Blood Beasts.

By drowning a beast’s core in one’s blood, one could reinvoke the beast’s spirit hidden in the core and forge a body for it using that invoker’s blood.

The forged beast would be without any intelligence, but it would carry over the natural instincts the beast may have had in its lifetime.

The strength of the beast depended on whichever was stronger, the cultivation base of the dead beast, or the Blood Aura of the owner.

Alex read the amount of blood one would need to form a single blood beast and almost felt anemic thinking about how much blood he was going to have to use.

Furthermore, it seemed that the process had a certain amount of success rate, which reached its highest when the owner’s blood aura was stronger than the Beast’s cultivation base.

The greater the difference in the other direction, the easier it was to fail.

Alex didn’t exactly know how strong his Blood Aura was as of yet, so he would have to test it out sometime soon.

“I don’t have beast cores too,” he thought to himself. He had either fed it all to Pearl or eaten it himself. He would have to get it from somewhere if he wanted to try it out.

“Should I buy some? Or can I hunt some for myself in the Demonic forest?” Alex wondered. The Dao mountain’s opening was coming closer, so he couldn’t waste his time on experiments at the moment.

For now, he decided to focus on the upcoming Dao mountain and prepare for that. He told Pearl to do the same as well, and together they started thinking about many laws they had learned in the Ancient Battlefield.

There had been way too many Daos, and he needed to organize the mysteries he had understood at that time. The information in his head was knotted up pieces of rope that he would have to untangle.

In the meantime, he would be called by the elder from time to time to talk with her. He learned that Lady Xuan had missed the last Dao Mountain opening and was thus going along this time.

Between that and his cultivation, Alex spent away most of his time. During this time, his beasts also surprised him.

After remaining in his beast space for over a year and a half, Whisker’s cultivation base had come incredibly close to breaking through and he had only needed a bit more time. During these few days Alex had, Whisker managed to break through and finally entered the True realm.

Pearl had also improved a lot and had entered the True Emperor 9th realm during this time. With a bit more cultivation and a few more years, Pearl too would end up as a Saint, just like him.

After a few more days,  Alex heard a knock on his door.

An elder came to take him with them to the ship where everyone was ready. The day had come when the Dao mountain was to open up.

Lady Xuan and many other elders as well as 100 different disciples were lined up, waiting for the ship to open appear so they could board it.

When Alex arrived, the girls looked at him curiously. They didn’t understand why a black-robed Saint realm man was going with them.

“You didn’t change?” Lady Xuan asked.

“I didn’t see the need to,” Alex said.

In the midst of many crystal-blue-robed ladies, he was the only one wearing a black robe and thus stood out like a splash of ink on a white canvas.

“What about your mask? You should wear your mask,” she said.

“I don’t need it anymore though,” Alex said. “My eyes are healed. Besides, my face does more for anonymity than my mask.”

“You’re not going to wear a mask to remain anonymous. You’re going to wear it because that’s your identity now,” the elder said.

“Ah, then it’s all the more reason for me to not wear it,” Alex said with a smile. “I wish to remain anonymous. I’ve had too much trouble with people recognizing me when I came out of the Ancient Battlefield.”

“Are you sure?” Lady Xuan asked, and Alex nodded. “Very well then. You can do as you wish.”

The ship flew through the night and arrived in the morning when it came time for them to form the fighting stage for the True realm cultivators.

More ships arrived and soon all 5 ships were here.

Alex sat on the ship and watched as the battle proceeded one by one. It felt weird not being down there, fighting, and instead being up here with the ‘adults’.

‘I guess I am an adult now.’ He chuckled to himself. It was weird how even at 30 years old, he still felt like a young man, but once he entered the Saint realm his feelings changed.

His view of the world shifted as he had raised a little higher and could see from the same viewpoint as most others.

Throughout the day, Alex saw several saint realm cultivators arrive and stay in the vicinity. Some conversed with each other, while some remained alone.

Most were with groups however as that was where the name list was first derived from for the Dao mountain.

Important sects, clans, and organizations would receive that information first, and thus they would be the ones to give all the names they could, before leaving the rest for the rogue cultivators and smaller factions.

The fights below came to an end around midnight and there were 23 True realm cultivators that had passed. After some time, everyone was called to gather up as the mountain would open up at any time now.

Alex went down and stood in a group of 2000 people, that listened to the words of one of the ancestors from the Nether Poison sect.

Alex had already heard the explanation before, so he didn’t need to hear it. Instead, he focused on something else.

Ever since coming down, he seemed to have grabbed the attention of a few different people.

He didn’t know if it was because they recognized him or simply because he came with the Frozen Heart sect. There was a lot of jealousy towards a man that could intermingle with the Frozen Heart sect.

People’s senses landed on Alex all around, but after seeing that he was but a weakling in their eyes, their senses retreated.

However, one still remained.

The old man in front of them finished talking, but the sense still lingered on him. It wasn’t just there, it was checking him, staring at him.

Alex followed the sense back and was surprised to realize who the owner of the thread was.

‘Her?’ Alex thought when he saw the woman in the red veil that was known as the Veiled Fairy. According to Lady Xuan, her real name was Li Zhumei.

Alex wondered why she was looking at him. He turned his head to look towards her, but instead of trying to act like she had been caught staring at him, her sense fell on his even harder.

The sun rose from the east and the elders started working on opening the gate.

“Can I help you?” Alex asked through his spiritual sense.

He got no answer for a while, but as the gate opened, he heard a question.

“What’s your name?”

Alex heard the girl’s voice. He was surprised at how young she sounded.

“Yu Ming,” Alex answered. He wondered why she wanted to know.

“Yu Ming? Are you the young man that wore a mask last time?” she asked.

“Yes,” Alex replied. He was surprised the girl had bothered remembering his name at all. Although, he had learned two Daos in a single session.

The old ancestor woman from the Blazing Earth sect came to take her disciple along with her to the top.

But the girl refused. She instead walked towards him.

“What’s your name?” the girl asked him, this time speaking directly, rather than using her spiritual sense.

Alex was slightly surprised, not because she spoke to him, but because she was repeating the same question.

The other people that were supposed to go up also paused when they heard the Veiled Fairy speak for the first time and turned to look towards her and Alex.

The girl frowned and flicked her sleeve. Suddenly, Alex felt the world come to a still.

The air he breathed felt thick, and the people around him were moving extremely slowly. Even the aura in the air refused to disappear.

This was exactly what he had experienced back on the Ancient Battlefield.

It was almost as if… Time itself had come to a stop.

‘Time Dao!’ Alex’s eyes went wide when he realized what it was.

“What’s your name?” the girl asked again.

Alex looked at her. The two of them were the only ones unaffected by the stillness. Or rather, they were the only ones affected by the swiftness of time.

“Do you mean my real name?” Alex asked, considering they were both players.

The girl nodded.

“Why do you—”

“Are you Alex?” the girl asked.

Alex’s expression immediately changed. “How do you know?” he asked.

Suddenly, he heard a happy giggle coming from the girl as she lifted her veil to speak.

“I knew it!” she said. “You’ve grown up quite a lot. Now you look just like big brother did when he was young.”

Alex looked at the girl’s face with wide eyes when he realized who it was.

“Aunt Liz?”

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