Alex and Pearl were led to the edge of the Beast Paradise by the Lion himself. They were brought back to the bright falls where they said their farewell.
"I will try to find what I can," the Lion said. "You two take care of yourself in the meantime. Try not to exceed what you can do. If there was someone else instead of me in the Colony, you might have been dead right now."
Alex nodded. "We'll take extra caution, senior Zhu," he said.
"I won't die, Uncle," Pearl said resolutely.
"Good, I wouldn't want my only nephew to die trying to get revenge on his mother," the Lion said. "Your mother would've never wanted that."
Pearl nodded. "Farewell, Uncle," he said and turned around.
Alex bowed slightly toward the Lion and left.
Pearl quickly entered Alex's beast space once they were far enough. Even though his fur was of a different color, he hid. Who knew what sort of artifacts the Azure Imperium could have?
A single mistake and their entire mission would come falling apart.
Passing the Brightfalls, Alex quickly found his hotel and went up. His two elders and General Fan were there cultivating in their rooms when he arrived.
"Your Majesty, you're back!" elder Liang said the moment she saw Alex come in.
Yao Ning walked out of her room as well. "Your majesty," she cried out.
"Sorry I took so long to come back," Alex said. "I wasn't expecting to take nearly a year."
"We were worried something might've happened to you," the elder said.
"Really?" Alex asked with a bit of a chuckle. "You had nothing to worry about." He wasn't going to tell them about the time he nearly died.
"Were you not going to stay in for longer, your majesty?" Yao Ning asked. "The Crown Prince told us that you would most likely only come out when it is time for the Golden Kingdom's auction."
"Of course not. I wasn't going to stay in there for so long," Alex said. "I have other things to do here than just visit the Golden Kingdom."
Alex went to his room to rest and the elders followed him.
"How long do we have until the Golden Kingdom's auction again?" Alex asked the elders.
"According to General Fan, less than 5 months," Elder Liang said. "We should get a more accurate date around 3 months before the actual auction is supposed to start."
"Hmm, then we have plenty of time," Alex said.
"General Fan also says that we should go there before the auction. At least 2 months before," she said.
"What for?" Alex asked.
"Apparently it is a good idea to visit the Golden Mountain range and mine for gold there before the auction," Elder Liang said. "If we want to do it afterward, there would be way too many people there and that would be problematic."
"Hmm, I'll have to see if that works," Alex said. "I don't really want to rush into things one after another. I want to rest a little too."
"Of course," Yao Ning said. "We have many years to go to the Golden mountain if we miss this chance."
Alex nodded.
"Anything new happened while I was in there?" Alex asked. "Anything I should be aware of?"
"Hmm, nothing massive, I suppose?" elder Liang said.
"I think the most important thing that has happened in the last year or so is the significant rise in voices of the players that want to be sent back home," elder Yao said.
"Oh, the players want to return back home, do they?" Alex asked. "Not bad. It seems sister Hao's actions are showing quite the fruit."
"It is," elder Yao said. "And since most of the players are of such high talent, they can't even be ignored."
"So, what's going on with them then?" Alex asked.
"They are being told to wait," the elder said. "The Emperor is in closed cultivation, so they have no choice but to wait for him to come out before their voices can be heard."
"The Emperor is still in closed cultivation huh?" Alex said softly. "I wonder what he is actually trying to do. Surely he isn't cultivating as he has already reached the peak of what is possible. So he must be trying to judge the many pill recipes I gave him and is trying to find what it is that makes them so good."
The two elders said nothing.
"Okay, you two may leave," Alex said. "I will rest for a while, and tomorrow morning, we will leave."
"Where are we going to next, your Majesty?" Yao Ning asked.
"We're going back to the Dragon Capital for now. As for where after that, I'll have to think a little," he said.
The elders nodded and left the room, leaving Alex alone with his thoughts on what he was going to do in the future.
After thinking for a while, Alex realized that he couldn't make much plans as he wasn't aware of the opening time for the various competitions and secret realms, which was a very integral part of his adventure.
He definitely needed to learn more about them before making the future plans. However, he still knew what the most important part of next journey was going to have to be.
He remembered the white haired young girl that laid in the bed with ice around her. Thinking about her, his heart sank a little as he remembered that feeling.
"They never contacted me," Alex thought. "So that must mean that she has healed and is well. I will have to go visit her as soon as I can."
As for how much later the 'soon' was going to be, he would have to find out later.
Alex started cultivating afterward and the next morning, he left the hotel to return back to the Dragon Capital.
This time around, they directly teleported instead of flying to the Dragon Capital. It wasn't that Alex didn't want to fly back there, as he would be more than happy to see the land here and enjoy the scenery.
Instead, he was actually not allowed to fly through there. If he wanted to fly back, he would have to go take a detour to move around the location that they would come across if they went straight.
The Azure Dragon's Realm.
Alex was more than willing to visit the realm if he was allowed to. No, he HAD to visit it if he was allowed to. However, given that there were so many soldiers that constantly roamed the area, it was impossible for him to visit there.
"I will have to find another way then," he thought.
The long way around took way too long, so instead Alex decided to teleport back to the Dragon Capital.
After teleporting back to the Dragon Capital, Alex was reminded of just how dense and well maintained this city was.
He had teleported back to the same teleoprtatin house where he had first arrived over 3 years ago, and just like that time, there was a carriage waiting to take him and the elders to the Dragon Capital.
Alex and the others got into the carriage and made their way to the Dragon Palace.
