1073 Yusong Muzhou
The next 3 months went by in a flash for Alex. All he did in those 3 months were fight one after another, always finding Saint Core realm cultivators to fight against.
At the same time, he also worked on himself in between his fights, improving his physical body as well as he could while also cultivating as well as he could.
By now, he was on the verge of breaking through to the 2nd realm of the Saint Foundation realm and it had barely been 9 months since he broke through to the Saint Foundation realm itself.
The pills he had been eating were beyond amazing.
"I should stop fighting so much," Alex thought. "I should go out and improve my blood aura too."
While improving his fighting technique, Qi, Sword Aura, and physical body was great for him, it was no lie that his greatest strength lay in his blood aura and his understanding of Dao.
He couldn't stop focusing on them just because he had enough for now. After he was done making the pills for the elders in the Council, Alex decided to take some days off to go and make some more blood beasts while also trying to understand some new Dao with the new pill he would have made by then.
'There are so many pills out there that I don't even know about,' he thought to himself. Over the course of the many fights, he had come to learn about many different Daos that one could use.
Dao of Reflection, Dao of Swiftness, Dao of Stagnation, Dao of Rust, Dao of Mist, and many more.
He sat down thinking about the many things he had learned and had planned on doing in the future when his storage ring gave a small buzz.
He quickly took out the buzzing talisman from inside it and looked at what was written on it. "Oh, they found my next opponent," he thought. This would be his last opponent before he had to leave back to the Alchemy Association again.
"I wonder if it will be someone I've already fought against, or someone new," he wondered.
He would know that on the day of the match, and he found out when he was there.
"Yusong Muzhou?" Alex looked at the man confusedly when he was given the name. As far as he could remember, he couldn't remember this person in the list of names he frequently learned about to keep up on what sort of opponents the Battle Hall gave him.
If he wasn't wrong, this was likely someone that had recently joined. "He's a newcomer?" Alex asked.
"Freshly joined," the staff said.
"I see," Alex said. "Well, let's see what sort of person gets to go up against me on their first day."
"Please come with me. The battle arena is prepared."
Alex nodded and walked along with him to arrive at the arena. He walked up the stage and watched a person walk up the stage.
"Hm? Oh, it's a girl," he realized. "Sounded like a guy's name though."
As she got closer, Alex saw one thing and couldn't help but be surprised. "Wait… dark skin?" he thought when he saw her. "Someone from the Wasteland?"
He was very confused when he saw that. "How can someone from the Wasteland be here?" he asked himself.
Wastelanders were made to stay on the other side of the barrier at all times. That was why it was so hard to find his father since there was really no one from the Wastelands on this side of the map. And yet, he randomly met someone here today? And that person was a Saint realm cultivator too?
The girl took the talisman given to her and tried to stick it inside the sash of her robes, only to realize that her robes didn't have any sash.
She then put it inside her robe itself and looked at Alex. "Additional rules or Nah?" she asked.
"None for me," he said with many thoughts going through his head. "Would you mind answering a few questions for me?"
"What?" she asked with a rough voice.
"Are you from the Wasteland?" he asked.
"Not your business," the girl said.
Alex was taken aback, but he didn't stop asking. "Can you tell me when you came to this side? You don't have to tell me how if you want to hide that."
"Again, none of your business," the girl said. "Now shut up. I'm here to fight."
With that said, the girl suddenly jumped at him with no weapons but just her open hands.
Alex put up his arms to block and was punched directly on the wrists. A clear crack could be heard as he was sent flying back into the wall at the back.
He crashed on the wall, which was untouched due to the formations on it, and fell to the ground. He tried to push himself up, only to have his arms slip out on the wrist and tumble over.
"Argh!" he grunted slightly and checked his arms to see the broken wrist.
"Of course," he said softly. "A body cultivator. A strong one at that too."
"Tsk. I told these bastards I wanted someone strong. I knew they wouldn't listen to me," the girl said.
"Hehehe," Alex couldn't help but chuckle at the remark, catching the girl's attention.
"What's so funny?" she asked.
"I was angry for the same reason not long ago," he said. "I had to threaten them with bidding forever to run them dry at the level they were keeping me. It was only then that they assigned me to stronger fighters."
"Stronger?" the girl looked confused. She tried to look at something using her spiritual sense, which came out of her like a tidal wave.
Alex felt the burden of her spiritual sense and pushed it back, a little surprised that she wasn't really controlling it well.
"Huh? How the hell are you only Saint Foundation realm? Are you hiding your cultivation base?" she asked. "I thought you weren't supposed to hide it here."
"None of your business, was it?" Alex asked with a mocking face.
The girl snorted. "Fine, just tear off your talisman so we can leave. You can't fight with your broken limb anyway," she said.
"Oh? What broken limb?" Alex asked, showing his unhurt wrists as he walked back on the stage.
"What?" the girl said slowly. "I clearly saw it break. Did I see wrong?"
"Could be," Alex said. "So, were we not going to fight?"
The girl gave a menacing smile. "You want to fight? I'll give you a fight!" she said and dashed at him again.
This time, Alex had learned his lesson. He knew that he couldn't block her attacks at all.
So, when the slow punch moved through his vision, he used his arms to push it slightly outwards so that her punch missed.
At the same time, he punched back at her in the guts.
"Aah!" the girl cried out in pain as she moved backward. "What's going on? How did you suddenly get so strong?"
"What do you mean?" Alex asked. "I've always been this strong."
His attacks definitely weren't as strong as the girl he was fighting. Her body was stronger than his for sure and with her cultivation base being equivalent to his, her overall power was higher.
However, his punches still hurt her. So, the victor here wouldn't be the one who punched the hardest, but rather the one whose punch actually landed.
Alex was going to give her a hard time with that.
The girl jumped back at him and attacked him, but Alex barely managed to get out of the way.
He moved his head as the punch arrived and punched her left side. While she was distracted, his left hand moved and punched her in the face.
When the punch landed, his expression changed and he moved back, but the girl continued attacking him without stopping.
She wasn't letting up at all. Alex continued dodging and attacking. Somehow, he had fallen into her tempo and was fighting hand-to-hand combat, even though he could fight with a sword all the same.
However, he didn't want to do that right now. It was rare that you got to fight against a weaponless close combat fighter, much less a Body cultivator.
Although, the girl wasn't the best at fighting close combat fights. She had speed and strength at her side, but there was absolutely no skill when it came to fighting.
All she did was throw straightforward punches and kicks which were rather easy to dodge.
She continued attacking for a long time while constantly eating the punches that were thrown at her body without flinching at all.
However, after not landing a single hit on Alex for nearly 10 minutes, she decided not to fight anymore.
Alex punched her out of nowhere in her face, sending her flying away this time around as she had stopped trying to stand her ground.
The girl slid along the floor of the stage and stood up. "You win, hurray!" she said sarcastically as she brought out a talisman and crushed it.
Alex was surprised to see that he had won so easily. 'I should let them know that she is stronger than me,' he thought.
He looked down at his fist and remembered the weird feeling he felt. He pinched his own cheeks to check and was even weirded out.
"Do body cultivators' muscles get so strong normally if they don't Qi cultivate?" he wondered. His was certainly quite soft still.
He shook his head and cleared his mind as he walked out of the arena.
