5 months went by and Alex did not find his father at all.
He scoured the entire Wasteland, going from east to west, from north to south, from the Maroon bay to the Sun's End bay; he scoured every single place in the Wasteland that had humans in it, and he did not find his father at all.
There were a few places in the northern part of the Wastelands where the entire tribe was actually just filled with beasts that had killed them or made them leave, and that made more fear grow in Alex.
His anxiety about his father was increasing day by day and even while he knew that was a weakness that his Inner demon would use against him, he couldn't help but worry.
What else could he do but worry anyway? This was the place his father had come to and he wasn't here.
After 5 months, Alex had to stop searching. Since he had gone to every location, twice even for a few, he had to give up on finding his father at the moment.
The fear in his heart grew day by day to the point where he was going to hurt himself while cultivating if he continued. He needed to take a small break from it all and spend some time on himself.
He secluded himself on an island that was more north than any place he had been to on the eastern side of the ocean.
He was so north that if he flew up a hundred meters or so, he could clearly see the Central continent in the far distance.
Alex did not cultivate during this break of his. He instead spent his time making pills or teaching Whisker how to make them.
He fought a few beasts here and there, but most of the time, he would just sit somewhere to work on his own mental state.
While he worked on calming his heart, Whisker would be on the side trying to use everything that Alex had taught him before.
From time to time, he would open his eyes to answer Whisker about some problems he was facing or teach him some new things, but most of the time, he spent meditating on his own problems.
He tried to make sense of what had most likely happened to his father after coming to the Southern Continent nearly 3 decades ago.
His father had apparently arrived at a place without any plant or human life, which would have to have been definitely in the Wasteland. After that, since he was told to find a city by his mother, his father would've found a tribe.
Even if he didn't know what to do, there should have been many other players here that would have taught him.
They would've certainly helped him. Although, there was a chance they too were helpless since the 'game' had ended just the day after his father joined it.
Even then, Alex was certain he would have joined a tribe. His father had a natural tan from working in the sun all day long, so he would've been accepted by any tribe without question.
Given how hard-working his father was, he would have definitely worked to become stronger, especially so he could find himself and his mother.
'It's not just him,' Alex thought. 'Many other people would have wanted to find their families too, so they would have done something right?'
Alex thought of what he would want to do in that case.
"They would try to go to the south certainly," he thought. Even in the case that most of them weren't aware, there would be people that would tell them about the south and how people could cultivate there.
"Did my father go to the south too?" he thought.
Alex wondered what would happen if his father had wanted to go south in that condition. Wouldn't they just reject him? He saw no reason why anyone would let his father go anywhere out of the Wastelands.
"What if somebody helped them?" Alex thought. He had seen a few ships around the Maroon bay and the Sun's End bay, which implied that people knew about ships.
Could they have taken the ship through the ocean to go south when they were rejected? That was the thought that Alex was starting to get.
"He must have," he thought. "So... he must be somewhere south. But on which side? And when?"
So many years had passed that even if they did go south, they most likely hadn't simply remained at the closest locations like the Eastwatch city or some other similar places.
"Finding them will be hard even if they are indeed there," Alex thought.
Unlike the Wastelands, he couldn't just go searching for his father around the rest of the Southern Continent. The number of people, the number of cities, the laws and regulations as well as just basic human decency would not allow him to go looking through everyone in the rest of the Southern Continent.
He just wouldn't be able to do what he did with the Wasteland. He needed to change his approach to finding his father.
He thought of a few ways. He thought of getting the Insight Pavilion on his side for finding his father or having a couple of other people help find him.
He even thought of employing a painter to find his father by drawing a portrait of him.
But, Alex didn't like any of the ideas.
The Insight pavilion only gathered information and did not go out looking for it on its own. There was no way they would change their stance just for him.
And finding people to help him wouldn't work quite as well since no one would know what to look for exactly. Alex himself didn't know what his father would look like now that 30 or so years had passed since he last saw him.
That was the same problem with finding a painter too.
All in all, the more he thought about it, the more impossible it seemed for Alex to be able to find his father.
"So I will have to change my method," he said to himself as a thought came to him. "If finding him is impossible for me, then I should work to make it possible for him to find me."
There was only one thing he could do now. Be such a big name in the Southern Continent that no one living there would not know about him.
When his father did eventually find learn about him, then he would come to find him on his own.
"So... Alchemy it is then," he thought. That was the only way to make a name for himself in the least amount of time possible. The only other way would be to show his capabilities as a cultivator, but that would cause more harm than good.
It was easy to offend people when you showed off your strength since there needed someone you showed your strength to. As such, Alex decided to stick with Alchemy where it was nearly impossible to offend someone directly.
"Still, I'm a bit too weak," Alex thought. "I will need to become stronger than I am right now if I want to make a name for myself just for the sake of security."
He finally stood up from where he sat. "I will need to confirm something first," he thought to himself.
"Come on, Whisker. Let's head over to the South. I need to go to the Insight Pavilion."
It took Alex 2 days to fly in between the islands as he made his way through the ocean while dodging the many beasts that would be out to kill him the moment they saw him.
He also stopped around to fight some beasts if they were just around his own strength or weaker and gathered them up. He would absorb their blood later to improve his own.
He arrived at Hiddenbay city and quickly went up to the Insight pavilion.
"How may I help you, fellow Daoist?" the girl at the soundproof booth asked him.
"I want to learn about tribal folks coming from the north using boats," Alex said.
"What exactly do you want to learn about it?" the girl asked.
"I want to know all the details there are to it. I want to know if they do come or not, and if they do, I want to know when they did, and where. I want all the details," Alex said.
"Sure," the girl said and started searching through their information bank. A few minutes later she acquired the information and put it on a talisman. "This is all the information available for you."
The price for the information was merely 140 True Spirit stones. When Alex heard the price, he frowned. He wasn't frowning because the price was high, but rather it was low. Which most likely meant that the information there wasn't very much.
Still, he walked outside and read it all.
People did come from the north using boats from time to time and they were usually sent back through the gates towards the south.
The talisman had information on where and when most of the boats had arrived, but aside from that, there wasn't much information.
There was also a good number of boats that did arrive but simply were never recorded because they managed to escape the authority and live here.
As such, the talisman wasn't very helpful for Alex in finding his father.
What it was helpful for was letting Alex know that there was a huge chance that his father did come here and was not sent back. So, everything he had planned until this point was worth it.
"Time to work towards it then."
