637 Gratitude
Shen Jing suddenly stopped flying and Alex had to stop too.
"So tell me," Shen Jing asked. "Do you want to become stronger right now? Or do you want a better chance at entering the Immortal realm?"
Alex's head was reeling with this new information.
Immortal realm? He had never even thought about reaching that realm before. Even Saint realm was something out of reach for him.
Sure, he had thought that he would reach those realms for sure in the back of his head, but he had never given it more thought than that.
However, when he was suddenly put forth with this question out of nowhere, he didn't know what to say.
Sure, getting stronger right now would be awesome, but if that hampered him in the long term, he wouldn't like that at all.
'Where I am right now isn't my final destination. I need to keep moving forward and reach new heights,' he thought.
He then bowed towards Shen Jing and said, "I would rather be weak right now than not enter the Immortal realm, brother Shen. Thank you for enlightening me."
Shen Jing's serious face turned into a smile, "Good! That's what I wanted you to say."
Alex gave a smile as well.
"Although," Shen Jing said. "I think I can give you some information. You are right about intent and path, but you are forgetting about the main source of what makes your techniques work."
"Source?" Alex thought. "Ah! My Qi."
"I won't he saying anything anymore," Shen Jing said. "Now, let's leave."
This time, Shen Jing grabbed Alex with his aura and flew away once more.
Alex immediately poured out his Qi using his movement technique to disperse the friction he was feeling only to realize that his Qi was vanishing at an astonishing rate.
Alex clearly remembered the same thing happening 2 years ago as well, but that had been a vastly weaker him.
His cultivation base was nothing like what was before, reaching True Master 9th realm. Any moment he wanted to, he could break through to the True Lord realm, reaching the same rank as his body.
He also had a wider meridian, by at least 3 times compared to what he had before. And yet, the speed at which they were flying was threatening to rip Alex's body away.
He could only hope that his body didn't fail him right now, or Shen Jing had enough sympathy in him to help him if that happened.
When they stopped, Alex realized that they were in open grassland. "Is this where the Demon realm is?" Alex asked.
"Haha, no," Shen Jing said. "We are taking a small detour to grab our little friend."
Alex wondered what he meant when he suddenly sensed something through his body. His eyes went wide.
"Pearl!" he cried out and suddenly flew down to the ground. As he got closer, Alex could sense Pearl with his spiritual sense. When he got very close, even Pearl could sense him.
"Brother?" Pearl spoke in an almost perfect voice and looked up from what looked like a golden entrapment.
Shen Jing removed the barrier with a swipe of his hand.
"Pearl!" Alex shouted and hugged the massive Pearl that was about the size of a normal tiger now.
He still looked like a cat, but he was certainly bigger than what he had become when he had just entered the True realms.
Alex's senses washed over Pearl and he couldn't help but give a look of shock.
"True Lord 5th realm? Huh? How?" He shouted in disbelief. He never thought that Pearl would beat him in cultivation.
"I trained very hard, brother," Pearl said. He then put a paw on Alex's shoulder and said, "Don't worry brother. I will protect you now."
Alex felt like a proud father at the moment. "Yes. Yes, you will," he said. "But how did you cultivate so fast?"
Pearl gave a confused look. "I don't know," he said. "I simply cultivated, fought, and ate. So I got strong fast."
"In the last two years, you spent the majority of your time learning Alchemy," Shen Jing said. "While I won't say you wasted it, it certainly slowed you down."
"In the meanwhile, Pearl's entire attention for the last 2 years had been on nothing but the most optimum cultivation training I could give him," Shen Jing said.
Alex bowed deeply. "Thank you for everything you've done for us, brother Shen," he said.
Shen Jing scratched his cheek with his finger and said, "Don't say that. I have my reasons for helping you. Well, Pearl more than you really. I just left you in a jungle to fend for yourself."
"I understand, but I still thank you for what you did for me and Pearl," Alex said. In the back of his head, Alex wondered what Shen Jing's reason was for helping him, but the gratitude he felt overwhelmed his suspicions.
"Alright, are you guys ready?" Shen Jing asked. Pearl switched back to his tiny form and jumped into Alex's robes before Meowing back at Shen Jing.
"Yes, brother Shen," Alex said.
"Right. But, before we do," Shen Jing's fingers flashed with golden light and at the next moment, Alex felt a cool breeze on his face again.
When he touched his face with his hand, the beard he had grown in the last 2 years had gone away just like that.
He felt his hair, but his hair was still coming up to his shoulders. He wanted to grow it out longer, so he thanked Shen Jing for not cutting it all.
"You still look like a rogue cultivator, but that should be fine," he said and immediately flew while carrying both Alex and Pearl.
Alex was better prepared this time and had his technique block all of the air.
They flew for about half an hour with Alex losing nearly half of his Qi. Shen Jing slowed down a bit near the end and finally came to a stop about 5 minutes later.
"We're here," He said as he slowed down to a halt.
"Humans!" Pearl said as he looked down below from Alex's chest.
"Huh? I can't see anything," Alex said as he was still too far high to be able to see anything with his sense.
"Hmm… oh, my bad," Shen Jing said and with a simple gesture, removed the golden barrier inside his eyes that had been blocking his vision forever.
As the golden haze disappeared, the normal light entered Alex's eyes making him wince back into closing his eyes again.
When he tried to open them again, he had to force them to stay open. When he did so, his eyes started tearing up.
However, even though the tears, he could see the massive improvements in his vision.
"I can see so much clearer now," he said.
"Of course," Shen Jing said. "You've nearly crossed 2 minor realms during the period in which you couldn't see. It's only obvious you should be able to see better."
Alex wiped his tears and forced himself to look at the white clouds and the blue sky. He then turned downwards and saw the crowd that was gathered below next to a giant monument of some sort.
There were trees and grassland surrounding the monument, but neither that nor the people took Alex's attention.
His attention was instead stolen by what was surrounding the place.
The land the humans were gathered was actually quite small, just about a kilometer in diameter.
Aside from that, it was all surrounded by the ocean.
"The Ocean!" Alex said with a hint of surprise on his face. He had seen the ocean before, but it was still very surprising.
He looked out all around him, and aside from the direction which they came from, everything else was surrounded by water.
"Is that the mainland?" Alex asked, pointing to where he had come from.
"Yes," Shen Jing said.
"It's so far," Alex said. It was almost 10 kilometers away from what he could see. "I heard beasts in the ocean are scarier than normal."
"They are. You shouldn't try to fight them… for now," Shen Jing said, looking to the side to see more people flying by.
Alex noticed them as well, and almost every single one of the older ones gave off a Saint realm aura.
"Let's head down, and wait for the demon realm to open up."
