The snake hissed after hearing Alex. "What's your request?" it asked directly into his mind.
"I need the poison of a Two-headed Hydra for my left arm's recovery. Can you perhaps help me with that?" he asked.
"I can," the snake hissed.
"Alright, that settles it then," Shen Jing. "You can go and happily roam the poison valley where everyone else would die with a single breath."
Alex looked at him with a weird face. "That's very morbid of you," he said.
"Haha, I'm kidding. Most people that come here will know to bring a poison repelling artifact that will repel poison in the air. They will also come with tons and tons of antidotes. So it's unlikely anyone would actually die."
"Unless they end up beating beasts like him," Shen Jing said while pointing to the hydra who hissed.
"I see," Alex said. He didn't know such artifacts existed, but now that he thought of it, he didn't know what sort of artifacts existed exactly.
He was used to seeing weapons, armors, necklaces, and such only, but after coming to the Luminance empire, he had seen a few weird artifacts like the lantern that hurt him mentally.
"You guys should go now," Shen Jing said. "I won't waste any more of your time."
"Brother Shen, wait," Alex said before Shen Jing could leave.
"What is it?" Shen Jing asked.
"Can I get empty vials and wooden boxes from my storage bag? I need them to keep the valuable ingredients from losing energy," Alex said.
"Hmm… Okay," Shen Jing said and brought out 5 of his storage bag at once from somewhere. Then, he looked through them all, and within moments he found all of the empty containers.
It looked like his face lingered for a split second at something, but it quickly changed, making Alex wonder if he was even seeing it right.
At the same time, he also gave Alex a few pairs of clothes to change. The hide of some furred beast he was wearing at the moment could barely be called clothes right now.
Once Alex took the items, he bowed toward Shen Jing and turned to walk away with the Hydra.
Shen Jing turned around to leave, but just as he was about to, he remembered something and his voice drifted towards Alex.
"In less than a year, a demon realm is going to open. Be prepared as I will come to take you there," Shen Jing said and disappeared.
At the same time, the snake got instructed to not help Alex beyond what he had requested.
The snake nodded and continued slithering.
Alex was confused now. "Demons? There are demons here?" he asked out loud, but Shen Jing was nowhere to be seen.
In Alex's mind, demons were horrific beings that were meant to scare children to send them to sleep. 'Certainly, he means something else by demons, right?' Alex thought.
The sour and pungent smell drifted into Alex's nose which he breathed again, but aside from the smell, there was nothing bad about the poison in the air at all.
He actually wondered if his body was cleansing the poison while he was consuming it. 'That must be the case,' Alex thought.
The saint realm snake could probably go back to its habitat immediately if it wanted to, but for some reason, it chose to slowly walk along with Alex.
Alex's senses were still spread out and he could see several plants and animals all roaming throughout the field.
Just as he was looking around, he couldn't believe he found something so easily.
"A Two-colored Poison Lily!" Alex shouted and immediately ran towards it, but as soon as he stepped forward, his feet sank to the ground and he nearly stumbled upfront.
He caught himself while in the process of falling and got back up, this time hovering a few inches above the ground.
'What the hell?' he thought to himself. He slowly let his Qi disappear and drifted back down, sinking both his feet into the wetland down below.
"Oh right," He said after finally realizing what was going on. "It's a swampland. I forgot."
Now that he sent his senses beneath what he thought was the land, he could see it clearly went a bit lower before there was any hard surface.
The poison swamp it seemed was aptly named.
Alex slowly flew towards the Poison Lily and felt a nauseating smell come from just being close to it. Alex didn't know if it was just the flower or the entire swamp, but he could feel that the poison in the air here was more than what his body could handle for the moment.
He was about to use his cultivation technique to make it easier on himself, but then he remembered something about himself that had been keeping away normal beasts.
He wondered if it worked the same for poison in the air too, and decided to give it a go.
With a thought, yang energy spread out of his body, creating a small area around him where poison in the air ignited to nothingness.
'Oh, it worked,' Alex thought with a surprise. His nausea immediately cleared and before even having to cultivate, he was perfectly fine.
Then, he sensed something moving in the water.
Alex immediately reached into his ring and brought out his sword. Despite being in the swamp, he was going to fight with his sword, and sword alone.
When he finally saw the beast waiting to attack should he move forward, he frowned. This… was just too coincidental, wasn't it?
In front of Alex was a dark blue beast with 2 purple heads of different shades, hissing at him with both of the heads.
No matter how Alex looked at it, it was a Two-Headed Hydra. Did he fight it now? Or ask the Saint beast next to him for help?
The Hydra was in the True Lord 4th realm, so Alex could easily win it, but he didn't want to offend the senior next to him by attacking a beast of his kind.
"Is this… your relative, senior?" Alex asked.
The snake looked offended at that question actually. It hissed back at Alex, and a question carried by the snake's spiritual sense entered his mind.
"Is every human in this world your relative?" it asked.
"No," Alex said and turned around towards the snake. "Then, please don't mind if I fight a little here."
"The head that is more red than blue," the snake's voice drifted into Alex's mind.
"Sorry?" he asked. 'Head that is more red than blue?' Alex wondered. He could see that the Saint realm Hydra was referring to the head on the left, but Alex didn't understand why.
Was that perhaps a weak spot in the snake? Or was the second head where the monster core lie?
"You said you wanted our poison right?" the Snake asked. "The head that is bluer has poison fog that harms the meridians. You cannot carry that back."
"Then, it is very easily the 2nd head with our fangs," the saint beast said.
"I see," Alex said, finally understanding what the snake was trying to tell him. He hadn't even thought that the two heads would be a thing of confusion for him.
He usually left such concerns for after the fight was done and his life was safe.
Once Alex got the information he needed, he moved forward. As if waiting for this, the Two-Headed Hydra lunged forward at Alex.
It hadn't noticed the tiny Three-Headed hydra slithering in the swamp at all and thus thought of only Alex as the enemy.
No. From the looks of it, it thought of Alex as food.
'Let's see which one gets eaten first,' Alex thought as a bright white outline appeared around his sword.
'Who am I?' he asked himself before proceeding to fight. Ever since he thought of the sword Qi following his personality, he had been asking that question himself.
Who was he? What was he doing? Such questions drifted in his mind for a split second, and when he realized he still didn't know, he ignored the two flickers of white light that jumped out from his sword and launched forward.
He met the snake in mid-air and hit it on its right head with a blow that rang its brain as if it had just hit a mountain.
Had Alex put in his Qi for this attack, the snake would have likely died with just this one attack.
His Sword Intent surely had improved. And it wanted to improve it even further.
Alex jumped back, following the snake that was sent flying away. The yang energy from his body stopped all Qi from entering his body.
The snake caught itself from going any further and looked back at Alex who looked more like a beast here than it did.
A layer of purple liquid seeped out of the snake's body, solidifying to become armor of some sort.
Alex's sword hit it again, but the snake managed to hold itself with just one of its heads.
With its other head, it sprayed gaseous poison onto Alex's face. Without even Alex breathing it in, the poison entered his body, immediately starting to attack his meridians.
Alex took a step back and immediately circulated his Five Yang Divine Path technique and within moments, the poison vanished from his system.
It was so fast that both of the snakes around him looked at him like they were looking at their natural enemy.
Once the poison was gone, Alex jumped back to his fight.
