Alex thought for a bit. Pearl's cultivation base had come from sleeping for a few weeks in his tattoo, then eating the blood essence, and then finally, cultivating. Only one of which was responsible for his body cultivation right now.
"So that can only mean that it is a coincidence right?" he thought. He then wondered 'Since we have the same cultivation base in a way, maybe it will be equal if I take back my Qi? Although it feels really uncomfortable, I should try it.'
He started pulling in the Qi into his meridian and leaving his body Qi-less. "Alright, hit me again buddy." Pearl didn't wait for him to say anything else and immediately slapped his arm with his paw.
Alex stumbled a few steps back as the hit was a bit harder than he thought it would be. "Shouldn't be surprising that I took so much damage. We are the same cultivation base technically after all. Although, it doesn't hurt as much as I expected it to."
He then looked at Pearl and said, "Alright buddy, come attack me."
Pearl once more hit him, but this time Alex dodged it. Alex did nothing but dodge as Pearl tried to hit him continuously. In the end, they had to stop because Alex realized that Pearl just wasn't good at fighting.
"I can't even teach you how to fight, can I?" Alex fell into a dilemma. 'How do the normal monsters know how to fight then?' he wondered.
He continued fighting with Pearl once more. This time, he went on for as long as he could, however, Pearl barely learned anything once again.
"Is it because he is still a child that he can't learn how to fight? Or am I just that bad of a teacher?" Alex thought. "Guess, I will have to wait until he is an adult then."
Alex decided to solo train for the next few hours. It was a shame, but he couldn't train his Flickering Shadows technique in the brightly lit training hall. So, he just kept the training to the things he had learned in the Tiger Sect. But that was getting boring.
Perhaps he was getting really good at it, or he just didn't see the point of training solo for so long. He just wanted to stop for once and do something else. But his mind told him this was important.
"Urghh… I just want to go back to making pills. That is so much more interesting. But I also need to learn to fight so that I could protect myself."
He reluctantly practiced for a bit longer until Wen Cheng came back around.
"Did you learn it?" he asked.
"Yes master," he proceeded to show exactly how good the attack was. "Hmm… did your yang-type spiritual root amplify the damage a bit?" Wen Cheng said as he felt the dangerous aura radiating from the palm.
"I think so master," Alex said.
"Alright, let's get on with the body cultivation. I will stay with you until the end to make sure nothing bad happens," Wen Cheng said.
"Uh…" Alex wanted to complain some more, but reluctantly agreed. "Alright, master."
He called out Pearl and told him to cultivate. Within minutes, Pearl's fur was glowing bright gold, while Alex was gritting his teeth trying to not scream.
Wen Cheng looked at Alex in surprise. "Wow, he isn't screaming at all. Did the mortal cleansing actually help him that much? Or is his body just that strong that he doesn't feel as much pain anymore?"
Alex was grunting the entire time, but he never outright screamed. Morning came by and before Wen Cheng could even ask Pearl to stop, Alex did it himself.
"Huh? You could think properly despite the pain?" Wen Cheng asked.
"The pain… it wasn't as horrible as last time. So, I could maintain some thoughts," he said. Alex checked Pearl and realized he had gone up 2 realms. 'Is it the same for myself?' he wondered.
"Alright, go now." Alex didn't go through mortal cleansing again, so he did not require any bath this time. Alex returned back to his room and decided to visit go sell some pills before visiting the library once more.
In such a way, a few more days went by. Every day started with Alex opening his eyes after the intense pain of body cultivation subsided. He would then go back to his house to log out for breakfast.
After his breakfast, he would visit the library for 3 hours, before logging out to go to his university classes. After school, he would return to visit the library once more for a few hours.
Afterward, he would go fight some disciples in the training fields. After reaching the top 100s, it was getting really hard to progress higher. Everyone in the top 100s was a genius when it came to cultivation or fighting. Unless he got better in either, he wouldn't make it far here.
The problem with this was that he was only focusing on body cultivation the last few days so he was forced to eat a few monster cores. Monster cores however started to create more and more fights in his head.
He could still fight the monsters quite easily, however, the monster spirits he had to fight seemed to be getting closer and closer in strength to their real self. With not having a spiritual sense or his body and having to only use Qi to fight, he was worried that sooner or later something bad would happen.
During the night, he would train with Wen Cheng. He had learned another fighting technique and defensive technique, both of which he liked very much because they used swords. He would practice these techniques and train with Pearl until Wen Cheng came back.
After Wen Cheng did, he would start to body cultivate once more. As such, by Friday, he had managed to reach the 3rd realm of Bone Tempering for Body Cultivation and 3rd Realm of Organ Tempering for Qi Cultivation.