Zhou Linfan waited for the two cultivators to fly far away and take away their spiritual sense before he showed any sort of concern on his face. He quickly looked around, searching for Alex, even going so far as to open his spiritual sense throughout the island to try and find him.
He panicked when he couldn't find any sign of Alex at all, but just then he sensed something that made him pause.
Right next to him, something rippled. He turned around and was left with a wide jaw as Alex appeared from a fold in space and fell to the ground in front of him, unconscious.
"Young man? Are you okay?"
Zhou Linfan tried to wake Alex up, but he was entirely unconscious. 'What happened to you?' the old man thought as he checked to see if Alex was even alive.
Then he stared at the space where Alex had appeared from. "Space Dao?" he wondered. "Does this kid have the dragon's blood too?"
As far as he was aware, the only way to learn Space Dao was to be able to sense Space Aura first. One could sense Space aura if they spent time around it for a while, but that time would have to be in the centuries if not millennia.
How could a kid who was not a century old learn it to the extent that he could hide himself from the Saint realm cultivators?
"Curious," he said softly. "I wonder how he did it."
He took Alex back to the cave safe and sound and remained hidden there for as long as it would take for the soldiers to leave the area. And as long as it would take for Alex to come back to consciousness.
The soldiers didn't leave in the next 5 days, but at the end of it, Alex did wake up.
He woke up in a daze, unsure of where he was at first. His headache was particularly painful, and standing up made the world seem to spin a little. He looked around at the cave, and then at the old man at the end.
Finally, some of his memories returned. "I fainted?" he asked.
"You did," the old man explained. "After expending your spirit by using the Space Dao, I assume. I was surprised when you came out of nowhere."
"Space Dao?" Alex asked and tried to remember what had happened. "Ah right. I remember. I panicked and decided to hide using the space around me."
"Yes, you did. That surprised me very much," the old man said. "I might have been distracted, but it was surprised because I couldn't sense you use your Dao at all."
"I was either too weak for you to sense anything worth your attention maybe," Alex said. "Or maybe you just can't sense Space aura."
The old man nodded. "I don't doubt that I'm bad at sensing Space aura. But once you had folded space and continued using the Dao, I should have been notified. Even if not that, you are still a mortal with some aura to yourself. When I searched for you, I should have found you, but I didn't."
"It was like you didn't exist at all."
Alex shook his head. "I separated the space immediately around me from the space beyond it," he said. "Essentially, I made a very tiny secret realm where I alone could fit. So you couldn't sense anything that happened inside of it."
Zhou Linfan's eyes were opened wide in surprise when he heard that. "That's… actually incredible," he said. "You made actual secret realms to hide yourself. I wonder if I could've found it if I was searching for it."
"You probably would have," Alex said. "Secret realms aren't that hard to find after all."
The old man nodded. "Still, I must commend you for thinking so quickly and making such a great decision under stress. That was incredible of you."
"Yes," Alex said. "But now I'm back to where I was when I started. Actually, my spirit might be weaker now."
The old man nodded. "Maybe," he said and then produced the items they had gathered that they. "But you have more to work with now, so you can catch up quickly."
Alex nodded.
"Besides, there is nothing for you to do besides stay and eat these anyway. Those soldiers are still around and will likely stay around until they end up concluding that you really did die," the old man said. "Only then can we go out and search for whatever you want more easily."
"You are right," Alex said, reaching for one of the plants the old man produced. His head still throbbed and his stomach cried in hunger, so he decided to deal with both problems at once.
He would have more than loved to eat what the old man could cook, but this was the better thing to do right now.
He ate the items, one by one, letting his body accept the healing spiritual energy that lifted his headache. He ate slowly, and a lot of it. Soon enough, he was feeling much better than before.
"Do you have to eat it all at once?" the old man asked. "You should let your stomach settle first."
"No need," Alex said, slapping his stomach. "My body can handle it."
A few more days passed and Alex finally finished all of it. Then, he tested his spirit's strength using the formation on the wall and was more than happy to realize that he had successfully lifted his spirits to the True Master realm.
That was a lot further up than he had expected to reach when he first started eating the items.
The old man went out of the island twice during the past few days, going out for no longer than 3 hours at most and returning with more items for Alex to devour.
Alex happily ate every one of them, getting closer and closer to the True Lord realm in terms of his spirit. However, the problem that he had assumed was going to show anytime soon was starting to surface.
He was starting to slow down in his progress.
Was it because the items he found were not good enough? Or was a mortal's spirit just that slow to grow?
Alex didn't know which one of the two was the answer, but whichever it was, the result was the same. His spirit was growing slowly, and he needed something incredible to push it up further.
He needed to find an incredible treasure of some sort. "Should I enter the ocean and see if there are some things there?" he wondered out loud. That was a good idea, wasn't it?
The ocean, discounting the beasts that lived there, was an untouched field of incredible resources. So long as the beasts weren't aware of the incredible abilities of many of the ingredients found down there, they would have left it aside.
If he went into the ocean, he would certainly find things that could help him.
"You want to go to the ocean?" the old man asked as he flew down from the air. "That's a bad idea."
Alex turned to look at the man with a start. It was annoying to now know when someone was approaching you or was looking at you with a spiritual sense.
The old man tossed a few more ingredients toward Alex, and Alex immediately started munching at him.
"Why is it such a bad idea?" Alex asked the old man as he chewed on the ingredients."Aside from the fact that I can't breathe there for a long time, of course."
The old man chuckled a bit. "There are many bad things about the ocean, the least of which would be you drowning. The beasts are certainly the biggest problem, but problems such as toxic weeds and other similar things could kill you instantly."
"The ocean is undocumented for the most part, so you never know what is trouble and what is not," the old man said. "Besides. Whatever you would want could only be found on the ocean floor, and I don't know how deep you can go without Qi. I certainly don't plan on going down there."
Alex sighed a little. "You're not wrong," he said. "I suppose I shouldn't think about leaving for the ocean just yet. Let's see if we can find something good on the islands first."
"Ah, that reminds me," the old man said. "I did find something. Actually, I found it the day we were there, but the soldiers came suddenly and I had to stop. Still, I did find something that can be considered good, but I don't know how good it would be."
"What did you find?" Alex asked curiously. "Some treasure plant?"
"In a way," the old man said. "It's a flower that is known for its spiritual ability. You should have heard of it even if you weren't an alchemist to begin with. It's called the Spirit—"
"The Spirit Cleansing Lily?" Alex burst out suddenly.
The old man took a moment to acknowledge Alex's burst and slowly nodded. "Yes, Spirit Cleansing Lily. It's the flower that you can use 3 times to improve your spiritual sense."
"I know," Alex said and slowly sighed as the excitement dwindled from his eyes. "I've already used it 3 times. It won't affect me now."
"Oh… I see," the old man said. "It is more incredible than anything you have eaten the past week, isn't it?
"It is indeed more…" Alex paused as a curious thought floated in his head.
"Now that I think about it, maybe I do indeed have a use for it still," Alex said. "I wonder what will happen if instead of using it normally, I eat the Spirit Cleansing Lily."
