Alex had always wanted a layout of Hell. All he really knew for now was that the center of the desert was somewhere due west, but besides that, he had absolutely no idea where anything was.
He had no idea about the number of continents there were, the number of seas there were. He didn’t even know how large the entire thing was. For all he knew, he might have been at the edge of the world when he arrived, with the sea he saw leading off to space.
“You wish to learn about the desert?” Rona asked. “I… I am not very experienced in this subject.”
“Who is then?” he asked. He had tried bringing up this subject with Tala, but the man seemed to know not much about the deserts beyond maybe the next two cities that were a few days away.
“I’m afraid no one has that information. The desert is so vast that no one truly knows where everything is.”
Alex narrowed his eyes. “Tell me what you can. Everything from locations to what tribe and city rule those places.”
Rona gave Alex what he wanted, but the information he gave was barely any better than what Tala had given him.
Alex narrowed his eyes. “You aren’t hiding anything from me, are you?” he asked. “Because I won’t be pleased if I were to find out you hide things from me.”
“No, no, no, no, no. I swear on my honor I am telling the truth,” the old man quickly said. “We are so far at the edge of the desert that we are pretty much outsiders. The ones that live deeper in know a lot more than we do. I’m sure you will find what you’re looking for in there.”
Alex paused for a moment, taking in those words. The man wasn’t entirely wrong. From what he had seen in just the two days he had been in this city, while it was a lot more developed when compared to the ones outside of the desert, he had continued hearing how it was better deeper in the deserts.
The beasts were stronger there, and so were the people.
Alex spent some time thinking through what he had learned. At some point, another beast arrived from the side, likely coming in through the bloody smell left behind by the dead wolf.
With nothing much to do, Alex stood up and got ready to fight. The new beast that had arrived was a large tortoise. Alex wasn’t sure how one could exist in the desert, but there was one, so he fought it.
He didn’t instantly kill it this time and took his time with the fight. It was quite boring to just wait, so he had the tortoise live a little longer while it did its best to kill him.
Alex expected to hurt the beast after holding back, but it was clearly not as wounded as he had hoped it would be. The beast was actually stronger than he had thought it would be.
Alex tried to judge its strength with what little capability he had with his current self and came to the conclusion that this tortoise had the strength of a beast in the early Saint realm.
It was stronger physically than it was with its Qi.
Alex frowned a little upon realizing that, and couldn’t help but wonder what it was that got it to become so strong. He understood that, just like the people of the desert, it had to have eaten many other beasts to get as strong, but then what had gotten the other beasts to become stronger?
What was the reason for the very first beast to have a body cultivation that could also somehow be passed down through either bloodline or through cannibalism?
‘That’s not the only weird thing,’ Alex thought. He stood before the corpse of the now deceased tortoise, staring at its size. The size it had was clearly that of an Immortal realm beast.
Increase in a beast’s size with its cultivation base was the property of Qi. No beast got stronger just because of their body cultivation. And yet, even if one was to assume that was responsible for the changes here, the beasts were still too big for their cultivation base.
Which was to say that there was something else going on here that was making those changes.
It both may or may not be related to the reason it was strong as well.
Alex could only hope that he would find the answer deeper in the desert. He now began thinking of when it would be right for him to head over there.
He wanted to go as soon as possible, but he also wanted to take his time in this city before leaving. At least, he wanted to spend enough time here to improve something in regards to his blood techniques.
A few more beasts appeared afterwards. Since they remained stationary in that place, the beasts that did come for them did so from far away, so there weren’t that many of them coming in the first place.
Then, an hour past what should have been midnight, Alex felt another of the remaining 3 beast cores grow hot. He pulled out the beast core from his waist and placed it on his palm.
It hadn’t reached its full intensity just yet, but even that was enough to scare Rona into moving away from there.
Alex didn’t blame him for fearing this. If it was just a little stronger, he likely would too. With how much energy there was inside of this little ball in his hand, it could likely kill an Immortal if they were not prepared for it.
Alex continued staring at the beast core in his hand, its light growing brighter and brighter. And as he watched it, he couldn’t help but be curious about something.
Was it in any way a good idea to try and eat this?
Alex spent what felt like a long time before landing on an answer.
“There is only one way to find out.”
