1256 Blood
Alex, Scarlet, and Bai Jingshen left the throne room. As they did, Alex once again noticed the murals around the room but didn't give them much thought.
"Oh right, what happened to the Ocean God's teardrop that you took?" Alex asked. "Did you already hand it over?"
"I gave it to my clan's elders. I don't know what they did with it just yet, but they will most likely return it to the Ocean God's people. They can track where it is after all," he said.
"I see," Alex thought. "Wait, so everyone should know that their stuff is in this world, right? The only reason they're not here is that they are afraid."
"Not exactly," Bai Jingshen said. "Not everyone knows. Only the important ones. Also, not everyone who lost something has someone to care about their stuff as the Ocean God did. Most people that end up becoming strong are usually who tread the path of cultivation alone, and thus have no one to care for their stuff once they die. I assume many of the items here are as such."
Alex felt a little better hearing that. He wouldn't want multiple gods after him just because he used what he had found here.
They arrived outside another massive room that Alex had never been to. A group of female felines gathered around Pearl and were talking with each other.
"My lord." The group of felines greeted Bai Jingshen the moment they saw him walk in.
"You're all here, good," Bai Jingshen said. "Meet my wives and concubines."
Bai Jingshen started introducing the lot to Alex and Scarlet. The main wife, the Lynx, was called Shu Shiren. She was the only one in her human form and bowed to the two of them when she was introduced.
The 2nd wife was a lioness named Gu Xiaomo. She was the tallest from what they could tell
The 3rd wife was the snow leopard they had met earlier, Han Keixu.
The 4th wife was a dark wildcat named Xiang Yibai.
The 5th one was the first of the 3 concubines, a puma named Wen Meirin.
The 6th one was an actual tiger with orange fur and black stripes, named Luo Beihan.
The 7th and last one was the white cat that Alex was so familiar with, Ren Xiao.
Alex greeted everyone as they were introduced and they greeted him back as well. He saw how they treated Pearl and smiled a little before looking around.
"Senior, where are your descendants?" he asked.
"Oh, I left them behind," Bai Jingshen said. "Every single one of them is over 5 thousand years old at the very least and some of them are even Immortals, so it didn't feel right bringing them here."
"I see," Alex thought.
"Get the bloodline bath ready and have Pearl prep for it. I will be back in a while and we will start Pearl's evolution," Bai Jingshen said.
"My lord," the females got scared all of a sudden. "This child doesn't have much blood—"
"I know," Bai Jingshen said. "Don't worry about it, I know what I'm doing. I will be back in a bit with what he needs."
He turned around and walked away.
"See you in a bit, Pearl," Alex said and walked away as well. They went down the hallway, underneath the crystal's light, and arrived at another section of the underground palace that Alex hadn't been to before.
He simply hadn't been allowed to move around these places.
"Alright, let us start," Bai Jingshen said after stopping.
"What do I have to do?" Alex asked.
"Something dangerous," Bai Jingshen said. "Give me as much blood as you can and also as many drops of your own Blood Essence as you can. The more there is, the more drops of White Tiger's blood essence I can pull out from it."
Alex hesitated a bit. "My… own blood essence?" he asked. He had assumed that Bai Jingshen was going to do something simple like using some skill to pull out the white tiger's blood from his body directly.
However, if he had to take everything out, then…
"I won't lie to you, it's dangerous," Bai Jingshen said. "Especially since it can also affect your cultivation in the short term until your body forms more blood essence."
Alex sighed. "I will do it," he said. He took out midnight and cut his own wrist. His hand started bleeding profusely, while he did his best to control his body's regenerative capabilities to not immediately heal from this cut.
As his body bled, Bai Jingshen caught the blood midair with his own Qi and was surprised at how much vitality his blood had.
"This is more than just the White Tiger's blood," he said softly. "How is your blood so strong?"
Alex didn't answer as he concentrated on not healing as much as he could. He felt his body drained of blood and even though he got dizzy for a second or two.
Because he was stopping his undying physique from working, his body couldn't even produce blood fast enough to replace the one that he was losing.
Both the Phoenix and the White Tiger were surprised at how much blood was pouring out of the young human's body.
"Alex, you'll die at this rate," Scarlet said. "Stop."
"Young man, that's enough," Bai Jingshen said. He too was worried for Alex, albeit for different reasons than Scarlet.
Alex's lips had chapped, his skin was super pale and his flesh seemed sunken in. His eyes refused to focus and all of a sudden, his mind went blank.
As soon as he fell unconscious, his body could finally heal once more and regenerate the blood that he had lost. His complexion got better immediately and the wound on his arm was healed before either of them realized.
Scarlet checked on Alex and was surprised that he was already healing so much. She knew about his undying physique, but she had never seen it in action this well.
Even Bai Jingshen was surprised when he saw that Alex looked like nothing was wrong with him just a few seconds later.
Alex opened his eyes and slowly got up. He still felt the dizziness, but it was much better than before now. "How long was I out for?" he asked.
"All of 8 seconds," Scarlet said. "You okay?"
"Yeah, I'm mostly fine," he said and looked at the blood in front of him. He could feel the strength of the blood that floated in the air. While he hadn't had the chance to go improve his bloodline in recent years, it was still the strongest tool in his arsenal.
He got back up and looked toward Bai Jingshen. "Do you want my Blood Essence separately or should I just drop it onto that?" he asked.
"Huh? Oh, right," Bai Jingshen freed himself from the shock he was feeling and looked at the floating blob of blood. "Give it to me separately. Because of how strong this blood is, I think I might have a better use for it."
"A better use?" Alex asked.
Bai Jingshen nodded. "Instead of separating just the White Tiger's blood from this, I'm going to place it all into the bath so Pearl can absorb everything from here directly. That should help him quite a bit," he said.
"Hmm, okay," Alex said. He could be sure that Bai Jingshen wouldn't do something that was bad for Pearl.
Then, he reached for his own forehead and worked on pulling out the few drops of blood essence he had in him.
A few seconds later, multiple deep crimson droplets floated together in front of Alex.
Alex felt like his age had increased by nearly 10 years when he parted with his blood essence.
Bai Jingshen let Scarlet handle the other blood while he took care of the dozen or so droplets that had come out of Alex's forehead.
"Are you going to give it all to Pearl too?" Alex asked with a short breath.
"No, the Essence needs to be just White Tiger's," he said. "Anything else and it will cause problems during the evolution process."
"I see," Alex said.
Bai Jingshen did something that made the world around him shudder for a second. Alex couldn't tell what was happening, but whatever it was, it was strong.
Then, he felt a pulsing sensation coming from Bai Jingshen himself and realized that it was his own blood aura.
Bai Jingshen didn't have the ability to control their blood aura, but as a beast, he had the ability to at least control his own bloodline.
A dozen drops of blood essence jiggled around each time a pulse went through them.
'He's trying to resonate his own blood with the blood essence to separate just the White Tiger's blood,' Alex thought. 'No wonder Senior Yang said he couldn't do it. It had to be a White Tiger.'
Suddenly, Alex felt an aura overshadow every single thought he had. As if the blood essence had suddenly awakened, the power that was hidden within Alex's blood essence showed itself to the world, and the world saw how terrifying it was.
It wasn't just Alex or Scarlet who had felt this, but the entire palace was in chaos over the sudden suppressive aura that had appeared.
Alex could barely breathe over this aura as he watched 7 perfect droplets of blood separate themselves from the dozen droplets that were floating in the air.
Those 7 droplets arrived next to Bai Jingshen and he let the rest of the droplets drop to the ground.
"Finally," he said as he watched the 7 perfect droplets of blood essence. "If the world knew what was in my hand right now, I could only imagine the war that they would fight to get their hands on it."
