Alex received a lot of ingredients from the beasts over the course of the next few days, of which over 80% he turned into pills with pill veins.
Some of the ingredients were so poorly kept in their storages that Alex would have to spend hours improving them with his Supreme Elemental Accord, which he didn't want to do.
The pills he made more than satisfied the old lizard, who happily came back to Alex to give him more and more ingredients.
When Alex said that he was planning on leaving soon now that resources here would start to run dry, the Lizard started bringing better items to entice him to stay.
Of the items he got, Alex received in total nearly 200 liters of Saint Beast blood, and around 30 different cores, 3 of which were from Saint Soul realm beasts.
He hadn't expected much from them, but he had ended up gaining quite a bit. In exchange for a few hours of pill making, that was more than what he could have asked for.
He absorbed the blood aura the moment he was done with making the pills and as for the core, he had turned around 4 of them into Blood Beasts by now, all of which had strength around the middle of the Saint Soul realm.
With the difference in the quality of the beast cores and the blood aura that he had, he could only push up the powers of the blood beast by that much.
Due to his Dao of Blood Aura which allowed him to convert Qi into Blood Aura, Alex could make Blood Beasts every day if he wanted to.
However, due to his Qi naturally running out and him not being able to cultivate for a few days after eating one of the cultivation pills, he only did it so frequently.
One of the few things he had learned about beast blood during this time was the fact that the beasts that he had already made beforehand weren't as good as the ones he made before.
When his blood aura was around Saint Soul 1st realm's equivalent in strength and he used the core of a Saint Condensation 1st realm beast, the most he would be able to bring that beast up was in between Saint Foundation 5th realm and Saint Core 1st realm.
If his blood aura then improved to Saint Transformation 1st realm, he would be able to improve the blood beast to Saint Core 5th realm at best.
However, in the same scenario, if he were to take a new Saint Condensation 1st realm beast core and used it to make another blood beast, the beast would always have a strength over the Saint Core 5th realm, few even going as high as Saint Soul realm itself.
As a result, it was always better to make new blood beasts, rather than keep using the old ones.
He hadn't had much of a chance to gain the core that he wanted to turn into Blood beasts, but now he did, and so he made them.
Nearly a month passed of Alex doing nothing but making pills, making blood beasts, and cultivating.
Then, at the end of that month, he reached the pinnacle of what he could with Saint Core 8th realm.
So, that very night, he broke through.
Alex felt a surge of power in him that was only so much stronger than the last realm but had a clear difference at the same time.
"Saint Core 9th realm," he thought to himself. It was a shock to him just how incredible his speed had been for cultivation lately.
After he reached Saint realm, his speed was supposed to have slowed down to a crawl. Spending multiple years to break through any realm was considered normal at this stage.
Even then, thanks to his own talent, amazing skills, and pill, he managed to make it faster.
When he reached Saint Foundation realm, he had assumed it was going to slow down. And yet, he made pills with Pill veins which made his cultivation speed even faster.
As his pills continued getting better, they continued improving as well.
However, when he broke through to the Saint Core realm, he had imagined that it was going to be exceptionally slower for him than at any other time.
And he was used to it.
However, with a lucky or maybe even fateful encounter with the young girl that he assumed had the Moon Goddess' body, his speed had grown even more now.
"Just 8 months," he thought to himself. It had been exactly 8 months since he broke through to the 8th realm. And 8 months later, he had broken through to the 9th realm.
This was a speed he wasn't anticipating without using any external treasures at all.
Neither Pearl nor Whisker were even close to breaking through once again, and he had. That was simply incredible.
That wasn't to say Pearl's cultivation was slow at all. He was way faster than any other person he had yet seen.
With the White Tiger's Dominating Body technique, not only was his cultivation base increasing, but so was his body cultivation.
Alex was jealous of the past him that had the White Tiger's bloodline and could cultivate with Pearl to improve himself. Now that the White Tiger's bloodline was no longer in him, he couldn't do anything.
It wasn't like he hadn't tried asking Pearl to give him his bloodline if he could. He had, but it simply hadn't worked at all.
From what Alex could tell unless Pearl gave up the 10 drops of blood essence that made him what he was, he could never regain the bloodline again.
As a result, Alex gave up on the idea of ever gaining either the White Tiger's bloodline or the Vermillion Bird's bloodline.
If he ever really did want one, he would have to kill a truly strong heavenly beast with a cultivation base he couldn't even name yet. Only then would it most likely work.
Alex went to find the Lizard leader to tell him that it was time for him to leave. He wanted to go around to the other colonies and visit them.
It was clear to Alex that the colony had nothing more to offer in terms of blood and cores, so it was time to leave.
"What? You're leaving?" the Lizard looked in surprise. "But it had only been a month. You need to stay for at least a year."
"I need to leave," Alex said. "Truth is, you guys are running out of resources and I also want to visit the other locations. Not to mention I have so much of the Eastern Continent itself to go around."
"But… just a few more days. I just want a few more pills, thats all," the Lizard said. Desperately. "I can get you whatever you want. I can even get you the Heavenly Silkthreads. Do you want some?"
"Silk threads?" Alex was intrigued. "Those do sound fun, but what about the Silk worms themselves?"
"Silkworms?" the lizard looked offended. "No!"
Alex shrugged. "Just think about it," he said. "Also, I wouldn't mind selling some more pills if you are willing to let me in on the secret as well."
