm of Organ Tempering. "It really is so much stronger. It wasn't like this Saturday night, was it?"
"No master, and for some reason, that is the only ability that has increased in power. All others are still the same power as they were before." Alex was really confused by the current situation, and it seemed Wen Cheng had no idea either.
"I don't think we can do anything about it for now. Go read the records in the library and see if there is anything about it in there tomorrow." That was the only advice Wen Cheng could come up with for now.
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Chapter 146: Forced Cultivation
"Alright, train by yourself for now. I don't think there is anything you will need me for tonight, so I will come back at 3 AM." After saying that, Wen Cheng left the training hall.
Alex didn't know what to do, so he decided to let out Pearl.
"Come out, Pearl." With a bright shine of light, Pearl appeared in front of him. "Meoow"
"You are not sleepy, are you?" he asked. "Meow," Pearl seemed to say 'no'.
"Alright then. I will practice my techniques for a while. As for you, you can… uhh," Alex was stumped for a moment on what to make Pearl do. He wanted Pearl to practice as well, but he was still a child. He thought a bit more and came up with something.
"You can use your cultivation method to cultivate a bit more," Alex said.
"Meow," the little cat had no idea what cultivate was. "Uhh… you don't know? But it says you have a cultivation technique now in your status." Alex was a bit confused.
"Hmm… maybe it's like mine and you have to meditate? But can cats even meditate? Let's see, normal monsters just absorb the Qi in the surrounding to get stronger, or occasionally eat other monster's cores to improve."
"Sigh, just try to meditate for now and see what happens." Alex gave up in the end and went with his first choice.
"Meow," the cat was even more confused.
"Ah, just close your eyes and breathe slowly," Alex explained what meditating meant.
The cat did as asked and closed its eyes to meditate. He watched to see if anything would happen. Nothing happened for the first minute, but after a few, Pearl's fur started glowing a little white.
Slowly, the white turned to yellow, which then turned to golden as time went on. Suddenly, as soon as the radiating light turned golden, Alex felt a small thump inside him. Then, came a flood of notifications.
Pearl has started using "????? ?????'s Dominating body"
Cultivation is now being shared
Cultivation Method is not compatible with human physiology
Cultivation technique is compatible with your Sun God's Divine Yang Body
Cultivation technique is not compatible with human meridians
Cultivation technique is compatible with your 5 Elemental Yin-Yang roots
You are now forcefully cultivating "????? ?????'s Dominating Body
"AHHHH!!" Suddenly, a massive pain coursed through Alex's body that brought him to his knees and then to his ground. His scream was loud enough that if there weren't any soundproof formations set in the training hall, people could probably hear it all the way from down at the sect crater.
The pain was the worst kind of pain Alex had ever felt. Even worse than when he ate the Yang Jade or when he had to fight that wolf to protect pearl and his mother.
Pain pricked all over his skin and organ as it felt like he was surrounded by thousands of needles pricking every part of his body, and it was somehow amplified by a hundred times. Even his organs started to hurt.
'What is going on?' he could barely form a thought as the relentless pain attacked him. He tried to open his eyes to see what was happening around him, but even his eyes and eyelids hurt a lot.
The only thing he couldn't feel pain in was his brain. So, he slowly let out his spiritual sense, barely able to concentrate on it. He tried to look at what was happening.
'WHAT!!' he was shocked to see that numerous wounds were opening and closing all over his body. His skins split, muscles torn, bones micro fractured, organs tearing up, meridians constantly damaged and even his brain was bleeding somewhat.
But as soon as those happened, they were also healed. His split skin shut tight, his torn muscle's reattached, his fractured bones reformed, teared up organs regrew, meridians healed and the brain stopped bleeding as if nothing had ever happened to it.
He tried to send his thoughts to Pearl. But the pain was too much for him to do such a specific task right now. He lost all focus and his spiritual sense retreated to himself.
"Ahhhh," he was still shouting. His pain lasted a while. Whether it was long or short was irrelevant to him. For him, the pain lasted an eternity.
Finally, after some time, he started to grow a little accustomed to the pain, or even numb to it. He resisted the urge to let go of all thought and scream once more and sent out his spiritual sense to pearl.
"Stop Pearl!," he shouted directly into Pearl's head. Pearl was way too focused on cultivating and didn't hear any of the shoutings Alex had done the past however long it had been.
"Stop!," he screamed once more using his spiritual sense.
Pearl suddenly opened his eyes, color fading from his body. "Meow?" he said as he looked at Alex who was down on the ground.
As soon as pearl stopped cultivating, the pain finally went away. The remaining wounds on his body slowly healed and within a minute, he was back to normal with no more pain running across his body.
HUFF HUFF
He wanted to speak out, but he couldn't form any words to speak. The experience was just too traumatizing. Only after a few minutes did he manage to string up a few words to form a sentence, "What happened to me?"
His eyes still had a hard time focusing when he remembered the notifications that he had read. "Pearl forcefully cultivated me?" he was beyond dumbfounded at what he remembered reading.
"But how could he force me to cultivate along with me? What is going on?" he was very confused as to what had happened just now. Still breathing heavily, he remembered something.
"Oh wait. what about that 'sharing' thing mentioned in Pearl's info?" he wondered as he looked up Pearl's status.
[White Cat (Child) - Bonded
Name: Pearl
Cultivation Base: Skin Tempering 9th Realm
Evolution Chance: 40%
Cultivation Method: ????? ?????'s Dominating Body (Shared)]
When he saw Pearl's status, he was surprised.
"Huh? Did you breakthrough already?"
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Chapter 147: Faster
Alex was surprised to see that Pearl was stronger than he was before just by cultivating for a little time.
"Speaking of time, how long has it been?" Alex wondered as he looked at the time of the upper right. It was a few minutes past 12. "Sigh, I really have to suffer through that for over 2 hours huh. All so you can get stronger?" he felt a little agitated.
"Hmm… wait a second. It said I was being cultivated too. Could it be…." His eyes turned wide and hopeful as he quickly said, "Status,"
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[Player Name: Yu Ming
Cultivation: Bone Tempering 9th Realm (1,000,000Qi : 100%) [Breakthrough]
Body: Sun God's Divine Yang Body
Talent: God
Spiritual Roots: 5 elements Yin-Yang roots
Cultivation Method: Starry Sky Qi Absorption Method
Qi: 1,947,354
]
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"Huh? Why are there no changes?" he wondered. The numbers in the status were all the same as before. "Did I go through all that pain for nothing?" he tried to see if there were anything else that was different about him in all the other settings, but he couldn't find any.
"I don't feel like doing anything anymore, but, what do I do then?" he couldn't think of anything.
So, reluctantly, he decided to go back to normal practice. "Alright, C'mon buddy, I need to train now, and I can't have you cultivating. That will be bad for me. Get inside," he said as let Pearl get inside his arm.
'Alright, back to training.' He started using all sorts of techniques and practicing with them. He deliberately chose to use the Iron Fist Punch more than anything, just to see how much stronger it was.
"I need to measure all of my attacks and see just how much stronger they are." He remembered his attack having a 4 realm higher attack damage, so he needed to check if that was still the case.
"Guess, I will have to visit the Training Hall while I go to the Library as well." He kept on practicing. He moved on to using the Elusive Heavenly Sword and Fluctuating Friction Dance as he practiced them too for a while.
"Hmm… Have I gotten faster now?" he couldn't tell if he was projecting what he wanted to see, or if he really was more faster and flexible.
After a while, Wen Cheng returned to see that Alex was still practicing. 'Oh, did he breakthrough again? He seems to be better now,' he thought as he walked up to Alex.
"Congratulations, for making it into the Organ tempering realm. It won't be much longer before you reach the True realms at all." Wen Cheng couldn't see Alex's cultivation due to his concealment technique and thought he had broken through between the time he fought with Meng Yun and right now.
"Organ tempering realm? I haven't broken through yet master." Alex said as he got a little confused.
"Huh? Aren't you at Organ Tempering 1st realm?" Wen Cheng asked as he got a little confused as well.
"No. I am still at Bone Tempering 9th Realm."
"What? How are you so much faster then?" Wen Cheng had seen him use his movement technique and it was must faster than when he used it against Meng Yun just a few hours ago.
Alex's eyes shined. "I am, aren't I? I thought I was fooling myself, but I really must be faster."
"Can you tell me how you are so much faster without breaking through?" Wen Cheng asked.
"Well, I think it's because of Pearl again," Alex said still remembering the horror he had to go through.
"Your cat? What does it have to do with you?" Wen Cheng said with confusion.
"I don't know how, but when Pearl cultivated after your left, I started feeling this pain all over my body. My entire body was covered with small cuts and tears all over the outside and inside, which also healed very fast. After I finally managed to tell Pearl to stop after 2 hours did my pain go away, and I was a little faster." Alex shivered at the thought of what he had gone through.
"Damage all over your body… and they healed? … No way," Wen Cheng's eyes widened as he heard what Alex had just said.
He immediately started speaking, "Withdraw all of your Qi into your meridian and hit my hand." He slowly put forth his palms to give Alex a target to attack.
"Huh?" Alex got confused.
"Do what I say. I want to check something," Wen Cheng started to get impatient.
"Ok, Master," Alex slowly reeled in all of his Qi. All the Qi in his skin, his muscles, bones, everywhere. They all reeled back into his meridians.
'Urghh… I feel so bloated right now.' He no longer gave any sign of what cultivation he was in right now. Similar to the Immortal Concealment Technique, he looked like a complete mortal right now.
The only difference was, with the Immortal Concealment technique, he hid the aura of his Qi and Cultivation base. While, by doing this, he was hiding the Qi and Cultivation base itself, basically leaving his body defenseless, as if he was a mortal.
"This feels so uncomfortable, Master," he said as he tried to keep it all in without leaking any Qi.
"Alright, since you are comparable to a mortal now, Hit my palm."
Alex didn't wait another second. He was already very uncomfortable and immediately decided to attack his master. With a single dash, he reached his master and delivered a perfect punch.
BAM
"Ow," Alex said as he started shaking his hand in pain. His master's palms were harder than he had imagined them to be. After the pain settled down, he looked up to see his master. Only to find his eyes wide and his jaw wide open.
'What's going on?' he wondered. He released his Qi back and asked his master, "I am done, right master? Why did you want me to do that?"
Wen Cheng returned back from his stupor. "Yes, yes. You are done. And I have confirmed what I had wanted to as well."
After a few seconds of silence, he finally spoke, "You have become a body cultivator."
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Chapter 148: Mortal Cleansing
"Huh? Me, a body cultivator?" Alex asked, stunned by what he had just heard.
"Yes, Your body is stronger than what it used to be. From what you said about your experience earlier, you must've gone through a tempering of sorts. That's how body cultivators are born. They temper their body through pain and hard work, and become stronger." Wen Cheng was still in shock as he explained.
"But, aren't body cultivators supposed to be very rare. I remember master saying something about there rarely being a body cultivator in the Crimson empire and that I don't have to worry about them much." Alex repeated what he had remembered from Ma Rong.
"Ma Rong explained to you about them, did she? Well, she is not wrong. It is extremely rare for there to be a Body cultivator in the Crimson Empire, but it's not rare. There have been a few times that body cultivators arrived in the Crimson empire, but they don't stay as one for long since there aren't many things they can use to temper themselves with."
Alex got curious about something, "Master, when you say Body cultivators temper themselves, is it different from the normal tempering realms of Qi cultivation?"
"Of course there is a difference. The tempering for both is meant for completely different results. A normal cultivator's tempering is meant to temper their body with internal Qi so that it is less resistant to the Qi during cultivation and they can succeed in future cultivation."
"However, a Body cultivator's tempering means he is destroying and fixing his body a lot of times so that he can make his body stronger."
"Normal cultivators temper to improve cultivation, while body cultivators temper to make their bodies much tougher. You… are now one of them." Wen Cheng finally let go of his shock.
"That is not a bad thing, right?" Alex asked as he hoped for a positive answer.
"No, but since you won't really have that many ways to improve your body, you will stagnate later on and it will be quite useless in the long run," Wen Cheng just finished saying this when he thought of something and added, "Although, since your body tempering came from your cat, … maybe you can do it indefinitely." Wen Cheng started getting lost in his own thought.
"Master?" Alex called to bring him out of his stance. "What are you thinking about?"
"Hmm… I… want you to do it again." Wen Cheng's reply came out of nowhere.
"Do it again? But, it hurts so much, master." Alex's eyes turned wide as fear crept upon them.
"Yeah, that's what body tempering is. You have to get hurt to become stronger, and you have to do that without going overboard and injuring yourself badly." Wen Cheng explained as such.
Alex took a deep breath. "Alright, Pearl come out." Light shined from his left arms as Pearl came out of it and stood in front of him, licking his front paw.
"Meow," it spoke as he looked towards him. "Master, make sure you stop him from cultivating if it gets really bad, okay?"
Alex then tried really hard to find the next set of words to speak, "Pearl, Cultivate once more."
"Meow"
Pearl closed his eyes and started to meditate again. Slowly, a light started coming off of him. It started with white light, then yellow, and finally, it moved to golden light.
Alex fully prepared for the pain to hit him, but even then he wasn't ready at all. "AHHHH," his scream was as loud as ever as he found it hard to focus on anything other than the pain.
The scream also shocked Wen Cheng. He wasn't expecting such a horrific scream from his own student. He immediately wanted to stop the cat from cultivating any more but decided to wait.
He used his spiritual sense to look all over Alex's body. He was terrified to see what he was going through. Hearing the explanation of what had happened last time did not do the actual thing any sort of justice.
"Should I stop it?" he started deliberating. He wanted to stop Alex from feeling more pain, but then, he saw something. Throughout Alex's body, tiny black spots were oozing out of his skin.
"No Way!! Mortal cleansing? Without any external assistance?" Wen Cheng was shocked at what he was seeing. "How is body tempering helping him in Mortal cleansing, when it should only be for normal cultivation?"
Wen Cheng felt like he was seeing a miracle. He no longer gave any thought to stopping the cat and watched as Alex's body kept on pushing out the tiny black bits.
Alex's screams, however, were ever so violent. Wen Cheng has to ignore all noises for a while. Only after a few hours did his scream started dying down.
Finally, Wen Cheng saw that the black bits were no longer oozing out of Alex and decided to stop the cat. "Meow" the cat woke up from its cultivation with a single command from Wen Cheng. He then turned to look at Alex.
He slowly walked up to Alex's completely black and filthy body to give him a nudge. But as soon as he got close to him and realized what he really smelled like, he ran back.
Wen Cheng looked at Alex who was on the floor, completely unmoving, and said," He's gone unconscious from all the pain."
He felt bad for letting his disciple go through this, but he also felt happy that his disciple had done through this. Mortal cleaning was one of the best things a cultivator could hope to experience, and his disciple had just done it.
"He is really going to go very far in his journey as a cultivator," Wen Cheng started to feel proud. After a few minutes, he told Pearl to go back into Alex, to which the cat complied.
"Yeah, you need a bath," Wen Cheng thought as he used his Qi to carry Alex and bring him inside his building to cleanse his body of the filth from Mortal cleansing.
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Chapter 149: Improvements
Alex slowly opened his drowsy eyes as he felt something wet around his body. "What?" he asked through his sleep as tried to stand up. Suddenly, his leg slipped on something as he submerged into the liquid once more.
He was now underwater and desperately tried to get back up. Once he came out of the water, he was fully awake. He immediately looked around, sending his spiritual sense to look at the different things.
He found himself in a small room with a small pond-like bath inside of it. "Where…" he looked around confused.
Suddenly, the door to the room opened and Wen Cheng walked in. "Oh thank god it's all clean now," he said as he walked in.
"Master, where am I?" he asked. He was still trying to recollect what the last thing that happened was. Only then did he finally remember the unbearable pain he had to go through once more.
He shuddered as he remembered the pain and asked, "Why didn't you stop Pearl master? It hurts so much." He actually felt like crying from all the memory of the pain.
Wen Cheng looked a little guilty as he said, "Get out of the bath and change into these clothes here." He brought out a set of inner sect robes and pants.
He also took out a bunch of storage bags and kept them on the robe. "You have quite a few storage bags. Do alchemists always need so many?"
Alex was surprised when he saw that. 'Did he check inside?' He was worried his master would find all the ingredients and talismans he found from the corpse. He didn't want to explain that right now.
Alex quickly walked out of the clean bath and changed into his robes. Following Wen Cheng, he walked out of the room.
"I had to change the bath 3 times because of how much filth was on your body." Wen Cheng's face seemed disgusted at the thought of this filth.
Alex got surprised a little. 'It can't be that I sh*t myself due to all the pain, can it?' he started to fear this thought more than anything now.
Wen Cheng walked out of the building, back into the training hall with Alex in tow. Alex looked at the outside and was surprised. 'It's already day?'. He quickly checked the time and was stunned to find out that it was past 10 am already.
"What?" he shouted out loud.
"What's wrong?" Wen Cheng looked back.
"Oh, nothing master. I was just surprised at how late it was."
"Yes, you were unconscious for quite a while. I was about to go get a healer if you didn't wake up in the next 2 hours."
Only after entering the training hall did Wen Cheng finally stop. "Sigh. Tell me, how does it feel right now."
"Feel? I feel fine right now," Alex answered as he wondered if he had a fever or something when he was unconscious.
"No, I mean your body. How does your body feel after going through such a long tempering process and an entire mortal cleansing." Wen Cheng seemed eager to find out just how much his disciple's body had changed.
Finally understanding his master's questions, Alex moved around his arms and shoulders around trying to feel them. "Oh," he sounded surprised. He jumped a bit here and there, all while his eyes were wide.
"It feels so much better master. Almost like I lost half my body weight or something. I feel so light." His words couldn't explain how he was feeling right now. "Is this because of body tempering too, master?"
"I expected so, and no, it's not because of the body tempering. It kind of is, but it's mostly due to Mortal Cleansing."
Alex's face got confused when he heard that. "Mortal cleansing? What's that master?" he tried to remember if he had ever heard that word before, but he couldn't remember. Not even his master had taught him that when she gave him a general lesson on everything.
"It's no surprise you haven't heard of it. In fact, I would be more surprised if you had. Mortal cleansing is a very rare occurrence where one's body discards all of its unwanted filth and leaves you with a pristine body that is prime for cultivation."
Alex asked, "Have you gone through it as well master?"
"Me? No. Like I said it's very rare and you can only do this if you find… some sort of fruit, that I do not know the name of. It's said that only if you eat this fruit can you go through mortal cleansing. However, it seems that is not just the way. It seems your cat can somehow help you as well."
"What exactly does mortal cleansing help me for, master?" Alex was still a little confused.
"You remember how I said that self tempering helped your body store more Qi and thus progress in terms of cultivation?" Wen Cheng asked, to which Alex nodded. "Similarly, Mortal Cleansing also removes your body of everything not required for cultivation and leaves you with only that which is required to reach for immortality, the final destination of a Cultivator. Thus it also improves your bottlenecks for cultivation."
"Hmm… Does this mean I can store more Qi in my body now, Master?" he asked.
"Sort of, yes. But it's more so that your body can now use Qi more efficiently than before. Try using a technique, and see how much easier it is."
Alex did as asked and circulated his Qi to use the Jade Skin technique. As soon as he started, his body produced textures around his skin that made him look like he was made up of jade.
"Oh wow, it took less than half the time it normally takes to use it." His surprised voice gave all the answers Wen Cheng required. He nodded a bit and said,
"Go and check how strong you've become in the actual Training Hall. Also, since you've become quite strong, reach as high as you can by tonight. I want to see you with at least a badge of number 120."
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Chapter 150: Such a Weak Body?
"Oh yeah, make sure to keep training your body with your cat. Not many people get the chance to become a body cultivator. This is an amazing opportunity that you can't miss." Wen Cheng said as Alex left the training hall.
Alex looked at the clock and sighed. "Guess I am going to have to skip the first class today."
He quickly went back to his house, hidden from the others and logged out. He hurried his way to the cafeteria and then went to his 2nd class, which he arrived during the 20-minute recess.
Matt was there as well and looked at Alex and asked, "You didn't log out for the lunch, what happened? Game so good, you forgot reality?" he asked jokingly.
"No, I was just unconscious in the game. Barely managed to log out in time to catch the 2nd class."
Matt said, "Oh, you gonna complain in the forums too? Hehe."
"Complain? About what?" Alex asked in confusion.
"About fainting in the game and becoming unable to log out of course. So many people complain about missing their work, or school, or in worst cases, not being able to log out for days, only to log out weak and hungry."
Alex was surprised. " That really happens to people? I guess I did faint 2 days in a row, so I shouldn't be surprised. It might not be as uncommon as I would want it to be then."
"Of course it happens often, don't you read the forums?" Matt asked.
"Only in some cases. Otherwise, I like to stay unspoiled about the game. Finding out the things on your own had a certain charm to it." Alex didn't think knowing every aspect of the game to be very appealing. He had done what he had to, to earn some necessary money, but now, he hadn't even needed it.
'I was way too worried about a laptop, haha. They don't even require it until the 2nd semester.'
"Ah, so you're that kind of player huh," said Matt.
"That kind?" asked Alex
"You know, the kind that likes to go in blind to a game. It's rare to see someone like you nowadays. Although, I can see why that would be fun to some," said Matt.
Alex simply smiled.
About 2 hours later, Alex's classes ended and he went to the cafeteria. Afterward, he went back to his room and logged into the game.
He looked at the names on the wall in front of him. Most of them were already changed and some of the names from previous times weren't even there anymore.
'Why is it that it's only the players that are leaving?' he wondered. There were still a few names that were definitely from the players that he could recognize, but they were in the top 100, and it would take some time for him to get there.
"Let's go check just how strong I am first," he said to himself and walked out of the house. He soon made his way to the sect crater and went to the training hall.
The Training Hall was a tall pagoda-like tower at least 20 floors tall. "That's quite tall," he thought and walked in.
He saw people waiting in a queue here as well. When his turn finally came, the elder asked, " What room?"
"Sorry?" Alex asked in confusion.
"What do you want to train in. Attack, Defense, or Movement?" the elder asked.
"Oh, umm... is it possible to go for all 3? I want to train in all," Alex said.
The elder nodded and took Alex's badge. He then gave him a small wooden token. Alex looked at the token and saw that it was numbered '4-12'. "Go to the 4th floor's 12th room," the elder said.
Alex thanked the elder and quickly found a staircase. "Oh, it goes down too?" he was surprised to see that the Training hall was not only tall, but it was also deep too.
Alex walked up the stairs to the 4th floor, and quickly found his room. Similar to the production hall, he put his wooden token in the keyhole. The door opened to reveal a completely white room.
"Hmm… " Alex wondered and walked in. The room was quite wide and had enough place for him to try out his techniques.
As he walked in, he noticed a metallic puppet on the other side with a rather long wooden pole extended horizontally around its arms.
He walked up to it and saw that it had 3 switches on its head. He flicked the switch that said 'Offensive Training' and left defensive and movement training as is.
"Alright, does this work how I think it does?" he thought as he knocked on it a few times.
Skin Tempering 3rd Realm
"Oh, it does. Let's try with just my body then." He started to pull in every single Qi he had in his skin, muscle, bones, and organs, back into his meridian.
"Urghh… Why is this so uncomfortable every time I do this?" he thought. Keeping all the Qi inside the meridian and not letting it flow as well, was an unnatural feeling he wished to avoid.
"I better get it done with," making sure he wasn't leaking any Qi unintentionally, Alex prepared his attack. 'Here it goes,' with a single dash, he reached the puppet in front of him and…
BAM
A strong sound rose out from the board that shocked Alex. 'That sounded so strong!!,' he was shocked. He looked at the puppet and saw that it was taking a while to show the result.
Only after a few seconds did it show the result.
Muscle Tempering 4th realm
'That… is quite weak.' He was surprised to see that the Body tempering that his master praised so much had resulted in such low damage. 'If it's this weak, then what is so good about it?' he wondered.
Only after a few seconds did he realize, "Wait… no, this is quite strong, isn't it? Only one night of cultivation, and I'm already at Muscle Tempering 4th realm. Does that mean… I can get a lot stronger this way?'
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Chapter 151: Attack and Defense
Alex felt like he had just realized the importance of body cultivation. Everything his master had said until now had barely influenced his thoughts against body cultivation. At best, he would reluctantly accept the pain and cultivate.
But now, he had an incentive to. "Even if I could cultivate more than this with Qi cultivation alone, I still wouldn't get as strong since continuous breakthroughs are bad for your foundation. But, this seems entirely different."
"This is quite exciting."
Now that he knew how strong his Qi-less body was, he decided to check how strong it was with the Qi. "If I'm remembering correctly, my fists did the same damage as my cultivation base. So, with the Body cultivation, it should be higher, right?"
"Although, I don't know how much more damage a simple muscle tempering realm can add to my current strength." Alex let go of the withheld Qi and let it fill his body.
He prepared his fist once more and punched the metallic puppet as hard as he could.
BAM
This was a much louder sound than he was imagining. He looked up at the puppet to see what the result was.
Organ Tempering 2nd Realm
"Or-Organ Tempering 2nd Realm?" he blurted out, shocked at the result. "But..how? My body isn't strong enough to show that kind of result. Was I mistaken earlier?" he wondered.
The last time he had tested his physical strength was when he had just gotten the Smiting Blade technique. After that, he had trained under the assumption that all of his damage would always be equivalent to his cultivation base.
"Even master had said the same thing. Due to one's Qi, your strength without any external techniques or artifacts would be equal to your cultivation base under normal circums—"
His eyes went wide. "Is there something more to my strength other than the weak body cultivation right now?" he tried to think of the reasons.
"I see…" he finally said after a minute. "It has to be either because of the Yang Jade, the Mortal Cleansing I went through, or the unknown blood essence, right? But which one? Maybe even all three."
He punched once more just to be sure it wasn't a fluke and the puppet indeed showed 'Organ Tempering 2nd Realm' once more.
He took out the normal sword and used it this time.
Organ Tempering 1st Realm
"Woah! Even a normal Common Mortal grade sword's damage increased by so much? What about my actual sword?" he thought as he took out the Steel sword and used it.
Organ Tempering 3rd Realm
"Yeah, that's more like it." He went on to test on a few more techniques. He managed to deal a realm higher worth of damage with his Smiting blade. Sadly, techniques like the 2nd and 3rd strike of the Elusive Heavenly sword which were more focused on the Qi were the weakest of the different techniques Alex knew now.
Iron Fist Punch, however, had become amazing.
Organ Tempering 5th Realm
"But, it's not even focused on the body. Why is only this Qi-based technique so strong?" he couldn't help but wonder. After going through Mortal Cleansing, his strength had gone a realm higher. But he didn't know that yet.
"I should see if cultivation truly had no influence on body cultivation," he thought as he opened his status page, and pressed on the button, [Breakthrough].
Congratulations, You have broken through to 'Organ Tempering: 1st realm'
'Finally, on the 4th minor realm.' Alex once more reeled in his Qi and tried to punch the puppet with just his body strength.
Muscle Tempering 4th Realm
"As I thought, it didn't increase."
He went on to test the other techniques and realized that they all had increased by a realm in damage. "I should test defense next," he thought and walked up to the puppet to flip the 'Defense training' switch while switching off the other one.
Out of nowhere, the puppet moved to the side, hitting him with the stick it was holding. His reflexes kicked in as he put up his arms to protect himself, only to realize that it didn't hurt at all.
The puppet returned to its original state, and Alex could see the words 'Skin Tempering 1st Realm' written on it. The puppet moved once more attacking him. This time, it's damage one step further.
Hit after hit, it increased its damage with every hit, returning to its initial position with each one. Still, Alex didn't feel any damage whatsoever.
Even after the damage entered the threshold of the Bone Tempering realm, he was barely feeling any damage. "Is this how good body cultivation really is?" he couldn't help but wonder.
Only around the 5th realm, did he start to get hurt a little. Still, it was more of a pat on the back, than actual damage. Another attack came from the side, dealing a bit higher damage.
Another attack with 7th realm damage came and he finally thought it was a bit substantial in damage. The 8th realm damage started to get him worried.
The 9th realm damage finally hurt him a little. He braced for the next attack.
Finally, an Organ Tempering 1st realm's equivalent damage-dealing attack appeared in front of him and hit him, sending him flying backward.
"Urghh, that hurt. But I can take another one." The puppet was already back to its original position, moving once more. Alex walked forward and braced himself again.
BAM
He was sent back flying. "Arghh," he shouted as that was the highest bit of damage he could take right now. "Urghh…" he stood up once more and waited for the attack to come back.
Qi started flowing through his body as his skin started to get textured, making it look like it was made up of jade. Alex had used the Jade Skin technique and waited for the attack to hit him.
"Umphh," he stopped the attack and felt a little damage. He smiled at the situation as he watched the puppet rotate back to hit him once more.
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Chapter 152: Quick Library Visit
Organ Tempering 3rd Realm had hurt Alex a little through the Jade Skin technique, but he could keep going.
He waited for the 4th realm attack to hit and braced himself. "Mmm," he screamed as the hit just now actually hurt. It wasn't enough to make him suffer or anything, but it did hurt quite a bit.
Alex started to wonder if taking the next shot was a good idea or not. Alas, he took a little too long to decide. The puppet had already spun, swinging its staff at him.
Alex prepared his Jade Skin technique the best he could and blocked the attack.
BAM
He was sent flying back to the wall when he hit and fell down. "Argghhh," this had hurt him quite a bit. He immediately looked up, scared another attack was coming, but the puppet had stopped moving at all, and its body had nothing written on it.
It took a few minutes for the pain to subside. "I can barely take the 5th realm attack, which I can easily survive a 4th realm's attack. Maybe I can do better if I cultivate my body," he thought. But the thought alone was enough to make him shiver.
"I will think about that later." He went to the puppet and switched off defensive mode. "How does movement training work though? Will it tell me what realm my movements are at? But that doesn't seem like a quantifiable value, unlike cultivation base, which normal persons have the equal amount."
Still, he decided to check it out, so he flipped the switch.
Suddenly, multiple holes appeared on the white walls around the room. Alex prepared for what was coming. A burst of small air appeared near his face that he managed to dodge easily.
Another burst of air came from behind him. He ducked to dodge this one as well. After that, burst upon bursts of air were sent out of the holes at a steady rate.
Alex started with Elusive Heavenly sword's evasion skills but soon realized that it wasn't going to be enough. So, he started to use Fluctuating friction dance as well.
He kept on dodging for at least 15 minutes, before finally, the number of air shots was just too much for him to dodge. Without a way to move out of the way, he got hit.
All the openings in the wall closed off and Alex heard a 'click' sound. He looked around to see that the Movement training switch was turned off.
"This is actually quite a good way to train your movement technique."
Alex left the room and walked out of the training hall after paying the spirit stones. He looked at the time and realized not much had passed since he logged in, so he went to the library.
The library wasn't as different from the library in the Hong Wu sect. It was in a pagoda shape with around 8 floors. He walked in to see not that many shelves of books. However, there were quite a few disciples in here, sitting around a table, reading the books. Somewhere even copying them into a talisman.
"Finally, this feels like an actual library," he said out loud. He walked around looking for the different things to read. "Oh, most of these are just introductory books," he realized as he saw that most of them were just basic knowledge regarding the fields they were about.
Cultivation books taught how to cultivate, Alchemy books taught how ingredients were required, and so on. So, he skipped the first floor and walked up to the second floor.
"I can't waste much time here today. I still need to go register a fight."
The second floor was much the same. With the content being a little more advanced, it was still there for outer sect disciples to read. Alex wanted to skip this one too, but he found a beginner's guide on beast companions so he quickly read it.
There were other fun books too, but he had to ignore them for today. He walked up to the 3rd floor and found more books on beast companions, but they were still very basic.
They mostly just explained how beast companions worked, how they formed bonds, and how they were stored. Although, he did learn the beast companions required no sustenance to survive after bonding with a cultivator, which relieved him regarding not feeding Pearl at all.
"Still, I should give him some food from time to time just for enjoying a meal," he thought.
He decided to go to the 4th floor. An Elder stood guard on the staircase that led to the 4th floor and asked for a spirit stone.
"It costs me a spirit stone just to enter the 4th floor?" he asked in surprise. The elder seemed to be used to this question so he answered in a very practiced manner.
"No, you do not. We will remove the cost from the book you will borrow. However, if you won't borrow anything, you will not get the spirit stones back. This is a way to not overcrowd the upper floors with people who don't mean business. All the books on the 4th floor cost 5 spirit stones. If you don't have it, you can return back."
The elder had a very monotone voice when he explained this. Alex decided to just go up and read whatever he could find there. He started searching for 3 different things in here. First, he looked for books on beast companions. Second, he looked for books on alchemy. Third, he looked for books or records that could give him the knowledge that was more trivia-like.
He actually wanted to find information on the different bodies and see if his body was written in it or not. He sent forth his spiritual sense to check for everything in the area. Once he found what he was looking for, he started reading it. Time slowly passed, and before he knew it, it was time for him to leave.
Since he had just used a single spirit stone, he didn't bother renting anything else and just left the library.
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Chapter 153: Palm of the Sun
Alex stood over his opponent he had just fought. The opponent was a lackey of Huo Tu. He had found it quite funny when the person he randomly chose for fighting today was actually one of the lackeys.
The opponent was quite surprised when he realized who his opponent was. The fight itself was pretty easy since his opponent was only at the Organ Tempering 1st realm, the same as him.
"Fight Over!" the elder shouted.
Alex walked over to the elder to get his new badge, numbered 105. As he left, he heard the lackey saying in a low voice to himself, "I must tell brother Huo. This master-less bastard is starting to target us."
"What?" Alex thought to himself, confused. "Is he misunderstanding the coincidence?" he thought but didn't bother explaining. It was already 9 PM and he was late for his training with his master.
"Ah, you came, finally. I thought you decided to skip today as well." Wen Cheng was waiting for him outside of the training hall.
"The fight I registered today took a little too long to end master, I didn't purposefully be late."
"Oh what badge did you obtain?" he asked.
Alex took out the badge and handed it to Wen Cheng. Wen Cheng looked at the badge and was shocked. "You are already this far ahead? In just a little over a week too. And here I thought those new people that keep joining and leaving were talented."
'Talented new people? He must be talking about the players,' he thought.
"Are these people really talented, Master?" he asked.
"Well, not as much as you. But, they were pretty fast at learning techniques too. Such a shame they just leave the sect after learning a few more techniques. " Wen Cheng shook his head at remembering all the new talents he lost.
"Although, they were still slow in cultivation so I guess its not that big of a loss. Some of them we actually expelled because they kept destroying the copies of the techniques they took and couldn't pay the fine."
"Honestly, I don't know where this new surge of cultivators came from, but they are as talented as they are annoying." Wen Cheng seemed to change his opinions on the player quite frequently.
"Nevermind them, since you did what I asked you to, take this offensive technique and learn it. I will come back around 2 am. After that, I will stay with you to make sure your body cultivation goes well. "
Alex suddenly was horrified at the thought. "I will have to cultivate body tonight as well, master?" he asked. He had thought of doing it once more, but a little later down the line. Having to do it immediately after suffering yesterday, made his palms and feet sweat from anxiety.
"Don't worry," Wen Cheng said, "Since you already went through it once, it won't be as painful as last time. Especially, since you also went through Mortal Cleansing. That should at least help you keep your mental bearings."
Alex thought for a second and nodded. Wen Cheng handed him the book he had and left. Alex looked at the book he had with him and read it out loud.
"Palm of the Sun?" he read with interest. 'Is it what I think it is?' he thought. He read the introductory page and realized that it was in fact 'Yang Qi' related.
"Palm of the Sun. Throw a palm strike with Yang energy from a distance away. Works better for people with Yang-type spiritual root, but doesn't necessarily need it."
"This is quite good. Hmm… will my body affect it at all?" he wondered. It didn't take him long to learn the technique, so he started practicing it immediately.
It didn't take him long to realize that the palm strike was as strong if not stronger than the fist. "Hmm… does this mean that I have something too that is making the fist strong?" he wondered, but couldn't think of any answer even though he had a big suspicion that it had something to do with the blood essence.
After an hour of training the palm, he started to get bored. He had done the same training for the last week or so and he didn't want to do that either. "What do I do now?" he thought.
He so desperately wished to make some pills right now, but there was no fire.
"Hmm… the books did say that beast companions needed no training for fights, but it can't hurt to try, right?" he thought as he called pearl out.
"Meow," Pearl looked around and realized he was in the same familiar place as yesterday. He immediately started to lay down and meditate as that was what Alex had been asking for him every time he was called out.
"Wait, no." Alex's heart skipped a beat as he immediately stopped Pearl from cultivating. "We are going to practice fighting today buddy."
Alex brought Pearl to the center of the training hall and proceeded to train him. "Alright, bub. Come attack me."
"Meow," Pearl tilted his head in confusion as he didn't understand what Alex meant exactly. Alex gestured by punching himself in his own arm. "Come hit me here with your hands."
Pearl finally understood what Alex meant and suddenly, jumped towards him to attack.
BAM
Or so Alex expected to hear. But what he heard was just a small 'pat' sound on his arm. He barely even felt anything. "Are you weak? Or am I just too strong now?" he wondered and asked.
He decided to check Pearl's status.
[White Cat (Child) - Bonded
Name: Pearl
Cultivation Base: Muscle Tempering 4th Realm
Evolution Chance: 40%
Cultivation Method: ????? ?????'s Dominating Body (Shared)
]
"Oh, you already reached Muscle Tempering realm? That is very fast. As fast, if not faster than why I cultivate normally. Are you stealing Qi from me by any chance?' Alex jokingly asked. And then, he noticed something weird. "Wait a second…" Alex was surprised. "Is your cultivation realm the same as my body cultivation realm?"
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Chapter 154: Progress
Alex thought for a bit. Pearl's cultivation base had come from sleeping for a few weeks in his tattoo, then eating the blood essence, and then finally, cultivating. Only one of which was responsible for his body cultivation right now.
"So that can only mean that it is a coincidence right?" he thought. He then wondered 'Since we have the same cultivation base in a way, maybe it will be equal if I take back my Qi? Although it feels really uncomfortable, I should try it.'
He started pulling in the Qi into his meridian and leaving his body Qi-less. "Alright, hit me again buddy." Pearl didn't wait for him to say anything else and immediately slapped his arm with his paw.
Alex stumbled a few steps back as the hit was a bit harder than he thought it would be. "Shouldn't be surprising that I took so much damage. We are the same cultivation base technically after all. Although, it doesn't hurt as much as I expected it to."
He then looked at Pearl and said, "Alright buddy, come attack me."
Pearl once more hit him, but this time Alex dodged it. Alex did nothing but dodge as Pearl tried to hit him continuously. In the end, they had to stop because Alex realized that Pearl just wasn't good at fighting.
"I can't even teach you how to fight, can I?" Alex fell into a dilemma. 'How do the normal monsters know how to fight then?' he wondered.
He continued fighting with Pearl once more. This time, he went on for as long as he could, however, Pearl barely learned anything once again.
"Is it because he is still a child that he can't learn how to fight? Or am I just that bad of a teacher?" Alex thought. "Guess, I will have to wait until he is an adult then."
Alex decided to solo train for the next few hours. It was a shame, but he couldn't train his Flickering Shadows technique in the brightly lit training hall. So, he just kept the training to the things he had learned in the Tiger Sect. But that was getting boring.
Perhaps he was getting really good at it, or he just didn't see the point of training solo for so long. He just wanted to stop for once and do something else. But his mind told him this was important.
"Urghh… I just want to go back to making pills. That is so much more interesting. But I also need to learn to fight so that I could protect myself."
He reluctantly practiced for a bit longer until Wen Cheng came back around.
"Did you learn it?" he asked.
"Yes master," he proceeded to show exactly how good the attack was. "Hmm… did your yang-type spiritual root amplify the damage a bit?" Wen Cheng said as he felt the dangerous aura radiating from the palm.
"I think so master," Alex said.
"Alright, let's get on with the body cultivation. I will stay with you until the end to make sure nothing bad happens," Wen Cheng said.
"Uh…" Alex wanted to complain some more, but reluctantly agreed. "Alright, master."
He called out Pearl and told him to cultivate. Within minutes, Pearl's fur was glowing bright gold, while Alex was gritting his teeth trying to not scream.
Wen Cheng looked at Alex in surprise. "Wow, he isn't screaming at all. Did the mortal cleansing actually help him that much? Or is his body just that strong that he doesn't feel as much pain anymore?"
Alex was grunting the entire time, but he never outright screamed. Morning came by and before Wen Cheng could even ask Pearl to stop, Alex did it himself.
"Huh? You could think properly despite the pain?" Wen Cheng asked.
"The pain… it wasn't as horrible as last time. So, I could maintain some thoughts," he said. Alex checked Pearl and realized he had gone up 2 realms. 'Is it the same for myself?' he wondered.
"Alright, go now." Alex didn't go through mortal cleansing again, so he did not require any bath this time. Alex returned back to his room and decided to visit go sell some pills before visiting the library once more.
In such a way, a few more days went by. Every day started with Alex opening his eyes after the intense pain of body cultivation subsided. He would then go back to his house to log out for breakfast.
After his breakfast, he would visit the library for 3 hours, before logging out to go to his university classes. After school, he would return to visit the library once more for a few hours.
Afterward, he would go fight some disciples in the training fields. After reaching the top 100s, it was getting really hard to progress higher. Everyone in the top 100s was a genius when it came to cultivation or fighting. Unless he got better in either, he wouldn't make it far here.
The problem with this was that he was only focusing on body cultivation the last few days so he was forced to eat a few monster cores. Monster cores however started to create more and more fights in his head.
He could still fight the monsters quite easily, however, the monster spirits he had to fight seemed to be getting closer and closer in strength to their real self. With not having a spiritual sense or his body and having to only use Qi to fight, he was worried that sooner or later something bad would happen.
During the night, he would train with Wen Cheng. He had learned another fighting technique and defensive technique, both of which he liked very much because they used swords. He would practice these techniques and train with Pearl until Wen Cheng came back.
After Wen Cheng did, he would start to body cultivate once more. As such, by Friday, he had managed to reach the 3rd realm of Bone Tempering for Body Cultivation and 3rd Realm of Organ Tempering for Qi Cultivation.
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Chapter 155: Unexpected Match
Alex was on the final floor of the library walking around looking at the different books and records on the shelf. From time to time, he would stop in front of a shelf, pick a book, look at it for a big and then put it back. Any outsider looking at him would think that he wasn't able to find something that suited him.
But, on the contrary, his spiritual sense was in full focus, reading a book regarding Beast Companions. Finally, there he found some information that he had been desperately searching for.
"So, that is how beast companions learn to fight, huh," he sighed in relief knowing that Pearl wasn't an anomaly.
Beast Companions were born with inherent memories, or it might be more accurate to call them instincts. These instincts would allow them to learn how to fight, as well as learn new techniques.
Also, another thing the book mentioned that caught his eyes was that the more potential or talent a beast had, the longer a child they would remain.
"So, Pearl won't necessarily grow up from his child form until he has overcome his latent potential, huh. I wonder how long that will take." He then looked all over the book, trying to find specific information, but there just wasn't any.
"What about evolution though?" he kept searching but didn't find an answer. He decided to skip it for now and look at the other records. He walked up to another shelf and sent out his spiritual sense to search for other records that were free.
He needed to see if there was any record of his body in here. "Hmm…" he suddenly sensed an unusual record among the many. "Ah, is this one of the records that survived that fight 50 some years ago?" he wondered and started reading it.
The information in the record was very broken and scattered. From what he could gather, it mostly spoke of the writers wanting to return to the land where no one entered.
"Is this the sacred lands where nobody placed their foot on because it was so holy to them?" he kept on reading. The Tiger Sect was set near the land where no one stepped in. But they had to move locations to where they were now. The records spoke of their reluctance but gave no reasoning as to why.
"What was so sacred about that land?" he wondered. Finally, there was one bit of information that he managed to read.
Where the Fiery Earth embraces the Yin-like Water, the Golden Wood of Yang emerges.
"Fire, Earth, Yin, Water, Gold, Wood, and Yang. All of the 7 elements are in one place. Is it talking about some sort of Alchemy garden?" that was Alex's first thought. "Yin like water… what does that even mean? Also, Fiery Earth… why would earth be on fire? Not to forget the Golden Wood of Yang… huh?" the more he thought about the record, the more confused he was.
Maybe his master was confused as well, which was why he didn't mention this part.
He stopped thinking about it and read the other records. None of them had any vital information. Suddenly, his badge started vibrating. He took it out looked at it.
"98? I'm 12 levels higher than him. Why would he want to fight be? Whatever, I still have an hour." Alex decided to look around for a bit first. He spent the next 45 minutes reading as many of the records and books as he could and took a random book before leaving the library.
After the fourth floor, each additional floor had cost him 5 spirit stones each to enter. By the 8th floor, he had spent 21 spirit stones and didn't want to let it go to waste. So, he took a book that looked interesting.
He paid an additional 20 spirit stones for the book and left.
He quickly reached the fighting stage where the disciple with the 98th badge had registered for a fight with him. By the time he made it there, only 10 minutes were left on his timer.
"Number 86 and 98" the Elder called out. Alex walked up to the Elder and handed him his badge. His opponent also walked up to the elder to hand in his badge.
Alex turned around to see who his opponent was. When he saw who it was, he was shocked.
In front of him was a young and fat man about the same height as him. "You!!" Alex said in surprise.
"Not only did you disrespect me, but you also purposefully target my subordinates now. I will show you what the result is after you mess with me, boy." The man in front of Alex was Huo Tu.
The last few days, 2 of the people he fought had turned out to be lackeys of this guy. So, he had started to assume that Alex was targeting his subordinates on purpose to mess with him.
Alex started getting concerned. He had never expected the man in the 18th ranking himself to drop his ranking to the 98th position just to fight him. 'Sh*t. This is going to be troublesome,' he thought.
He looked at Huo Tu and saw that he was still in the Meridian Tempering 3rd realm like the last time he saw him. Alex being in the 3rd realm of Organ tempering was a bad match-up right now.
"Hey, isn't that senior brother Huo? What is he doing here?" someone recognized Huo Tu after he got on the stage.
"Did that kid challenge senior Huo?" somebody else asked.
"No, their rankings were 86 and 98. I think senior brother dropped his ranking to teach that guy a lesson."
"Who is he? Does anybody know?"
"His name is Yu Ming. He disrespected brother Huo, so he has come to take revenge today."
The lackeys started making noise, so more people started to gather to watch the match. The match between the two was turning out to be a spectacle before it even began.
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Chapter 156: Explosive Talismans
People started gathering just by the ruckus that was being made. Some recognized Huo Tu, some recognized Alex, some just came to watch what the hub hub was about.
Knowing that a core disciple had registered a fight with an inner sect disciple, many other people started getting called by their friends watching the fight too.
"What's the point? It's not like the inner sect disciple is going to win," someone said.
"Yeah, but that's not the point. It's not every day you see a core disciple fight. Don't you guys want to see it?" someone else said.
"You sound like you've never seen Huo Tu fight. You must be quite new here then," another person spoke.
"Huh? does he fight violently or something? Since he is a core disciple, he must be really good right?" the previous person asked.
"Haha, quite the opposite actually. Just watch, you might be surprised by his fighting method," the person spoke once more.
On the stage, Alex heard the person speak. 'Not good at fighting? Does he have a different fighting method?' he wondered. He took out his Steel Sword for this fight. This fight was way out of his league, and he was not going to bother limiting his abilities only to get badly hurt in this fight.
He looked around the stage. It was around 3 PM and the only shadow he could see was either his own or the opponent's. 'I can't use it then,' he thought. 'Well, it's the last option either way.'
He got into a fighting stance, waiting for his opponent to take out his weapon as well, but he never did.
"FIGHT!" the Elder started the match.
Alex got cautious. His opponent was just standing there with a smile on his face. "Come," Huo Tu gestured with his hand, inviting Alex to attack him.
'Is he not scared of my attack?' Alex wondered. 'Whatever.' He dashed straight to the front and swung his sword. Dark lines appeared on Huo Tu's skin as he placed his single hand forward to block the blade.
CLANK
As if he just hit Iron, Alex's hand shook from the rebound damage. 'He knows Jade Skin? How strong is his hand?' Alex thought in pure shock. Huo Tu smiled in contempt when he saw the shock on Alex's face.
"Now you're going to get it," Huo Tu said as he tried to punch back. However, Alex was fast and managed to run out of the attack range in good time. Huo Tu's face got serious for a second when he realized Alex was faster than him.
Then he started to get angry. He started to run towards Alex with his fat body and tried to punch him once more. However, Alex was too fast for him and managed to get out of his way.
'Why is he so slow? Does he not know any movement techniques?' Alex wondered. If that was the case, then there was still hope for him. Alex started to run around the stage.
From time to time, he came in and struck Huo Tu from his blind side. But not one of those managed to deal any sort of damage. 'Damn it,' he thought and used Smiting Blade. Yellow Qi flowed into his sword, dying the whole blade yellow.
With his strong body and his amazing movement technique, Huo Tu could no longer keep track of him. Alex started attacking more and more. His skin started so show some scratches after he used the Smiting blade, and also Huo Tu's robes were slowly being cut apart.
Something blue in color shone underneath, Alex cut more and more until the robe was in tatters and the underbody was visible.
"That is…" Alex thought in shock. He looked at the shiny blue armor underneath the man's body. 'That's the armor from the auction house. I thought it was taken by that merchant guy. Why does he have this?' he thought.
"Haha, you shocked. This is a Common Earth Grade armor artifact that my father got for me. Your physical attack does nothing to me. Not even Luo Mei or Du Yuhan can harm me with their attacks when I'm wearing this." He started to laugh manically.
The situation started to seem grimmer and grimmer by the second.
Alex ran away after realizing that he couldn't beat him by just attacking him. So, he decided to try some Qi-based techniques and see if those worked. Green Qi filled his sword and he got ready to swing it.
He used the 2nd strike of the Elusive Heavenly sword and let the attack fly. Huo Tu didn't do anything and simply let the attack hit him.
An explosion rang out, but Alex could tell that Huo Tu wasn't injured at all. 'Dammit,' he thought and prepared another attack. Darker green light filled the sword as Alex got ready to attack.
At the same time, Huo Tu did something as well. He reached into his storage bag and took out something. Alex looked at it and was surprised. 'A talisman?' he thought.
He let swung his sword and used the 3rd strike of the Elusive Heavenly sword. A green slash flowed through the air towards Huo Tu. Huo Tu as well threw the talisman directly at the incoming slash.
BOOM
Massive energy erupted where the two attacks met. Huo Tu had no problem standing through the shockwave, which Alex was pushed back a little.
"What was that?" Alex looked at the explosion in shock. He hadn't expected Huo Tu to use a talisman for fighting. He had remembered his master speaking about such things but had finally seen it for the first time.
Suddenly, Huo Tu took two talismans out and looked at Alex with a smile. Before Alex could even prepare another attack, he immediately threw both the talismans on either side of Alex, trying to sandwich him in between the explosions.
Alex got terrified. Without any other immediate ideas, he switched his holding of the sword from over to under and threw it right at Huo Tu just as the talismans exploded.
BOOM
Before Alex could even use any defensive techniques, the explosions devoured him whole.
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Chapter 157: Penta Blade Technique
Huo Tu smiled seeing the explosion, but suddenly Alex appeared in front of him and hit him directly on the head with his blade. The attack did absolutely nothing to Huo Tu, but Alex's presence did anger him.
Alex immediately stepped back. His heart was beating crazily as he realized how close he was to being hurt. If he hadn't sent out the sword in time and teleported to its shadow, he would've taken serious damage right there.
He looked at the two small holes in the place where the talisman exploded. 'Was that damage in the Meridian tempering realm? I need to be more aware of my surrounding,' he thought and activated focus mode.
Suddenly, time slowed down. All the senses around him amplified, including what he picked up from his spiritual sense. His beating heart was just as loud as the rest of the crowd watching the fight.
The lights around him were brighter and he could more distinctly see the hideous face of Huo Tu. The smell of smoke and dust was in the air from the recent explosions. He could feel the fluctuations in the air made by the last 2 explosions.
He saw Huo Tu reach into his storage bag once more. This time, however, instead of a talisman, he took out a pill. "How did you survive that?" Huo Tu asked but got no response.
He got angry and threw the pill right at Alex. Alex was prepared, however. He simply made a fist and punched out. A massive golden fist flew out from him and traveled towards Huo Tu. In the middle, the pill and the Fist met, creating another massive explosion.
This time, Alex too stood unphased by the shockwaves. Huo Tu got angry and took out another 2 pills. Alex wanted to use another technique but wasn't given any chance.
The two pills flew out and struck just below Alex. Alex didn't move.
BOOM
Another giant explosion rang out. This fight had ended up being a battle of explosion. The audience waited with bated breath to see what happened as the smoke and dust cleared.
Alex emerged out barely damaged at all. He definitely took the damage, but the most it seemed to have done was make him disheveled. Alex's heart, however, was beating faster as he realized he just survived another close call.
'Like I thought. Elemental Guidance technique works with the pills explosions,' he thought. Huo Tu started to get even angrier.
He took out dozens of talismans and pills at once. 'Just how many of those does he have?' Alex was shocked to see the many pills and talismans with him. 'I guess that makes sense since he is the son of that fat merchant. He must really spoil his son to make him turn out like this,' Alex thought.
Huo Tu started to throw pills after pills talismans after talismans. Alex too threw whatever he could at the incoming attacks.
Elusive Heavenly Sword 2nd and 3rd Strike, Elemental Guidance, Iron Fist Punch, and Palm of the Sun. 'Sh*t. I don't think I can stand the onslaught anymore. I will have to finish this match in one shot,' he thought.
He kept throwing whatever he could at his opponent and waited for his opponent to end his current supply of 'attacks'.
Finally, the moment came. Huo Tu threw his last pill and Alex threw a massive yellow palm towards the incoming pill. Immediately afterward, he slid his 2 fingers from another hand across the blade.
Suddenly, the sword started glowing golden. He then made an arc around him with the sword. At specific intervals, the sword left a golden after image where it passed through.
After leaving the final golden image, the light in the sword disappeared, and all that remained were the 5 golden sword images on top of him. This was the final attack technique he had learned called the Penta Blade Technique. It was a heaven-grade technique that made 5 images of the blade using Qi. All 5 images would be as strong as a normal attack from the sword.
The technique could only be learned by people with Metal spiritual roots. This was the final technique Wen Cheng had given him and perhaps his strongest Qi-based attack.
The 5 blade images on top of him slowly started to tilt on his command and targeted Huo To. When he saw this, Huo Tu disregarded the need to take out more pills for now and prepared to take the full brunt of the attack by himself.
Dark lines appeared on his skin as he used Jade Skin to protect himself.
"Go." With a single command, all 5 of the sword flew directly towards Huo Tu. Golden light shined through the air as they passed by and hit Huo Tu.
BOOM
No explosions occurred but shockwaves still appeared. Huo Tu blocked the attack with just his body and smiled.
But then, suddenly, his eyes turned white and he fell to the ground.
Huff Huff
Alex breathed heavily as he stopped using focus mode and finally caught his breath. Huo Tu was in front of him unmoving, and the Elder waited for him to stand up.
But Alex knew he wasn't going to, at least not for a while now. He doubted someone in the meridian realm could withstand a full onslaught of Heaven's Impact, an attack that made Ma Rong nearly lose consciousness.
Hidden Behind the brilliant golden light of the Penta Blade technique was an undetectable fist made up of Spiritual energy that attacked Huo Tu's mind, suddenly fainting him.
"Elder, the match is over," Alex said, jolting the Elder out of his delusions. The Elder walked up to Huo Tu to make sure he was in fact unconscious and then looked at Alex in horror.
The stage was full of holes and needed repair. That was what these two people's fight had done.
The Elder couldn't imagine how an Organ tempering 3rd realm cultivator had defeated a Meridian Tempering 3rd realm cultivator. The result was just way too absurd.
"Elder, the result," Alex reminded once more.
"Ah, Fight Over." The Elder shouted out shocking the entire audience. Alex slowly walked up to the Elder and took his badge number 86 and left. Leaving the Elder and Audience in total silence.
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Chapter 158: Lunch talk
"Huh?? He just won like that?" someone said in shock.
"What was that last attack?? It was so dazzling." Somebody else said.
"Look at that stage. The Elders must be angry right now."
"Of course. If they had known that the fight was going to take this turn, they would've sent them to a higher numbered stage."
"Is brother Huo Tu alright?" another person spoke.
"What was that inner sect disciple's name again? Yu Ming, right?" People started remembering his name.
"Is he a core disciple now?" another person asked. Numerous people were talking about the outcome of the battle just now.
Somewhere far away, a middle-aged man with a bald head and no facial hair was looking towards Alex who had long since left the stage and walking out of the sect valley.
At first, when he had heard that the match was between a core disciple and an inner sect disciple, he had given no attention to the match, but after the first few explosions, he had turned his attention to the match and watched it ever since.
"Who is that? His fight with Huo Tu left even stage 15 in tatters," he asked. Next to him were two people, both around the same height and wearing yellow robes with orange lining.
"I have never seen him, master. He must be new here. Maybe he is one of those new disciples that keep joining and leaving?" The young female spoke up. She had fair skin, with long black hair tied behind her back. She looked like she was 20 years old.
The male on the other hand didn't bother speaking at all. He seemed to be in his early 20s and had no facial hair on him. His stoic and handsome face showed no emotions at all.
The master didn't wait for the male to speak up either. He knew how his disciple was.
"Go and find out who he is and what his rank is," the bald man gave the order and the young female immediately ran off towards the fighting stage where Huo Tu was being carried out.
After a minute or two, the female disciple returned. "His name is Yu Ming and his rank is 86. Apparently, he has been improving his ranks very fast. Like I thought, he must be one of those new disciples that are very talented. I think we should rope him in master," the female disciple said as she chuckled.
"Hmm… beating a core disciple as an inner sect disciple, that is quite a feat. I hope he hasn't…," the bald mumbled almost to an incoherent level. He then looked at the Huo Tu that was being taken away.
"Do you think you could've beaten Huo Tu as he did?" the master asked.
"Absolutely not. I doubt I could've even won against him normally without his annoying pills and talismans. Not to mention, The pills and talismans do Meridian Tempering 1st realm damage. Thankfully, he doesn't have higher-ranked pills and talismans" said the female disciple.
"His father and master know he is trash, so they won't let him get anything more expensive," The master explained and then turned to the young man next to him and asked, "Would you have problems fighting him?" he asked. The young man thought for a while and spoke, "The armor would be annoying."
"Other than that, there is no problem, right?" the master asked with a smile and the disciple nodded.
Alex was walking back to his house. Along the way, there was only one thought in his mind.
"If I register for the 18th rank right now, I will be a core disciple too." That was all he could think of.
"No, I can't. That will only make the other core disciple's target me. And after some time, I will have to fight against someone that would withstand Heaven's Impact. I can't handle them right now."
He soon reached home and logged out for some afternoon lunch. This would be his last afternoon lunch in the dormitory. Just as he was about to leave, he saw his phone blinking. He opened it up to see that he had missed a call from his cousin.
He immediately called back.
"Oh, Alex. You finally picked up. Were you in the game?" Hannah was on the other side of the phone.
"Yes, sister. Did you need anything?" he asked.
"Yeah. I just called to tell you that you should pack your luggage today so that you won't have to worry about early tomorrow. You did tell your parents you were moving, right?" she asked.
"Oh yes, of course. Everything is ready. I just need to pack my luggage, which isn't a lot."
"Alright. I will send you the location tomorrow morning. Grab a cab and get there, okay?" she said.
"Ok, sister."
Alex went to have lunch with the rest of his roommates.
"You are leaving tomorrow, Alex?" Logan asked.
"Yes," Alex replied with a hint of melancholy in his voice.
"Where will you be living?" Matt asked.
"With my cousin, a few distances away from here. Her friends all left, so she was alone and asked me to move in with her."
"What about university?" Eric asked.
"Oh, it's not that far away I hear. It should take me at most half an hour to get to the university," Alex said.
"That's not bad."
"What about you guys? You guys decided to stay or leave?" Alex asked. The dorm had still not made any sort of announcement as to what they would do regarding the new capsules coming out.
"We will wait until next week and see what the dorm says. Even finding a room in the city is hard and not to mention it costs a lot. I am surprised that your cousin and her friends can afford so much. Aren't you guys supposed to be from the countryside?" Eric asked.
"Oh, haha, Yes I am from the countryside, but my cousin is not. In fact, she is quite rich. Her parents pay for her apartment rent," Alex said.
"Ah, I see." They talked for a while and Alex went back to the game once more.
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Chapter 159: First Elder
Alex opened his eyes back in house number 86 and looked at the time. It was close to 4 pm so he checked his badge to see if anyone else had registered a fight with him.
Thankfully, after the last match, nobody dared to register a fight against him. They had learned what he did to a core disciple and had thus left him alone. "I wonder if the poor guy at the 18th rank right now is fighting a core disciple right now," he wondered and chuckled to himself.
Suddenly, he heard a knock on the door. "Who?" he wondered and sent out his spiritual sense. Outside of the door were two people. One male and one female.
The female was a young woman wearing a yellow robe with orange linings, and the man was wearing yellow robes with silver linings. "A Core disciple and an Elder?" he was surprised.
He walked to the front door and opened it. He acted surprised when he saw the two as if he didn't know who was outside. "Greetings Elder, senior sister. Can I help you with something?"
"Hello," the girl said with a jumpiness in her voice.
"You must be Yu Ming, am I correct?" the Elder asked.
"Yes, Elder," Alex replied.
"Do you know who I am?" the Elder asked.
Alex looked at the elder closely. He couldn't remember seeing any bald Elder before this, especially not one that had no facial hair either. "This is my first time meeting Elder, so please forgive this disciple for not recognizing who you are."
"I see. So, you must really be new here." The Elder spoke as he kept on nodding to himself. The girl beside him was also nodding continuously.
"Yes Elder, I only joined 2 weeks ago," Alex replied.
"Just 2 weeks ago? And already so much progress. You must be really talented. Do you have a master?" the Elder asked.
Alex was about to answer when he realized that his master had told him to not reveal their relationship yet. 'He did that to make sure I don't get targeted by the other elders. Should I keep lying?' he thought.
"No, I don't, Elder," Alex replied.
"Oh, good, good," the Elder said with a smile. "Then, do you want to be my disciple?" he asked.
Alex was shocked. 'He came here to make me his disciple?' he thought in surprise. The Elder continued, "I saw your match with Huo Tu today. You have a lot of potential. Come under my wing and I will teach you how to soar to the heavens."
The Elder had a face of pride as he said that. Alex couldn't think of any answer for his invite. So, he decided to just refuse directly.
"I'm sorry Elder. But, I am not looking for any Masters at the moment." Alex tried to reject as politely as he could.
"Hehehe," the girl behind the Elder giggled. "You don't even know who master is, and you are already rejecting him. You got quite the confidence."
Alex was surprised at her words. 'Who is this Elder?' he thought.
"Now now. Little Su, don't say that. Disciple Yu, I am the First Elder of the sect, directly below the Sect Elder. Are you sure you don't want to become my disciple?" the First Elder asked.
"The First Elder?" Alex was even more surprised. 'Why is the First Elder here to take me as a disciple? Does he know about my talent, or is it really just the match with Huo Tu?' he wondered. Still, he had to reject him, so he said,
"I am sorry, Elder, but my answer remains the same. I am not looking for any masters at the moment."
"Is that so…" the First Elder's smile dropped a little. "Very well then, I shall leave you alone. However, my offer still stands. Come find me if you ever change your mind," the First elder turned to leave after saying that.
"You are kind of dumb, aren't you? Not even accepting master's offer. What? You think you will get to the top without a master?" the girl named Su left after her master.
Alex stood stunned for a moment and immediately locked the door. He then walked back into the house. He looked at the board in front of him and thought, "So that was Du Yuhan's master huh. I should notify the master about this tonight.
He sat down to read the book that he had borrowed from the library today.
"That kid is kind of stupid master. Not even accepting after learning who you are. He will surely regret someday." The more she thought about what had just happened, the more irritated she got.
"That's enough, little Su. You don't have to get angry at every little thing," the First Elder replied.
"Master, are we just leaving like that? We could persuade him in other ways though," The girl immediately changed her tone of speech.
"That won't work. We have to be genuine in our approach to recruiting new disciples. What would you do if I threatened you to become my disciple," the First Elder said.
"I didn't mean threatening him. I meant like persuading him with spirit stones or some techniques and such," the girl pouted at her master misunderstanding her intent.
"Is that so? I'm sorry then," the master said with a smile.
"What do we do now then, master? I don't think you will let him grow as he is, will you?" she asked.
The master's smile immediately dropped, changing with a serious look. "I can't allow him to get higher rank and be noticed by the other elders. He is so young and talented that if the other elders find out about him, they might try to rope him in with whatever tricks they have. At that point, I will have no choice but make sure he doesn't get in my way of becoming the next sect leader, even if it means seriously injuring him through a fight."
"I see, master. Let's hope it doesn't come to that." The master-disciple duo then walked up the mountain and returned to their residence.
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Chapter 160: Clones
Alex sat down on his bed and looked at the book in front of him. "The hell did I pick up?" he wondered with a strange face as he looked at the title on the page.
How to create a clone.
"A clone? Like another one of yourself? Master didn't say anything about these other than that it existed," he thought as he started reading. The book in fact told what methods one could use to make different clones. It didn't teach the 'recipe' on how to create a clone but taught more of the methods to create one.
The first method mentioned in the book was using dead bodies. If you took a recently dead body, you could have it resurrected with a part of your soul inside of it.
The upside of this method was that there was no other requirement aside from a few materials to fix the corpse before resurrecting it with your own soul.
The downside was that it took forever to properly integrate your soul into the body since it used to host another one. Also, it needed the real body to control it at all times, otherwise, it would be like a mindless puppet.
The second way mentioned was to grow another body using a sample of the real body to create an entirely new body. This new body would grow a soul and mind of its own with memories from the real body.
The upside of this method was, the clone had its own mind and had free thought. The growing process could be accelerated if needed, and the clone would be ready in just a few weeks. The real body also didn't need to provide part of its soul to cultivate a new body.
The downside of this method was that the clone could not be controlled by the real body at all. Also, the clone did not have any unique bodily constitutions or spiritual roots. Meaning, the body was born a mortal.
There were possibly other ways out there, but the book only mentioned the two. "So, I could make a body of my own? I wonder how that would work." He wondered.
After he finished learning the book, he kept it inside and decided to immerse himself into the other knowledge he had gathered the last few days. Some regarding cultivation, some regarding talismans, some regarding formations, some regarding artifact creation, and most of all regarding alchemy.
He had managed to find alchemy books that recorded stuff he hadn't read even in Hong Wu Sect. "So the explosive pills that Huo Tu used most likely came from Spring Song sect, huh. And the talismans from Little Dawn sect?" he wondered.
"Oh yes, this is interesting. Making specific pills catering to specific requirements. Finding out new recipes on your own? Can I even do that his early?"
At this point, he knew about a couple of hundreds of recipes and needed to understand the reason behind why they did what they did. "I should start focusing on the elemental aspects of the pills more," he thought.
He kept remembering more and more of what he read. "Hmm… so Meridian Tempering helps make the meridians stronger and carry more Qi around. Is it different from the tempering I have to sit through during body cultivation? Now that I think about it, I've never seen what cultivation really looks like. I keep falling asleep as soon as I use it."
He started wondering how different normal cultivation was from his body cultivation.
"Since it says Mind Tempering helps increase your mental strength, I wonder if it will have any impact on my spiritual sea." After thinking about it for a bit more, he decided to eat some more cores.
He found himself in the familiar landscape of his spiritual sea, fighting against a snake monster. "Urghh… I hate not having my sword with me." He started throwing punches and palms of golden and yellow color.
Within a few minutes, the snake was dead. From a small shadow at the surface of the lake, a yellow aura was released that devoured both the snake monster and Alex.
'Hmm… should I breakthrough right now?' he wondered. "I should wait until after today's lesson at least," He thought.
He decided to go check his progress in the training hall. After about half an hour, he had gotten all the results he needed to know. His physical attacks were doing damage as much as 3 realms higher than his normal attack. Introducing Qi to those physical attacks increased the damage by a small amount depending on the grade of the technique.
At the moment he had only 2 physical attacking techniques. First was the Smiting blade which dealt the same damage as normal attacks, but had a more penetrating force behind it. While the second attack, the 1st strike of the Elusive Heavenly sword dealt 4 realms higher than his current realm.
The Palm of the Sun and Iron Fist punch did the same amount of damage even though they weren't reliant on the physical body. He could make sense of why the Palm of the sun was so strong. But Iron Fist punch was still a mystery to him.
The Palm of the Sun used Yang energy, which his body and Qi provided plenty. However, he didn't have anything that increased the power of the Iron fist punch other than the mystery blood essence that entered his body.
The other attacks increased a little in damage compared to normal cultivators due to his thick Yang Qi and a body that went through Mortal Cleansing. Still, they weren't as substantial as the other techniques.
"I got strong so quick that I don't even know exactly how strong I am. Now that I think about it, have I even tried flying in while? I should go do some tests in the forest before I log out for dinner."
"You might want to go on a small walk as well, won't you Pearl," he said as he looked at his left arm. Thinking that he got out of the Training hall after paying the fee and walked towards the southern forest on the other side of the sect crater.
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