Alex flew through the night sky, through what was a blizzard in its own right.
Whisker was staying in his robe, looking far in the distance at some possible light source. Anything that was less than a city, Alex wouldn't stay around in.
He would stop from time to time to catch some rest, and cultivate. But mostly, he was flying through the land, heading east, towards what he considered one of the most important places on this continent.
The Dao mountain.
A mountain that helped you in gaining dao was incredible, to say the least. There was some confusion about how a person not in the Saint realm could enter, but he would know about it when he arrived at the foot of the mountain surely.
The way he was headed, there was only a single town marked on the map. A nameless town that held the Frozen Heart sect.
Alex would have to make a stop there before heading towards the Dao mountain through the mighty mountains all over the north of the continent.
Alex was now flying over the mountain range that divided the states of Xue and Dong. If he followed the mountain range south, he would come across the Endless Tunnel where he could mine the ores of Starforged Tungsten.
'Later,' Alex thought to himself and continued flying.
It would take him about a day to reach this nameless city. It would take much less if he could fly with all his speed, but the blizzard troubled him a bit.
Not to mention, the Northern continent was a large piece of land. Compared to the Western Continent, it was much larger. It was about 3 times as long as the Western continent with about one and a half times the vertical width of the Luminance empire.
Now that Alex thought about it, the Western Continent was much larger than it would appear in the maps because over a third of the land was hidden in the Beast realm.
'Still, the Northern continent is quite large,' Alex thought. Of course, that wasn't to say it had more or fewer people. Given how treacherous life seemed to be here, compared to the other continents, the population was most likely less when considering the ratio of land.
His thoughts continued as he kept flying.
Sun rose from the east, and while light did shine through the thick clouds, it still snowed relentlessly.
Also, now that it was daytime, there was no light to guide Alex at all, so all he could do was check his compass and hope he was in the right direction.
He continued flying for half a day before he noticed something. Whisker saw a patch of black far away on the ground.
If it were in the mountain, Alex would assume it was some rock showing through, but since it was in the ground, it was most likely something man-made.
At least he hoped so.
Whisker's vision was still hampered by the constant snowing, so Alex slowed down and got closer so that he could see it with his spiritual sense.
As he got lower, he felt something pass through him.
He had entered some sort of formation. Instantly, multiple bells rang on the ground and a dozen or more people flew into the sky to confront him.
Alex thought of running away, but that would only make things worse and the people that had flown up were all Saint realm experts.
'So many,' he thought.
"Greetings, I mean no harm," Alex said to the people that flew up. He reeled in his spiritual sense so that he didn't come off as rude or invasive.
The group of cultivators flew up to his eye level and looked at him.
"Who are you, intruder?" the girl at the very front asked.
"Senior, I'm sorry. I was looking for a city that lies around here. I seem to have intruded your place," he said.
"What city? There is no city here," the woman said.
"Huh? There should be a nameless city here. It says so on the map," Alex said and tossed out a map towards the woman.
The woman looked at the map and frowned. "It clearly says our sect is here, and yet you try and dare lie?" she asked.
"What?" Alex frowned. "Wait, is this the Frozen Heart sect? Is that massive city shown on the map just the sect?"
"Of course," the woman said.
Alex's eyes went wide. 'Just my luck,' he thought. Unknowingly, he had entered the domain of one of the ancient sects with resources spanning back nearly 30 thousand years.
'I should have known a city without a name was suspicious when there was such a big sect nearby,' he thought.
"My apologies," he said. "I will leave right now."
"You cannot come and go into our sect as you please," the woman said.
"Senior, please. It was an honest mistake. Certainly, you can let go of those right?" he asked.
"I can not," the woman said with a cold voice as her aura started enveloping Alex.
Alex couldn't tell the cultivation base of the woman exactly, but it was in the Saint Foundation realm.
A Saint Foundation realm cultivator was trying to capture him.
Alex frowned. Then, he fought off the aura that was trying to constrict him and ran.
"Get him," the woman said.
The other 11 women that were around her suddenly flew off behind Alex.
Alex pushed his spiritual sense to the max, capturing the 11 women in his senses, who were quite surprised. They couldn't see his cultivation base, but he wasn't in the Saint realm certainly.
They couldn't understand why his spiritual sense was so strong. For that matter, they couldn't understand why he even had spiritual sense.
Alex brought out a sword the moment he saw the women prepare their weapons and attacks.
"Whisker, go back," he said.
11 different attacks flew right up to him. Alex turned around and created a tongue of fire right behind him where the attacks were coming from.
"Explode."
The fire exploded into a blinding light, destroying most of the attacks that were flying in his direction, while also sending him flying back.
He had used a bit too much of his Qi and intent in this one, so the explosion was stronger than what he could have handled.
His face was fine thanks to the mask, but the rest of his body was charred for the most part. His burnt skin slowly healed as the power of the Undying God went into effect.
The girls however weren't stopped for as long as he had hoped they would. They all came to attack him but suddenly stopped.
They paused and turned around to look at the woman that was their leader.
"That's a surprise," she said as she flew up to him. "Not a saint, yet you are still capable of learning a Dao."
"Thank you for the compliment," Alex said, but deep inside he felt a bit of dread. Nobody had ever noticed his Dao aside from Shen Jing, and now someone did.
The Northern Continent was truly something else.
"Will you come with me willingly? Or will you continue fighting?" the woman said.
"Surely you don't expect me to come with you when you plan on hurting me, right?" he asked.
"Hurting you?" the woman gave a surprised look. "If I planned on hurting you, you would already be dead."
The temperature in the surrounding suddenly went down as everything around Alex started freezing solid. Even the air got dense and sank down.
Alex felt his body start to grow stiff as the world tried to freeze him.
It was the world that tried to freeze him, but the one making the choice was the woman in front of him.
She was using her dao to freeze him.
Alex could survive the cold, but this was something else. There was Intent here, wishing to hurt him, so even if the cold didn't him normally, it did a bit now.
Immediately, he used his own dao to create heat onto his body and then onto the air around him, and started fighting the woman's own authority over the world.
The woman gave a surprised look. "2 different Dao? Color me surprised," she said.
Alex was one step away from calling out Godslayer when the woman suddenly stopped.
"I am not going to hurt you," she said. "We are not evil cultivators that kill anyone that comes by us. But, we also can't simply let you go."
"What do you intend to do with me?" he asked.
"You will go through a trial, where we will determine whether you have any bad intentions towards our sect or not."
"If we find out that your intentions are bad, you will surely be killed, but if you really did come here as just a mistake, you will be let go of immediately," the woman said.
Alex thought for a moment. Was going with someone just because they said that was a good choice? But what other choice did he have right now?
"Fine," Alex said. "I hope your words are true."
"I hope your words are true as well, young man," the woman said. "It will be a shame to lose such a talented individual."
Alex sighed and finally stopped being on edge. His senses finally landed on the women and only then did he manage to focus on anything aside from their cultivation base.
Each one of them looked colder than the other, but each one was also more beautiful than the rest.
"Come with me," the woman said and flew down. "I will take you to the elders."
