507 9th Mind Tempering realm

The 'auction' went just as it always did. The beasts had brought Spirit stones, monster cores, and plants that they considered rare.

Alex would look through them as always, and if he ever found something interesting, he would exchange them for a pill he had.

Today, he managed to get 2 rare Saint-rank alchemy ingredients, 2 9th Mind Tempering realm monster core, and finally quite a lot of spirit stones.

They were common spirit stones, so they weren't worth as much as True spirit stones, but there wasn't anything else he found useful amongst the bunch of things the beasts had brought for him, so he took those instead.

Still, this made up to a few ten thousand dollars a day, so he couldn't get mad about it. Once he was done for the day, he told Yao Jia to tell them to go away and come back tomorrow at the same time.

Yao Jia did as Alex said and sent the beasts away.

"It's amazing to see how quickly they changed their stance on getting your pills once they saw how well it did," She said.

"Well, it's only right that you don't accept things from strangers. Especially things that you eat. Human children are taught this from a very young age," Alex said.

He looked at the 2 cores in his hands and smiled. He could now finally break through to the 9th Mind Tempering realm. After that… it was just one more step to the True Realm.

"Oh right, what's happening with my requests? I haven't heard about anything," Alex said

"Well… it's under consideration. We don't really know about alchemy, so the elders are a little hesitant to let you go out to pick ingredients. Who knows what you can make with your pills," Yao Jia said.

"As for the other one… senior Chen himself keeps saying later, so there is nothing we can do. You will just have to wait for him to get tired enough to accept your request," Yao Jia said.

"Can't lady Ren order him or something? It's just for a really small thing that I wanted clarifications on," Alex said.

"No," Yao Jia said. "He is really stubborn and also very old. Most of the time, he just wants to sit in his home and sleep all the time. He can get real grumpy if we force him to work more than he wants."

Alex couldn't help but sigh when he heard that. It had been a month since he wanted to use the yang jades in his storage bag that were just lying there doing nothing. But it seemed that they would have to stay there for much longer once again.

"Sigh, I guess I will wait then," Alex said and brought out a pill. "Here, this one is for you. Thank you for helping me with everything."

"Oh, a pill?" Yao Jia's eyes shined. "What pill is this? Can I eat it?"

"Uhh, don't eat it. It's a healing pill. If you ever get hurt, you can eat it then to get better. It works for True rank cultivators, so don't bother giving it to your father if he ever needs one," Alex said.

"So, it's for only me huh? I like it," she said.

Alex smiled and waved her goodbye to return back to his room. He had missed today's training, but that was only because he had already planned to go to the amusement park beforehand.

He walked into his room and saw Pearl sitting on top of the bed.

"Oh, hey Pearl. You returned?" Alex asked. "How was training?"

"MEOW!" Pearl said, implying that it was the same as always, which was fun.

"Oh, nice. Can you say that in the human tongue?" Alex asked. " Yao Jia is teaching you to speak right?"

Pearl stared at him for a few seconds and said, "Meow Meow Meow."

Alex snickered when he heard that. Despite his intelligence and cultivation, Pearl was still a child. And it seemed that his vocal cords just weren't developed enough at such an early age.

He would have to wait for a bit longer before he could speak in the human tongue. "Alright, don't force it," Alex said.

Alex then brought out an 8th Mind Tempering realm beast's monster core and ate it. He slowly closed his eyes and drifted into his spiritual sea where he was attacked by the spirit of the beast in the core and had to defeat it before gaining the Qi from it.

He opened up the status page and saw that it was enough to break through, so without thinking much, he broke through once more.

The Qi in his body got considerably thicker to the point that he was having a hard time differentiating it from True Qi. He didn't doubt that his current common Qi was way denser than most True Realm cultivators starting Qi.

"Just a few more days now," he thought. He had the 2 cores he got from today, so he had no reason to worry about anything anymore.

It was evening time, so he decided to start cultivating once more.

He called Pearl to sit down in front of him and opened up Pearl's status page as well.

"Hm, 2nd realm of Mind Tempering huh. You're doing not bad as well. If you keep this up, you should be able to enter True Realm in about a month as well," Alex said.

"Meow!" Pearl said that he could make it faster if he got monster cores too.

"I told you, didn't I? Cultivation is always better than any other form of Qi acquisition. I have to do it because normally gathering Qi just isn't worth it for me anymore. But for you with your cultivation method, it's super-fast, so you should keep with it," Alex said.

"Come on, let's cultivate now."

Pearl sat down on his lap and started closing his eyes to cultivate. He slowly started glowing, and random cuts started appearing all around Alex.

"Let me start as well," Alex said and slowly breathed in and out. He got into a routine of inhaling and exhaling, and before he even realized it, he had fallen asleep.

Alex woke up early in the morning and noticed that his True Qi had also gotten much, much denser.

"With this much True Qi, can I perhaps fight against someone in 3rd True Disciple realm?" he wondered. His training partner as of yet had only been Yao Jia, but her cultivation base was in the True King realm. It was likely that she was just as, if not stronger, than both of his masters.

"I really wonder how strong I've gotten," he thought. He stopped Pearl who was still cultivating and logged out to go get some food.

Once he returned, he went out of the underground with Pearl to train once more. He made his way to the palace aboveground and fought with Yao Jia for nearly 3 hours this time.

He tried to keep himself from using True Qi as much as he could, but from time to time, he would end up using it in his training.

'I probably won't need to worry about keeping True Qi as much now,' he thought. 'After all, my normal Qi is capable of making True rank pills too.'

Once the training ended, he left the palace and went out to the garden to rest in the sun.

After resting for a few hours, he went to the alchemy room. He took a few minutes to decide on what pills to make and in the end, decided upon the pills that he could cure beasts once again.

Alex didn't really know what the beasts needed, after all, he couldn't go outside to check on their daily life. However, he was sure that no matter if it was peaceful or not, healing pills were always asked for.

So, he mostly made healing pills, with a few pills that helped in faster cultivation speed for a set amount of time.

It took him nearly 3 hours to finish 10 pills. Thankfully, his common Qi could also help him in making True Pills now, although he had to use more of them to compensate.

Once he was done, he went outside to auction them off once more. This time, he took no monster cores, and only spirit stones and herbs.

"That was a good sale for you," Yao Jia said.

"Thanks, you helped a lot too," Alex replied.

"Don't thank me yet. I have good news for you," she said.

Alex got curious and listened attentively.

"Your request to go outside has been accepted."