Chapter 856 Runes

The village didn't have a chief or a leader, but if there was one, Fan Yanshi would be the one.

With Organ Tempering 9th realm, his cultivation base was the highest in the village, followed by only a handful of people Alex had seen with a similar cultivation base.

Fan Yanshi showed Alex around the village, showing the various locations and who did what.

A man worked on formation plates, while another worked on talismans. There was also a woman who made medicinal pastes as well as what could be called Alchemy.

Most other people only focused on beasts and plants.

Since all of these cultivators were in the self-tempering realm, they still needed food to sustain themselves, so there was a massive open land to the side where rice and wheat were growing.

Alex's curiosity was too much and he needed to ask.

"Brother Fan, how are you growing managing to grow these crops in such a cold environment?" he asked. "In fact, why is it not cold in here at all?"

"Oh, that's because of the volcano right there," Fan Yanshi said.

"Volcano?" Alex looked towards it. He didn't know much about volcanoes, but surely they didn't give this much heat, this far away, did it?

"Yes, the volcano," the man said. "Well, to be fair, it's more accurate to say it's the sect's doing."

"What did they do?" Alex couldn't help but ask.

"Let's see, they explained it this way. There was a spirit vein underneath this land, and a long time ago, the sect came and ripped it off of the ground and took it away."

"At the same time, then they let lava pour into the now formed cavity and closed it up from above. After that, the land has been warm from the heat underneath and we don't have to worry about the cold even this deep in the mountains."

"Oh," Alex was surprised. He didn't expect such a unique solution to creating land to stave away the cold.

"Not bad actually," he said and looked around. "No wonder you can have plants here."

"Oh yeah, that is because the land around here is fertile. Once in a while, the volcano goes active and spews out plumes of smoke and ash. Those are apparently very good for the soil and we get to grow so much here," the man said.

"The volcano goes active? Isn't that dangerous?" Alex asked.

"Well, if it gets dangerous, an ancestor from the sect flies off to the mountain and controls it," the man said.

Alex nodded and continued looking around. He looked at the plants that were growing that weren't food. As soon as he looked at them, he knew what the plants were.

However, there was something confusing about those plants. Most of them were common plants, but not necessarily useful for Alchemy.

Those were more useful for…

Alex turned around. "This Frigid Rune sect, I assume it a sect focused on talisman?" he asked.

"Uhh… yes, and no," the man said.

"No?" Alex waited for him to explain.

"Well, it is a sect focusing on runes, so yes they make talismans. But they also focus on other things with runes you know," the young man said.

"Wait, other things?" Alex's eyes went wide. "Like using runes instead of formations?"

"Yes," the young man said.

"How do they know how to do this?" Alex asked. Despite the demon realm being so close by, no one knew how runes carved in stones or wood could be used back on the Western Continent.

However, they were able to do that here. Was the information passed down over the last 90 thousand years? If so how did it not get passed around the world before the western continent was isolated 5 thousand years ago?

"Has the information not reached the State of Bing yet? It's all over the State of Xue by now," Fan Yanshi said. "It was anonymously published by someone nearly a dozen years ago and it's been slowly traveling the continent. I don't know exactly how it works, but you can buy the information from any big city."

"After that information about out, the Frost Talisman sect changed their name to Frost Rune sect, and now they work with everything," the young man said.

'A dozen years ago… a player maybe?' Alex thought to himself. 'I should look into it once I reach Saint realm.'

Alex's current plan was to solely focus his time on cultivation and maybe in alchemy if he could spare it. Given how he would have to cultivate multiple different techniques, he didn't know if he could spare time for alchemy or not.

Besides, he had reached a bottleneck in alchemy that he couldn't just push through.

He was already so good at making True rank pills that the only thing holding him back was the ingredients, the process of placing in ingredients, and the technique to form the pill itself.

Otherwise, he could easily reach 100%.

Of course, there were now Saint rank pills to dip his hands into, but he wasn't still at Saint rank, so it wasn't the best idea to start yet.

Besides, he would just be wasting ingredients if the recipes he had weren't the best.

While he had a lot of ingredients, they weren't enough for him to go all out and fix the recipes like he did with True rank pills.

He would have to change his approach somehow.

"Ah, I need to go help my wife in the garden soon. Let me show you more of the place," the man said and took Alex around.

After a while, they arrived at an empty house with 3 rooms in it. Two of the rooms were inside while one was outside.

"The kitchen is outside. You get heat directly from the magma down underground. Do what you want with the two empty rooms inside. There are beds and sheets already, but do let me know if you need anything else," Fan Yanshi said.

"Oh, this is all right, brother Fan," Alex said. "So when do I start working?"

"Don't worry about that for today. You must be tired from walking throughout the night, so just rest for today. I will take you to see how good you are with plants tomorrow."

"If you truly are good, that will lessen my wife's and a lot of other people's work. They simply force their way through growing plants you see," the young man said.

"I see. Thank you again, brother Fan," Alex bowed a little.

"Haha, it's fine. We're going to be like family soon, so no need to say thanks. Go in and make yourself at home. You can live here as long as you want," Fan Yanshi said and pushed Alex along.

Alex nodded and entered.

While Fan Yanshi left, Alex went into the room and looked around. It was mostly empty aside from the beds and a few chairs.

Alex went over to the other room and saw this one was actually truly empty with nothing in it.

"This should be fine," he thought and brought out a few formation plates before throwing them down.

Formations activated in a small area bringing up a barrier that passed through Alex to cover him.

These were simple formations to cover any fluctuations of energy that might come from here while he was cultivating. In addition to that, there was also a sound blocking formation that blocked outgoing sound so no one would hear what was happening inside.

Alex sat down in the center and took a deep breath of relief. He had found a place to stay now, so he should try and get to Saint realm as soon as he could.

Given how he was already at True Emperor 4th realm, if he continued with this speed, it should take him 2 more years, or 3 if he had to focus on Undying God's physique and the Demon eyes.

Alex reached into his storage ring and brought out something for Whisker to eat. After that, he called Pearl out.

Pearl came out with blood all over his white fur, but he was no longer injured.

"Are you okay?" Alex asked.

"Yes," Pearl nodded and slowly changed his body to become small again. Then he noticed Whisker and immediately started running after him to play.

Whisker ran for his life and Alex could only chuckle at the scene.

He shook his head and activated the first stage of the mask he was wearing. Then, he started cultivating.

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