1498 Leaving
With the Immortal Puppet strapped up with the artifact, Alex tested out his strength. To his surprise, his physical strength had improved just after two days of body cultivation.
His body cultivation had improved by a realm, reaching Saint Core 2nd realm. He hadn't expected it to increase by such a large amount in just 2 days, but it had. That only went on to show just how good of an artifact the Mountain Crushing artifact was.
The next few days went by in a blur as Alex did nothing but train or cultivate all the time. It wasn't just him either. Pearl, Whisker, and the two Elders also cultivated all the time.
Pearl was the only one who didn't cultivate using the artifact.
In a few days, the Elder's body cultivation increased by a not-so-significant portion. They still hadn't gone through Mortal Cleansing, so it wasn't as effective as it was for Whisker.
Whisker had stopped whining after the first two times and now went in without question.
During this period, Jai Heiyun and Hao Ya returned back to the capital. He was going to see them again, however, in just a short few months.
With the Realm of Trials opening up in a few months, almost all of his alchemists were going to go there. Alex was planning to go to it when it opened.
For now, he was undecided about what it was that he wanted to do with the remaining few months. Before arriving in the Gold Kingdom, he had planned to visit the Ice Mist Palace. However, with the situation the Ivory kingdom was in, he couldn't go there right now.
After talking with his elders and even asking the Gold King for his suggestions, he ended up with two possible choices he could go with.
He could go back to the Azure Kingdom and continue trying to learn new Daos. Or, he could go roam the Gold Kingdom, and visit the various towns and cities for the next 5 or 6 months that it was going to take for the Realm of Trials to open up.
Learning new Daos was a good choice and all, but Alex prioritized visiting the different cities and towns. He had more to do than just learn new daos after all.
His cultivation had slowed down a little after going through Qi Deviation and it would take him a few more months to reach the peak of the Saint Core 9th realm.
And then… then he wasn't sure if he could break through or not. He had tried his best to prepare this time around, but that didn't mean much in the world of cultivation.
So, he chose to slow down his cultivation this time around. As long as he had ample time to prepare, he believed he could do it. He needed that amount of time to believe the things that he didn't want to believe in.
He needed to come to terms with the fact that he would most likely never know the true culprit behind Pearl's mother's murder, and the fact that his sister was most likely dead.
He had no other choice.
"Another tour it is then," Alex said. "Will be fun. Same as the Emerald Kingdom. I can continue practicing my painting skills in the other places as well."
3 days later, they were ready to leave.
"Please visit when you can, Your Majesty," the Gold King said. "I will hopefully be here at that time."
"Good luck on your thing too," Alex said. "I'm sure the Emperor will leave his closed cultivation at any moment now."
The Gold King nodded.
Now that the Golden Auction was over, he couldn't wait for the day when he would relinquish his title as the King of the Gold Kingdom.
Alex and the group left through the eastern gate of the city. Aside from his people, there was General Fan of the Tail legion and a few soldiers of his.
They took flight on a ship and made their way to the next city which was a few hours of air travel away.
The next city was called the Gildedreach. It was another city that grew big thanks to the Golden Mountain range being right next to it.
Just like Goldheart City, it too had cities that were full of gold in every location. However, this city was more so for actually mining gold than anything.
Unlike Goldheart City where gold mining was made to pass the time, this one was where people labored for it. As such, it wasn't a place most people would want to visit.
Alex and the rest wanted to just to see how they fared.
They were excited to visit the cities past that point too, ones where the Golden Mountain range didn't reach and were instead unique cities on their own having nothing to do with the gold.
Alex wanted that. He was a little fed up with the gold already.
As they flew, Yao Ning quickly looked to the side of the ship in a direction. "Something is wrong," she said.
Alex looked at her as well. "What do you mean?" he asked.
They were only halfway to the next city, and everything in between was either a desolate cold land or small towns and settlements near an active volcano.
"I think I sensed something from that side," Yao Ning said. "Maybe a beast? It showed its aura for a second before disappearing."
Alex's eyes changed, turning a deeper shade of purple. He looked in the direction Yao Ning mentioned and saw a multitude of colors that did not match the surroundings at all.
"There is something there," he said, looking at the aura. He could not sense the aura in the least, but the colors proved its existence. The colors remained unmoving and mostly hidden.
"I think there's a formation there," Alex said. "Someone must be hiding."
"An ambush?" Liang Shufen asked from the side.
"I don't know," Alex said. "They aren't moving at all. Maybe someone is cultivating there. That's most likely—"
Something slammed onto the ship from the side, sending them all hurdling to one part of the ship. At the same time, three individuals arrived on the ship and set up a formation that immediately captured Alex and only him.
Alex felt his cultivation base suppressed in an instant, becoming much weaker than it was.
The three men were inside with him as well, but they didn't seem affected at all. Alex looked at them and sensed that their cultivation base was in the mid-Saint Transformation realm.
The only one that could fight them here was Yao Ning and she was outside, striking at the barrier that had captured Alex.
One man moved forward with a blinding speed as soon as they were in and attacked Alex.
Alex tried to teleport away, but the space around him was constrained a little as well. He was too slow at teleporting away and the man got to him.
He instantly cut off Alex's right arm and grabbed it. "Got it," he shouted.
Alex looked in horror and confusion as his arm was tossed back to one of the people behind the man. He didn't understand what was happening until he saw the man take his ring from the cut-off arm.
'My ring!' he realized.
Alex forced his Intent and pushed away the constricting space around him. Then, he teleported right next to the man and reached for his ring. He used Heaven's Impact at the same time.
However, an artifact on the man's neck gave a slight ringing sound as it blocked the spiritual attack.
Before Alex could grab his ring, the man grabbed his hand. Alex could feel the strength in the man's fist and realized just how strong he was.
The man looked at Alex and his arm. A look of surprise spread through his face when he saw that he was grabbing the exact same arm that he had just dropped.
In mere seconds after being cut off, Alex's arm had grown back. That was the most fascinating thing that the man had ever seen.
"Interesting," the man couldn't help but say. "Is this a use of one of your pills too, Your Majesty?"
The two other men arrived by Alex's side as well. "We need to hurry. That woman will most likely break the formation soon," one of the men said.
"Don't worry," the man who had grabbed onto Alex said. "I used my Immortal Qi to activate the formation. It will take more than just a couple of hits from her to break through this. Unless she is willing to use Immortal Qi and risk her young king's life, she will stick to regular attacks."
It didn't take Alex long to realize that the situation was dire. Were they here to kill him? Or were they here for something else?
They were also way beyond his own strength, so he couldn't even fight back right now. The only thing that could possibly fight them was the Immortal Puppet, and that was inside the ring that they had just stolen.
"Don't worry about your ring, Your Majesty," the leader said. "You won't be far away from it. You are coming with us."
The man pulled out something from his own storage bag. The other two men brought it out as well.
Talismans.
Without hesitation, they crushed the talisman, and immediately space warped around them.
Alex felt the aura of Teleportation cover him. He tried to fight back, but if he did so, his ring would get taken away.
He couldn't allow that. As unfortunate as it was, he had to let it take him away.
A second later, the 3 men and Alex were teleported away.
