668 SouthShore City

Alex looked at the familiar but empty island. Not a single soul could be found here at all.

"I'm finally out," he said with a sigh of relief. "Shen Jing didn't wait for me, huh? Well, I can't blame him if what I found out is true."

Now, he only needed to know how many days he'd been inside during the last 3 days he spent in the Timeless Palace.

'I have time,' Alex thought and stood up to walk over to the monument. He wanted to check if he could go inside or not.

He placed his palm on the surface of the monument and let his Qi flow in. A yellow light shined throughout the runes all over the monument and Alex felt it activate.

However, when it tried to teleport him over, he felt the space not wanting to budge, and as such he couldn't go in at all.

"Tsk!" he thought and stopped.

There was no point in trying. 'I guess I will have to wait for another 10… no, fewer years for it to open up. Then, I can go through all the houses on the 5th mountain, and probably that door on the 6th mountain as well' he thought.

Then, it was time to leave.

Alex concealed his aura fully and became invisible before flying through the sky. He even reined in his spiritual sense just in case there was something terrifying in the water.

From everything he had learned, the ocean was extremely terrifying and he did not want to find out how.

It took him a couple of minutes to cross the 10 or so kilometers distance that was between the island and the mainland.

Once he reached there, Alex continued until he saw some light.

Since he knew that he was far to the south, Alex needed to navigate his way towards the southwestern side of the central area of the empire, the place where the Radiant City was.

After flying for half an hour, Alex quickly found a city. It was starting to get dark, so the glowing lights were all over the place as hard to notice from the sky.

He flew down to the outer edge of the city, before entering on foot.

"Woah!" Alex thought with a bit of surprise when he saw that the city was quite developed.

He could sense the True realm aura from every person that walked through the street. With a bit of logic, he was sure that Saint Realm experts were hidden in the city for sure.

There was no way such a place wouldn't be a lawless zone otherwise.

Just as he thought that figures in colorful robes flew across the sky. 'Lightsworn? No wonder this place is so safe,' he thought. It also reminded him of his wish to become one soon.

He didn't really care about justice or stopping criminals. He wanted to do it for a completely selfish choice, which was to get his arm back.

'I still don't know if it will even work,' he thought. 'What should I do now?'

Suddenly, he remembered something. "The pill… I need the ingredients,"  he thought. Then, he remembered the Blood Spirit Ginseng that he had ignored for 2 and a half years, and then some time.

'It must've been gone by now,' Alex thought. Since the city was a big one, he was sure that an Alchemy Guild must be in this city.

After asking for directions, Alex quickly reached the center of the city where all the different guilds were located.

'Southshore City Branch of Alchemy Guild' it wrote on the front of the board.

Alex walked through the door. He saw the familiar layout of the Alchemy guild and found his way to the reception.

"Excuse me, is there a Blood Spirit Ginseng in the sale currently?" he asked.

The receptionist put on a welcoming face and looked up the information. After a few seconds, she gave him the bad news.

Alex took out two spirit stones and said, "Broaden the search to the entire empire."

The receptionist took the stones and checked. Still, she returned the same bad news.

"I'm afraid there isn't one available at the moment," she said.

"Can you tell me when the last one was sold? And to whom?" Alex asked.

"Due to our policy to protect customer's privacy, we are unable to tell you," she said.

"You can't even tell me the date?" Alex asked.

"Wait for a second," the girl checked once more and replied. "The last Blood Spirit Ginseng was sold about a year and a half ago."

Alex sighed. If only he had been in the city at that time.

"I have another question not related to any of this, which I hope you can answer me," Alex asked.

"What would you like to know, fellow Daoist?" she asked.

Daoist… he was one now, wasn't he?

"Do you know about the secret realm that everyone visits every 10 years?" he asked.

The girl nodded.

"Can you tell me when the next opening of it is?" he asked.

"Hmm, I believe the last one ended just under 3 years ago, so you will have to wait 7 years, fellow Daoist," she said.

Alex remained stunned. 3 years… really? 3 goddamn years? If he had been outside, he would have been 24 years by now.

Alex thanked the girl and went to sit at one of the chairs to the side.

'3 whole years huh? I lost 3 years just like that,' he thought. 'And in that time, I lost my chance to get back my arm as well.'

'Although, I do have some more opportunities now,' he thought. ' For one, I hope that Shen girl has gotten better with her water arts so that I can ask for her to heal my hand.'

'Secondly, the princess hopefully got learned enough with the healing crystal to get my arm back as well. Aside from that, I have nothing else to do,' he thought.

"Wait no," he thought. He abruptly stood forward and walked toward the receptionist.

"Would you happen to have an idea on how to help a beast come out of an egg?" he asked.

"Sorry?" the receptionist was surprised by the random question she was thrown at her.

Alex repeated the question, but the girl didn't know. "Hmm… then do you know if there is a library in this city that may have the information?" Alex asked.

"Yes," the receptionist said and gave him the direction.

Alex quickly walked out of the guild and turned left to go towards the library.

However, before he could do so, he heard a commotion coming on from close by.

Alex turned his head to look at a crowd trying to push itself through the small doors of a building.

Alex tilted his head up to read the words 'Southshore City Branch of Talisman guild'.

"Talisman?" he looked confused. "Why are they all trying to go inside a Talisman guild all of a sudden?"

A voice spoke loudly, but Alex couldn't hear it over the crowd at all. He did manage to hear a few words such as 'Today' and 'Winners.'

He couldn't help but wonder what that was all about.

The people started to disperse after the announcement and Alex went back into the Alchemy guild to see the receptionist again.

"There is a crowd in front of the Talisman guild, do you know why that is?" Alex asked.

"A crowd? Oh, the competition results must have come back," the girl said nonchalantly.

"Competition?" Alex asked curiously.

"Yes," the girl said. "Did you not hear that the Talisman competition was taking place this week?"

"Sorry, Talisman competition?" Alex asked.

The girl made a weird face and looked at him.

"Sister, can you simply assume that I'm a newborn child and explain to me everything?" he asked.

The girl gave an even weirder look.

"Are you one of those player people?" she asked.

"Sigh, yes. I am. It's a little embarrassing to say, but I went into deep cultivation not long ago and only came out recently. So I do not know what is going on at all," Alex said.

"I see," the girl said. "Since you are going to the library, look up information on Guild Competitions. That should give you more information than I can."

"I see, thank you," Alex said and was about to walk out when he remembered that he was a little low on spirit stones.

But there was nothing to worry about. After all, he remembered that before he went to his training, he had given a lot of pills to the Alchemy guild to sell.

However, Alex couldn't help but sigh. 'I just told her I was a player who is supposed to have lost his memory. I can't just go and tell her to bring out the money now,' he thought.

'Screw it. I will have to make do with what I already have' he thought and continued walking.

He made his way to the library that was not very far away. Once he entered, he immediately found the librarian and asked for two different sets of books.

One for hatching beasts out of eggs, and another for these so-called Guild Competitions.

Once he got the book and even paid for it, he had them unlocked and sat down somewhere to read it.

First, he opened the book about the beast eggs.

There were many things written in there, most of which Alex found boring to read. Still, he did and an hour later, he was done reading the book.

"I see," he thought. "So if I give my blood essence to the egg, it will start the hatching process huh?"