Alex said his goodbyes in the Crimson Empire. Both the Tiger sect and Hong Wu sect were there for his departure.
"When will your return next?" Luo Mei asked.
"A few months? Maybe half a year?" Alex said. He wasn't sure himself. The Demon realm that was to open in a month would only last for 10 days, so that wouldn't take much of his time. Still, he wanted to stay on the other side to improve himself further than he could over here.
"Alright, see you when you get back then," Luo Mei waved her hands.
Alex smiled and waved his hands as he flew away.
Luo Mei and Du Yuhan turned around to return to their Elder job. Liu Xun went towards the gate to work on his guard duty.
Lang Shun turned around with Wan Li, Fan Ruogang, Zhou Mei, and Kong Yuhan to return back to the Hong Wu sect.
Wen Cheng stayed there for a few moments longer as he watched his disciple go off to the foreign lands again.
Alex turned around after reaching the distance and saw that his master was still there. He waved once more.
Wen Cheng smiled. He waved back and watched his disciple disappear off into the distance. Then, he turned around and got back to his own work as well.
Alex flew off without looking back as there was no reason to. He would be back in just a few months after all.
If only he knew how far away in the future his next visit would be.
Alex returned back to the Beast realm and couldn't help but notice the weird feeling of being back.
'Does it really have something to do with the beast realm? Is it because of the thick Qi in here?' he thought. When he had left, Alex had realized that he didn't feel the same feeling of something being off as soon as he was out of the beast realm.
He had wondered if it was just the lack of Qi in the Crimson Empire that was the reason why he wasn't feeling that way anymore. It did make sense quite a bit, so Alex had chalked up the feeling of his to be because of the density of the Qi in the surrounding.
Alex quickly found Pearl who was very much stronger at this point. At True Emperor 4th realm, Pearl was just a bit higher than Alex in cultivation base.
Alex had broken through to the True Emperor 3rd realm about 3 months ago, so it would soon be his time to breakthrough as well. He hoped he could do it in the 1 month he had before he had to go to the Demon realm again.
Alex took Pearl before leaving the beast realm. After saying goodbye to the beasts, the two of them got out of the beast realm and arrived at the Luminance empire.
As soon as Alex felt the slightly less dense Qi, he realized that the feeling was gone again. 'Even though the Qi is only just a little sparse?' he thought. That made him believe that his theory on why the beast realm felt off was wrong.
If so then… what was the reason?
Alex had no way of finding that out, so he had to once again ignore that feeling.
The last time he ignored a feeling, the beasts had invaded the capital of the crimson empire. What was going to happen this time around?
Alex reached the flowing brush sect and met up with his mother. He talked to her about a few things and was surprised that she was focusing quite a bit on her cultivation as well.
She was so very close to the True Emperor realm.
Alex settled down into the sect and continued his cultivation. When he was free, he worked for the sect to help them make pills in exchange for letting him stay there.
Of course, the Flowing Brush sect was more than happy to have Alex just stay in their sect. It was in fact an honor in their eyes. However, Alex didn't feel that it was right to take advantage of them, so he helped when he could.
Helen sat in a room while she drew some talismans. Alex stayed next to her and looked through the map of the beast realm to check if he had missed something there.
The talisman from the Demon realm that told him the location of the inheritance of the Undying God was next to him, and he was looking to match the two.
None of the locations matched the map. Meaning, that he was right that this place wasn't the beast realm.
Alex brought out the metallic medallion and looked at it. This gave him authority over many of the restrictions in the secret realm.
Unfortunately, it didn't give him authority to stay longer than 10 days, or he would have entered already.
He couldn't wait to enter those houses in the 5th mountain and acquire more wealth. More importantly, he would acquire knowledge of where the other land of the demons was.
"I'm done," Helen said from the side, grabbing Alex's attention.
"You're done?" Alex stood up and walked up to her to see the talisman she had just made.
"Here," she handed it over to him. Alex took it and looked at the runes on it. There was such elegant penmanship here that he saw not a single mistake on the runes.
He looked through the different runes of barrier, and teleportation and nodded to himself.
Now he too had a talisman to protect himself if he was ever attacked inside. Although, he doubt anyone could even do it, to begin with.
* * * * *
A few figures gathered in a room somewhere south of the capital.
It was far away enough that the royal family had no idea of the gathering but close enough that any big family and sect could easily visit.
There was a single reason for this gathering.
They wanted to learn how they would extract information from Alex.
Some were there for Alex's alchemy knowledge, some for his Sword knowledge. Some were there for his physique knowledge, while some only wanted to learn how he was overcoming many realms to fight.
One of them didn't let know their attention, but they were there for his blood.
"Are we sure he's even coming to the Demon Realm? What if we're wasting time?" one of them asked.
"We don't know," another person said. "But this is our only chance, so we have to take it. Unless you want to go raid Flowing Brush sect in the open."
"So, we're working on the assumption that he will come. Then what about that beast that's threatening even the Emperor?" another one of them asked.
"We're too weak to defeat it," another person said.
"We don't need to defeat it. We just need to delay it while we get the information we need," one of them said.
"And I suppose you know a way?" someone else asked.
"I do," the same person said. "Not only will my way delay the beast, but if it goes well, but we can also kill that beast too."
"However," the same person continued. "That's not all. I have plans for the boy too. If done properly, we can extract every last bit of information from him, whether he wants to give it voluntarily or not."