Alex stood in front of a snow leopard with a sword in his hand.
The leopard was already looking for a fight before Alex even arrived, so the moment the two laid eyes on each other, they prepared to fight.
Alex used his Qi to strengthen his body, but aside from that, he wasn't planning on using any techniques today. He was well accustomed to using techniques in a fight, so he wanted to try and fight using only Dao.
The snow leopard jumped at him and Alex swung his sword. The thin energy of his sword slash flew off from his sword, empowered by his intent to cut.
The leopard moved away before it was hit and the attack flew far away, cutting various different things in the process.
The leopard's body was covered in ice and then it swung its paws at him. Alex moved his hands in front of him and a golden barrier appeared in front of him, empowered by his Dao of Metal.
Still, when the attack landed, Alex's barrier showed a clear sign of being under stress. But why would it not be? After all, he was fighting against a Saint Foundation 3rd realm beast.
Alex could easily beat a Saint Foundation 1st realm beast with just his Qi and techniques and could win against a Saint Foundation 2nd realm beast if he used his Sword Aura as well.
If he wasn't willing to use Sword Aura, then he could use Dao instead to win against it. Since the two of them were so easily defeated, he had to find a beast with a much higher cultivation base.
Huang Xinyi stood behind Alex quite far away, hidden from anyone's spiritual sense due to Seagem. He looked at Alex in awe, wondering just how someone in the Saint Condensation 1st realm could fight a Saint Foundation 3rd realm.
'So strong,' he thought to himself. 'Should I… try and get him to join the sect?'
Even if Alex didn't want to join the sect, there were ways to force him to. For one, he could force him to say an oath that forever tied him to the sect.
Huang Xinyi felt greed develop in his heart that came naturally with seeing a treasure in front of one that had no owner.
However, he quickly dispelled the thought from his heart.
'No, I can't,' he said to himself. Even ignoring the morality of his own thoughts, the sect master knew why he was wrong to think so. 'He is way too important for us to be greedy like this. '
Once the thought of greed was out of his mind, he went back to being surprised at how well Alex fought. He didn't know of his own disciples fighting so well.
Especially against beasts that were different from fighting against humans.
'Does he have some experience in fighting against beasts?' the sect master wondered.
Alex used his intent to cut the leopard in front of him, but the leopard seemed rather perceptible of dangers and always dodged the attack.
Alex continued using the Dao of cut, but at some point, he realized that if he wasn't going to be fast enough to cut it, then he wasn't going to cut it at all.
He had been intending to improve his Dao of cutting here since it was the one that failed last time against the elder Bu whose Dao made him sturdier. Alas, he had chosen the wrong target.
"Well, next Dao then," Alex thought and instantly fire erupted all around the leopard. The leopard tried running away, but its fur had already caught on fire.
The leopard quickly used its ice skills to create a layer of ice around its body to suffocate the fire, but to its surprise, even the ice was burning now.
The True Fire Dao consisted of the Dao of Burning, which was to say as long as Alex put his intent on it, the fire would forever burn. The only way to stop it was to either use a Dao that went against the burning, fight off Alex's own intent on him, or just have a cultivation base so strong that none of it mattered.
Unfortunately, the leopard had none of these. And so, it burned alive.
The leopard still continued fighting, but with the fire, it was slowly dying on its own. Then, when it realized that it had no way of winning, it decided to turn around and leave.
At that moment, Alex teleported right next to it and swung down his sword that carried his intent to cut.
The leopard was still alive and burning when it was cut in half.
As soon as Alex cut it, he immediately put out the fire on its body and took it into his storage bag.
'Damn, I hope the fire didn't cause any problems to the blood inside,' he thought.
After learning how strong his own blood was, and how strong it could be, Alex had decided to gather some blood from the beasts he killed to use for the ability that came on the first page of the Blood God's Manual.
The Blood Absorption technique.
He wasn't sure how much stronger his blood could get by absorbing the blood of the beasts that were weaker than him, but it didn't hurt to try.
He was already killing them for their cores and body, letting their blood go wasted would be a huge loss of opportunity.
Once Alex was done, he spread his senses a bit, searching for the next beast he could fight.
He looked around with his limited sense. He would've sent out his senses even further, but they were already on the inner range of the Demonic forest, so it was a little scary to show of his presence.
The beasts here worked on a basis of hierarchy based on their strength. Each beast had a territory of its own that it marked and kept away from the other attackers.
The outer range didn't have it as much, but the deeper they went, the more prevalent it got.
The innermost regions of the Demonic forests were separated into a thousand different territories, each marked by a strong Saint beast. The stronger the beast was, the deeper it stayed.
Since Alex was already fighting around the area where beasts had strength that could match him, he didn't want to anger a beast deeper in the forest, as that was certain to be stronger than the Leopard for sure.
Alex knew he could beat that beast. His blood aura was just that strong. But obviously, he wasn't going to show that to the sect master here.
The sect master stayed far away, doing nothing but watching Alex search for his own opponents. Since he had promised to let Alex fight alone afterward if he could prove to him that he could survive on his own, he needed to see if he had the capability.
He needed to see how Alex found his opponent without angering the stronger beasts in this region.
Alex pointed in a certain direction and started flying away.
The sect master and Seagem followed behind him now that he had found another opponent for himself.
If Alex could do it a few more times, he was certain to get his freedom to come here and train anytime he wanted to.
