"Someone is cultivating?" Alex asked himself as he looked inside.
The room beyond the door was a small compact room that could not have been a way out of this place.
Still, Alex forgot about all of what had made him want to open up the door. For now, all he could do was be curious as to what the man was doing here.
'Is he in closed cultivation?' he wondered. 'How long has he been here?'
Covered in a black robe, the man stayed still with no sign of movement. His eyes were closed, and his body slumped.
He looked just like a normal man, maybe even a little handsome with his young look and his handsome face.
Except there was a single difference that made him not look like a normal man.
There were two, skin-colored spikes coming out of the man's forehead, which slanted the more it grew up.
Horns.
The horns were maybe 10 centimeters long at best, but that was enough for Alex to tell what the man was.
'A demon,' he thought and looked at the man in complete shock. 'How many years has this thing been here?'
"Pearl, get back in right now," Alex said, and without question, Pearl jumped back into the beast space.
Should he leave now? but how?
Then, Alex gathered up his courage and spoke, "Ex-Excuse me?"
He waited for the demon to open his eyes, but the demon gave no response.
"Sir?" Alex called out to the man, but once again, he didn't respond.
In fact, he didn't move either. And he gave no aura… and he wasn't breathing either.
'Is this man really in closed cultivation?' Alex thought and slowly stepped in.
"Senior?" he called out even as he went in just in case, but there was no response.
Alex started to get more and more suspicious. This demon… was dead, wasn't it?
As he got closer, Alex saw something curious. On the man's neck was a circular medal of sort hanging from a thin piece of thread.
In his right hand was a storage bag, simply out in the open.
Alex waited for a bit and carefully looked at the man. Only after he was absolutely sure that he was looking at a corpse did he move his hand.
Slowly, he reached out to the storage bag and lifted it off of the demon's hand. Immediately afterward, he shot backward and got into a defensive position but the demon didn't stand to attack him.
"Phew!" Alex thought and looked at the medal next. The medal looked smooth with no carvings on it.
'Is it wood or metal?' he wondered when he saw the metal. The bronze color made it impossible to tell from where he stood.
Alex reached for the medal and grabbed it to turn it around. Just as he did, something happened.
A glorious aura of death and darkness suddenly erupted from the demon's body. It was so strong that Alex fell back suddenly while still holding the medal.
When he did so, the thread ripped, and the medal came undone from the demon's neck.
At the same time, the deathly aura around him abruptly grew more dangerous as it started putting pressure on Alex.
And then, a face emerged from the cloud of black Qi in the air.
The face of the demon.
Its skin was black like it was dipped in ink. As such, even its horn was pitch black.
The only thing of color on that face was the dazzling yellow eyes. Alex couldn't help but tell himself how beautiful those eyes were.
The face's mouth opened and a booming voice emerged.
"I... SENSE... NO... BLOOD... OF...MINE... IN...YOU" the voice said in slow, methodical words. The aura suppressed Alex, and all he could do was look at the giant face in horror.
"YOU… ARE… NOT… MY… KIN!" the face continued.
Then finally, it said, "ALL... INTRUDERS… WILL… DIE!"
The black face suddenly twisted until it looked like a crescent moon on a handle, and it dropped with tremendous force towards Alex.
All Alex could do was watch the scythe fall on top of him in horror. The only aura stronger than this that he had ever witnessed was the lightning from Heavenly Judgment.
And those were meant to kill immortals.
Alex watched his death approach with not a single drop of blood remaining on his face. His body could move, but he didn't do anything.
For he knew, there was not a single thing he could do to save himself.
The scythe fell on his neck, and…
~ROAR~
Suddenly, Alex heard a roar coming from within himself. A large golden light came out of him and struck the incoming scythe.
Like a candle in a raging storm, the scythe vanished into nothingness.
Alex stayed on the ground and clutched his neck where he had scythe had nearly struck. He had, at some point, already dropped the medal on the ground.
All he could do right now was thank god that he wasn't dead.
'No,' he thought as beads of sweat rolled down all over his body. 'I need to thank Shen Jing.'
Alex remembered the single defense the Shen Jing had placed on him before he entered. Fortunately, he hadn't come across anyone strong to have a need for it to be used.
If not for that, he would've died today for sure.
Alex took a few minutes to gather his wits and finally looked back at the corpse of the demon.
Now that all the aura had left it, it looked decrepit and rotten with barely any muscle remaining. In fact, it was simply a skeleton now.
Alex wiped some of the sweat in him and quickly ran out of the room, not before picking up the medal he had dropped.
Once he was out, and hopefully safe, he got as far away from the door as he could and sat down close to a corner to look at the items in his hands.
The first one, the medal, was a bronze-colored circular stone of some kind that was colored to look like it were wood or metal.
One side of it was flat and smooth, but the other side was full of intricate carvings that Alex recognized to be runes.
As for what runes exactly, he couldn't tell. One thing he was sure of was that this medal didn't have a teleportation rune on it.
"Sigh, was all that work for nothing?" he wondered and put the medal to the side before checking what was inside the bag.
There were a few things in the storage bag, and Alex brought them out one by one.
The first one Alex brought out was a bunch of spirit stones, maybe around 20.
It had been in the storage bag for so long, and yet it hadn't lost any of its glow. It was a little surprising to think that it would have Qi even after being with the demon since it was here.
'Is there even any left?' Alex wondered and tried to cultivate his Qi when suddenly, he had to let go of it.
"Argh!" he cried out in slight pain. The right arm became numb for a few seconds before returning back to normal.
'That energy, it was so strong,' he thought and picked back the stone. 'Is this… a Saint rank spirit stone?'
He couldn't help but be shocked at the realization.
Saint spirit stones. This was not something that was so readily available in today's world. After all, a Saint rank Spirit Vine had to die for Saint Spirit stones to form from it.
Alex looked at the 20 spirit stones in awe for a while and put them into his ring.
Next, he brought out a small jar of… something. Without his spiritual sense, Alex felt really blind.
He slowly opened the jar and an intense aroma of a mix of herbs and flowers wafted out of it.
Alex looked inside and saw a magenta-colored medicinal paste of some sort. 'What is this? Is this saint rank too?' he wondered.
He got close to it to see if he could recognize the ingredients used by the scent, but all he managed to do was make his nose and throat burn for a few seconds which forced him to cough and sneeze for a little while.
Only after he recovered did he put the medicinal jar into his ring and brought out the next item in the bag.
A Talisman.
