562 The Skill in the Stele

Alex returned back to his sister's room to talk for a while before going to the other room to rest.

Once again, he had no cultivation method he could use, so he was forced to not cultivate at all. He was fine with that. He had too much on his mind to cultivate right now.

Now that he was finally free, he tried the things he was too preoccupied with to try.

"Status!" he said. However, nothing appeared. That was expected. Everything game-related was gone already after all.

He looked to the top right, the time had disappeared as well. He thought of other things that might have been game-related.

He brought out pills and could no longer see their name or harmony floating around them, but he could tell what the harmony was.

'This pill has 45%,' he thought. It was somewhat simple to tell the harmony. He tried with other pills and even used a pill tester to test it.

As expected he was right about it all. 'Maybe it was never the system that helped me know it, but the Alchemy God's Knowledge,' he thought.

The skill he had gotten at the start was one of the most unique skills he had encountered to date.

Even after having the entire book in his mind, he couldn't read it all. It was like the words themselves had a seal on it that could only be opened once one's cultivation base reached a certain realm and changed their entire Qi.

However, there was something Alex could tell about the book. Surprisingly, it only had 3 more layers to unlock. As for Flame Mastery Scripture, it only had 1 more layer.

Alex took a deep breath and started shuffling through the rest of the skills in his mind, but there was nothing different about them.

"Hmm, what about the focus mode?" he wondered and tried it out. He knew it was a player-only skill, but… he was optimistic.

He shouldn't have been. As expected for it too, there was no more focus mode.

Alex slumped back on the bed. Too many things had changed, and it would take him some time to get used to it.

A smile crept upon his face, a small smile. 'My body evolved huh?' he thought. 'Does that mean it's in the Celestial grade now? I wonder if anything's changed.'

'Wait, does that mean master's body was a Celestial grade body as well?' he thought. 'That should be correct given how strong her body was compared to mine.'

Thinking about his master once more, he started getting sad again. Many things had happened today, major things, but that did not take away the pain he still felt when thinking about his master.

He decided to stop caring about whatever the game elements or himself for now and went to sleep.

Cultivators didn't necessarily need sleep, they didn't even need to care about the day and night cycle, mostly. Having been a mortal merely 7 months ago, the habit of sleeping at night time was still hard to let go of.

Alex slept for as long as he wanted. When he woke up, he couldn't help but feel rejuvenated.

He got up, leaving a bed that looked as good as if it were ironed, and walked out of the door.

His sister was already gone, possibly to train with Du Yuhan. They were after all starting to feel like they were too weak to help when someone they cared about was in danger.

Alex went to find Wen Cheng and asked him about the graduation.

"It's still set to be in 2 weeks, but I can move it forward by a week if you want me to," Wen Cheng said.

Then, he put on a saddened face and asked, "then I will assume you chose Alchemy over normal cultivation?"

Alex shook his head. "No, master. I am choosing to go with neither. I will go do my own thing for now. I… think I found a way to get Pearl back. There are some people in the capital that can maybe take me into the beast's realm."

"After there, I will likely go to the other side to the Luminance empire and find out if there is a way to heal my arm."

"If I can do that, I will come back and help you with yours as well," Alex said.

"I see," Wen Cheng said. "I would rather you don't put yourself in such a precarious position for us. However, I'm proud of knowing that you want to go out and venture into the world on your own. You have my approval."

Wen Cheng smiled towards Alex and patted him on his shoulders. "Thank you, master," he said and turned around to leave.

"Are you okay?" Wen Cheng asked, just as he was about to leave.

"Hmm… I'm fine," Alex said.

"Oh, okay," Wen Cheng said and watched Alex leave. He then slowly looked at his left arm and thought to himself, 'it didn't look like he had a fever or anything.'

He quickly forgot about it and went to do his own thing.

Alex went down to the sect crater. He planned on checking his strength this morning. During yesterday's short scuffle, he had realized that he had gotten stronger, but without the system, he was a little unsure of what realm he had reached in either his body or his cultivation.

He walked past the group of disciples that were fighting in the stages. None of them recognized him at all, which was understandable.

He was making his way to the Training Hall, when he saw something that caught his eyes.

"Ah, the stele," he thought. He hadn't been here in a long time. The last time he remembered being here was around the time when he was in the 3rd Mind Tempering realm.

That was over 2 months ago. Now, he was an entire realm higher. However, there was one problem now.

He no longer had the game system in him to translate the writing for him. Previously, he remembered the other soul reading the writing on it with his spiritual sense, which would give him a general idea of what was written on it, but that was only due to the system.

Would it even make sense to read it now that he was not a player anymore?

'It won't hurt to try right?' he thought and walked towards the Black Stele.

In the morning light, the Stele shined with iridescent glory, which could only be viewed at a certain angle.

Alex took a deep breath. He was both nervous and excited as he thought of using his spiritual sense on the stele once more.

"My spiritual sense has grown a lot. It will definitely not be able to attack me back this time, right?" he thought and opened his eyes to pour out his spiritual sense.

However, just as he was about to, he noticed something.

He could understand the words. He couldn't read them, just like previously with the other Alex, but he could understand them. Unlike the other him, he didn't even have to use his spiritual sense.

He felt exhilarated. 'So it had nothing to do with the system? Then what?' he wondered.

He looked back at the Stele and started reading it with a happy face. However, just as he was doing that, he started feeling a load on his mind.

Just reading the word was hurting him a bit. "Dammit! Is it attacking me for just reading too? How the hell does it realize I am reading it?" Alex thought.

Still, he forced himself to read the Stele.

After reading for a while, understanding the meanings behind those words, he stopped after reading the last word.

His head ached a lot, but it was manageable. 'Holy shit! That was so hard,' he thought.

He rubbed his head and waited for it to hurt a little less. "Is this a sort of security preventing people from reading the stele? I thought it was only supposed to hurt me when I used my spiritual sense," he thought.

After the pain died down a little, he started gathering the information he had learned.

Previously when he had read it, he had learned just two words from it, Attack and Weapon. At that time, he thought it was just a simple physical skill that used a weapon.

However, now he had come to learn it was not.

"Change the shape of my spiritual sense, and turn it into a weapon shape to attack? That sounds amazing," he thought.

Turning spiritual sense into a weapon. He could already change it into a fist and attack, but having a weapon with you that you could use endlessly was pretty amazing.

'I assume this is a mental attack too, right?' he thought. He wasn't sure, and wouldn't be until he could use it.

He decided to test it out and went to the Training Hall.

He asked for a room that would usually be asked by elders. Since the disciple's training room would no longer be strong enough to stop him, he went with the stronger ones.

He first decided to test out his physical strength. He closed his eyes and took in his cultivation until he felt like nothing but a mortal.

Once that was complete, he looked at the puppet in front of him and dashed towards it.

He had no sword or any sort of weapons on him, so he could only use his fist to strike.

The punch landed on the puppet and a message popped up on it to tell him his strength.

-True Lord 1st Realm-