"Argh," Alex slowly opened his eyes. His head was dizzy and he could feel a bit of pain on the back of his head. He sat up while rubbing his head.
"What hit me?" he couldn't help but ask out loud. He looked at his hand and was relieved that he wasn't bleeding at the very least.
'Did my armor save me?' he wondered. He could tell he had fainted due to the attack and was a little surprised.
'In the first place, why did I even faint? Isn't the capsule supposed to automatically log us out when we faint?' he questioned. He immediately remembered why.
"Ah right, I changed to the helmet after the maze run. How long have I even been asleep for?'. He checked the corner of his vision and saw that it was half-past 6.
'I've been out for about an hour huh?' he thought.
He looked around and tried to see where exactly he was. He remembered being around the mountain of monster corpses, but now there was nothing.
In fact, rather than saying there was nothing, he was more accurate to say that he could see nothing. He was inside fog and the visibility was less than 3 meters in front of him.
He tried to send out his spiritual sense, but for some reason that didn't work. After around 5 meters of distance, he could no longer tell what he was sensing or even tell what direction that sense was in.
"What the hell is happening?" He started to get worried. He frantically looked around, but there was truly not a single hint out there.
Alex started running away from where he was so that he could get out of the fog, but the moment he started walking, he would get a little dizzy. It was like the whole world around him was moving with him in the center.
It was all very… disorienting.
Since he was having a hard time going around due to the disorienting sense, he decided to simply walk while blocking all sense. He started walking in a single direction and didn't stop. He walked on for nearly 10 minutes when he finally opened his eyes to check.
He was still inside the fog.
"What the hell?" he was surprised. "What sort of place am I at? Is this a formation?" he worried.
"Oh, you catch on very fast," a voice came from somewhere.
"Who?" Alex immediately turned around towards the direction of the voice, but then realized he couldn't tell what the direction was.
'That voice…' he thought and frowned. "High Prince Zexi," he said.
"Oh, you know who I am now, huh?" Zexi spoke right next to his ears. Alex flustered and walked away from the man.
"Wh— What do you mean, High Prince? Why did you bring me here?" Alex tried to act. He knew for a fact that Zexi couldn't see past his disguise unless he gave it away.
"Oh, you seem confused, little guy. Check your hair," Zexi said.
'My hair?' Alex thought with surprise and felt his hair. Suddenly, he realized that his hair was long. He left his hair and went on to check his face with both his hands and the spiritual sense.
"Oh no," he thought in fear. The 58 hours for the Face Change Pill he had eaten had already expired. He was back to having his own face.
'I forgot to take another pill today.'
"Not bad, for an Organ Tempering realm individual. You are quite rich," Zexi said as he held a few storage bags in his arms. "Thankfully, you won't escape from me this time."
"Those are my storage bags?" Alex thought and quickly checked his robes. He didn't have a single storage bag anymore.
"I see you have quite a few ingredients for alchemy. Makes sense since you are an alchemist," Zexi said. "Although, do tell me, how exactly did you get the Spirit Cleansing Lilies? As far as I know, while the flowers themselves are not uncommon, they are incredibly hard to pick since only one of them is a real one. Is that not true?" he asked.
Alex didn't answer. "Give me back my storage bag," he demanded.
"Oh no, that's not happening this time. I was fair to you last time, but you don't get that opportunity this time. This time, I will get the information out of you myself," Zexi said.
The moment he said that his eyes turned upwards and he lost consciousness. At the same time, Alex teleported right next to him and hit him with a second dose of Heaven's impact.
He then immediately stole back his storage bags and used the Earth Devour technique to leave once more. The moment he activated his technique, the earth beneath his body opened up and Alex was devoured inside. He was then taken away by the earth.
He could feel himself moving at incredible speed through the earth as he—
BANG
Suddenly, he hit something inside the earth and was ejected outside once again.
"What?" he thought as he quickly sent out his spiritual sense. In front of him, he could see and sense the same fogs that hindered his sense of direction.
While behind him was a perfectly normal forest that had not a single bit of fog.
Alex tried to walk towards it and hit something again. "Ow," he screamed as he rubbed his forehead. He placed his arms forward and realized that there was an invisible barrier disrupting his entry and exit.
"Another formation?" Alex said in shock.
"Oh, it works," Zexi spoke from behind him. " I was hoping it would when I set up that formation. Your disappearance trick was a little bit of a problem for me you know."
"So I had to set up both formations, just for you. The barrier formation to keep you from leaving, and the Spirit Disorienting formation to keep you inside at all times," Zexi said.
"Since I was good enough to set it up as a mid-Earth Grade formation, we have anywhere from 30-40 days of time with each other.
"I hope I get to learn a lot about you."
