Once Alex dug out some of the roots from the tree, letting the majority be, he left to find better ingredients in the mountain.
The 3 beasts of the man looked awkward and restless as they ran around the mountain like headless chickens.
Alex still couldn't tell from their behavior if the young man was sent outside or not.
Even if he was sent outside, did it really matter? Wouldn't using the monument just send you back inside?
Well, that was one safety net that Alex didn't have, so he had to be careful.
"Do you want their cores?" he asked Pearl.
"Meow!" Pearl said, telling him that they were too weak to be his food and that he wouldn't eat something that he didn't win himself anymore.
Seeing how lacking in will the 3 beasts were, Alex only felt sympathy in his heart and let them be.
As he searched the massive mountain, the sun rose again through the horizon. The chromatic wall to the distance made it hard to see the sun exactly, but the rays of light still scattered throughout the secret realm.
Once it was higher in the sky, it would become clearer.
Alex roamed the mountain throughout the next day as well. He saw more and more people coming to the mountain, so he hid Pearl in his clothes.
He was lucky that a weakling met him last night. Had it been a strong enemy, he would have likely had to flee away.
There weren't any saint realm beasts or even any True King realm beasts in the mountain either, despite the dense qi in this place.
"It seems that after opening every 10 years, not many beasts get to advance fast enough, huh? They get targeted every time," Alex thought.
After plucking a few fruits that others seemed to have missed, Alex sighed to himself.
Night had fallen again, and yet he hadn't managed to find the Blood Spirit Ginseng at all.
At this point, Alex was sure that even if there was one, it was already taken away by someone else.
With a sigh, he decided to leave the mountain. He had spent over 24 hours here already and had gathered everything he could, or everything he was able to.
The third day of the 10 days was approaching and Alex couldn't waste any more time here.
So, he left the mountain and headed northeast.
From what Alex could when he was up on the mountain, the 6th mountain was far to the north, while the 5th was towards the northeast at about 20 kilometers away.
"Let's go see if we can find something interesting there," Alex said. If he didn't, this trip would surely end up becoming a waste of time.
'Although I did get quite a few ingredients for myself so I shouldn't complain,' he thought. 'Also, only 2 days have passed. Who knows what the remaining 8 days will provide me.'
As he walked forward, Alex thought he heard something. Immediately, he extended the spiritual sense he had been keeping hidden for fear of bringing the gaze of the truly strong and noticed three people, a woman and 2 men walking towards him.
From their mismatched robes and lack of a good cultivation base, Alex reckoned those were rogue cultivators that were walking together.
'No, WORKING together,' Alex thought when he noticed their eyes on him. '2 days have passed, people must be going around looting now,' he thought.
Before he could think of anything else, the three of them rushed towards Alex. With their True realm cultivation base, they crossed the 150 meters or so distance in mere seconds.
Surprisingly, they didn't sneak attack. Rogue, they may be, they still held enough honor in them to not attack secretly.
A sword in one of the man's hands, and a spear in the woman's hands pointed at Alex, while the man without a weapon stood behind him, getting one of his attacks ready.
Not a single one of them was a threat to Alex.
"You were quite amazing in the mountain, little brother. I see that you have quite a bit of knowledge about the plants," the man with the sword said.
"I do in fact know quite a bit about plants," Alex said, not moving his eyes from the man while his senses took note of everything else.
The spiritual sense wasn't an omniscient ability. While Alex could see everything around him, without paying attention to the things he could see, not everything would register in his mind.
After the 2 years of constantly using his spiritual sense alone to see, however, paying attention to multiple things at once had become a child's play.
Alex could now pay attention to up to 15 things at once without breaking a sweat, but if he tried to go higher, that drained quite a bit of spiritual energy for some reason.
Just 3 people weaker than him? Paying attention to them was something he could do in his sleep. It was as easy as it came.
"Would you like to share your prizes with us, little brother?" the girl with the spear asked.
Alex smiled. "Do you want to look for yourself, sister?" he asked. As he did, his veil over his cultivation base dropped and the True Master 9th realm cultivation base's aura spread around them like a raging storm.
"Tr-True Lord!" the man behind Alex shouted. That was incorrect, but Alex wasn't going to correct him.
A second later, the aura disappeared, and Alex veiled his cultivation base again. His eyes kept staring at the woman as he said, "You didn't answer me, sister."
The woman immediately dropped to her knees, tossing the spear aside. "Forgive me, senior," she shouted.
The other two men followed suit as well. Alex smirked at them and ordered them, "Get out of my sight."
"Thank you," all three of them said at once and immediately ran away. Within seconds, they were out of his senses.
Alex thought to himself over what had just happened. "Well, that was easy," he said out loud. He wondered if he should show his cultivation base more often. It really stopped a lot of problems.
But then he would lose one of his advantages. Underestimation was one of the best tools he could use against the strong.
In this place filled with the strong, he needed every advantage he could get.
Alex continued walking through the massive forest while talking to Pearl. He asked him how he was trained if Shen Jing took care of him properly and the sort.
Pearl was happy enough to answer everything, and from what Alex understood, Shen Jing had treated Pearl very well. Too well, in fact.
Alex wondered why he didn't treat him like that. Was it because he thought highly of his talents? Why did he even think highly of his talents in the first place?
How exactly did Shen Jing know about his talents? It didn't seem like the creator had told him anything about him.
Alex could only scratch his head in confusion and hope Shen Jing answered his questions after he left the secret realm.
But… Alex had a feeling he simply wouldn't.
He shook his head and continued onwards. Along the way, he met a snake that breathed fire, a lake with pulsing smooth water that healed, a metallic tree with leaves as razor-sharp as any blade.
Pearl easily defeated the snake, eating its core with no hesitation as that was a prize of victory.
Both Alex and Pearl dipped in the water and felt the water smooth out any roughness on him. There were other people in the lake, but most were focused on cleansing themselves.
The water was only capable of healing minor cuts and wounds, but Alex still used it.
As for the metallic tree, Alex trained his sword against it for a while, hoping it would give him some insight on advancing his own sword, but he had been expecting too much of the sword.
Alex took a few of the leaves from the tree and went towards 5th mountain.
Even as he got closer to the 5th mountain, Alex noticed an abundance of people in this place. He wondered if, in the previous 2 days, the number of people in the realm had perhaps increased.
If what he assumed about the secret realm being permanently open for the next 8 days was true, then he could only assume that more and more cultivators might have entered the realm.
In a sense, the big clans and sects that had made the plan to bring only 3 of their disciples had actually shot themselves in the foot with their plan.
As he strolled past a few trees, Alex saw a man enter and come out of a small stone house. As he walked further, he saw more of such houses that were completely open.
Not a minute later, Alex saw the whole mountain that was filled to the top with nothing but houses.
Most of these houses had been open already, and as he would expect, they were empty. Not even pots and pans were left behind.
As Alex moved through the place, he saw more and more people in this location, going up and down the mountain.
He heard the sound of some distance bangs like drums, but he ignored that. For now, he simply went around the place with his spiritual sense completely withdrawn.
As he saw more and more empty houses on the land around the mountain, he could only assume that the ones that hadn't been raided yet had been up the mountain.
So, following the distant banging sound, Alex climbed the mountain.
