1716 Time to Return

Alex swam away from the Fire Coral, leaving it behind to hopefully heal itself. He took a look at the 3 coral tentacles in his hand with a smile and put them into his Soul Space.

'These 3 tentacles should be enough for a single pill,' Alex thought. 'No point in harming a harmless Coral for more.'

He wanted to make a pill out of it as soon as possible, but creating a Pill Cloud in this place would be one of the easiest ways to let the soldiers know where he was hiding.

The only logical choice remaining here was to return to the Southern Continent now that he was healed and make the pill there. He also needed to see to his sister's poison.

'A week more and then I'll leave,' Alex thought. It would take some time to return, so it was better if he gathered resources for the journey back. Once he made up the plan, he continued on his search for more beasts.

He found a place for himself to sit down and cultivate for 2 days before continuing on his journey to fight the beasts and gain more blood and core.

Alex lost himself in the mission, killing anything that was willing to kill him, leaving alive anything that was not. In the week or so he spent fighting in the ocean, he fought over a hundred different Saint beasts, killing almost all of them.

By the end of the week, he had more than enough beast cores to last him on the journey back to his continent.

He was done fighting and he was done cultivating, so it was time to leave the ocean.

He got ready to swim back to the island where the old man and Pearl were, but he didn't remember what direction that was in.

'The hell? Where is that island?' he thought. 'How am I not even sensing where Pearl is?'

The hiding formation set up by the old man was unusually strong it seemed. It even masked his bond to Pearl. He tried feeling the bond once again, but it was too faint to feel anything except the fact that Pearl was okay.

'I need to get closer,' Alex thought, but he didn't know which direction was closer. That was the entire problem in the first place.

He looked up to see if he could see the sun, but it turned out that it was nighttime. Despite this, the water deep down here made even the sun look paler than the stars.

'Should I go out and then look around? That should tell me what direction to go to,' he thought. Going out was a bit dangerous though, and even then he wasn't sure if he could find his way back.

Unfortunately, he hadn't flown up to the surface and had only remained in the ocean.

Alex was stumped for a few minutes, wondering how he was going to get back when he finally thought of something. He pulled out his talisman and contacted the old man, asking for a way back.

"Well, I don't know where you are," the old man said. "I can't come get you."

"Is there anyone caught in your warning formations yet?" Alex asked.

"There are still many. Most are not in the direction you went off to if that is what you're wondering," the old man replied.

Alex quickly nodded to himself. This might work.

"Keep a watch on your formation. I'm going to go up for a few seconds and try to get caught in it. Tell me if something new appears. That should tell me what direction I need to go to go back."

The reply came a while later than usual. "Sounds good, but be careful."

"I will. I will get caught in it in exactly 10 minutes," Alex replied. Then, he made his slow ascent to the surface.

Numerous fish and other beasts swam around the area, but none dared to come for Alex. A few regular fish were curious about him, but even so, they moved far away when he came along.

Alex kept his pace slow so that he didn't accidentally get caught by the formation too soon. 'He did mention that only humans or boats get caught in it, so I shouldn't be worried,' he thought and continued.

Alex had taken his time with the ascent, but still to see that it took him over 15 minutes to make it to the surface, when all the ocean had ever wanted to do was just that, was surprising to see.

He sent his spiritual sense around to find the formation and see where he needed to go, but as he did, he found a distinct lack of anything manmade in the ocean.

'Hmm? That can't be right,' Alex thought and increased the range of his perception, trying to catch any sort of disturbance to the aura in the ocean that might have been caused by a formation.

It took him 2 minutes to find something that he could believably say was the work of a formation and made his way to it.

Arriving up close, Alex took hold of a small sphere of something that was hidden from his senses. He took hold of it and finally saw that it was a small leather sack that was filled with spirit stones and a formation plate inside that constantly ran thanks to the spirit stones.

'So that's why no one has ever found it,' Alex thought. It was hard to even notice the thing in the first place even when you were looking for it. It was unlikely that anyone would ever find it in the ocean.

'It's about time,' he thought and slowly rose out of the water while letting out some of his aura for the formation to pick up. He then took out the talisman to wait for the old man to answer back.

"I saw two blips right next to each other. Was that you?" the old man asked.

"Two?" Alex frowned. Was there another one of these formations close by that he had activated accidentally?

"I don't see any other ones. It should just be one singul—"

Alex's words stuck to his throat when nearly 20 spiritual senses locked onto him from the distance. Alex slowly turned around and looked far away to see 3 ships approaching in his direction with people already flying out of it.

'Shit!' Alex thought and was ready to run away when something made him stop. He looked back, starting at the ships. He recognized those ships.

Those giant ships with brilliant azure paint with a golden dragon wrapped around a sword were the signature ships used by the Scale Legion. And the man who was making his way toward Alex was none other than Long Jianyu, the commander who had taken Alex and his people to the Eastern Continent.

Alex wanted to run, but some stubborn part of him wanted to question this man. This man had spent most of his latest time in the Southern Continent, so finding out the situation surrounding that continent would come easiest from him.

"King Alex," Long Jianyu said with a look that said this was all unexpected for him. "I did not expect to be the one to find you here."