696 Bristled Spider
"What was that?" Han Daiyu asked with a surprised face.
"How do you know a beast, junior?" Shangguan Quan asked.
"Oh, we met the last time I was here with a senior," Alex said without hesitation.
"And you made a big enough impression for that beast to remember?" Quan asked.
"No, I'm afraid I don't have such capabilities. It was the senior I was with who made the impression," Alex said with a rueful smile. "The Hydra most likely came because he was scared that the senior was back here again."
"Oh, Who is this senior that would have such reputations?" Hongqi asked.
"I'm afraid I can't answer that," Alex said. "The senior's information is not mine to give."
"Not even a name?" Quan asked.
Alex simply shook his head.
"Fine, continue with what you were doing," Quan said and flew back to the ship in the air, leaving behind the 3 of them.
Alex turned around and gave an apologetic look. "I'm sorry your cultivation was disrupted because of me," he said.
"It's alright. Since we know where to go, we should leave now," Liang Qiu said.
"Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah! Let's go quickly. I can't wait to eat that pill," Han Daiyu excitedly urged them all to leave.
Alex nodded and the three of the left the area. Now that they knew the general area of where they had to go, Alex started going through all the different memories of anywhere he was around.
He didn't trace it all the way, but just enough to see where he went next or where he had come from.
The further they went along, the more Alex started regretting not taking the ship there. He forgot just how long it would take to walk through this swampland.
Even after daybreak, they were nowhere near the willow at all. Instead, they were forced to keep fighting the different beasts along the way.
It wasn't until halfway into the next day that Alex reached a place that looked familiar to a place he had been after arriving at the willow.
"We're close," he exclaimed and looked around as he started tracing the memories back to the willow.
"This way," he said and walked in a certain direction.
The closer he got, the more Alex started sprinting. The girls followed him for another 5 minutes, and finally, they reached the location where the willow was.
Just like Alex's description, the willow tree looked extremely normal with green trees and brown bark. But in a sea of abnormalities, the simple scenery of normal looked very unique.
Alex slowly walked closer to the tree and stopped.
Liang Qiu stopped as well when her spiritual sense noticed the same thing Alex did.
"What are those?" she asked curiously.
"It looks like a bunch of porcupines stuck toge— oh," Alex saw the beast slowly rise out from underwater and finally saw what it was.
"Oh," Liang Qiu finally saw it too. "A Bristled Spider."
A dark brown spider with hairy legs slowly climbed onto the willow while its 8 different colored eyes never left any of them.
Its back was full of green and red bristles which seemed like it would be ready to shoot out at any moment.
Alex's eyes shined when he saw that. "Ooh, can I fight it?" he asked excitedly.
"Uh… yeah, sure," Liang Qiu said.
"Yeah, let him fight. He's shown us he's able to handle such beasts," Han Daiyu said.
"Yeah, but this one is especially troublesome, you know," Liang Qiu said. "If it's true that each of those bristles contains a different type of poison, then he would be in trouble if he is hit by them."
"He had the shield," Han Daiyu said. Liang Qiu had no more reasons to keep him back and let him fight.
Alex felt the True Lord 6th realm cultivation base of the spider and got a little easier. He wasn't here to fight a difficult battle, but to test out his strength after he had broken through to the 3rd realm.
Alex brought out his shield and kept it floating around him. At the same time, he brought out the poison sword and charged the spider.
The moment rushed towards the spider, the spider suddenly sprayed poison out of the bristles.
Alex hadn't expected it to shoot liquid instead of the bristles themselves. However, given how far he was, he managed to dodge it easily and continued with his charge.
At the same time, he sent out a water splash toward the spider. Alex's water slash was a mortal grade technique so it was very poor in terms of damage. Had it not been Alex who used it, the damage the technique would have done was far lower than his own cultivation base.
With Alex's Qi, it easily reached the power of True Lord's 8th realm. However, Alex was clearly playing around as the water slash struck quite far from the spider.
"What are you doing? Finish it quickly," Han Daiyu said.
"I can't," Alex shouted. "I don't want to damage the tree."
Only after hearing him did Han Daiyu realize how stupid she was being. "Sorry, continue at your own pace," she said and looked away to hide her embarrassed face.
"I think he's hiding his powers from us," Liang Qiu spoke directly into Han Diayu's mind.
"What do you mean?" Han Daiyu asked aloud, before realizing she wasn't supposed to speak here.
"His sword skill feels like something one can only acquire after a long time of practice. You can tell he knows the sword very well and knows exactly how he can use it," she said.
Han Daiyu shook her head, not understanding the implications.
"Anyone who's mastered to this great level of the sword is bound to start showing signs of Sword Intent at the very least," She told her. "However, I can't find a hint of it on his sword."
"Then…" Han Daiyu murmured.
"He's hiding it," Liang Qiu said. "He's hiding his Sword Intent. He's stronger than he's making himself out to be."
"Which was already surprising, to begin with."
Liang Qiu suddenly brought out a talisman and asked her master, "is his cultivation base real? Are we being misled?"
"No," an answer came from Quan. "It really is True Lord 3rd realm."
"Hmm…" Liang Qiu thought to herself. 'Then is he perhaps using his Sword Intent from time to time to give himself a boost in damage?'
Liang Qiu wouldn't even begin to think that Alex had Sword Qi as that was not something one could acquire while so young while being a prodigy in alchemy.
Expecting him to have Sword Intent was already her given him high appraisal based on his age and profession.
Other than that, she also simply wouldn't imagine Alex to be a body cultivator either. Those usually never got stronger than self-tempering realm levels of strength due to how hard it was to cultivate one's body.
Alex's fight with the spider continued. He sent out weak slashes from time to time to get it off of the tree, and when it didn't, he started getting more and more aggressive and went into close-ranged combat.
He slashed at the back of the spider, but surprisingly it was too tough an exterior for him to breakthrough. At least, not while the bristles were still on the spider.
He needed to force it to throw them his way.
So, Alex started to become a greater threat to the spider than he originally led it to believe.
With just the slightest hint of Metal Qi poured into his sword Alex struck its back once again.
This time, there was a definite mark left behind on its back and even a few of the bristles were broken and leaking venoms.
Immediately, the bristles flared to life as the spider carelessly sprayed it all in Alex's direction.
Using the barrier on the shield, Alex was able to block all of the red and green bristles.
Each passing day, he was starting to like the shield more and more. After the bristles stopped firing, Alex put away the barrier and charged forward.
But as he did, he realized the spider had kept some bristles to itself, which it only threw out a moment later.
Alex hurriedly tried to bring back the barrier, but he was a step too late and one of the bristles suddenly hit his thigh.
Alex felt pain in his thigh as the poison in the bristles started affecting him instantly.
The girls saw this and tried to hurry over, but Alex stopped them. He pulled out the bristle, leaving a deep wound that bled a lot.
He started circulating his Qi as per the cultivation technique and brought out a pill to eat.
While his body got rid of the poison, he used the healing energy from the pill to fix his body.
Then, he stood back up and stared directly at the spider. There was no wasting any more time now.
The moment he confirmed that the spider had no more bristles, he ran directly onto it and started making deep gashes on its body.
The spider tried to fight back, but nothing it did could stop Alex whose body cultivation was the same as its own cultivation.
Finally, Alex severed its head from its body while its 8 wide eyes stared up.
Alex took a big sigh of relief and slumped to the ground. After a few seconds, he turned back to the girl to see their concerned faces.
"I'm fine," Alex said. "More importantly, you should start getting those barks."
