"Arghh… so much thinking, and I feel like I've made barely any progress," Alex thought.
It was 11 pm and Alex had decided to stop thinking about the structures and the composition of the pills. The information was way too overwhelming for him.
And in the end, he had yet to figure out how any of the shapes had to do with absorbing energy. Was a certain shape supposed to only absorb a certain amount of energy? Was a certain shape supposed to only absorb a specific kind of energy? Was the threading-like shape from the clockwise and counterclockwise motion supposed to affect the type of energy or the amount?
There were so many questions that he just couldn't answer in a short period of time. At least, not by himself. He decided to start cultivating.
He sat down and called Pearl to start cultivating. Pearl came as asked and got onto his lap and started shining a little as he started cultivating.
Numerous cuts appeared on Alex's body, but none of those hurt him anymore. He was about to close off his eyes and start cultivating when he remembered something that he had been meaning to do ever since he thought of entering the Meridian Realm.
So, he reached into his storage bag and brought out a Spirit Cleansing Lily.
"Now that I've broken through to the Meridian realm, maybe I can use it again. I'm pretty sure my spiritual sea did increase after I fought with Zexi. Which would mean that there is a possibility of it increasing further," he thought.
"Yes, I must try this," he thought. He was pretty hopeful. Even if normal people had limitations, he had a great body and talent, as well as a fascinating spiritual root that he didn't understand completely yet.
So, he hoped to get lucky.
He held the flower in his palm and started cultivating. In less than a minute, the trance took over him, and he fell asleep.
He opened his eyes early in the morning. He looked at the time and saw that it was 7 am. He was used to waking up at around this time nowadays. He wasn't complaining though; he had breakfast to eat with the ladies every day.
"Oh right, the flower," he remembered and looked at his hand. He was hoping for it to be gone, but expecting it to still be there.
"Huh?" he thought as he saw his hands. They were empty; the flower was gone.
"Wait, it works? Haha, it works!" he shouted out in joy. He accidentally woke up the cultivating Pearl and the cuts all over his body stopped.
He sent out his spiritual sense, but it barely extended to around 22 meters without exertion. That was his natural limit after his fight with Zexi.
"Oh right, stupid me. The spiritual distance won't increase. Only the spiritual quantity will," he thought and sent his spiritual sense into his spiritual sea.
"Huh?" he said in confusion. The size of the spiritual sea was unchanged.
"Wait, what's going on?" he thought. His flower was gone, yet the spiritual sea hadn't increased at all.
'Was that a defective flower?' he wondered. But it couldn't be. He clearly remembered picking up the right flower for all of the lilies. If not, the flowerbed would have turned to ruin.
"Ok, I know I did not make a mistake. Then what is go—"
Suddenly, a foreign spiritual sense washed over his body and he heard a single thing in his mind.
"Meow."
Alex looked to the side in shock. Pearl was looking at him and meowing, but the meow was something that was being sent to his mind.
"D- Did you just use spiritual sense?" Alex asked.
"Meow," Pearl really meowed this time, and the feeling of confusion was passed along to Alex. Alex didn't know what to do. Pearl didn't even know what spiritual sense was.
"Um… oh right," he said and brought out another flower. "Did you cultivate with this?" he asked.
"Meow," Pearl said.
Alex's eyes turned wider. He couldn't keep his voice under control and shouted, "YOU ATE THIS?"
Pearl got a little scared. It went into a defensive position.
"Wait, no buddy. I'm not mad. I was just surprised. Come here," he called Pearl and caressed him. Pearl stopped feeling defensive and opened up more.
"So, did you really eat that flower?" he asked.
"Meow," Pearl said as he nodded.
'Damn, eating can help him gain spiritual sense? Does it work the same for me?' Alex wondered. He had 2 more flowers left, but he was too afraid to use them like that.
"Uhh… I guess I will let pearl use them," he thought. He decided to wait until he found some more of these flowers.
Thankfully, they weren't as rare as they appeared. He was certain that if he ventured the southern forest a little more, he would surely find quite a few of these flowers.
Alex decided to teach Pearl a little about spiritual sense and spiritual sea. He wasn't really sure if he would understand anything or not, but he tried nonetheless.
'Now that he has a spiritual sense, he should be able to communicate with me in human terms right? He doesn't have to keep meowing,' he thought. He remembered back to the time when his mother spoke to him.
If Pearl could do the same then it would help him a lot. After teaching him a little about spiritual sense, he took out an Organ Tempering 1st Realm beast's core and fed it to him.
This was the first time he didn't have to worry about the battle in the spiritual realm.
"Eh?" Alex was surprised that the fight didn't even take place as Pearl never went to sleep.
'Did he get lucky?' Alex wondered. It felt like Pearl didn't have to fight any spiritual avatar of the beasts and had lucked out like he sometimes did. It was either that or Pearl was simply too strong in the spiritual sea.
"Alright, keep practicing and… cultivate if you want. I will see you later tonight," Alex said and logged out.
