1747 Pearl

It had been a while since Pearl had broken through to the Saint Core 3rd realm. He had forced his way through his cultivation base, just like Alex had, but his result hadn't been as good.

So, he was a little worried about the upcoming battle. He wanted to help in the war, but he was so weak. Would he even be of any help?

His days had been filled with nothing but cultivation, training, and spending some time with his family. It had been a while since he had seen Alex too, as he was cooped up in his room, cultivating forever.

Pearl was done with another cultivation session and walked out of his room. He went on to check on Helen and the rest before he returned to his grandmothers.

He walked through the palace, feeling the serious atmosphere. None of the servants seemed to be on a particularly happy moon as war was imminent. Most of them were worried about what would happen to them and the continent if the war was lost.

Not only that, many of them had family members in the army that would be taken to war. That was another worry they felt.

Pearl understood their feelings. His own life and many of the lives of his loved ones were hanging on this war as well.

"Mother!" Pearl called when he arrived at Helen's door.

The door opened on its own and a tired Helen peeked out. "Oh, Pearl. Did you come to check on me?" Helen asked. "Come in."

Pearl walked in and saw three cauldrons constantly working. Helen worked on one of them, and on the other one was whisker, focusing as he was in the middle of making a pill.

The third one was for Zhan Luoyang, who had started making pills to aid the army.

At first, she had been quite hesitant about the idea of aiding the people of another continent, but over time she had changed and had been fully accepting of the fact that she needed to do this.

"Do you still have a lot to do?" Pearl asked Helen.

Helen stretched a little. "A lot, yes. A lot," she sighed. "It's never-ending, unfortunately. I keep doing it and more works keep piling up."

She turned around. "What have you been doing, cultivating?" she asked.

"Yes," Pearl said. "Is Father not back?"

"No," Helen said. "He's still keeping away while I need to focus here. I think he's with Ronron nowadays. He said he was going to help her learn how to fight."

Pearl slowly nodded.

Graham had become a strong fighter in the past many years, training each and every day. Since his cultivation base wasn't any good, he was learning to fight physically and had apparently gotten a lot better at it.

Pearl had only seen him in training and not a real battle, so he wasn't sure.

After staying with Helen for a few minutes, Pearl left. Helen needed to get back to work, so Pearl had no reason to remain there at all.

Whisker had kept working hard the entire time he was there, his attention not breaking even once.

Pearl went to go meet with the others. He met up with Liz and saw how she was training hard as well. She had fully planned on helping in the upcoming war, so she was ready for whatever came.

Hannah had reached the peak of the Saint Transformation realm some time ago, so all that was left for her now was to train to fight.

She was still quite amateurish at it, but she kept on training. Long Huan was the same as he never had any interest in fighting, and thus he was training constantly these days.

Zhou Linfan had been the one who trained both of them.

Graham and Ronron were nowhere to be found in the palace. They were most likely training with the army outside the city, and Pearl had no intention of going there right now.

He went to meet Old Alex and Emily and then made his way to his grandmothers.

"Pearl!"

He heard someone calling him in the corridor outside the palace and followed it to see Scarlet walking toward him.

"Sister Scarlet," he called back with a soft smile. "How are you?"

Scarlet walked in her human form, followed by a few of the elders who were always around her.

"Don't mind me, how are you doing? It's been a while since I've seen you. Is your cultivation going well?" she asked.

"I've been making steady progress, Sister," Pearl said. He looked at Scarlet again and couldn't help but feel a little jealous seeing her.

'If I could cultivate just as fast too,' he thought. But of course, Scarlet had only been able to cultivate so quickly because she had once been at this cultivation base and knew the ins and outs of her cultivation journey here.

She knew when she could push herself and when she had to slow down for the sake of her progress. Pearl didn't have that knowledge. He would only end up ruining his cultivation base if he tried that.

"Where are you going?" Scarlet asked. "To meet Alex?"

"Brother? No, I'm going to—"

Pearl paused for a moment. He hadn't noticed it at first, but now that he was focusing on it, Alex was in the direction he was headed.

'But that is the guest area? Did brother go to meet grandpa?' Pearl wondered.

"He's only just broken through. I wonder what he wants with Bai Jingshen now," Scarlet asked. "Anyway, I have matters to take care of. I'll see you around, Pearl."

"See you later, Sister," Pearl said and quickly made his way toward the garden where Bai Jingshen and his wives would be out enjoying the sun.

As Pearl approached, he heard tidbits of what was being talked about.

"—is our one chance though," Ren Xiao spoke.

"I'm somehow both interested and scared of this," Bai Jingshen said. "Are you sure it's possible?"

"I'm very certain," Alex said. "I have done it many times and it has happened every single tim—"

Alex turned around to look at Pearl and his smile widened. "Pearl!" he called out.

"Brother, you're done with your breakthroughs?" Pearl asked as he made his way toward Alex.

"Yes," Alex said and poured out some aura. "Saint Soul 9th realm, see?"

"Congratulations," Pearl said.

"Thanks," Alex said. "Unfortunately, I will have to stop here since I will have to face the Inner Demon in the next one. I most certainly do not wish to face any right now."

"I see," Pearl said.

"Actually," Bai Jingshen suddenly spoke. "I think Pearl is the one that should decide. He has more right to that than we do."

"I wouldn't have done it without his permission in the first place, but you're right. He should be the one that decides it in the end," Alex said.

Pearl looked at both his brother and his great-grandfather, entirely confused.

"Decide? What should I decide?" Pearl asked.

"Your brother here has brought us quite the proposition. Hear him out," Bai Jingshen said.

Alex turned back to Pearl and stared into his eyes.

"Pearl…" he spoke softly. "Do you want to meet your mother?"