Alex stepped through the lush forest, following the sound of the sloshing river as he headed northwest. The river came down from the north, so according to a few people he had met along the way, he had to part from a large bend in the river and go directly west.
Only then would he arrive in the desert.
It had been over four days since he had left for the desert, and he was still in the forest. With his stamina and speed, he should have already arrived at that place, but due to many factors, he had to slow down.
The primary factor of it all was his Intent training. The only way to improve his Intent and get rid of the seal was to train at every possible opportunity.
That also meant that while he had the strength and stamina to keep going, he was too mentally fatigued to continue most of the time. So, he would have to rest anywhere he could.
It was night while he treaded through the forest, following the slight gleam of light that came down from the sky. Despite the lack of stars and moon in the sky, there was still enough light around him for him to see at night.
There were some beasts in the forest, but none strong enough for Alex to want to kill them. The pitiful amount of Qi he would get from them was not worth it.
He wondered why there were no strong beasts on this side, but upon thinking about it, he guessed that it likely had to do with the many tribes folk that lived around these spots.
In the past four days, Alex had gone past over a dozen of them, each settlement larger than the Baylords. With that many people, they should have hunted down a majority of the beasts, leaving few in the forest.
There was an interesting realization he had some time ago about the beasts. He was under the impression that the beasts in this world perhaps didn’t have bloodline inheritance due to the lack of Heaven. However, after some thinking, he came to understand that they did.
Bloodline inheritance had nothing to do with Heaven, it seemed. It also went on to explain why the beasts could, in fact, cultivate at all.
The thing that had confused him was the beasts’ lack of Qi usage. However, after some thought, he finally understood what had to be happening.
Because of the situation in Hell, where no one could use Qi beyond a certain distance from them, these beasts had learned to conserve Qi instead and never actually use it.
Over time, all they did was hold Qi, never actually using it. And because they weren’t intelligent enough, they never learned to use it even just internally.
The beasts not using techniques was the only reason why these people had managed to survive, despite most of them being weaker than the beasts themselves.
Of course, that still didn’t explain how the beasts got so large beyond their regular capacity. Alex understood that it had something to do beyond just the lack of Heaven.
He wondered if he could figure it out anytime soon.
The bend of the river came some time later, and after reaching it, he turned left, heading west. Now, the path through the forest should be straight ahead, and he would reach the desert in no time.
After a few hours of walking, Alex felt that he was mentally fit again. He looked down at one of the fallen twigs on the ground as he walked and slowly lifted it to his palm using just his mind.
The intense strain he felt in his mind when making things happen without any energy was quite high, but at this point, he had gotten so used to it that it did not bother him.
The twig moved from palm to palm and floated before him as he walked.
Alex kept his focus on the twig the entire time, keeping it afloat as long as he could. After over three months of training, he could now do it for nearly five minutes before he had to place it down.
After five minutes, when Alex felt his mind begin to grow dull due to the strain, he let the twig fall to the ground.
He felt a wave of relief as he was mentally free again. But of course, that was just him stretching his muscles before actually doing the work. He now had to fight the seal.
Alex got onto the crown of a tree and got comfortable before trying to attack the seal again.
Even after three months, he still hadn’t gotten used to that pain. It simply appeared to be something that one couldn’t just bear with.
Alex attacked the seal, trying to tear through it. In doing so, the seal countered by attacking his mind directly. The longer he kept at it, the stronger the pain became, and after a while, he had to stop.
Alex was breathless by the end of it, but he continued again.
During the first few days, he had been able to go at it just three times. However, after all this time, he had definitely improved. And even after wasting a bit of it training earlier, he was able to go at it five times now.
He had nearly doubled the strength of his Intent in the last three months, or at least gotten better at using what he had. Still, this seemed nowhere near enough to be what was needed to even place a dent in the Storm God’s seal.
He would have to train for so many more years for this.
With it taking that long, Alex could only worry how much longer it would take him to get out of this place. He had to find a way as soon as he could. He didn’t want to keep his family waiting for too long.
Hopefully, he would find some way while searching for the Sunhearts in the desert.