"The second prince?" Alex asked. "He's not around?"
"No," the Crown Prince said. "He's not the Crown Prince so he doesn't have any responsibility. He's a free spirit and is currently traveling around the continent along with our head chef."
"I see," Alex said. "Why the head chef though? Wouldn't it be better to have a guard or some other strong people go with him?"
"Oh, the head chef is strong," the prince said. "He is one of the strongest people we have, so we let him go along with my brother."
"A chef, huh?" Alex asked, quite surprised. "How many brothers do you have, by the way?"
"2," the Crown Prince said. "My 2nd brother, and my half-brother that was born only a few years ago to the Empress."
"Ah, I see," Alex said.
The Crown Prince nodded. "So, should I tell the chefs to bring you some snacks?" he asked.
"Oh yes," Alex said. "Please do."
The Crown Prince nodded. "I will let them know. I will be leaving now, your Majesty. Rest well."
The prince bowed and left.
Sometime later, the head servant lady arrived with the snacks which Alex tried out. He was pleasantly surprised by the food, not just because it tasted good, but because it helped a cultivator just that much.
The food energized them, freshened their mind, and sharpened their focus. It was just the food you wanted when the day was getting long and tedious to get you back on track.
Once he ate his food, Alex started cultivating. He cultivated for the entire night, focusing on many different parts as he was so used to now.
It wasn't just Qi he cultivated, but also body and mind as well.
His white mask that improved his spiritual sense was now usually at level 6, which placed quite the burden on anyone wearing it. While on his face, the mask hurt him to the point that he could barely focus on cultivating the other things as well.
He could have placed it on Level 7 as well, but after learning the Dao of Technique, Alex had figured out something that he should have figured out a long time ago.
Because his Five Yang Divine Path technique used Yang Qi to cultivate, and his Undying Physique used Yin Qi to cultivate, as long as he was focused enough, he could actually cultivate both of those at the same time.
However, it took incredible focus on his end to move such vastly different Qi, through such vastly different meridian routes that were required to cultivate. Which was why he had to take the mask down a notch during cultivation.
He was starting to get certain that he would be able to use the 9th level of the mask without even entering the Saint Transformation realm, which was amazing.
His Demon Eyes were coming along fine, but Alex had given up hope on it ever upgrading anytime soon. The thing that he had come to understand while helping his family and friends with the technique was that each level of the technique cost more and more time.
The first level cost him about 2 years to fully learn, and that was without even counting the time it took for his broken eyes to heal after he was done with the medicine.
The second level took him another 12 years or so after that. At that rate, Alex wouldn't be surprised if the third level took him more than a hundred years to learn with dedicated cultivation towards it.
The same went for the Undying physique as well.
Whisker's cultivation increased thanks to Alex as it was tied to his Undying physique technique, while Pearl cultivated on his own.
Alex was still dejected about the fact that he couldn't gain the benefits of a strong physical body now that Pearl had completely absorbed the White Tiger's blood.
Unless Alex found another few drops of White Tiger, which was equally as potent as the one he got before, if not more, then he doubted he could get the benefits he used to before.
After a night of intense cultivation sessions, Alex left his room with neither Pearl nor Whisker outside.
It was obvious why Pearl wouldn't have to be outside, but after giving some thought to the matter, he decided to not keep Whisker out as well. After all, a seeking mouse with a cultivation base would be harder to explain than a black cat.
Yao Ning met up with him outside and asked, "What plans do you have for today, your Majesty?"
"Tomorrow is the show match, so let's just go meet up with the Alchemists and give them some encouragement," Alex said. "We need to get elder Shufen too."
"Only that?" the elder asked. "I thought you would want to go roam the city>"
"I would," Alex said with a dry chuckle. "But it doesn't feel right to enjoy myself with the problem we have."
"Right, we still need to figure out what to do there," Elder Yao said.
Alex nodded. "Well, don't worry too much. We'll come up with something," he said. He hadn't told her that he had already decided to give in to the Dragon Emperor's demands, even if it was in batches.
He still wanted the elders to come up with a better solution that lets them still stay in the Eastern Continent so that they could search for his cousin and Pearl's mother's killers.
Alex looked at the talisman that he was provided by someone in the palace that contained the map of the Dragon Capital. Only now did Alex see just how the Drgaon Capital was set up.
The Dragon capital was separated into 3 areas.
The first was the Royal area, the second was the commercial area, and finally the residential area.
The capital itself was in a square shape, and the northeastern corner was the Royal area where the Palace, the Royal Schools, and various other royal facilities were located.
Then the majority of the middle portion, going from Northwest to Southeast was the commercial area. It was full of shopping districts and entertainment zones and needed a large area.
It was also where all the hotels were placed, and many people chose to live in that place. Still, the rest of the people lived in the Southwest region of the capital which was the residential area.
Alex had only seen the Royal and Commercial area until now, so he thought of visiting the Residential area to see if he could find his cousin there by any chance.
It was already going to be harder than finding a needle in a haystack, but given how popular his image was around the continent thanks to the Newsboard, there was a chance that Hannah herself would come and find him.
He was hoping for that too.
Alex arrived at the Royal School of Alchemy and was taken to his Alchemists by the headmaster herself. After meeting with the alchemists, he gave them some words of encouragement as well as a very serious order.
They were not to use the Pill-splitting Qi in the match tomorrow.
The alchemists nodded seriously, but the truth was, they couldn't use it even if they wanted to. Alex still had no idea just how difficult it was for a regular person to learn the Pill-splitting Qi after all.
