917 Bells Ringing

Alex used his Flame Mastery Scripture to try and create a ball of water in the air.

That obviously didn't work, but he had really intended to do that. And yet, somehow what came out was still fire.

Alex wondered why that was. Why didn't his Intent change the type of Qi that was coming out? That worked normally.

He tried it again to bring out some Water Qi, and it did, but for some reason, when using techniques, he could never determine what Qi he wanted to bring out.

Alex was very curious as to why that was. Was Intent not capable of changing Qi when it came to changing a technique? Or did pathway have an influence here?

Such instances of trial and thought occurred multiple times throughout the next few months as Alex made his way through the Ancient Battlefield with Pearl.

From time to time, Alex could come across a location with a thick aura, and sit around there to understand the mysteries hidden behind it.

When he was not, he tried using his techniques and understanding why they worked the way they did.

After all, understanding the Dao of techniques was for now his most important mission. If he could do that, he could do many things.

However, it was hard. Way harder than he was expecting.

While not as ridiculous as the trillions of nerves in a human body, there were still thousands of meridians in a cultivator's body.

Some were small, some were big. Some weren't used as much, while some were used quite a lot.

However, perhaps the most annoying thing about the meridians was that they were connected to Spiritual Roots. So the more Spiritual roots one had, the more meridians one had in their body.

With all 7 spiritual roots in his body, Alex had to keep track of the most number of meridians one could possibly have in their body.

Since pathways were made up of those very tens of thousands of meridians, Alex was having a hard time understanding how techniques worked.

He was starting to see just how massive of an endeavor he had.

"No, Shen Jing knows Dao of Techniques, and he's only a Saint realm cultivator. Surely I will learn it very soon as well," Alex thought. He was certain he could learn it very soon.

So, he wasn't disheartened at all and continued practicing.

He went through many locations, learning from the aura, but there was no place that was as potent as the one from over a month ago.

That was until Alex came across another place with a similar situation. There was a rock that was cut into two.

Alex felt a sharp intent coming from the area and could tell that there was some Dao of Sharpness he could obtain from here.

So, both he and Pearl got as close to the rock as possible and started trying to understand the mysteries hidden behind the cut.

However, it wasn't long before they realized this was different. The rock wasn't attacked by someone that knew the Dao of Sharpness, but rather the Dao of Cutting.

While the two Daos were quite similar, the Dao of Cutting was barely connected to the Metal energy, making it harder for Pearl to understand.

Still, the two of them sat there and tried to understand the mysteries. They went closer together this time and learned as much as they could.

Unfortunately, there wasn't much he could learn from this place. From what he understood, the person who cut this rock didn't have much understanding of the Dao himself and only used bits of what he knew in his own attack.

But, given that the Intent here was quite potent, Alex decided to stay here and help train Pearl as best as he could.

Alex knew he would have to stay for a very long time if he wanted Pearl to improve his Intent to a high level. But he couldn't do that and had to go improve himself.

As such, he had to settle between the two and stayed there just long enough for Pearl to improve enough, which turned out to be around 3 weeks.

After the 3 weeks were over, Alex went away, searching for better places to train and cultivate around.

He found a scorched ground with thick Fire Qi and learned as much as he could about the Dao of Fire from there in a few weeks.

He found a gouge on the earth that could have only come from someone pulling it out of the ground, and thus there were heavy Earth Qi still hanging around the edges of the crater, where Alex learned for a  few weeks.

He fought a man that wanted to test his skills and defeated him rather harshly after realizing that he was trying to use him as a training puppet instead of a partner.

He fought a woman who seemed to be starting to grasp some knowledge of Dao of Ice, and fought her multiple times such that he too started to understand what she was learning.

He found a place where walking became abnormally hard due to the randomly shifting gravity all around him. He sat there for a long time, trying to learn the mysteries behind gravity itself.

To his surprise, he was getting somewhere.

During this time also came the day he applied the paste to his eyes for the last time. Now, he was all out of the paste and he would finally gain the first stage of Demon Eyes not long after.

Some days later, while Alex was training with his 21 Sword array, trying to figure out a way to add more swords onto it, he heard loud ringings from the south.

He looked towards the origin of the sound in surprise, wondering what it was. It was only after a while that he realized that it was the sound that noted them of the gate's opening.

"6 months have already passed since we came here, huh?" he thought. He couldn't believe how he had so easily spent away his 6 months.

'It felt like I came here yesterday,' Alex thought before going on his own way. The gate might open, but he wasn't going to leave right now.

He wasn't going to leave for quite a while.

Alex then fought some more people and found a few places to cultivate in, all the while training his Dao of Techniques.

He wasn't getting anywhere, but he kept practicing.

Everything started happening quickly now that he had less need to stay somewhere. Not only was there no need to improve his Intent as much, but the mysteries were also not very hidden for him after learning so many different ones.

However, that wasn't to say that he never came across a place that didn't stump him.

One did, and he was happy to find it.

He had felt the location when he was close and had Pearl look for it, but Pearl didn't see any weirdness here.

However, Alex knew what was up there, so he ran quickly and arrived next to it. He sensed the area and could tell that there were mysteries here, mysteries of a Dao that he had been looking forward to learning for a very long time.

Dao of Space.