Alex cut the head of the final snake and emerged victoriously. There were cuts all over his body, his left arm was fully broken and there was a large hole on his shoulder plate from a scorpion managing to sneak attack him.
Blood had stopped flowing by now thanks to the intense healing capabilities of his body, but still, the pain was all over him.
He huffed as he barely stood over the corpse of the snake he had just cut. Alex's legs slipped on the snake in the water, and he fell in the river too.
Thankfully, he was on the shore, so he didn't drown.
The clean water slowly took away all the blood and grime on top of him, as well as the venom and poison on his body and the blade.
Alex was thirsty, but he was too tired to take out his water from the storage bag, so he simply opened his mouth and drank the clear water that was flowing above him.
A few minutes passed as he let his body heal as much as it could and finally stood up. He looked at the many beasts that he had cut up.
Most of them were at the Organ Tempering realm with some being in the Meridian tempering realm. If it wasn't for his Sword Intent, he would have likely had to run away from this battle.
"Arghh!" he cried out from the pain and accidentally saw something yellow glowing on the ground.
"Oh, right. The yang jades," Alex thought and started limping along the shore to start gathering yang jades.
There were hundreds of them around him, and all of them were giving him the feeling of attraction he always felt towards them.
He went around the field, navigating through the blood and filth, trying to find all the jades left and right.
It took him more than 10 minutes to get through all the Yang jades in the field. When he was done, he had nearly 300 yang jades. The number alone made his mind go crazy.
He wanted to immediately grab a handful of them and eat them, but he controlled himself and stored them in his storage bags.
Finally, he looked back at the massacre he had committed and was surprised at just how cruel and vicious it all looked. Yet, he felt nothing towards it all since most of them were trying to kill him too.
That was after all how life was in this world that may or may not be a game.
'Sigh, I just need to learn to be more decisive when it comes to fighting other humans,' Alex thought.
He was about to turn around to return when he saw something glint in the night light. The moonlight reflected off of something shiny and immediately caught his attention.
"Huh? Did I miss a yang jade?" Alex wondered and went towards the object that glittered. Even when he reached there he couldn't clearly see what it was.
The shiny object was crushed under a broken statue of some sort. Alex pushed away from the half statue of what looked like a lion's back, though it was nearly impossible to tell what it really was with the amount of destruction it had suffered.
Once the statue was off, Alex finally saw what the shiny object was.
"A ring?" he looked at the shiny object with a hint of surprise and confusion. The ring looked to be of the perfect size to fit his finger.
It was mostly made out of gold except for an extremely shiny large ruby on top of it. The ruby was of an oval shape with a 2-centimeter length and 1 centimeter of width.
'This isn't bad looking,' Alex thought and looked at it a bit more. There was nothing on the ring except that made it look anything extraordinary aside from the ruby, however.
"Yu Ming!" someone cried out loud.
Alex suddenly turned around and saw people not very far away. He could clearly see them all, but they couldn't see him at all in the night with their cultivation suppressed.
"Disciple Yu!"
"Yu Ming!"
Multiple people had come looking for him.
'Why are they here?' Alex wondered.
"I'm here!" he still shouted and called the elders that had come looking for him.
"He's here, everyone," someone cried out and everyone started to converge towards Alex.
Alex decided to hide the ring for now and stored it in his storage bag. Except… the ring didn't go in at all.
'Huh?' Alex was surprised. He tried once again to send it back in, but no matter what he did, he couldn't send it back in at all.
"What's going on?" he was surprised. He tried some more but to no avail.
In the end, the elders were right about to see him, so he quickly hid the ring on the inside of the pants and walked forward to meet the elder.
"I'm here, elder," he said as he limped forward.
"What? Disciple Yu, what is up with all of these wounds?" the elders started asking.
The elders were focused on him, and Alex could see that they couldn't see the many bodies behind him.
'That's for the good maybe,' he thought. He told them that he fought some beasts and was injured as a result.
The elders helped him walk properly, but they were slower than he would be if he skipped on a single leg all the way. Still, he decided to just take the help and didn't complain.
They walked up the cliff and soon Alex could see Ma Rong's figure at the top. She seemed to be there with the Grandmaster, the First Elders, and many other prominent figures of the sect.
Ma Rong could not only see her disciple wounded and limping, but she could also see the many beast corpses far away near the river as well as the desert that seemed to have now extended well beyond the river.
"Did he do that?" Grandmaster asked from the side.
"You saw those beasts die yourself didn't you?" Ma Rong asked.
"Yeah, but it was so small that I couldn't even tell them apart," Grandmaster said.
"I guess that's true. But yeah, as a body cultivator, he should be able to kill the weaker beasts close to the grassland," Ma Rong said.
Finally, Alex and the elders arrived up at the clifftop. Ma Rong immediately took out a pill and handed it to him.
"Thank you, master," Alex said and quickly ate that pill. All the wounds in his body, the broken left arm, and the gaping hole in his shoulder plate were all healed subsequently.
"Are you okay? I saw you fight with quite a few beasts," Ma Rong said.
"Oh yeah, I'm fine," Alex said. "Why are you guys here though?"
"Sect master said there were some disturbances in the Forbidden Fields and called us. We were worried about you, so we sent out elders," the First Elder said.
"Oh right, there were the desert storms. But I thought the storm ended at the riverside. I didn't know it moved forward too," Alex said.
"There were storms in the desert?" his Grandmaster asked.
"Yeah, I was deep into the desert, but then the storm threw me back," Alex said.
"We will talk about this later. You should rest for now. You've been in the desert for 2 days," Ma Rong said.
"I'm fine. Although, I will take some rest," Alex said.
"Thank you, elders, you can all return now," Ma Rong said. Alex bowed towards them as well. Then, all of them left.
Ma Rong took Alex to her house and walked inside. The Grand Elder and the First Elder walked in as well.
"What actually happened? Tell me," Ma Rong said.
"Umm… I already did, master," Alex said. "There was a storm and I was sent flying away by the storm."
"What about the beasts? I don't see why there should be so many beasts on the shore of the desert. That was an ungodly amount," Ma Rong said.
"Oh, those were also sent flying by the storm," Alex said.
"Ah, I see," Ma Rong said, but her eyes showed a certain amount of shock.
"I see, tell me more about this storm then. Go into as much detail as you can," Ma Rong asked.
Alex told her what he could. He told her it was a storm that only carried sand, that it was really strong, and that It came from somewhere in the north.
"Nothing else?" Ma Rong asked.
"Umm… no master," Alex said.
"I see," Ma Rong said. "Thank you for your time, First Elder, master."
"It's alright. I'm just glad to see my grand disciple doing fine," the Grand Elder said.
"I will take my leave then, sect leader," the First Elder said and left along with the Grand Elder.
"So, were you successful on your venture?" Ma Rong asked.
"Ah, right," Alex thought as he brought out a few Yang Jades and showed them. "See? I found so—"
Just as he brought it out, the bright yellow color of the jade faded to light yellow, before fully fading. All that was remaining now was a simple white jade.
"Huh? What's going on?" Alex was surprised for a second. "Wait, is this?"
"Oh no!" Ma Rong gasped. "I'm so sorry, I didn't know they would fade away like that," Ma Rong said. She seemed very sorry about what had just happened.
'I see,' Alex thought. ' No wonder master's Yang Jades faded so fast before too. She has a yin constitution so it's obvious.'
"It's fine, master," Alex said. "I've got hundreds."
