657 Followed

The door to the cultivation room opened and Alex walked out with Pearl in his robes.

He looked warily outside, wondering if he really had stayed in that room for an entire month.

The light at the end of the hallway shined with people outside, so Alex was more sure that the 10 days had not passed.

'So it really has been only a single day huh?' he thought and slowly walked outside.

When he reached outside, he saw a massive group of people simply watching him.

"192!" the lady next to him shouted out and someone walked past Alex after showing his paper.

"What are you doing here? Leave," the lady shouted at Alex. Alex turned and looked at her. She was so weak and yet she was giving orders to everyone.

'That's the power of backing, huh?' he thought and left. In the back of his mind, he wondered if he should find a powerful organization to back him when he left this realm.

But when he thought about it, he already had the Alchemy guild. If as he had thought, he went to the formation guild and got entered there as well, he would likely improve as well.

After that, he planned on learning the runes too, which would give him extra knowledge to go around in the future.

As he left the entrance and walked back to the crowd, he couldn't help but wonder what day it was. He had spent too much time feeling nothing but pain back in that room.

Alex's mind was in so much disarray that he had to ask someone how many days it had been since the realm opened.

'Ah, it's been 6 days already huh?' he thought. Then he thought about the 3rd day. 'Wasn't that door supposed to open sometime soon? Sometime between tomorrow and the day after tomorrow, right?'

Alex needed to go back to the 'House of the Undying' and wait around for it to open up. After that… he would likely have to think about that after it was open.

He could likely open up the door right now if he had help from others, but he didn't want to show off his ability to anyone else.

So, he would just have to wait out the days.

'I wonder what I should do after the door is open?' he wondered, there didn't seem to be anything interesting going on after that in the realm.

'Well, if people start leaving early because of boredom, then I can enter the various rooms and find some treasures for myself,' he thought.

That was assuming this place even had treasures anymore.

'I hope it does,' he thought and walked down the mountain.

Pearl really wanted to go to the small lake that healed them to clean themselves.

It seemed Pearl cared more about being clean than being wet now. He still remembered the time when he hated getting into the pond with him.

'Ah~ he's growing by the day,' Alex thought.

As he walked along, with not a care in the world, he suddenly sensed something. It was a feeling that was hard to explain.

It was something negative for sure, but it more so felt like someone's gaze was on him.

Alex didn't turn around and slowly spread out his spiritual sense to see if he could find anyone with it.

'Ah, it's this guy,' he thought as memories came back to him and his eyes grew colder.

He acted like he didn't see the man, or his 2 friends that he had brought along and went deeper into the forest, away from where he needed to be going.

After nearly 20 minutes of walking, Alex thought he was far away that no one else would see him fight.

"You guys must be quite interested in me to even follow me to such an obscure location," Alex said as he turned around. "Are you not afraid something bad will happen while you aren't around people?"

The man from a few days ago, or a month ago for everyone here, showed up in front of him from behind a tree.

"You really are quite strong to have sensed us coming," he said. "However, that doesn't mean anything. Now that I have help, I will be sure to kill you and take your beast for myself."

"Let's not get hasty now," the short-haired man next to him said as he brought out a metal bowl. "If I like it, I might keep it for myself too."

"Hehe, you jest quite a lot, senior brother," the other man with a thick mustache said. "You already have 4 beasts. Any more and you will have trouble breaking through, you know?"

"You don't have to worry about my spirit, younger brother. I ate a spirit enhancing pill some time ago and I can handle 5 beasts easily," the man with the short hair said.

"Senior brother, Junior brother, I was the one who gave you the information. You can take his items, but you can't take away the beast from me," the man said.

"Hehe, how about the one with the least beasts gets that… what was it? A Cat? Right, that cat," the youngest one said.

Alex looked in surprise. 'Did he forget how close to death he was? Or is he relying on this older man with True Lord 7th realm cultivation base?' Alex wondered.

The man had improved to True Lord 6th realm, and the youngest one was still at True Lord 5th realm.

'I wonder if their beasts improved as well?' Alex thought. Even though their cultivation bases were slightly hard to quantify against his own, he knew for sure that Pearl's cultivation base in the 6th realm could easily deal 9th realm damage.

So, he saw no reason to fear.

Still, he decided not to let Pearl fight this battle. He wanted to find out how much his own ability had grown.

"Alright, stop wasting time. I don't have all day," Alex said.

"Why? You going somewhere?" the youngest one asked.

"As a matter of fact, yes. So please hurry up. I need to test my newfound strength," Alex said.

All 3 of the men immediately narrowed their eyes. "You want to test your strength against us? Keep wishing," the oldest one said.

"Junior brother, send out your beast and beat him. Make sure not to kill him. We need to wait until he brings out that cat," the old man said.

"Sure!" the youngest one said and brought out a True Lord 6th realm Steelbeaked Hawk.

The young man checked Alex's right arm to make sure there was no tattoo, and said, "Go tear off his right arm."

The hawk screeched as it flew up to the sky and came down at a very fast speed.

Just when it was about to reach him, Alex swung his empty hand above him. Even as the Hawk swooped down, an illusory sword only Alex could see passed through it.

The Hawk's body froze up, no longer as elegant, and crashed onto Alex.

After getting cut with the spiritual sword, the Hawk could no longer produce the same amount of defense as it previously could. Still, its speed never feels.

So, when it slammed onto the stone-solid Alex, its head caved in and within seconds, the beast died.

Alex swiped off the bits of blood from his robes and looked back at the men. "Are you going to die without having your beasts out?" he asked as his sword appeared in his hand.

The youngest of them cried out and brought out a yellow snake.

The oldest of them frowned and brought out a Green Bull, a Purple Pheasant, a Black Snake, and an Emerald Wolf.

Finally, the one that Alex was after brought out his Ape, Spider, and Lizard.

Each and every one of the beasts was strong, but not a single one of them was over True Lord 7th realm.

"Finally," Alex said and dashed forward.

The Ape and the Bull ran in front of all the other beasts. Alex jumped to the right of the Bull and used the Ape's incoming arm to spin himself on top of it and slashed at the same arm.

He wasn't able to cut it in two, but his sword did go in deep.

When the Pheasant sent out fire projectiles towards him that themselves were in the shape of Pheasants, Alex dashed backward and sent his own water slashes to destroy them.

Water Slash was a Mortal grade technique, but that was enough to destroy these attacks.

The ground vibrated as spikes appeared from below it. Alex could see that it was the job of the Black Snake.

Alex spun in mid-air to dodge the incoming fang-shaped metal attack of the yellow snake and created a small explosion next to him to destroy the spider's webs.

At the same time, he cut the vines that were creeping behind him and spun mid-air to kick the bull back.

Alex let the spit of the lizard land on him as the poison did nothing to him and in one fell sweep cut the wolf that was trying to swing at him.

After the wolf was cut, Alex turned around and gave the 3 men a wide grin.

The fight had only lasted a couple of seconds at best, but they understood that Alex was very strong.

Just then, they heard a groan

Even Alex was surprised as he looked in the direction of the groan.

The Ape was now down on the ground and was holding its cut arm as it fidgeted around.

'What's up with that?' Alex thought.