The white-masked, black-robed Alex was a very popular person in Silvermoon city.
Many people called for him to visit them when he could. They either wanted to learn more about how he improved how he did, or if he wanted to join their sect.
Alex indulged the people for a while, going around to visit them in Silvermoon city, speaking about his insights on Dao and revealing his strength to them whenever they wanted to spar.
They were all curious about how he was so strong, but they all figured it had to be because of his Dao or Sword Aura.
No one ever made the connection that Alex's Qi alone was incredibly strong as well.
It took Alex an entire month to go visit every big faction and sect. This concluded with his being requested to join them no matter where he went.
It wasn't long before Alex realized that every faction with a name out there knew about him now and wanted him to join them. And some of them seemed to be planning to do no matter what they could to get him.
In the end, Alex had to reveal his connection to the Frozen Heart sect through the token to get those people off his back. Even then, people still asked him to reconsider, but they weren't as desperate as before.
Alex returned back to his room he had rented in Silvermoon city where he stayed in close cultivation for about 2 more months.
He had learned that there were about 4 more months till the next Dao mountain, so he took his sweet time.
Now, 3 months had passed and only a single month remained before he was forced to go to the mountain. By now, the Saint-ranked cultivators were giving their names to the Nether Poison sect, whose turn it was this time around to look over the Dao mountain.
'1 more month,' Alex thought to himself. 'I should be able to do it.'
He stayed in the city for no more than a week and left it. He made his way east, and then north, going around the Ancient Battlefield, the barrier to which he could see from afar.
After a day of traveling, Alex arrived at a location that on the map was marked to be completely empty and void of any civilization in a wide area.
Even so, the area here was thick with Qi.
Alex landed on the peak of the mountain, his feet sinking into the soft snow.
"This will do," he thought to himself. He called out Pearl after that, who came out to see the new location.
"Where are we?" he asked.
"Somewhere alone," Alex said. He then picked Whisker from his chest and placed him on Pearl's back.
"Take him and go far away from here," Alex said.
"Huh? Why?" Pearl asked. Whisker wondered the same.
Alex smiled. "I'm going to try and break through here, and it is going to be dangerous for you all."
Pearl heard it and realized what it meant. He looked to the cloudy sky and back towards Alex.
"Will you be alright?" he asked.
"Of course," Alex said without hesitation. Pearl nodded and then walked away from the mountain.
Alex saw Pearl and Whisker go away with his senses and sat back on the fresh snow in the middle of the cloudy day.
It had been nearly 2 years since he touched snow this much. The wind picked up, bringing more snow, but not a single snowflake stuck to his body as it evaporated away immediately.
As such, Alex's robe remained black even in the snowfall while his entire surrounding was pure white.
Slowly, Alex started cultivating, bringing out his Yang Qi from his dantian, through the Yang spiritual roots, and sending it around his body as the cultivation method said to do.
Bit by bit, he started drawing in the Qi from the surrounding into his body, and the few remaining True Qi he had started changing to Saint Qi.
Alex continued until all his True Qi turned to Saint Qi, and then once everything became Saint Qi, he focused on enhancing the Saint Qi even further, making it denser.
Making Saint Qi denser wasn't as easy as changing it from True Qi to Saint Qi. At a certain level of concentration, True Qi automatically turned to Saint Qi.
As for Saint Qi, the only way for it to grow denser was through a breakthrough. Only when one entered the next realm did their Saint Qi follow and get stronger.
However, Alex was attempting to do it before even entering the Saint realm.
It wasn't just him that did it. Everyone everywhere had to go through the same scenario. They would have to completely turn their entire Qi to Saint Qi and then force their Saint Qi to get thicker.
It was a hard task, but not as hard as it was for Alex whose Saint Qi was already quite thick. He now had to force his Saint Qi to reach a point in density where it could rival the Saint Foundation realm cultivators, and that was nigh impossible.
Alex didn't care. He was here to do the impossible.
He forced his Qi to condense further and further. It took him quite a bit of time, nearly an entire day, but he did it.
Then, as he continued doing it, his Qi reached the limit of condensation, at which point there was just a single thing left to do.
Alex sent his Qi rushing back into his still-veiled Dantian. He forced his Qi to flow in and then had it forcefully come out.
He collected it again and sent it back before trying to forcefully have it come out.
He did it over and over as he slowly broke through the hard shell of the dantian.
Like a chick inside an egg, he had to break the shell before he could be born, before he could enter the Saint realm.
The Saint realm was what most that had reached a high cultivation base usually called the realm where cultivation truly started.
Everything that came before the Saint realm was just preparation for them to come to the Saint realm.
The Self-Tempering realms were there to forge one's body. It was where one forged their skin, muscle, bone, organ, meridian, and even mind.
The True realms were there to forge one's Qi, make it thicker and thicker until one was ready to handle the real cultivation.
Then, once it was all ready, one would finally be able to become a real cultivator.
However, before one could do that, they needed to free their Dantian.
When born, one's dantian remained in a state which could only be said to be dead from outside. It still worked, but before a person was strong enough, it had to remain in this hardened state where it remained as invulnerable as it could.
The only way to break through to the Saint realm was to remove this hardness, break through the shell and let the sea of Qi be free.
So, Alex worked on exactly that. He pushed his Qi in and out through his Dantian with steadily increasing pressure until he felt a crack in the surface.
The moment Alex heard it, instead of stopping, he went faster. He put more and more force onto it until he heard more cracks.
One after another, more cracks started forming on the surface of the dantian through which white light shone to his spiritual sense.
He could see light spilling out of the cracks on the Dantian, and as bigger cracks formed, he could even see inside a bit.
The dantian looked like a massive sea, not unlike his spiritual sea.
Only in this one, the sea was all just Qi and it slushed around, forcing the hard surface to come off.
Alex continued on, breaking more and more and more of the surface. The hard flakes of the dantian fell off, disappearing into nothingness as the transparent orb inside showed his entire sea of Qi clearly.
More and more of the shell fell off, and after enough of the shell had fallen off, the rest of it easily came off, falling down to nowhere, disappearing to become Qi itself.
As the final flake of the shell fell off, the Dantian revealed itself to Alex for the first time as a transparent ball of Qi with meridians attached to it, gleaming in the white light.
It was beautiful.
