"Strong?" Alex asked. He was a little surprised to hear the word 'Strong' on a disciple from Hong Wu Sect, in the forbidden fields. 'Is the boss a body cultivator like me as well?' he thought.
Those were supposed to be incredibly rare due to the limited opportunity one had to become a body cultivator.
'If he really is a body cultivator, what need does he have with yang jades? Could it be?' Alex started thinking of many things. One thing he felt was guaranteed. This man was definitely not a player.
So, if an NPC had a body similar to his own… Alex had some questions to ask.
'But if he really is a b0dy cultivator, then dealing with him will be hard. I will at least need a weapon with me.' There was only one thing he could think of doing to increase his opportunity of winning against this boss if they ever got into a fight.
He needed a weapon. And what better weapon was there than his steel sword. Alex had tried to use the inventory, but the system said that he did not own any storage bags and was empty. Thankfully, He knew of another method.
"I need to fight against this suppression and increase my area until I can release my sword from my storage bag," Alex said to himself. He knew that was possible. At least, it was possible to fight against the suppression with his spiritual sense.
"I should be able to do it if I bring my storage bags next to my head right?" he thought. The idea felt a little stupid, but if it worked, it wouldn't be stupid at all.
Alex left the three men and went along the side of the cliff, constantly trying to fight the pressure with his spiritual sense. He didn't immediately use everything in his spiritual sea and instead sent out a steady stream of spiritual sense that continued to replenish at the same rate as his expenditure.
He was trying to get used to fighting the pressure before actually fighting it. Along the way, he asked a few more people for yang jades just to see if they had it, but he found that almost all of it had been given to this boss in exchange for food.
'Damn, If I had gotten here a few weeks ago, I would've had yang jades everywhere,' Alex thought.
He didn't go ahead anymore and instead just walked over to a random spot in the grassland and started intensely practicing his pushing with a spiritual sense.
At first, it felt easy cause he was getting used to the pressure, but once he tried to actually push with more than just minimal force, he remembered just how hard it was.
His spiritual sea was getting used up very quickly and had disappeared a lot. He felt his spiritual sense spill out of his head and go a little further away.
His range was around 30 cm now. He quickly took a storage bag and brought it to his head. He sent what little spiritual sense was coming out of him and sent it into his storage bag.
Once inside, he realized that his spiritual sense couldn't enter all the way through the bag. Even inside the bag with massive space that was disconnected from the real world, he was still being suppressed.
Thankfully, a different sword was right on the front. He quickly pulled it out using his spiritual sense. A muffled sound rang out as the sword fell onto the grasses.
Alex stopped fighting the suppression force and let his spiritual sense get pushed back into his spiritual sea.
Huff Huff
He hadn't realized how much pressure he was putting himself in and had even forgotten to breathe somewhere through the process.
He lowered himself and picked up the sword. The sword he had taken out was the common mortal grade sword that his master had given to him.
Unlike his Steel sword, however, even after refining, this sword had never displayed any better abilities. "Guess that is what you get from the trashiest of the swords out there," he thought.
Alex practiced his Elusive Heavenly sword to make sure he could still use it even without the Qi, and he could.
He then looked at the time. It was 4 am. 'Sh*t, I need to find the boss and take away his yang jade,' Alex thought and walked towards the direction the 3 men had given him.
It took him about an hour to reach the place where the boss stayed. Surprisingly, there were a few different people already here.
"Please, just a little bit. I swear I will find the stones tomorrow," a man cried.
"Please boss! I haven't eaten in 3 days. I don't have the strength to look for the yang jades or even throw stones. Please, give me something to eat," another woman was wailing. Her cheeks looked very sunken.
"Brothers, please ask the boss for something. I— I can join you guys too. I can help you. Just give me some food."
Everyone here was here in the first place because they were desperate for some food. The feeling of hunger was not something one enjoyed after being content for months on end.
Now their bodies didn't have Qi to survive, and the boss had taken away all other forms of satiety. They were ready to do anything for just a single bite of the fruit up there.
Alex felt bad for them. Even if they did the most heinous of crimes, they were already being punished. They didn't need another random person to come here and add more punishment onto them.
"Get away from here. Go and find some yang jades for the boss. Only then will you get something to eat," a big-bodied person said to the group of people that were begging.
His body was almost as big as Kong Yuhan's but he looked more like a thug with his current situation than a cultivator.
Alex knew exactly where he had to start his operation from.