1114 A Simple Path

There were 4 people waiting for him in one of the rooms on the 36th floor.

Alex entered and found that each one of these people was thousands of years old elders that were in the Saint Core realm.

When they saw Alex, who was just in the Saint Foundation realm, they couldn't help but be slightly surprised.

Alex greeted the 4 people and went to sit by one of the 8 spots marked on the floor on one side. He realized that his spiritual sense was suppressed as well. Not fully suppressed, but enough to make it mostly useless.

"Do any of you seniors know what we are supposed to be doing here?" he asked.

All of them shrugged. "No idea," they said. "We've been waiting for someone to come so we can get started on it."

Alex couldn't help but be surprised. "Are you all the first 4 to get here?" he asked.

"We're not sure, but we do think so," one of them said.

Alex nodded to himself in realization. It seemed he would have to wait for a long time before someone came again.

He brought out Whisker to keep guard and started cultivating. He hadn't been cultivating properly for a long time, so he took the time to do so.

He had a sinking suspicion that it would take at least 2 days before the challenge in this room would start.

So, he cultivated. They all did.

Alas, Alex's suspicion turned out to be wrong, only in the other direction. It didn't take 2 days for the room to get filled up, it took 9.

He was bored out of his mind before it was finally time for the challenge to begin. He was beginning to understand why it would take so many months for the Sanctum to be completed by someone.

Alex stood up as the voice called for them to be ready.

"The challenge is simple. The first 3 to go through that door on the other side in the next 24 hours get to go up the floor."

The voice stopped speaking after that.

Everyone looked at each other, slightly confused if that was all it was to the challenge. To get to the other side in just 24 hours.

'Why 24 hours?' Alex wondered. 'There must be something going on here.'

One of the people amongst them wasn't hesitant at all and started walking. As soon as he took a single step forward, however, he stopped and fell to his knee.

He said something, but for some reason, no one could hear it at all.

Alex gulped once and stepped in as well. As soon as he did, he felt something wash over him. After that, he couldn't remember why he was standing.

Every memory felt vague, every feeling distant. He looked in front of him and a small white cat scuttled along on the edge of his vision.

"Pearl?" he couldn't help but be surprised. "Is that you, Pearl?"

Pearl turned around and gave him a wide smile before running towards him. Alex got to the floor and immediately gave him a hug.

"I can't believe I finally found you. Where have you been all this time?" he asked. Just as he asked that, something felt wrong.

"Why am I asking where you have been?" he asked. "You should have been with me all this time, right?"

Even as he held Pearl, some part of his mind started giving him a deep sense of discomfort. Something was wrong.

He quickly let go of Pearl. "No, Pearl is in the Central continent. Why is he in the central continent?" he tried to remember, but the answers wouldn't come to him.

"Al, you're making Pearl cry. Don't do that," someone spoke as they came from behind him and held onto pearl, softly petting his back.

Alex looked at his mother and couldn't help but feel a tear roll down his face. "Huh? Why am I crying?" he asked himself.

"Say sorry to Pearl," Helen said.

"Oh, right. Sorry, Pearl. I don't know what came upon me," he said while shaking his head.

"Don't be like that son," a man's voice came from the front. "You need to take care of your pets well. Didn't I teach you that?"

"Father!" Alex couldn't help but feel like a child in front of this man. "Yes, yes you did. I'm sorry. I'll take care of them properly."

"Yes, take care of all of them," his father said.

"Yes," Alex nodded furiously. "I'll take care of Pearl, I'll take care of Whisker, and I'll take care of…"

He paused. He had another pet, and he could remember her. Scarlet, the phoenix. But she wasn't with him, was she? She was in the Southern Continent, while he was with Pearl in…

He quickly stood back up with a fearful look on his face. "Where am I?" he asked.

"What do you mean?" his father asked. "You're back home, on the farm."

"No," Alex said. "I can feel Qi. Our home doesn't have Qi."

"What are you saying, son?" his mother asked. "We're in the Flowing Brush sect of course. Do you want to meet my master?"

"Qin Shan?" Alex asked. He suddenly grabbed his head. "No, this is not the Western Continent. This is… this is the Southern Continent. Someone is playing tricks with me."

"Son—"

"No!" Alex shouted. "Stop this!"

His intent, along with his spiritual energy, overpowered the Illusory Dream formation that was playing tricks on his mind. He felt coolness pass through his head as he could finally think properly.

The illusions tried to pierce through his intent that was keeping them at bay, but Alex didn't let it. He pushed through them instead, seeing through them clearly, moving toward the door on the other side.

The illusions all but disappeared by the time he reached the edge of the formation, and once he passed through, his mother, father, and Pearl all disappeared at once.

Alex looked back at the formation now that he was outside of it and took a deep breath. "I'll get back to you all very soon."

He turned around and walked through the door.

Alex arrived on the 37th floor, slightly surprised that someone was already there. It was one of the challengers from the previous challenge.

"Oh, someone finally passed," the woman said.

"Finally?" Alex asked.

"It's been 6 hours since the last challenge started," she said. "But of course, you wouldn't know that if you were affected by it."

"Oh," Alex said with a bit of a surprised look on his face. "I didn't realize such a long time had passed."

"Yeah, well. What can you do?" the woman said. "Did you use a talisman or an artifact?"

"Neither," Alex said.

"Neither?" the woman was surprised. "Then you must have quite a formidable mindset to have been able to go through that."

Alex smiled slightly. He wasn't sure if it was his formidable mindset, or his body constantly removing any sort of effect from his mind and body.

It was most likely a mix of the two now that Alex was thinking about it.

"Anyway, which room do you want to go to next? We are the first ones here," she said.

"Oh, right," Alex thought. "I haven't been choosing really. I usually go with whichever one is open."

"What about when all are open?" she asked.

"The first one," Alex pointed to the door to the left.

"Yeah, why bother choosing when it is all chance based anyway," she said and walked towards the room.

Alex looked above the room as he followed, and realized that it was a room that required 8 people to take part. The others weren't any better, so there was no problem with him entering.

After he entered, he saw that spots were lying around the room in a circle, and Alex went to go sit on one towards one side of the wall.

He sighed when he realized that he was going to have to wait again. He feared that it would take a very long time before his wait was over.

Alex was so sure about it, that he brought out one of his pills and ate it as he started cultivating. The pill would leave him unable to cultivate for the next 5 days after he was done, but there wasn't really any need for that anyway.

Nearly 20 days passed before the room was filled. It would of course only take this long since it was the very first time, but still, having to be the one that waited was not a pleasant feeling for Alex.

After everyone was finally in the room, the room started speaking.

"This challenge will require you to fight against each other," the voice said. Two platforms appeared out of nowhere in the middle of the room, each of which had some sort of podium on it.

"You will be called in pairs to come and stand on each of these podiums. Using these, you will be able to launch a simple elemental attack. The attacks will have the same amount of power no matter who is controlling."

"The first person of the two to strike the other person's podium 20 times with an elemental attack will win."

"Be careful of how the attacks interact with each other. These attacks do not have intent behind them, so they will definitely interact with each other," the voice said.

"Oh!" Alex realized what the challenge was asking of them. It was asking for them to be good at understanding Elemental Interaction.

It was a good challenge for him since he had learned a freaking dao about it.