296 Breakthrough
Alex opened his eyes early in the morning at 7 am. There was no competition today and the only thing he had to do was go to the auction house later on.
"You can stop now Pearl," he told Pearl who was inside his robe currently cultivating. "Meow," Pearl meowed lightly and stopped.
The minor cuts around his body all healed and he was back to being fine.
"Have you broken through yet?" he wondered and asked Pearl before opening the status page. Unfortunately, he was still in the Bone Tempering 9th realm.
"Do I really have to give you a monster core? I am afraid the same thing that happens to me will happen to you as well. Not to mention, I don't have that many anymore. Only a couple more. I will soon have to go to the jungle to fight the beasts some more," Alex said softly.
"Meow," Pearl meowed.
"Sigh, I will think of someway. Come enter," he said and let Pearl go back into his arm.
"Hmm… I should be fine to breakthrough now right?" he wondered and opened his status page. He looked at it and thought, 'Oh, I'm a few hundred thousand Qi less than the required amount.'
So, he took out an Organ Tempering 7th realm monster's core and sneakily ate it so that Wan Li couldn't see what he did.
Suddenly, his consciousness disappeared.
When he reappeared inside the Spiritual sea, he could see the vast, turbulent water in there. "I guess it won't increase or get stronger until I reach the mind tempering realm huh? Thankfully, I can eat a few pills in the True realm to increase my mental strength," Alex thought.
He looked around and quickly found a red stork with a golden beak hovering in the air without moving its wings.
'This should be easy,' he thought and started attacking the beast with everything he had. The metal techniques especially were very strong and he could easily defeat the stork.
It did take him nearly 10 minutes though due to him not having the physical strength to close the gap as he did outside the spiritual sea.
The beast died and as usual, the yellow mist appeared from a small shadow at the surface of the lake and quickly devoured the both of them.
When Alex came on the outside, he was bombarded with the notification about gaining Qi. Once the notifications subsided, he clicked on breakthrough and immediately went to 6th Realm of Organ Tempering. It wasn't the strongest in the competition by a long shot, but it was progress for Alex who had to focus on Alchemy too.
'Just 4 more, and I can reach Meridian Tempering realm,' he thought.
He finally decided to log out of the game. He slowly opened the capsule lid as the lack of intense senses made his entire world very dull.
It took him a few seconds to get used to it, but that few seconds, he hated every time he had to experience it.
"Ah, I'm a little hungry today," he thought. He had stayed inside the game for nearly a day and missed all food since the cereal yesterday morning, so when he felt hunger, he got happy.
It meant that just staying in the capsule didn't mean that he wouldn't have to ever eat. It also meant that his body's functionality was normal, albeit a little slow.
Alex walked out to the kitchen and saw Hannah in the kitchen. "Hey, sister. Are you eating?" he asked.
"Yes, come eat… or don't. If you don't feel hungry, you don't have to force yourself," Hannah said.
"Oh, it's fine. I haven't logged out in over a day, so I am a bit hungry," Alex said.
"Hmm… try not to stay in the game for that long. We still don't know if it's good or bad," Hannah said.
"It's fine, or at least the scientists and doctors say so," Alex said.
"They do? Well then, I guess it's fine. I will look at it later. You eat right now," Hannah made him get his food.
Alex nodded and ate what food they had. "I need to grocery shop. If we both end up playing the game, we won't have food anymore," Hannah said.
"Hmm… I don't think I have free time today. Well maybe in the evening. I can go with you then," Alex said.
"No need. I will just order online," Hannah said.
"Oh right. I keep forgetting that this is a city and people can do that," Alex said while shaking his head.
"Alright, I'm going back to the game, see you later… or tomorrow. Whenever our timing matches," Hannah said and left.
Alex too quickly ate his food and went back to his room. He looked at the time and saw that there was a lot of time left before the auction, he decided to do a few things he had been ignoring until now.
He called his parent and talked with them for a bit. Apparently, his father had paid the money for the tractor and had used some of the remaining ones for building a better shed and stable for the animals.
He also showed off a new phone he had bought for himself and Alex's mom. Alex smiled seeing them happy and said his goodbyes.
He then went on the internet to check a few different things. The library didn't have the information he was looking for, but maybe the internet did.
So, he started searching for Sun God's Divine Yang Body and the Spirit Cleansing Lilies. There were very few mentions of the lilies as they were not easily acquirable.
As for the body, no matter how deep he searched, even going as far as to look at the second page of the search results, he couldn't find any.
Alas, he had to accept the fact that there wasn't any information and give up on finding it.
Once he was done with all of it, he went back to the capsule and logged in.
