Alex was on top of a mountain filled to the brim with trees. In fact, he could see trees as far as he could see.
Although, at a certain point, some sort of chromatic haze stopped him from seeing any further.
'That must be the outer wall of this secret realm,' Alex thought. This was the first time he was seeing a wall for a secret realm. Usually, he was at the center of it all in the beast's realm, so he got to see nothing there.
The overgrown trees stopped him from seeing everything but the other giant mountains that were equally covered in trees.
There were about 6 in total including the one Alex was in. Other than that, the massive secret realm was simply plain ground.
Alex closed his eyes and took in a deep breath. The salty air of the island was gone now that he was in here.
And the Qi… it was so dense in here. A normal person's cultivation speed would surely increase by a couple of times if they were to cultivate here.
Alex was tempted to just sit down and cultivate, but he didn't see the point for himself. He was already capable of gaining as much Qi as he wanted by simply consuming pills and monster cores.
He could even eat spirit stones to gain Qi, but the one time he had done it, he hadn't liked it afterward.
Alex had to reach into his stomach with his Qi and pull out the dull stone. Unlike pills and cores, the stones didn't dissolve.
Besides, spirit stones for him were more helpful in other instances than simply cultivation.
Alex looked around from his mountain top to see where he could go. If possible, he would have wanted to go find the alchemy ingredients immediately.
However, due to the massive forests everywhere that seemed to have grown over the last thousands of years, there was no way for him to recognize any places.
He could see open spots in some places, but they were too far to make out exactly what they were.
"Guess, I will have to go down and see," Alex thought.
"Meow!" Pearl wanted to come out too. Alex didn't want to bring him out, but now that he thought about it, he didn't need to worry about Pearl, did he?
"Alright, you can walk along with me," Alex said, bringing Pearl out of his robes and letting him go around on his own.
"Try to hide your cultivation base, okay? I don't want people attacking you before they attack me," Alex said.
"Okay!" Pearl answered.
"Since we have 10 days to spare, let's start with looking around this very mountain," Alex said and flew off.
Pearl was a step late behind him and was about to fly when he saw Alex drop to the ground face-first in front of him.
"Brother?" Pearl asked, wondering why Alex jumped down like that. "Are you okay?"
"Yeah, I'm fine," Alex said as he stood up and dusted off his robes. He fixed his long hair and looked towards the air.
"Was that a barrier?" he questioned himself. He felt like he had hit something just now that sent him flying down.
He wanted to see what it was and slowly flew again. After reaching a certain height, he suddenly felt an instance of suppression on his body and he was pushed back down.
"Dammit!" Alex thought. "Flying seems to be banned here."
He was a little annoyed that he didn't receive this information before coming here. But, he hadn't received any information, so he should have known to be careful.
But this wasn't something one thought about. 'No wonder I don't see anybody flying in the air aside from the birds,' he thought. It didn't take a genius to realize that only flight using Qi was banned here… somehow.
"Sigh, let's go walking then," he said and walked down the mountain with Pearl.
Of the 6 mountains, Alex wondered if they held something important. From what his senses were telling him, there was nothing important here at all.
The forest had some common Alchemy ingredients and a few True rank ingredients, but they were so readily available even outside that Alex didn't even bother picking them.
Only occasionally when he came across something slightly uncommon did he bother to take it with him.
Alex met a variety of beasts when trekking down the mountain, but those too were very weak.
Even with Pearl in his child form, most were steering away from him. Alex could only imagine what would happen if he were to let his yang energy leak out like he normally did back in the eastern mountain ranges.
As he was about to reach the base of the mountain, Alex saw what he thought was a building of some sort.
It looked like the mountain grew around this building, or as if it was carved onto the mountain itself.
The outer walls were rough, broken at places, and looked like they would crumble at any moment. The walls seemed to be made out of some sort of polished stone, but over time, the polish had vanished all but completely.
Alex looked at the giant opening that he knew was the entrance to this building and walked up to it. There was no door here at all, and everything was open.
However, he could see signs of hinges here, so it was obvious that there used to be one before this.
Meaning… "Someone has been here before us," Alex said to Pearl by his side.
He had already sent his spiritual sense inside and noticed a beast sitting in an open room. It was a True Disciple 2nd realm beast so Alex didn't even bother getting ready to fight.
Instead, he walked up to the door and saw that dirt had filled the cracks on something that was over the arch.
Alex sent out his Qi and got rid of the dirt clumped upon it.
'Library' was what was written on there.
Alex sighed. "So this was originally a library huh?" he thought. He wondered if there had been normal books or cultivation books in there.
Whatever it was, it was no longer there at all. Everything in there had been raided already.
Alex sighed. He shook his head and told Pearl that there was nothing in there at all. Pearl sent out his own spiritual sense which extended to about 50 meters ahead of him and nodded to Alex.
"Let's go somewhere else," he said and went down to the foot of the mountain.
'Since this mountain has nothing, maybe I should check the other 5 mountains as well,' he thought.
From what Alex could tell, the mountains were quite far away from where he was. The closest mountain was to his left, around 10 kilometers away.
If he could fly, it wouldn't even take a few minutes to reach there. But now that he was slowly walking, that would take half a day for sure.
"I could get there faster if I run, but that way I might miss something along the way. There is no guarantee that there is something in the mountains in the first place.
Even this mountain only happened to have a single library that was already looted by the previous comers.
As Alex was thinking that, he saw a woman enter his senses. His sense only extended to about 160 to 170 meters at the moment, and such a short distance was easy for True Realm cultivators to see with their own eyes.
So, the Bluish-gray robe that Alex was wearing was standing out in the woman's eyes which were staring directly at her.
Alex acted like he couldn't see her at all, but the woman was definitely looking at him, and even made her way toward him.
'A True Master 4th realm, huh?' Alex thought and acted like he had sensed someone coming.
He turned around to look at her, with a sword that suddenly appeared in his hand.
'Pearl, get behind me and do nothing,' he said.
"Oh thank god! I finally found someone," the girl said as she sprinted towards Alex.
Alex still wasn't sure if this girl was here to rob him or was genuinely looking for help. He decided to play it safe.
"D-don't come near me," Alex said with his single sword pointed at the girl.
The girl was slightly shorter than Alex and had relatively short black hair that fell to her breasts. She wore a green robe with nothing fancy designed into it.
Her face didn't strike him as anything worth caring about. Her age though… he couldn't be sure if she was so young or if her cultivation base was aiding her.
He looked her all over and even sent his spiritual sense, but he found no weapons or talisman on her. Although, she did have armor beneath her robe, and a few storage bags as well.
'That reminds me. I need an armor myself,' he thought.
The girl frowned for a split second when she saw Alex, but changed it back to a smile as she thought, 'A True Disciple? Judging by his clothes, he must be a rogue cultivator. Not to mention he's lost an arm before this.'
'Can he even protect me?' she thought. She was starting to believe that approaching this young man was a mistake and that she would be better off alone.
But now that she was here, she couldn't back away.
"Fear not little brother, I am not here to hurt you," she said with her palms together in greeting.
"My name is Jiang Zhilan, a disciple of the Spear Stream sect. Will you allow me to journey together with you?"
