Alex logged back into the game at around 9 pm and decided to make some more pills for now. During the next 3 hours, he made the pills, he managed to make exactly 2 pills in heaven grade.
One of them was a metal-aligned pill, so it was not a surprise when it came out with 53% harmony. However, he was pleasantly surprised that the wood-aligned pill also turned out to be 50% harmony.
He was quite happy with himself with this result.
"Once again, I can't cultivate, can I?" he thought. He needed to wake up at 6 tomorrow morning as well, so he just didn't cultivate once more. He didn't want to fall asleep and not wake up in time.
So, he called out Pearl once more. "Meow," Pearl said as it came out. He walked up to Alex and started licking his arms. Alex slowly rubbed his back and said, "We are going to cultivate once more, buddy. You alright with that?" he asked.
"Meow," Pearl screamed in confirmation.
Pearl's body started glowing once more. Going from white to yellow to golden light when numerous small cuts appeared all over Alex's body. However, he was easily enduring these.
"Sigh, ever since the pain has disappeared, my body cultivation speed has dropped significantly as well," he said. "Do I feed pearl some monster core so he can get ahead of my body cultivation and I have to catch up once again?" he wondered.
There were numerous theories in his head as to what was going on, however, none of them made sense due to the sheer lack of information available to him. He still had yet to find anything about Evolution in the game itself.
"Do I really have to go and check the internet? But I don't want to spoil myself." He was falling into a dilemma. For now, he decided to ignore the possibilities and concentrated on the ongoing circumstances.
Pearl cultivated in peace over the course of the entire night, while Alex just sat there bearing the pain that barely got him any stronger than he already was. Still, he was sure that this small amount of increase would soon gather up and be substantial enough.
Early morning, at 6 PM, he finally stopped Pearl from cultivating anymore. Once he was done, he sent Pearl back into his tattoo space and got ready to leave.
"Martial uncle is supposed to get the food for me, right?" he thought back to what his master said, and hoped she remembered.
Suddenly, a string of information appeared on his communication talisman which he took out to read.
-Lang Shun is waiting for you at the Right Alchemy garden-
-Take your food from him-
-Stick to the safe parts and return in 3 days-
"The safe part?" he wondered what that meant. 'Wasn't all part supposed to be dangerous, yet not?' He thought. He assumed he would know what she meant after entering the forbidden fields and went out of his house.
He went down the sect leader's mountain and quickly reached the Alchemy garden on the right side.
"Oh, there you are martial nephew Yu." Lang Shun was a bit further away when he noticed him.
"Good morning, Martial uncle Lang. I will have to rely on you this morning," he said.
"That is no problem. Congratulations on becoming a core disciple, finally. I knew you could do it," Lang Shun said. Alex thanked him with a big smile.
"I heard you said you wanted to go to the Forbidden fields. Why?" he asked.
"I … have my reason," Alex decided to not speak about his pans.
"Whatever. If my senior sister couldn't make you stop, then I'm not even going to try," Lang Shun said.
"Alright, come with me," he said and took Alex towards the crevice between the sect leader's mountain and the alchemy garden. There, Alex finally saw a small opening.
"Is this what leads to the forbidden fields?" Alex asked.
"Yes. You have to go through here and only then will you reach the forbidden fields. Now, I must warn you about a few different things," Lang Shun said.
Alex started to listen attentively.
"First of all, since you will lose all of your cultivation temporarily once you enter there, you will start to get hungry very soon. So, Senior sister asked me to prepare these foods for you," Lang Shun said as he took out a small pack of food.
"Don't put these in your storage bags, or you won't be able to take it out anymore," he said.
"Yes, martial uncle," Alex said as he took the food.
"Secondly," Lang Shun continued, "If you do end up finishing your food too early, there are cliffs along the side of the field with food growing on top of them. Try to hit them with stones to drop them. Absolutely do not try to climb them."
"You sometimes end up forgetting that you are nothing but a mortal in there and try to get up there when you are really hungry. Try not to do that. Go against your instincts. However, I hope it doesn't come to that, since you will have plenty of food for now."
Alex was still listening.
"Oh yeah, if anyone asks what you were punished for, just say something generic like you stole some ingredients from your neighbor. Although…" Lang Shun looked at Alex's cloth and said, "You might want to change to less attracting clothes."
"Less attracting?" Alex looked down on himself and realized his Martial Uncle was talking about the Core sect's robe. He swiftly changed his clothes to the ones from outer sect one that he had kept.
"This should be fine, right?" Alex asked.
"Yes, That is enough," Lang Shun said.
"Now, the third and most important thing you have to remember. A few kilometers past where you enter, you will find a river with clean flowing water. Most people in their punishments stay around here for the water source, and that is how far the forbidden fields under our control actually goes to."
"Beyond that live dangerous beasts. Not very dangerous to cultivators, but to mortals, any attacks of theirs are lethal. Make sure you never cross the river,"