It took Alex no effort at all to make the paste as they asked. He easily prepared a jar full of paste and showed it to the chief, who checked it thoroughly.
The chief’s eyes widened slightly in surprise, unable to see anything wrong with the paste. “This is the right type of paste, is it not?” he asked the men surrounding him.
The old men made their way around the chief, quickly checking through the paste. Once they were certain this was the correct one, they gave affirmative nods.
“Thank you for making this. Tala, you can ask Rona or Inga for anything our young friend may need in exchange for making more of this. I will leave you to handle everything for him.”
“As you say, chief.” Tala gestured for Alex to leave.
“Thank you, Chief Yulan.”
“No need to thank me. You fully deserve it,” the chief said. “Tala will show you to your place now. Please try to hide yourself from the others; they may end up being scared more than they should.”
Alex nodded. “I will make sure of that.”
The two of them left the chief’s place and walked out. Tala’s daughter Mabi left the place long ago, likely having returned to her place by now.
Alex strolled through the city streets with Tala, making his way a short distance away. They talked on the way there, Tala speaking on his own to let Alex know what he should have known from the start.
Most of the people in the city spent their time doing nothing but cultivating. Half of them did nothing but raise kids, with the task of bringing food to the city left entirely at the hands of the warriors.
Some people worked as smiths, some worked with clothes. There were certainly other tasks that people did to spend their time too, but most didn’t have much to do.
Alex felt odd that there would be people such as this, but these people seemed to have gotten used to this life. Boredom was perhaps not as prevalent in this place.
“Those old men in the chief’s room, are they like his counselors?” Alex asked.
“Yes. They are warriors who have managed to grow as old as they have. Very few warriors live to become as old, so those are the wisest people we have, and they advise the chief on what he should and should not do.”
Alex nodded. “No wonder their clothes made me think they were warriors.”
“They are warriors at heart, so they wear half a uniform.”
After a while, they arrived at a simple building with flat, colorless walls, and a flat roof. Walking in, the place was mostly empty except for a bed with no mattress in one room, and a large desk with 4 chairs in another room.
“This place is for guests that arrive here from far away, usually from deeper in the desert,” Tala said. “I will have to prepare a few things to add here, so it might take a few more hours before this is fully ready.”
“That’s alright,” Alex said. “I can stay on the floor really. I have stayed in caves, so this is more than good enough for me.”
Tala shook his head. “We’ll still do something. You should stay around and rest. I’ll have the things brought here soon.”
Tala turned to leave, but before he reached the door, he stopped and turned around. “Ah, right. Nearly forgot to give you this.”
He brought out two storage bags and handed them over to Alex. “These are the Sunhearts and beast cores you wanted. I don’t know what you want them for, but I hope you succeed in using them.”
Finally, the old man left.
Alex sat down by the empty chair and let the items fall onto the large desk. He grabbed the beast cores before they could roll away, but the Sunhearts stayed where they dropped, glowing a dull yellow color, giving off slight heat.
The heat, of course, was instead gathering the heat from the surrounding, instead of giving off. With 8 of them there, the heat surrounding it was quite a lot.
The 20 beast cores certainly looked to be many, but after consuming it, they would barely fill his dantian at all. He stared at the beast cores for a while and wondered if he could do something else instead with it.
Could he form Blood Beasts with them?
The beasts wouldn’t be as good because it was only a beast core of a True realm beast, but that reminded Alex of something else. He had wanted to improve the blood techniques for a while now, and had been intending to give it a try after the tournament came to an end.
Because of all the things that had happened since, he hadn’t had the time to just rest and do something for himself. This just might be that time.
He had thought of ways to improve the Blood Beasts, mainly by making them improve alongside his own improvement in blood aura. He wondered if he could do that now.
How much time would it take without his Dao of Techniques? Would the Dao of Techniques even work with techniques that didn’t require Qi?
‘No, Qi is just energy, and so is blood aura. All that is truly needed for a technique to work is energy, a path for it to move through, and Intent. So long as I have all three, I should be able to make it work.’
Alex would first have to understand exactly how it was that the Blood Beasts came to be. He had made it close to a thousand times by now, but never had he paid any attention to what he was doing. Now, he would have to.
For that, the first thing he would need was a lot and a lot of his own blood.
“I’ll need a massive bucket to fill with blood,” Alex thought. Finding one would take some time.
So Blood Beasts would have to wait for a day or two. For now, Alex decided to test out the Sunhearts instead.