1619 Close to the End
Alex was done fighting Gyuyin, the young Saint Transformation 1st realm player who was the last person to be done with challenging him.
The other 2 men and women had left him alone, running away now that they were done with their oath. Now that Gyuyin was done as well, there was no more oath for him to keep.
"I'm leaving," he said, before quicking turning around to run away. He did not want to remain here with Alex one moment longer.
"Wait!" Alex's words halted his steps and he turned around with a grim expression on his face.
"Our oath is done, I will no—"
"Not that," Alex quickly said. "Do you know how long we've remained here? How many days still remain?"
Alex had tried to remember, but he couldn't tell much. He had fought day and night for so long that the battles he fought blended together in his head and would take some time for him to sort through them.
He had hoped the Voidsand Hourglass would tell him how long of a time had passed, but it wasn't capable of telling the exact time, only how many days or hours had passed. If he wanted to know the exact time through it, he would have to have checked the time at the start.
He remembered checking the time sometime before he entered and sometime after. From what he knew, there was no more than a month remaining still. He simply hoped to get a more accurate answer.
The young man gave a thoughtful look and said, "I'm not sure about the exact days that have passed. I haven't kept track of time like the others have, but I'm sure we still have about 10 to 15 days here."
Alex nodded. That was around the same time he thought too.
"I see. You can go now," Alex said. "But starting tomorrow, I will fight you if I find you. Make sure to hide well if you want to stay out of my way."
The young man didn't give a hint of a nod before he ran away.
Alex sighed and went back inside the formation that was running to the side. Inside it was the tree under which he had cultivated back then. The large tree still stood tall, unfettered by the fighting of the Saints, giving shade to anyone who sat beneath it.
Pearl and Whisker were fighting close by. Pearl was alone, and Whisker was controlling either the puppet or one of the blood beasts. Sometimes both.
The two stopped fighting when Alex walked in, and Whisker watched the blood beast disappear into the book Alex had now held in his hands.
"Are you done with them?" Pearl said.
"Done. All 50 days," Alex said. "We have half a month remaining in this secret realm. It sounds short, but it's long enough to fight a few more people."
Alex knew he could do nothing and he would still last until the end of the secret realm. He felt a bit weird about it all. He hadn't remained in a place like this for such a long time.
The last time he had remained somewhere for 2 years or more was back when Shen Jing, or rather Bai Jingshen had helped him train in the eastern greenscape of the Western Continent.
There had been a time when he had spent 3 years in a secret realm, but for him, only 13 days had passed, so he didn't truly count that.
The Sundering Sanctum was around 8 months, and most other secret realms only held him for a month or two. This was certainly the longest he had remained inside a secret realm.
And from what he had heard, the final secret realm of the Eastern Continent, the Harmonious Balance Haven could last even longer. Not that he knew a lot about that one either.
"Are you done with your training then?" Pearl asked.
"Done with my training…" Alex mused for a bit, thinking if he had or not. His Sword Intent had become strong enough during the past 50 days when he pushed the 5 cultivators hard, and along with it, so had Sword Qi and Sword Aura.
"I think I'm done with training," Alex said. "I had hoped to see the next level of the Sword, but I don't think I'm ready yet. I wonder what is missing."
He had asked that question to Godslayer before, but Godslayer's answer has been simple.
Complete your technique and embrace it.
Alex had completed his technique, or the base form of it at least. He had created a template of sorts that could be used on its own, but he could also twist the technique a little if need be.
'I have perfected the base technique, haven't I?' he thought. Maybe the fact that he was even questioning it meant that he wasn't done with it. Or maybe he had, and now he just had to 'embrace it.' Whatever that meant.
"I'm sure I'll get there someday soon," Alex said. "It surely can't be much further away."
Alex made up a mind of doing nothing but practicing his technique for the next week. Practice it until his arm wanted to drop off and run away, or until his mind no longer wanted to think straight.
"You two should get back in," Alex said to the two beasts. "Next time you're out, we'll be out of the secret realm."
The two beasts nodded and went away quietly into their respective beast spaces. Once they were gone, Alex moved over to a place where people would find it hard to find them and set up a small formation where he could practice without stopping.
The technique he had created, the one he still couldn't give a name to, required 4 Dao to use now, after months of changes. especially to use. 2 could have done the job, but Alex had added another 2 just because he could.
Dao of cutting and Dao of Sharpness was there for no reason other than to make the attack something that was extremely dangerous. He had thought of using just Dao of Sharpness, but he already had Cutting, so there was no point in not using it.
Other than the two, he had the Dao of Malleability and the Dao of Ductility too. The Dao of Malleability was required to make the attack malleable, to change shape as required, and the dao of Ductility was required to make the attack thin like a thread without it breaking on itself.
Without Dao of Ductility, Alex could only make it so thin without the attack failing to keep its own shape.
Without Dao of Malleability, he couldn't make it thin in the first place.
He stood in front of a river he had arrived in front of and readied his sword. He closed his eyes, focusing all his concentration on the attack.
By now, the combination of the four Dao had turned into a technique that he could use on his own, but it still took a lot of Intent to use.
Qi filled his sword and disappeared as if swallowed by the dark sword that was Midnight. However, at the edge of the sword, if someone looked closely, one could find a thin razor's edge light that slowly got brighter and brighter.
'Embrace it!' Godslayer's voice flowed through his mind. He didn't know what it meant, but he did. Sword Aura filled the sword and the outside.
'Embrace it,' Alex told himself. Sword Qi fluttered around him, all appearing from the Sword Aura that was gathered on his sword. However, from time to time, a single Sword Qi appeared amidst the tens of thousands of small motes of light, which disappeared just as quickly.
It happened once every fraction of a second, but that was still too slow and definitely too few for anyone including Alex to notice. But they were there.
They had been there for a few months now.
Alex took a deep breath and opened his eyes. Then, he swung.
The shallow sword slash was about as fast as any regular sword slash, only barely visible even to Alex.
The only reason Alex could even see it clearly was because of his Demon Eyes, which helped him see the strong Golden color of the technique as it passed.
Since 3 out of the 4 Daos used in the technique were Metal Dao, it only felt right for Alex to use Metal Qi in this instance.
The sword slash cut through the river, and the ground on the other side, and Alex even felt it cut through space itself, but space was too solid to stay cut for longer than an instant.
The attack vanished from Alex's eyes, disappearing into the distance. It left no visible damage to the surroundings at all.
Alex flew over to check what had actually happened and saw a thin line across the ground on the other side of the river that seemed to have dug into the ground. It was hard to tell just how far deep the attack had gone.
'There's barely any feedback,' Alex thought, but then that was a good thing. After all, the less noise and bombardment there was to an attack, the more efficient it was. No extra energy was being lost.
He nodded to himself and grabbed the sword once again. He had to try it a few more times to train until he didn't have to focus on creating the technique.
It took all of 15 tries before Alex felt as if his head was being hammered from all four sides. He sat down to cultivate and a few hours later, he was ready to go ahead again.
