Jiang Zhilan was one of the best disciples of the Spear Stream sect. Having learned the Spear Stream technique from a young age, she managed to advance until she had become the top 3 core disciples of her sect.
At the age of 28, she had managed to enter the True Master realm. Now 2 years later, she was at the 4th True Master realm.
She knew that there were strong young men and women out there, but surely they couldn't be stronger than her right? Not unless they were older than her as well.
That thought lasted as long as it took for her to reach the island this morning with her sect master and her two male fellow disciples of the sect.
That was when she met young men and women that were younger than her with a cultivation base that vastly outstripped her own.
She had managed to count nearly 54 True Lord realm disciples and 6 True King realm, and not a single one of them was as old as she was.
'I can't survive in the realm,' she thought as her fear had overtaken her.
She felt guilty when she realized she was happy when they only allowed her sect to only bring 1 disciple with them. If that were the case, she was not going to be their first choice.
Then, that monster appeared out of nowhere. He was so young, younger than her even to her eyes. And yet, his cultivation base was the greatest thing she had ever witnessed.
He was like a tiger standing in front of little rabbits, and that sent deep dread into her heart.
By the time she realized that she was allowed to enter the secret realm, she had only one thought in her mind.
Find someone and have them help her.
* * * * *
Alex looked at the woman in front of him with a confused face, but he didn't forget to keep a hint of fear on his face.
He hoped that she wasn't smart enough to see through him immediately.
"You want my help, senior Sister?" he asked.
"Yes, would you please help me?" she asked.
"But you are so much stronger than me. What help could this little brother possibly give to you?" he said.
Jiang Zhilan was unsure of what to say to this question. If possible, she wanted to leave him behind. She even thought that she should do just that.
But if she were to come across someone strong then… No, she couldn't leave him. Even if just as a scapegoat, she had to bring him along.
"I'm mostly worried about being overwhelmed by beasts on the way to the Cultivation rooms. If more than a few beasts show up at the same time, it would be better for us to stick together, right?" she asked.
Alex's eyes flashed with an imperceptible shine when he heard that. 'Cultivation rooms?' he thought. It sounded like she knew this place. That could certainly come in handy.
"We can also share the resources we come across. I will give you something if I happened to find it too," she said, seeing that he was still not answering.
"I see. Given how strong sister is, seeing that you haven't attacked me yet, I will choose to believe you," Alex said with a slight bow.
"Good, good!" Jiang Zhilan said, sighing to herself in secret. She was now going to be stuck with a weakling. 'Well, at least I will be a little safer,' she thought.
Then, she noticed Pearl next to Alex's feet. "Oh my god, where did you find this beast?" she asked.
"This is my tamed beast, sister. His name is Pearl," Alex introduced her to Pearl.
"Can I hold him?" she asked, and before Alex could even do anything, she squatted down to grab him.
Alex told Pearl to go with her, and Pearl let her grab him. Neither of them was worried. If a True Master 4th realm woman could hurt Pearl who was in True Lord 5th realm, then there was nothing Alex could possibly do to save him.
"Which way should we go, sister? Please be the guide," Alex said.
"Little brother, I suspect that you want to cultivate right? Then we should head towards the mountain at the center of it all. That mountain has the cultivation rooms. I suspect many of them have gone there already and taken their rooms."
"If we don't hurry, we will miss it," she said and started walking in a certain direction.
They couldn't see any mountain from the dense forest they were in, and yet the girl was walking directly towards the third mountain from what he could see.
So, Alex concluded that she either had been on the mountain top from where she saw the mountain, or she had an artifact on her that told her the direction.
"Sister must know a lot about this secret realm to know about the cultivation rooms," Alex said.
"Eh? No, I just know what is written in our sect records," she said.
"Ah, makes sense," Alex said. "I wish I were from a sect too. I've been a rogue cultivator for quite a while, so I don't know much about the secret realm."
The girl nodded. "Yes, having a knowledge of what is going on and where we are going certainly helps," she said.
The girl took out an interesting-looking circular artifact that looked like a clock. However, it had a single hand, which spun quickly and stopped while pointed at a certain location.
"Yes, we are in the right direction," she said and continued walking.
'That was a compass?' Alex wondered. If it was, then it was quite weird to require Qi to be poured in. 'Perhaps it uses no magnet,' he thought.
Along the way, Alex brought up small talk with the girl, trying to bring out as much information about the world as he could.
He then learned that the 3rd mountain, the one with the cultivation rooms was the mountain at the center of the secret realm.
So, whenever someone entered the secret realm, they would check the direction of the mountain at the center of the realm, and suddenly, the whole map they had with them that was created from previous entries made sense to them.
The Spear Stream sect, being a smaller sect hadn't existed for long enough to have a detailed map and only located a few of the locations on the map.
From what it said, the 2nd mountain that Alex had been heading towards was actually an open training ground with training puppets and such.
Alex did want to check his strength after the training, but he immediately lost interest as soon as he learned what was on the 4th and 5th mountains.
The 4th mountain was a land with plants and beasts of all kinds. Although it was overrun with trees too, apparently there were runes beneath those mountains that gathered a lot more Qi there and thus the beasts and plants could grow to be high ranks.
Alex practically prayed that there was a Blood Spirit Ginseng in that mountain.
He had cursed at himself for so long in the eastern mountains when he had realized that after spending a year there at the very least, there was a chance he could likely lose the Blood Spirit Ginseng that he was looking forward to.
Now that it had been 2 years and some months, he was absolutely sure that the Blood Spirit Ginseng was gone.
He had all but 2 ingredients, and that drove him mad. He didn't want to remain one-handed forever.
The 5th mountain was the one around where the people used to stay, or demons rather.
There were apparently houses all over the mountain and even around it. And most of them had runes around them blocking entry from what Alex heard.
Although that was something he had heard from Shen Jing, who as he had gathered was missing from the Western Continent for the past thousand years. That made trusting his words a little harder due to his lack of credibility.
What if in between that time all the runes had failed and everything had been taken away?
This secret realm was starting to feel more and more useless to him by the moment.
Still, he kept hope in him.
With Pearl in her hands, Jiang Zhilan lead the way forward and Alex followed behind her, waiting for her to lead him to the more interesting locations.
