1914 Concealment

The man who took Alex to his house was Zan Dashi, an inner disciple of rank 102. He was nearly in the top 100 and was apparently bound to enter it by the time the rankings refreshed soon.

Zan Dashi showed Alex his garden, letting him see the status of the poison plants that were beginning to wilt all around.

"What do you think? Can they be healed?" the man asked.

Alex looked at the plants, judging all around. "I think they can be saved, senior. They're not as bad as what senior Kang's plants looked, and they're now doing much better."

"Junior Kang told me the same thing," the young man said. "Then that means you can help me."

Alex frowned a little. He hadn't said anything when this man had brought him all the way here as he didn't want to speak out of turn, but he had guessed why he was being brought here long before that.

"I already took another mission, senior. I am not sure I can help you. Not until I complete that mission anyway," Alex said.

"You already took one?" the man frowned. "How long will it take you?"

"The mission lasts a week," Alex said.

"That won't do. These plants will die in a week," the man responded.

Alex couldn't argue there.

"Because Kang Reiyun mentioned that you helped his garden, I decided to put up the mission hoping someone like you could find it and help me. I thought I was lucky to find you before I could put up the mission, and yet…"

He seemed conflicted.

Dan Zashi looked at his garden again, a vague troubled look on his face. "Can't you just help me?" he asked. "I'll pay you 40 contribution points."

"I'm sorry, senior. I cannot take two missions at once," Alex said. That was just a rule.

"Then it won't have to be an official mission. Do it as a favor for me," the man said.

Alex couldn't help but frown at that. He did not want to do any work for a man without getting something else in return.

The man seemed to recognize Alex's look. "Alright, fine. I'll pay you. What do you want in return? Spirit stones? Poisons??"

Alex thought for a moment. "Does senior have a concealment formation plate by any chance?" he asked.

"Concealment formation plate? You want one?" he asked.

"Yes," Alex said. "Just to borrow for a few months," Alex replied.

"Wait for a moment," the man said and took out a talisman. He seemed to be talking to a few people using the talisman before letting go of it.

"I can get you one. You can even keep it as long as you want to, but you will need to be in charge of taking care of my plants for the next full year."

"A year?" Alex asked, wondering. He thought about the pros and cons of such a deal and realized that he would come out on top should he take the deal. Of course, he would still need to complete other missions, but just making sure the plants in this garden were not dead did not take his daily attention.

Alex nodded. "I'll take the deal, senior," he said. "I'll get started right away."

The man took a deep breath of relief. "Thank you, junior brother. I'll go get your Concealment formation plate."

While Zan Dashi was gone to get the plate from someone else, who he most likely had made another deal with, Alex began taking care of the plants in the garden.

He had gotten used to the plants that were in these gardens as they were all the same. He knew what sort of nutrients the plants needed and what he needed to do to keep them from dying.

By the time the young man returned with the formation plate. Alex was all done for the day.

"I'll return tomorrow evening to take care of them. In the meantime, do not touch anything around the garden senior. I'll handle everything," Alex said.

"Sure, sure," the man said.

Alex took his new formation plate and left the house. On the way back to his residence, he sought the house he needed to do the maintenance on, checked it thoroughly, and then finally went back to his house.

Now that he had the concealment formation, he could finally do some things he had been putting aside until now.

Alex set up the formation plate in the open garden where he put Whisker on the outside to see if he could sense anything.

The very first thing he did was bring out his sword and fill it with his strong Sword Intent.

Whisker could not feel anything.

Alex used more, using Sword Qi, and then Sword Aura. Then, he finally used Sword Domain.

Whisker could sense none of those things at all. For a Seeking Mouse like him to not feel anything meant that the concealment formation was truly working.

Alex took a deep breath and sat filling his sword with the True Metal Dao as he prepared his Endless Severing Strike. He didn't use it, simply held it to see what was different compared to the previous one.

He had only just used the technique once during his lightning tribulation and had been wanting to check how it was again. However, he did not want to let out True Dao aura around anyone, so he had to wait.

The True Metal Dao did not bring much difference to Alex's attack aside from the fact that it was just one dao instead of 4 different ones.

The other dao such as Dao of Alloy and Dao of Conductions were still not used for this attack, while being a part of True Metal Dao as they had no use here.

It was truly just his original technique made easier to use.

Alex filled his sword with True Fire Dao next, adding onto the Endless Severing Strike. After thinking how the attack appeared when he used it last time, he decided to name it True Immolation Strike, and couldn't wait to find a place to use it again.

Alex put his sword away as he would need more than just a garden to truly test his techniques. There was also the fact that he wanted to test how strong his Sword Domain and Blood Aura were now, but those would have to wait for now as well.

Alex then took out the main thing that had been bothering him for a while now.

A thick book, unusually heavy flew out of Alex's Soul Space, landing on his hands. As soon as it was out, he heard a voice in his head.

"BLOOD~ BLOOD~"

"I get it!" Alex said. "I'll feed you now. How did you even know I had broken through?"

"BLOOD~"

That was the only response Alex got from the Blood God's Manual.

Alex couldn't remember how long it had been since the Blood God's Manual had requested for his blood. He had fed it immediately after becoming a Saint, so he had unlocked Blood Beasts without the book asking for blood.

However, since he had waited so long to do so after becoming an Immortal, the book had gotten impatient.

"Come take it!"

Alex cut open his wrist and let his blood flow onto the book.