The island Alex was on truly wasn't very large. He couldn't see everything from where he was, but what he could see told him that the island was around 3 or 4 kilometers in diameter at best.
He slowly walked down the mountain, walking into the forest that lay just a few minute's walk below.
Entering the forest, Alex felt a sort of odd feeling that he hadn't felt in a very, very long time.
He felt a sense of emptiness that came from his mind not constantly telling him what all the plants were and what they did. If he didn't focus on anything, he wouldn't know anything.
The Alchemy God's Knowledge was still somewhere in the back of his mind even in his crippled form, telling him what he needed to know. That was good news for Alex at the very least.
He looked around, searching for anything that was good. The old man had remained on this island for a long time, so Alex hoped he had missed a few things, but as he went along, he didn't find anything important enough for him to pick up.
After walking for nearly 15 minutes he found an ingredient strong enough for him to use. It was an ingredient that could be used to heal him if mixed with some other ingredients.
He was going to make a paste using it.
Alex continued walking searching for the ingredients he needed and was surprised how much time it was taking for him to find these things. He quickly realized that it wasn't that there was nothing on the island, but that since his perception had been severely limited, it was taking him time to find things.
Without his spiritual sense, he would have to continue searching for things all over the place.
Alex found a few more ingredients, mostly for healing his physical body. He was also searching for ingredients to heal his spirit, but he was having a hard time finding those.
Still, it would seem that even with an island as small as this one, without his cultivation base and spiritual sense, it was going to take him a long time to go through it all.
Alex searched for the whole day and only stopped around the time twilight came along, and that too because the old man came to find him.
Alex returned to the cave, not even having searched halfway through the entire island. There were still 2 more days of searching he would need to go through to cover the entire island.
"Did you find everything you wanted?" Zhou Linfan asked him while cooking something in the pot.
"Not really," Alex said. "But I found enough for now."
He had been carrying the ingredients wrapped around his robes and let them fall to the ground. "Do you have something I can use to make them into a paste?"
The old man brought out a stone slab and a round stone to crush the ingredients. "I've been using this. You can use it too." He handed Alex some clean water too.
Alex thanked the man and started making the pastes. The paste he was making was not something he had ever made before. However, he knew how the ingredients would react with each other, and knew that they would make a good enough healing paste.
Once the paste was ready, he took off the leather that wrapped around his stomach and looked at the wound on his body.
A long gash ran from his chest, all the way to his navel region. The gash around the chest had just about closed up, but the ones on the lower area still needed some time to fully heal.
Alex tore a piece of his robe and used it to slowly wipe away the medicine that was already on there, put on him by the old man, while also cleaning the wound. Once the wound was cleaned, he applied the new healing paste and wrapped it back around with the leather again.
The old man watched Alex do everything by himself and was pleasantly impressed. "You're quite resourceful, aren't you?" he asked, from where he stood next to the pot. "Only half a day and you made a paste far better than I could."
"I may not look like it right now, but I'm still the greatest alchemist below the Immortal realm in this world right now," Alex said, turning to look at the man.
The old man was more than just impressed at that. "Hah!" he laughed out loud, unclear if he trusted Alex's words or not, but he said nothing.
"Is that going to heal you fine? Will it heal your Dantian too?" the old man asked. "I remember hearing that not every healing pill could heal a Dantian."
"No, not every healing pill can do that," Alex said. "Especially, not healing pastes."
"Oh," the old man felt bad. "Then… can you not heal while you are here? I suppose you will have to wait until those soldiers leave before I can take you back to your continent."
"No," Alex said quickly. "I can heal my Dantian if I can find something to improve my spirit. So I need to find anything to improve the current state of my Spirit."
"How will that help with healing your Dantian?" the old man asked.
"It will work for me, I think," Alex said.
"You don't sound confident," the old man said.
"Well… I've never been crippled before, so I don't exactly know if what I'm saying is true," Alex said. "But this is the only thing I can trust right now. I cannot trust others, and only myself."
The old man nodded. He brought the pot over and let Alex eat what he had cooked that day. It was once again a stew with some fish that tasted incredible.
"This should improve your blood flow so that those healing pastes you used work more efficiently," the old man said.
Alex thanked the man. He wasn't entirely correct in what he said, but it was close enough. Besides, the food was once again delicious.
"Once you wake up tomorrow, I will help you find these plants you are looking for. Can you give me a list or something?" the man asked.
"I… can't," Alex said. "There are way too many to make a list, so it is better if I come with you. That way, I might get through it all even faster."
"Hmm… I don't have any problem with that," the old man said. "We can go around the island tomorrow. If we don't find what you're looking for, I can take you to the other islands too. Although, that will need some patience since we don't want to get caught."
"You're not afraid of getting beaten by them, right?" Alex asked. "You're stronger than most of them."
"No, I'm not afraid of them," the man said. "I'm afraid they will contact the Emperor and he will come. He's too strong for me right now, so I can't meet him yet."
"Yet?" Alex asked with a curious look on his face. "That makes it sound like you actually do want to meet him sometime in the future."
"Meet him? Of course I do," the old man said. "How else am I supposed to kill the man?"
