Alex decided to break through to the Saint Soul 7th realm as fast as he could. However, by the end of the Saint Soul 6th realm, Alex felt the instability return to his cultivation base.
It was still only a feeling, but it was a feeling he understood and recognized immediately.
"What is unstable?" Alex wondered. It wasn't right, but he decided to stop and do an experiment to see what was up.
It had only been a month since he had last broken through, so a lot could be a problem. In this case, it was time for him to go through each problem and check.
Alex first made a list of all the things that could give him the feeling of instability in his body.
Mainly, there were 5 things in general that one could improve before their cultivation base was stable.
They were Dantian, Meridian, Blood, Body, and Spirit.
When all of these aspects of one's being were ready, only then did a person feel their cultivation base be stable.
Alex knew for a fact that Dantian was the most important, followed by the Meridians. But of the last 3, he did not know the order of importance at all.
Maybe it was dependent on what needed more help. Maybe there was none more important than the other? Or maybe he just had more to learn about these three.
Alex knew for certain blood was important, not because of Blood aura, but because of Blood Essence.
"What is my instability from then?" Alex wondered. He decided to try out and improve everything one by one until the instability went away.
First came his body.
Alex got the Mountain Crushing artifact back from his father, who had been using it for the past many months with a very impressive result.
While his cultivation base had yet to hit even the Saint realm, his body cultivation had already crossed the threshold of the Saint Transformation realm and went beyond it.
Especially with the artifact that Alex had brought back, the improvement he had shown was so massive, that Graham had legitimately become one of the strongest individuals in the entire Southern Continent.
After bringing back the Mountain Crushing artifact, Alex spent a week doing nothing but improving his physical strength.
He had been in Saint Soul 5th realm back in the Eastern Continent and hadn't had the time to improve since then, so this time around he stayed in the artifact until he reached Saint Soul 6th realm with his physical strength.
Once he reached that level, he stopped and checked if the instability still remained in his body.
It did.
'That was not it then?' Alex wondered.
Alex very much doubted it was his blood, but he still spent a week absorbing the bloody water inside of him and improved ever so slightly.
That made no changes to the instability he felt at all either.
Then, it was time to check his soul and spirit.
Alex didn't even bother trying to check if his Spiritual strength was the problem. That was simply not the case and he knew that for a fact.
His spiritual energy was enough to shame a man in his mid Saint Transformation realm and it improved each time he absorbed a beast core, so it only got better.
Even if Alex wanted to, there was nothing he could do to improve it significantly in a small period at all. The hell mask that he used had stopped showing effect long ago, so he had given it to his family for usage.
His Soul on the other hand was something he didn't know how to improve or if it could even be improved.
Alex's nascent soul had grown in size the past year and would continue to grow until it would intangibly occupy the entire dantian.
Alex knew of no way to improve a Nascent Soul other than just cultivating, so he could only do that.
Alex ate a pill and cultivated normally in the end for 3 days before the instability he felt disappeared from his body.
He investigated a little and came to the conclusion that it had in fact been his meridians that had needed to improve.
Alex knew that his Dantian was constantly being refined even when he wasn't cultivating, so that had not been it. Because of the way his body converted regular Qi into Yin Qi, and then he had to draw in Yang Qi to deal with that Yin Qi, the cycle strengthened his Dantian more than he could explain.
Besides, if his Dantian, something that held the Yang source and Yin bead had indeed required to be ready for just the Saint Soul 7th realm, even if it had the Saint Transformation 7th realm equivalent strength of Qi, it would have been laughable.
His Nascent Soul had not been the answer either, because Soul, just like Qi, was something that improved after the breakthrough.
So in the end, Alex came to the conclusion that it had in fact been his meridians that had stopped him from progressing.
Once Alex figured that out, he got back on track with his cultivation schedule, using the beast core only once in a while to give himself a massive boost instead of each time.
Following the routine, within the next 2 months, he managed to reach the Saint Soul 7th realm as well.
Alex's improvement came at a quick rate as he continued at a steady pace and reached the Saint Soul 8th realm after 3 and a half months of cultivation.
Then after that, he ran into a bit of instability once again and had to take a slightly longer time to deal with it, which ended up taking him about 5 months.
Alex's speed in cultivation was fast, but that was not the only thing he had been focusing his time on.
Alex did 2 very crucial things in between his cultivation, or whenever he could find the time.
First, he improved his body cultivation as high as he could. For the past year, he had focused as much time as he could squeeze into his breaks to cultivate this way.
In fact, from time to time, he had even asked his aunt to employ a time-dilation field so he could stay in the Mountain Crushing Artifact for days without having to worry about wasting too much time.
He could only do it once every 2 weeks or so, as using that much time aura left Liz with a headache and a need to take some rest.
Secondly, Alex focused on making blood beasts. With so many cores with him, he had to make as many beasts as he could make.
Alex even requested Bai Jingshen to get him some if he could, and the White Tiger brought back a few dozen beast cores.
The beasts that came from the cores that Bai Jingshen brought back were surprisingly similar to the beasts that lived in the Demonic Forest of the Northern Continent.
Alex asked him if that was where he found these cores, but the Tiger wouldn't answer.
In the end, Alex could only focus back on himself and proceed to break through to the Saint Soul 9th realm, however long it may take him to do so.
