A week passed since Alex and Pearl came out to train. Alex didn't fight most of the time, leaving Pearl to pick up the slack since he was the one they were here for.
It had been about 23 months since Alex and Pearl left the Demon Realm. When they had entered it nearly 5 years ago, Alex had been at True Master's 9th realm, and Pearl had been in True Lord 5th realm.
Now, Alex was in True Lord 9th realm, and Pearl was in True King 2nd realm. Given their comparison, Pearl really was slow.
He was still just as fast as most of those that were considered talented in the empire. Given his lack of resources, he was perhaps even faster.
However, given the fact that he used to keep up with Alex in cultivation back when they were in the common realms, Alex felt a little bad when he saw Pearl's cultivation slow down.
"We will have to train a lot," Alex said softly as he watched Pearl fight someone stronger than him.
They were currently at the foot of a giant mountain and were surrounded by trees all around. Pearl was in his big form which made him about as big as a normal tiger would.
Pearl's opponent was a blue frog in True King 4th realm. From what Alex could see, the frog used Water and Wood elements, both of which were harmful to the Metal element that Pearl used.
So, he was having a harder time than usual. Not to mention, the blue frog had poison secreted all over its body, so Pearl had to be careful when it attacked it.
His golden claw seemed to be fine for the most part, but if the splashes of poison ever got on Pearl, there would be trouble.
So, Alex held in his hands 2 different kinds of pills, both of which worked to cure the poison of the frog.
Pearl suddenly split into two, one of which was a fake Pearl, but both looked equally real. Even Alex couldn't separate which one was real using his spiritual sense.
A long, pink tongue shot out of the blue frog and hit the Pearl on the left side, before slinking back into its mouth.
The Pearl that was hit suddenly vanished into a bunch of golden light and the Pearl on the right arrived next to it with a glowing golden claw.
The claw slashed onto the blue frog's skin and tore out blood from it. Pearl immediately jumped back and slashed in front of him again.
A golden set of lines emerged from where Pearl slashed and wrapped around the frog as if it was tied up by a rope.
The frog couldn't move at all under the force of Pearl's ropes for a while, and in that time, Pearl gave another strong claw attack directly to its head.
However, even after that, the frog didn't die. Instead Pearl was forced to back away as the frog's tongue flew toward him. At the same time, the frog managed to break through the golden binding and continued fighting.
Alex watched from far away as Pearl used every ability in his arsenal. White Tiger's Golden Claw, White Tiger's Golden body, White Tiger's Dominating Body, White Tiger's steps, White Tiger's roar, and the binding technique that Alex didn't know the name of.
The frog's skill set wasn't even as big as Pearl's since it mostly relied on its poison. So, Pearl was able to easily beat the frog after a couple of minutes.
"Stop!" Alex said when Pearl was about to bite into the frog's body to retrieve the frog's monster core.
"Why?" Pearl turned around to ask.
"I told you," Alex said as he walked up to the frog. "It's got poison all over its body."
Alex tore into the frog's body with his bare hand and ripped it apart to bring out the core with his Qi. After cleaning it up for a bit, he gave it to Pearl.
"Eat," he said.
Pearl jumped at the monster's core, his body already reducing in size, and ate it.
Alex waited for a few minutes for Pearl to digest it, and once it did, it turned around toward Alex.
"I think I can break through now," he said.
"Really?" Alex asked. He had been waiting for Pearl to say that. Alex could already feel himself getting close to breaking through as well.
He was just a few weeks out if his assumption was correct.
"Alright, let's go cultivate some more."
* * * * * *
By 2 weeks later, Pearl had already broken through to the True King 3rd realm, which meant Alex's body was equally strong as well.
They were currently fighting a pack of wolves all of which were equally as strong and in the True King realm.
Alex wasn't going for the kill on any of them, just testing out his fighting. He could feel himself getting closer and closer to the time when his breakthrough would happen.
'Just a little more,' he thought as he fought. He could massacre the entire pack of wolves if he used his sword, so Alex kept it to his hands. Even then, the pack of wolves was quite weak against him.
With True King 3rd realm physical attack and True King 6th realm Elemental attacks, Alex's overall damage reached True King 7th realm.
If he added his Sword Qi, that would put his attacks a realm higher than it already was.
It was truly surprising how strong he had come to be in no time at all.
'I'm about as strong Fu Tao was before he entered the Demon realm right?' Alex thought for a moment.
Fu Tao had been True King 8th realm from what he could remember. He was most likely a True Emperor now, halfway towards becoming a Saint realm.
'I should reach what he was back then in just a few days,' he thought to himself.
Alex continued fighting the wolves with his arms and his invisible sword that he could only carry on his right hand for some reason.
When he didn't have a left arm, he believed that it was a mental block that stopped him from being able to use it with an imaginary left hand.
However, now that he had a left arm, he still couldn't use it at all. 'Do I need a real arm to fake grab it?' he wondered.
A gray-furred wolf suddenly jumped at him from behind. Alex ducked and sent out a punch with his left hand directly onto the wolf's stomach.
The wolf fell to the ground and whimpered as it was hurt. It tried to stand up and run away, but the pain was too much for it.
Another wolf came to its aid and stood in front of it, guarding it against Alex.
Alex smiled at their relationship. He wasn't here to kill them, so he let it be and waited for others to attack him.
Pearl was fighting to the side, struggling a little, but still getting by easily.
He had to be both offensive and defensive at the same time and fighting a single monster every time hadn't helped him with that.
Now, the group of wolves would give him valuable training that Alex never could
As Alex prepared to defend against another wolf that was about to attack him, the wolf stopped.
Its eyes suddenly went wide with terror and it looked to its right. Alex was surprised by this event so he quickly sent his spiritual sense to his left, where the wolf was staring towards.
He saw nothing. He even stretched it as far as he could, but he still found nothing in that direction.
'What is it—' just as he was thinking that he noticed that all the wolves in the pack had stopped fighting and were staring in the same direction.
That only made Alex scared. After all, if there was anything that could make these wolves fear this much, it would certainly be enough to kill him as well.
The wolves suddenly started running away, going away from the area in a matter of seconds. Not only them, but even the other beast in the vicinity also ran away.
Even birds flew through the air, moving in the opposite directions from where the wolf stared towards.
"Brother!" Pearl's terrified voice came from behind him.
Alex turned around and found the scared Pearl running towards him.
"Pearl, what's wrong?" he asked.
"I don't… I don't want to go back," Pearl said.
"What?" Alex asked.
Before he could say anything else, Pearl turned into a bunch of white light and disappeared into his beast space.
Then, now together with Pearl, Alex felt it too. The ever-so-familiar feeling, that usually came from the south, now came from the north.
Alex turned his horrified face towards the north as he finally realized why the beasts were so scared.
After 7 long years, the Beast realm had once again sent out its beacon to find their candidates with the White Tiger's blood.
Which meant… the saint realm beasts were going to come find Pearl anytime now.
Alex took a deep breath to calm himself down.
"No, I'm too far away. They won't be able to make it here in time before—"
Alex was going to delude himself into thinking he was safe. However, when he remembered how fast Shen Jing was as a Saint realm expert, he couldn't help but imagine the speed lady Ren could reach as an Immortal expert.
If she had survived and recovered from the Heavenly Judgment, then both him and Pearl were going to be in a lot of trouble.
