It was close to 5 pm right now. Alex walked to the gate on the southern end of the sect crater. Calling it a gate could even be considered wrong, as it was just a small opening in the giant wall that prevented monsters from the Southern Forest from entering.
He walked up to the small entrance and was stopped by the elders guarding the gate.
"Badge!" an elder asked.
Alex took out his badge and handed it to them. The elders recorded the badge number and handed it back to Alex. "You should know that since today is Friday, you won't be exempt from the matches by leaving the sect right?" the elder asked.
"Yes," Alex replied and walked out of the opening. He looked back at the wall and wondered," Is this the wall for the Scarlet City?" He watched the wall go around the outside of the forest and curve outward after reaching a bit further.
"I wonder where the wall lies on Hong Wu sect."
He walked a bit further and started running. He didn't want to mess around with weak monsters on the outer side and needed at least a late Muscle tempering realm monster for what he was about to do.
His running speed, with zero air resistance thanks to making the air frictionless, was beyond amazing. In just a few minutes, he reached what would have taken him an hour at his speed a month back.
Now that he reached this far he decided to bring out Pearl. With a bright shine, Pearl came out of his left arm. He focused and saw the new stats on Pearl after the last few days of training.
[White Cat (Child) - Bonded
Name: Pearl
Cultivation Base: Bone Tempering 6th Realm
Evolution Chance: 40%
Cultivation Method: ????? ?????'s Dominating Body (Shared)
]
"You are stronger than I was back when I came to this forest," he said with a chuckle. "Come, let's see if there are any monsters around for you to fight." He started walking in a certain direction while spreading his spiritual sense at a max distance without overstretching.
Finally, he found a small monster with a shell on its back.
[Smooth Pangolin: Bone Tempering 3rd Realm]
"Oh, that is perfect for you. You should be able to win easily, right?" Alex made Pearl go and fight the pangolin. Alex looked at the monster and deduced, "since it has a shell, it must be a defensive monster and have bad offensive ability."
Pearl didn't know what to do at first, but after Alex explained that he had to fight with the Pangolin, Pearl sped up and reached the pangolin and started purring at him.
The pangolin got surprised by the sudden incoming of Pearl and immediately got into a ball. "Meow," Pearl jumped forward and hit the ball with his paw. Like a football being hit by a professional player, the ball flew far until it hit a tree, and jolted awake a few birds.
The tree had a small dent on the trunk as the ball fell to the ground, taking no damage. The birds in the tree saw Pearl running towards the ball and started to target him.
Alex looked at the birds and realized they were in the lower realms of Bone Tempering, so he wasn't scared. Still, he ran a little behind Pearl to make sure he doesn't get swarmed by different enemies.
Seeing the birds coming towards him, Pearl jumped high into the air and swung his claws at one of the birds. In a single hit, the bird was sent flying to the ground with most of its body broken. The bird was dead, and Alex had gotten the notification for obtaining its core and feathers.
Pearl landed lightly on his feet, leaving Alex in stun behind. 'Just one hit?' he truly hadn't expected the disparity of a few levels to bring forth such a gap in strength.
'Is it perhaps because his body is also cultivated?' he wondered. Training with Pearl, Alex had realized that the cultivation technique that Pearl used was one that both cultivated his Qi and Body. Only because it wasn't compatible, Alex had to suffer through intense pain and only get rewarded with Body cultivation alone.
'At this stage, he must be as strong as a late bone tempering realm monster.' After seeing the attack just now, Alex had no doubt that he had been underestimating Pearl until this point.
Pearl ran off towards the pangolin when another bird started to swoop down and attack him with its sharp talons. The small Pearl didn't even bother protecting himself. He took the full brunt of the attack and shoved it off like it was nothing.
His body was stronger than the bird's talons, and so the talons did not even put a scratch on his beautiful, white fur. Pearl once more jumped up to reach the bird, but by this point, all of the birds had flown away.
They had some intelligence and had already realized that this was an enemy they couldn't beat. Pearl landed on the sticks and stones in the forest, disappointed.
He then ran towards the pangolin and nudged it a little. It didn't move. Pearl cocked his head and didn't know what to do. Alex had arrived at this point and he used his spiritual sense to see what was going on with the Pangolin.
"Holy…" he was astonished. The pangolin's inner body had mostly been destroyed and it was on its last breath. Alex used his Qi to crush its body a little and got the notification that it had died now.
"No need to keep it suffering," he said as he looked at Pearl in a new light. He might look like a little cute fluffy ball of goodness, but that strength was anything but cute.
"Although you have started to slow down, if you keep on getting stronger like this, I can't say how long it would take for you to overtake me," Alex said, and then with a smile added, "Actually, I will look forward to the day when you are stronger than me if it ever comes."