Alex sat by the small hill where Ren Wujin lay unconscious for a while, thinking of how much longer he would need to break through. He was close, he could tell that much.
If he could continuously breakthrough for the next 10 days or so, he was sure he would be ready to break through. Maybe even less. He would have to start cultivating to be certain.
He just wasn't willing to give away 10 days when he could spend them fighting instead. That would bring back the same result. Surely going out to fight was the better option here.
'Just a little longer,' he thought. Once he broke through, he would have less qualms about going out to fight the likes of Sarah and Zhao Boqin. He wouldn't be at their level yet, but he would be close enough.
He saw the girl stir from the corner of his vision and looked over.
Ren Wujin slowly got back up, looking around for a moment, her eyes landing on Alex. Instantly, all memories of what had happened flooded back and she quickly checked herself to see if she was okay.
There were marks on her clothes, some small cuts here and there, some scratches. But aside from that, everything else was in order. She was more than fine.
She couldn't even feel any pain despite falling unconscious.
"Did you feed me a pill?" she asked.
"You seemed hurt," Alex said.
The girl nodded silently, checking herself more thoroughly. She quickly got up. "Thank you," she said. "You won't follow where I go, right?"
"Go," Alex said. "I won't follow."
The girl nodded and flew away without another word.
Alex stayed there without looking where the girl went to. No doubt she would do her best to hide from him after reaching further away and then go through countless troubles to make sure he couldn't find out where she had gone even if he was actively searching.
"I've rested enough," he thought. "Time to go search for more."
Alex barely took a break for the next week or so. If he ever did, it was because he couldn't find anyone to challenge.
To begin with, it was hard to find someone to challenge. Everyone he went to
Usually rejected him. It was only around the hours before the reset that he found people willing to fight him.
Finding people was hard, but once he did, he fought them as well as he could without immediately defeating them. Only that was getting harder and harder too, as the people he fought were usually very weak for him.
His Sword Intent alone had reached a level that only a few dozen people in the entire secret realm could fight him, and they were mostly hiding themselves in two groups.
Once he felt that he had fought enough, it was time for him to break through.
He found a place by a tall tree that still stood while the others around it were destroyed. He stayed close to the tree in its shade and brought out a few things in preparation.
Pearl and Whisker came out, and after them the puppet that sat to the side. A few formation plates came out which he quickly activated, forming a few different barriers that spanned hundreds of meters.
Finally, he placed a book by his left side and his sword by the right. "I'll begin cultivating," Alex said to his two beasts. "If a problem comes up, handle it."
The two beasts looked around and nodded.
The sky grew darker as Alex began cultivating, rain clouds gathering overhead. The wind picked up, replacing the hot wind around them with the cool breeze from the sky. The wind slowly picked up and it started raining.
By the time it was raining, Alex was already deep in cultivation, working toward his breakthrough.
Pearl sat quietly on the ground, ignoring the rain that battered him outside. He could easily not get wet, but he didn't bother with such nonsense.
Whisker, on the other hand, quickly made the Immortal puppet grab him and keep him away from the rain. He stayed in the Puppet's embrace for as long as it would rain.
A few minutes later, Pearl could sense Alex slowly drifting toward breakthrough. The sky had started stirring enough for him to tell. Anyone who saw that would know that someone was either breaking through or learning a dao.
A sudden bang took Pearl's attention from Alex, forcing him to look in the direction of the sound. Whisker poked his head out of the puppet's embrace to look in the direction of the sound as well.
"What's happening?" Whisker asked fearfully. Unconsciously, he made the puppet hold him even more firmly.
"I don't know," Pearl said. "I can take a look, but they will sense my spiritual sense. Should I check outside?"
Whisker thought for a bit and shook his head. "Don't let them know we are here," he said. "We need to keep hiding for the time being."
They looked back toward Alex. He was deep enough in cultivation that it didn't seem like he had time to spare them some thought. But a feeling of reassurance did come through their bond, and that was enough for both of the beasts.
"Let's see what happens," Pearl said. "They might just leave after a while."
"Hopefully," Whisker said. "We should've set up better formations, with formation flags. Formation plates are just not good enough."
Pearl nodded, but only because Whisker had said so. He didn't know enough about the differences between plates and flags to tell why one was better than the other, except for the fact that flags could be set further apart.
"If they continue, they will break through the formation soon enough," Whisker said. "The formation plates just don't hold enough spirit stones to last very long. Brother, hurry up."
And yet the feeling of reassurance continued flowing into them through their bonds.
The first barrier broke open and people spilled in. The barrier that stopped their entry was the only thing keeping them out. As soon as that was destroyed, they had nothing else barring their entry.
3 men and 2 women arrived inside, all flaring with cultivation bases in the Saint Transformation realm. Immediately, Pearl and Whisker panicked.
They had not imagined that the people who entered would be that strong.
All 5 people stared at Pearl and his black fur first. Then it went to the puppet, not even noticing the tiny eyes that watched them through a sliver in the puppet's clutched hands.
Finally, their eyes landed on Alex, the sword that stuck to his right, and the book that lay beside him on his left.
"Ah! So it IS him," the taller of the girls with a blue ribbon in her hair said. She looked back at a tanned man who was their leader. "Are you sure that we should do this, brother Shin?"
"He's been troubling us enough," the leader named Shin said. "There's hardly any hunting ground anymore and he's found us more times than anyone in the last few months."
"He's right," another man with his hair in a bun said. "We kept ourselves from the fight between those two, but because of him, we're having a hard time finding people to not get a Loss. Everyone keeps running away to a different place once they know he's found them."
"What do you two think?" the man asked the last remaining man and woman.
The woman just grunted, making it apparent that she would go with whichever choice they ended up with in the end.
The final man was younger than everyone, but his eyes were looking for a battle. He had to fight Alex a few weeks ago and had since then thought that Alex had only won because he had used some underhanded technique. He wanted some revenge.
His agreement was written right on the face.
The girl with the blue ribbon who started questioning simply sighed. "I still think it isn't right," she said. "But you guys act like you know better than me, so go on."
The man that was the leader took a step forward, his cultivation base sending terror through Whisker and Pearl, despite the steady stream of reassurance that came from Alex.
Neither of the two could understand what it was that made Alex be so reassured that nothing bad was going to happen. The man that stood before them had a cultivation base of Saint Transformation 3rd realm after all.
"I have come before you to challenge you to a duel," the man spoke, his booming voice echoing through the empty thicket of trees.
Pearl was about to say something when he suddenly heard Alex's voice.
"You 5 are players, aren't you?" Alex asked. His speaking in the middle of his own breakthrough surprised them all quite a bit.
The man looked at Alex directly, but there was no sign of his breakthrough faltering at all. 'Such amazing focus,' he thought. It took effort to put one's focus on two things at once.
"We are," the man said. "Is it that easy to tell?"
"I always wondered why the group of players only had a single Saint Transformation realm cultivator," Alex said. "When I fought three of you during the past few months, I was certain there was another group, but you made it hard to find you."
"You made it hard for us to find others too," the man said before chuckling a little. "Yes, we are players, but that doesn't mean we're much different from regular cultivators. If you think that will make us step back, then you're wrong."
A small grin appeared on Alex's otherwise emotionless face. "The chances were little, but I had hoped someone would bite the bait," he said. "Yes, I accept your challenge."
