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"So, young Ming, did you come here to escort my disciple back?" the sect master asked.

The commotion had been dealt with and the 4 elders were punished. It also came forward that the senior Bu who had died to Heaven's Judgment was in fact the mastermind behind everything.

After that, the sect master had taken Alex to a lounging area where they sat in the setting sun and talked.

"No, sect master. I'm afraid I'm not that selfless," Alex said. "After I learned from my beast that he was going to break through, I decided to go looking for some beast cores for him to consume."

"My thought was to get them from the Demonic forest, but I'm not sure how good that idea even is," Alex said. The more he learned about the demonic forest from Ma Tianxin, the more he learned how hard it might actually be for him to secure any beast cores.

The demonic forest was apparently full of beasts with cultivation bases that rivaled the entirety of a single State.

There were beasts ranging from the Self-tempering realm all the way up to the Saint Soul realm. There was also some rumor of there being a beast with a cultivation base higher than that too, but no one had seen such a beast in thousands of years.

"The demonic forest… it's not really a place you can just enter whenever you want," the sect master said. "It is fine if you just want to stay in the outskirt, but the deeper you go the more dangerous it gets."

"The beasts there have lived a life full of wounds and pain, so they will attack whoever they can if they're threatened. Despite being in the Saint realm, they still truly act like beasts with little intelligence," the sect master said.

"How do you guys deal with them?" Alex asked.

"Well, it's easier for us. We're just too strong to worry much and we still stay around the outer perimeters. However, even the outer perimeter might turn out to be dangerous for someone like you," he said. "And we really can't afford to lose you."

Alex's eyes narrowed. Once again someone was saying that he was important. But why?

He tried asking the sect master but got no answer.

"What exactly is it that you want? Just the cores right?" the sect master asked.

"Yes," Alex said. "Although, I do want to fight with a few beasts to train."

The sect master nodded as he thought of something. "How about this? Our sect has quite a few beast cores and we will give them to you. Instead, you just don't go over to the Demonic forest at all. Is that okay?" he asked.

Alex was surprised. "Are you sure, sect master? I require a lot of cores," he said.

"Of course," the sect master said. "You will not find your match in the outskirts of the forest and will have to enter the outer perimeter. At that point, however, the beasts will attack you all together for sure."

"I'm sure you're strong, but even I know you can't possibly defeat the beasts there by yourself. At that point, it won't be much of training," the sect master said.

"Be as it may, I still want to go try, sect master," Alex said, stubbornly. He had so many dao and yet he hadn't trained any of them in actual battle. So, in actual combat, he was having problems using the Dao properly.

Just like with the Senior Bu, who had a dao of his own, Alex was unable to do anything. If not for the spiritual sword, he wouldn't know what exactly he could do against him.

There were so many other such scenarios that he needed to be ready for.

Aside from that, however, he needed some ingredients for his alchemy. Since he was going to start making Saint-ranked pills soon enough.

"I don't know, young man. It is still too risky," he said. "What if you get in a situation with so many beasts attacking you at once? We can't afford that."

Alex frowned behind his mask. 'Why can't you afford it?' he thought. It was starting to annoy him way too much at this point. Still, he calmed himself enough to speak again.

"Worry not, sect master. I do have some escape methods. As long as the beasts that will try to attack aren't in Saint core realm, I should be able to escape easily," he said.

The sect master kept insisting on Alex to not leave, but Alex was equally stubborn, telling him that he was going to leave, one way or another. The sect master grumbled to himself a bit before saying, "Fine! I'll accompany you a few times and see if you can handle yourself or not. If you can't handle it, I'm bringing you back without question, okay?"

Alex finally sighed in relief. "Thank you, sect master. I know I'm being stubborn, but thank you for going along with my stubbornness," he said.

"Go rest for now. I won't have a free day for a while, you can prepare until then," the sect master said. He then called over his daughter and disciple.

"Tianxin, Xiuyin, go show him a guest room."

"Yes, father."

"Understood, master."

Alex nodded and left the place along with the other two. On their way to the guest room, Alex thought of something that had been bothering him in the back of his mind.

"By the way, Sister Xiuyin. Your surname is Ren, while your father is Huang. What is that all about?" Alex asked.

"Father's surname is Ren too," the girl said. "But he and my grandfather used to have a not-so-good relationship, so he used his mother's surname as an act of defiance. While they mended their relationship already, father's surname stuck and now he goes by this name."

"Ah, that makes sense," Alex nodded.

After walking for a little longer, Alex came across a house close to the core disciple's area.

"This is where you'll be staying. Please let us know if you require anything. Here's a talisman that you can use to directly contact either one of us," the girl said.

Alex looked at the talisman and thanked the girl. Then he went inside the house and looked around for a bit before entering one of the rooms with a Saint Qi gathering formation and sitting down.

Without wasting any more time, he called out Pearl, who appeared in his giant form. "Shrink and start cultivating. You'll need to stabilize your new cultivation base," Alex told him.

"Okay," Pearl said and shrunk down to the size of a kitten before starting to cultivate. Alex felt the cuts in his body start to appear once again after a long time.

'He's reached a level where my physical body is the same as his cultivation,' Alex thought. So, the cuts on his body were starting to become more visible as well.

Alex took the time to cultivate as well, calling out Whisker so he could train too.

He cultivated his body and eyes as long as possible while putting on his mask on the 3rd stage. After a while, he stopped all three and focused on his real cultivation.

It was going to take a long time for him to break through again, but he didn't mind. As a saint realm, he did have a lot of time to spare anyway.

Pearl's cultivation base slowly stabilized at the 1st realm of Saint Condensation realm, reaching the same stage as Alex did.

There had been some ups and downs along the way, but they had finally caught up to each other in cultivation base as well.

Whisker was still slow, coming to only around True Disciple 3rd realm. Even though Alex cultivated the Undying God's physique whenever he could, it was still not enough for Whisker.

After a while, Alex stopped cultivating and started thinking of what he needed to do next.

He did plan on fighting in the forest in the north, but that was not all he wanted to do. He wanted to make some pills as well now.

While he wasn't going to start making pills in such a location, he did have other things he could do.

After the layer of information in his mind had surfaced regarding the various different ingredients and their uses, Alex had been keen on learning about them.

Finally, he had the free time he wanted, and so, he was going to start going through the information in his mind so that he could prepare for the day he returned to making pills again.

Alex closed his eyes and started thinking of various things. Suddenly, the overwhelming amount of information in his mind surfaced all at once, overwhelming him in the process.

Alex pushed back the information and took a deep breath before letting the information come out one after another.

There was simply too much information, so he started with the ones that mattered, the Saint-ranked ingredients.

The information not only included the name of the ingredients and their elements, but it also included information about its powder's color, smell, and what exactly it could be used for.

With this amount of information, Alex was sure that he could even start making new pills while knowing precisely what they would do.

There was one problem with this information however that he hadn't realized before. Since the Alchemy God's knowledge only helped him recognize plants, while he knew the names of animal-based ingredients, he had no idea what the beast looked like.

"I can work with that," Alex thought and started focusing on his learning. After all, with the amount of information in his head, it was going to take a very long time for him to learn it all.