949 Pearl's Concerns

Alex went along with the young man to the rest of the places where he could potentially learn something new.

He visited new places he hadn't been to before and even fought a few people that came to challenge him.

He tried looking into the aura of the Immortals high above him, but while he learned that he could handle it to a certain extent, the mysteries there were too vast for him to learn in just a month. He would have to spend at least a few months just like he did with the sword and space.

Alex also trained in trying to cut up space to reveal the crack, but all he could do was cut up space so they separated.

At least, he was getting good at that. His cuts were getting larger and larger. Soon, he would likely be able to cut the space in such a way that everything he cut up would not be in contact with the rest of the space from any direction.

Essentially, he wanted to be able to create his own secret realm whenever he wanted to. Only, this one wouldn't be compressed like the other secret realms were. At least, not without learning the dao of Space Compression.

The young man sat down beside Alex whenever he tried to learn something and tried it himself. He failed to even feel the aura half the time, but he still tried.

Then, after more than a month, the bells rang and it signaled their time to leave.

6 months had passed once again… so easily. This time around, Alex didn't even think much time had passed.

'It's only going to be worse as my lifespan increases, isn't it?' he thought to himself. The slow passage of time would stop mattering to a cultivator as they went on.

Alex and the young man walked over to the gate where a lot of people were waiting to leave. They even saw the group of 4 that wanted to kill the man.

However, they just weren't able to now. They were incredibly frustrated, and the young man noticed it.

Alex however couldn't care less about those men and had only a single thought in his mind.

That was to help Pearl with his breakthrough.

Once the gate opened, Alex and the young man went out. However, when the young man found that they weren't immediately flying away, he got confused.

"Why aren't we leaving?" he asked.

"I need to prepare Pearl before he breaks through," Alex said.

"Prepare? I thought the young cat was ready," the young man said.

"Yes, his cultivation base is ready," Alex said. "But his mind is not. Stop worrying, we'll only be spending a month or so in the Silvermoon city before we leave."

"I… okay," the young man said. He had zero grounds for complaints after all.

Alex got himself a room in the city for a month and called out Pearl. Pearl was ready to break through, but this was going to be hard.

After all, since he had learned Dao, he was going to meet an Inner Demon for the first time. Even without thinking about the Lightning Tribulation that would come afterward, the Inner Demon alone would be enough for Pearl to struggle.

So, Alex spent the next whole month telling Pearl what should happen and resolving any hidden negative feelings he could have been festering.

Only now was Alex starting to realize just how much he had been ignoring Pearl's thoughts. Ever since he came to the Northern Continent, he had worried about his mother and the others back in the Western Continent, but not once did he realize that Pearl too would have been feeling the same anxiety that he had been feeling.

In fact, for Pearl, it was even worse. Not only was he worried about Helen, he cared about his people in the Beast realm too and was worried about them.

He worried that his great-grandmother might be dead. He worried the jaguar might be hurt as well.

He worried about his own future. He was supposed to be the Ruler of the Western Continent, but he was still a child. Could he do it? Would he be strong enough to do that?

He was already lagging behind Alex. Even though he had been ahead of Alex on multiple occasions, he had still ended up behind him. Was his potential that bad? Would the ritual to help him evolve even help him at all?

He worried that soon enough he would be useless to Alex and would get left behind.

Alex felt a pain grow in his heart that he didn't expect to feel at the moment. He never realized just how oblivious he was to Pearl's feelings, never even asking him how he felt.

It was only now he was starting to realize that the cat in front of him, regardless of his small size, was no longer a kitten at all.

He was no longer the naive little kitten he found in the forest who hadn't even realized that his mother had died protecting him.

He was someone that had lived for nearly 14 years and thus was mature enough to have his own thoughts and anxieties.

Alex spent as long as needed to help Pearl understand that it was alright. Everything would be alright and he had no reason to worry.

He helped remove as much anxiety as he could from Pearl and in the process improved their own bond.

After a month had passed, Pearl was finally ready to do it. He was ready to break through.

So, Alex left the city along with Ma Tianxin who had been staying in the city as well. They went east, towards an open area with not many people once again.

"Hmm…" Alex sensed someone staring at them for a moment from far away, but they quickly went out of the range of his spiritual sense so he couldn't be sure if there was malicious intent behind that stare or not.

"We should be careful," he told the young man and continued his way to the east. Very soon, they entered the State of Shuang.

Along the way, Alex and the young man came across a small city, which let them know where on the map they exactly were, so all he had to do was go a little northeast from there, and he would arrive at a place where the mountain ranges will be full of snow and without any human settlement in a vast area.

After arriving at the location, Alex took out some beast armor he had bought for Pearl and had him wear it.

Pearl stood wearing the golden armor, looking intimidating. Alex smiled and said, "Good luck."

Then, he moved away from the location and let Pearl start concentrating on his breakthrough.

"Why are we moving back?" the young man asked. He didn't understand why they had to move over a few kilometers away.

"You will see soon," Alex said. His senses still reached Pearl and were way beyond it as he kept a constant eye on the things that transpired with him.

Soon enough, Pearl's cultivation got into a rhythm as he began to crack the shell around his Beast core to make it stronger.