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Alex immediately let go of his restraints on the spiritual sense and his cultivation. He also brought out a healing pill and ate it as he sighed.

'Only 3 more remaining huh? Should I ask the master for more once she wakes up or should I make my own?' he thought.

The energy of the pill entered his body and quickly healed the wounds on his rib cage. The bruise slowly disappeared and he stopped feeling pain.

'Common Rank pills can't do it that fast right? You really do want a True Rank pill. I wonder when I will be able to make those,' he thought. 'First I need to convert my common Qi to True Qi.'

He checked his surroundings and made sure there was nothing that could sneak attack him right now. He took out the Onyx armor and wore it again. Now that he had the slightest bit of knowledge on how Intents worked, he no longer needed to force himself into such situations.

He looked down at his hands and chuckled a little. Somehow, during all of those minutes he spend fighting, his long nails had somehow not broken despite the heated battle.

'Well, they are durable, I can give them that,' he thought. He looked at the dense forest and wondered if it was at all a good idea to bring out Pearl now.

'Hm… since Meridian Tempering realm beasts are starting to be common now, I should just fight on my own. No need to bring Pearl out and put him in danger,' he decided. He quickly changed the torn robe as well and walked deeper into the forest.

He didn't forget to pick up the alchemy ingredients growing in the forest during the entire time.

'Wasn't it around this deep when senior sister found the Spirit Cleansing lily? Maybe there are some here too,' he thought with optimism in his head.

Every time he came across a beast, he only fought it using his newly founded, still terrible sword intent. It didn't take long for him to realize that his sword intent was about as strong as the 3rd Meridian Tempering realm in terms of damage. It was because of his physical body that its damage during the fight had increased to 5th Meridian Tempering.

'I wonder… if I fully master this, will my damage go higher than it already is?' Alex thought. He thought that was a little too strong and started wondering why everyone didn't try to learn intents from the very start.

If people knew that intent could make your attacks stronger, he didn't doubt they would flock to it. He also didn't doubt that the people who cultivated didn't all know about intent.

'Then, why do they choose not to?' he thought.

He got his answer very soon. It was during his fight with a bird in the 9th Meridian Tempering realm when he started feeling his body getting unusually fatigued.

Not only that, it felt like he needed sleep very soon, or else he would fall down in the forest.

'I see,' he thought. 'No wonder they don't learn it. It's so taxing on the body and mind.'

The body wasn't as bad as a little bit of resting could help him get back on track, but the mind was a different thing. It wasn't easy to refresh a fatigued mind.

And after forcing the way one thought every time one thought, one's mind really did get fatigued.

'I can probably do much better once I find it easier to use Intent. Still, my mind will probably get fatigued then too,' he thought.

Seeing that he was dangerously close to falling asleep, he quickly concealed his cultivation fully and put on the invisible veil. Then, he started walking back, but while taking a different path.

Once again, he had all the ingredients he could want right there. 'I should do this more often,' he thought. After an hour of walking, he brought out Pearl and let him walk next to him.

It was now safe for Pearl to come out again. Pearl happily fought all the beasts they came across and killed them all. It was still shocking to Alex to see this little fluffball kill so many giant beasts like they were nothing.

Soon they were out of the forest. Alex quickly put Pearl back into the tattoo and flew back to the sect. He quietly landed in the outer sect and walked his way back to his house.

Once inside, he finally laid on the grass in the courtyard as the fatigue caught up to him. 'Yeah, I'm not going to use Intent so freely again,' he thought.

Thankfully, he could log out now and not have to worry about this mental fatigue for now.

Before that, he went to his master's house to check if she was alright. The girls were there, but these were different from the ones yesterday.

"Has there been any change?" he asked.

The girls shook their heads. "No, junior brother. Sect Leader has still been sound asleep ever since we took over last night," the girl at the front said.

"I see. Thank you for looking after my master," he said.

"No, no. She's our sect leader too. We are doing this because we want to," the girls said.

Alex nodded and left. He went back to his house and looked at the time. '6 AM huh? Should I leave?' he wondered and quickly decided he should.

After all, he had his assignments to do.

So, he logged out. For the next 4 hours before classes, aside from eating breakfast with the girls, he spent most of the time focused on his assignments.

The assignments for the first years were quite easy, so he could easily finish them in about 4 hours for each. He just needed to do this a little more after returning from the classes and he would finish the assignment for one of the subjects.

He didn't spend all of his time doing assignments, however. Midway through, he would get bored so he went on the internet for quick 5 minute breaks.

During one of those breaks, he went to the forum to check on his post about Structure and Composition. Surprisingly enough, the post was decently popular.

It wasn't popular enough to be on the first page of the forum, but just enough that people who browsed it for longer than 20 minutes easily found it.

One of the things that surprised him the most was the increasing number of negative comments on the post. Most of the people were calling his decision to become an alchemist stupid, as that would take forever to become good at.

He simply laughed at these people and forgot about them. Before getting back to his assignments, he noticed that he had received another message.

Once again, Spicy_Gourd was asking him if he found anything else. Alex quickly replied no, and got back to the assignments.

He went to his classes and returned back before finishing the last bit of assignment he had left for this one subject. Afterward, he logged back into the game.

The first thing he did after entering the game was checked his nails.

"Damn, it's been nearly a day and they still haven't fallen off," he thought. He was starting to believe that his hypothesis about the nails being permanent was close to being true.

He had a few more tests to do with the pill, however. Aside from the duration of the nails, he still needed to learn about the durability of the nails and the length of the nails with the different Harmony pills.

He also needed to know if eating a pill after already consuming one had any extra effects. If it did, he needed to know what.

With all of these things to do, he decided to go to the place with the swine once more.

Just then, his nameplate vibrated inside his storage bag.

'Hmm?' he took it out and scanned it with his spiritual sense. There was a message for him on the nameplate to go to the elder's hall and find the Grand Elder as soon as possible.

'GrandMaster wants to see me? Why?' he wondered and quickly went down the sect leader's mountain. He made his way through the sect valley as he reached the Elder's Hall.

'Where's grand m— Oh, there he is,' he thought and quickly walked up to the grand elder who had been standing in front of the doorway.

"Good Afternoon, Grandmaster," Alex greeted the Grand Elder.

"Oh, you are fina— What's wrong with your hands?" he asked, seeing the 9 long nails on his hands.

"Oh, it's a new pill I'm testing. It grows your nail and makes them harder," he explained.

"You made a new pill?" the Grand Elder said in surprise. The elders around them also stopped to see why the Grand Elder had just exclaimed.

"Ahem, tell me about that later. For now, come with me," He said and brought Alex back in. They walked through the hallways past a few doors. "There, go into the room," he said.

Alex nodded and opened the door. Just as he did that, Spiritual sense suddenly went past him, making him stand on the spot. He was too scared to open the door now.

However, his willingness didn't seem to be a factor, as the person on the other side opened the door without waiting for him to do so.

Immediately, a wave of fragrant perfume hit his nose as two slender hands wrapped around his neck. "Junior brother, you are alive!!"

Luo Mei hugged Alex the moment she saw him and didn't let go. Alex looked past her and saw that Wen Cheng was standing a few meters behind her.

"Master! Sister! You guys returned?" he said in surprise.

"Haha, that's all you can say after terrifying us to death?" Wen Cheng asked with a dry laugh.

"Umm… I wasn't at fault though, Master. Someone kidnapped me," Alex said. He then turned towards Luo Mei who was crying while hugging him and said, "It's okay, sister. I'm alive and fine. I was just stuck in the formation that disoriented me, and I could leave it."

"Sniff Sniff! I'm just glad you're okay," Luo Mei said with watery, red eyes.

"Yes, I did hear it from Elder Chang that you were kidnapped by someone that you didn't recognize?" Wen Cheng asked.

"Oh, that…" Alex quickly checked his surroundings with his spiritual sense and then sent it to Wen Cheng. A few words appeared in his mind that completely shook Wen Cheng to the very core.

"So that did happen! We were right," Wen Cheng said.

"You guys guessed it?" Alex asked in surprise. Luo Mei looked at the two in confusion as she couldn't pick up any hints from the conversation.

"We knew he was after you, so once he went missing, it wasn't very hard to guess. Still, we couldn't make any accusations without evidence, so we had to sit around doing nothing but hope you were alive," Wen Cheng said.

"About him, by the way," Wen Cheng continued, "did he…?"

Alex nodded.

"How?" Wen Cheng asked.

"He overexerted his mental strength in my spiritual sea and died," Alex said. He didn't mention anything about the dark shape he saw or the yellow fog.

"I see… serves him right," Wen Cheng said as he gritted his teeth. "I'm just angry I didn't get to kill him on my own," he said.

Luo Mei couldn't continue listening to the cryptic conversation and asked who they were talking about, but Wen Cheng replied with the "it's better if you don't know it" reply.

"By the way, where were you?" Wen Cheng asked.

Alex quickly calculated where he should have been based on how long the caravan took to reach that one city and answered.

"That brings up the question I've been wanting to ask for a while, Master," Alex said.

"Did you guys not search for me very hard?"