899 Break from Mining
Night had fallen outside, but Alex didn't give any thought to that. It wasn't just him that worked here endlessly. Even the other Saint realm cultivators remained inside as long as they could to make the most of their time.
Alex continued cutting up the wall for the next 5 or 6 hours until nothing much remained left to be cut after he was done.
However, that did not mean he could leave just yet. Given how sharp most of the edges were, people would realize that he was cutting up ores here after he left.
So, he needed to make the hole appear more natural, something that would appear after a saint realm had worked on this portion for a long time.
Alex released his blood armor again and used the blood from there to strike at the wall all over again.
He took a few hours of break in between to cultivate and get back his Qi. In the meantime, while he didn't do anything, Alex brought out Pearl and let him train on the wall.
Pearl's skill sent attacks flying left and right s he began training as well.
His shockwave technique didn't work as well against the wall, but the paw strike did work well. The skills Alex had bought a long time ago were being put to good use finally.
Many hours later, he was finally done. He was quite tired and felt drained, but he was done. He also earned quite a few more in the process.
By the time he had spent 2 days in the mine, he had gathered around 25 tons of ores, which would be about 10 tons of Tungsten.
That was good enough for 3-4 swords.
Considering he had already gathered around 50 tons in the last week, Alex was good for over 15 swords now.
A few more days and he would have enough for the sword. However, he didn't simply watch metals for just the 21 swords. Now that mining was so easy, he wanted metal for the 45 swords that he would add to the technique to improve it.
So, he was going to get as much out of his time here as he could.
Alex closed the formation behind him and left the mine, slowly making his way outside. He paid the fee for two days' worth of mining in Spirit stones and left the area.
He made his way back to Snowsoot city, which seemed to have gone through a considerable amount of ashes in the last 2 days. He saw people sweeping the ground and… collecting?
"Are they collecting soot?" Alex thought for a moment. "Ah, must be for the plants."
He ignored the people and went back to the tavern where he had rented the room for the entire month.
As soon as he returned, Alex went into his room and started cultivating endlessly along with Pearl and Whisker.
Alex only stopped when the sun rose from the window behind him.
He put Pearl and Whisker back into their Beast space and went into his mind to check on the situation inside there.
The silver mountain still hung in the sky and there were quite a lot of silver strings floating in the air as well.
'They're starting to increase in number now,' Alex thought. He wondered why that was. However, he knew he wouldn't find any answer just mulling by himself, so he started absorbing all those into his body.
Once done, he looked towards the Godslayer that was staying on his own.
"Hey, are you doing okay?" he asked. "I know you haven't gotten any food for a while, but since I've left the sect, I might go back to being forced to eat beast cores again."
"Hmm? Oh, good for you," the sword spirit said and went back to not speaking.
"Is something wrong?" Alex asked.
"I don't know," the spirit said. "It's like something had been awakened within me and it's calling for me."
"Calling for you? You mean like you found your body?" Alex asked.
"No, not that sort," Godslayer said. "More like… I don't know how to explain it. I'm sure I've had this feeling before as well, but I had been able to ignore it so easily since I was in control at the time."
"However, now that I'm here, stuck, with nothing to do but mull on this feeling, the reaching levels it has never reached before," Godslayer said. "It's like I want to do something, but I don't know exactly what it is that I want to do."
Alex was quite curious too. "When did it start exactly? This feeling I mean," he asked.
"A week? A month? I can't tell how long has passed in here," the sword spirit said.
'Could it be because of the Dao mountain?' Alex thought. With the worldly laws falling down twice, did the sword spirit sense something?
'Wait, can artifact spirits even learn Dao? Given that they have so much intelligence, that should work, right?' Alex thought.
"Well, let me know if you have any idea," Alex said and got back out of his mind.
He took a few minutes after that to reapply the medicine for his eyes. This was the 16th month in a row now that he had done this.
8 more months and he could stop. Hopefully, his eyesight returned after that.
Alex left the tavern and walked out into the city. This time, however, he wasn't planning on going to the mine at all.
Instead, Alex took another road to arrive in front of a rowdy place with a massive board that written 2 words.
Snowsoot Blacksmithing.
He walked into the blacksmiths and was beyond surprised to see that the ones that were hitting the metal with all they could be almost all Saint realm cultivators.
They all seemed to belong to different factions, but they were all working there.
One of the blacksmiths, a huge, muscular man walked up to Alex.
"What do you want, Junior?" he asked.
"I was wishing to learn how to smelt the tungsten ore, senior," Alex said.
"Hah! You True Realm cultivators will never be able to smelt such a metal. The heat alone will be something that you won't be able to survive."
"Give me your ores and I can do it for a few thousand Spirit stones," the man said. "It will be profitable if you bring a larger batch of ores at once so that it won't cost you as much."
"Thank you for your words senior, but I wish to learn how it is done myself. Would I be able to do that?" Alex asked.
"Don't waste my time if you're not going to have anything made, please leave," the man said and turned around.
"Senior, wait," Alex said. He hesitated for a second and slowly brought out about 100 kilograms of Ore.
"I have 100 Kilograms of ores here that you can refine, and I will pay you. However, if you let me view the process, not only will I pay you, I will let you keep the metal too," Alex said.
The Saint stood there, contemplating for a few seconds. The conditions weren't bad, but he just didn't like the idea of having some True realm cultivator being there while he—
Alex brought out the Frozen Heart affiliation badge and kept it over the ore. "I hope I can persuade you with this," he said.
The Saint's eyes narrowed. "You're affiliated with the Frozen Heart sect?" he asked.
"Yes, I've had dealings with them," Alex said. "We're on good terms. We're on quite good terms, I should say."
The Saint stared at him silently for a bit. "I don't like people who hide their faces. I believe they are hiding something," he said.
Alex took off his mask and showed his face. "I'm afraid the only thing I have to hide here is this medicinal paste I use to heal my eyes," he said.
The man got curious. "How do you see then?" he asked
"Through this little guy," Alex rubbed Whisker's head in his robes. "Also, I have spiritual sense."
Alex sent out a wave of spiritual sense that passed through the Saint.
"You… you truly are something," he said. He didn't see any more reason to disagree right now.
"Fine, come with me. I will only show it to you once, so if you run away from the heat, don't tell me I cheated."
