After learning the simple information as well as some more that explained the process, Alex moved on to the second book about the competitions.
After reading for a while, he understood that the 4 guilds came together to hold a competition every year for a specific production skill of cultivation.
According to the book, this was to promote the production skills to more people since they were an integral part of cultivation.
There were exactly 7 production professions that had competition take place. They were Artifacts, Painting, Talisman, Music, Formations, Spirit Foods, and finally Alchemy.
All in that order.
Each of these professions had a competition taken year after year, for a total of 7 years.
Then, there was a gap of 3 years to let something else take place that the book didn't tell him about, but Alex concluded that it must be some sort of competition as well.
So, if he were to look at it from a single profession's point of view, a competition took place every 10 years.
"I see, so today was that day for Talisman, huh? No wonder everyone was so excited there. I wonder who won," he thought and returned the book.
Then, he walked out of the library and soon left the city altogether.
He didn't go very far though and instead went to a small forest that was on the northern side of the city. There, Alex brought out Pearl to keep him safe while he worked on the egg.
He was on top of a tree when he brought the egg out. The egg with a patterned shell was making Alex quite a bit excited.
'Calm down. Don't get your hopes up,' Alex said to himself as he pressed his forehead.
A small sword Qi flashed through his fingers which cut his forehead and a drop of blood spilled out.
Alex grabbed the drop of blood and placed it on top of the egg. As soon as he did that, the egg devoured the blood like it had hungered for it all this time.
"How many times do I have to do that again? 5?" Alex remembered. Each beast required some amount of blood, but on average, it was 5.
Then, one would have to wait for months before the egg started hatc—
CRACK~!
"What?" Alex's eyes narrowed at the egg. There was a small crack on the surface. "How? I only gave a single drop."
The cracks start spreading and before Alex knew it, it was throughout the egg. Alex stopped breathing as he waited for the beast inside to come out of it.
What would it be? A bird? A reptile? Maybe even an Amphibian? Or maybe insects.
Alex had a lot of guesses, but nothing substantial as he had nothing to go by.
The shell opened on one part and a snout pushed through. Along with the snout, long and thin whiskers came out of it.
All sort of anxiety and excitement left Alex's face and only shock remained as he watched the entire beast push through.
The beast finally landed on all four and started squeaking.
"A mouse?" Alex asked him with shock and confusion. "How… did a mouse come out of the egg? What?"
Pearl jumped to the branch Alex was on and looked at the little mouse with a curious looked.
"Meow!" Pearl cried at the mouse, who turned around to see Pearl. Seeing the cat, the mouse immediately scurried along with Alex's hand and disappeared somewhere.
"What? Come back," Alex jolted out of confusion and searched for the mouse. He looked around himself, and the tree, and even the ground.
But the mouse was gone, impossible to find.
"Where did it go?" Alex thought for a second before he remembered something. A spiritual sense emerged from him and it quickly scanned his entire body.
As expected, there was a rat-shaped scar on his right shoulder plate. Alex put a little Qi into it and said, "come out."
White light emerged and the mouse appeared on his palm again.
It tried to scurry off, but Alex caught it. Finally, he brought it up to its face and said, "Don't worry, no one is going to hurt you."
As if understanding what Alex was trying to say, the mouse calmed down.
"Meow!" Pearl cried at the beast once again, saying something that Alex had completely missed.
"So weak!"
"Right, he doesn't have a cultivation base," Alex said with a weird look. "Shouldn't newly born beast have a cultivation base? Speaking of which, what beast even is this?"
Alex finally looked at the mouse carefully to try and judge the species.
Its fur was extremely short and its color was somewhere between white and silver. It had 8 extremely long whiskers that looked contracted at the moment.
Finally, its tail was very, very short.
'Hmm… those whiskers… could it be?' Alex thought to himself. The lack of cultivation base only increased his suspicions by that much.
Finally, unable to keep it to himself, he said it out loud.
"Is this… a Seeking Mouse?"
A Seeking Mouse held no combat capabilities and even couldn't cultivate at all. All it was useful for was scouting something that a cultivator himself didn't want to go to.
Its whiskers were extremely sensitive and picked up on every little Qi, aura, and scent in the atmosphere.
And, they also happened to be the only other ingredients from Blood Spirit Ginseng that Alex had to obtain.
"I got my own whiskers," he said happily, if not a little disappointedly.
He had expected some sort of powerful beast from the egg, but it turned out to be this mouse.
'I could've obtained those whiskers from somewhere else too. It's not like they are an extreme rarity,' Alex thought to himself.
Finally, he sighed to himself and decided to check what good it could do to him.
"Can you go and check north? I want to see if it is safe or not," Alex said to the mouse.
The mouse raised its head, made some squeaking noise, and then ran away from his body.
"Pearl, go keep his safe," Alex said.
"Okay," Pearl said and lightly flew away.
As Pearl left, Alex got an unusual feeling come to him. It was… coolness?
Then he got information about the living things around his location, followed by their strength.
It took him a second to realize he wasn't sensing the area from his location, but rather the mouse.
Heat, Pressure, Humidity, Qi density, Qi type, number of living things, their aura, the composition of the surrounding, and finally a view of what it looked like.
All of that information was being sent back to Alex in vivid messages as if he were standing there.
As the mouse kept moving, he saw more and more. Until he sensed something in the bushes further along.
The mouse tried to move to the side, but the snake from the bush started slithering towards him.
The mouse tried to move away but it was too slow.
Just then, the aura in the atmosphere grew as a strong beast came out of nowhere and killed the snake in a single strike.
"Pearl!" Alex said in surprise.
"Get back," he gave a mental message to both of his beasts who immediately returned back.
The mouse returned first, followed by the cat. Alex could feel the mouse's fear when seeing Pearl as if it had met its mortal foe.
"Sigh, you're not too bad," Alex said. 'If only you could cultivate.'
Alex wanted to check the Undying part of the beast too, but that would involve hurting the poor thing.
He wasn't so cruel as to torture something that had just been born. "I'll do so later," he thought to himself and sent the mouse back.
Then, he sent Pearl back as well before flying away from that location towards a different city that he knew was to the north.
He had a single goal in mind now. He would join the Lightsworns and give enough contribution until the princess was forced to meet him.
Alex flew almost all night and arrived at Brightstar city near the morning.
He was still close to 3 thousand kilometers away from the Radiant city, so he needed to take some sort of transportation here so he could be on his way there.
So, as soon as he arrived, he went to find some caravan group or such.
