This region of Hell was no doubt hotter than the other regions. In particular, it had a lot more Yang than any other regions he had been to, likely only less than the inner regions.
And yet, he hadn’t felt Yang in a long time, most likely because of the pile of Sunhearts each city kept for itself.
However, for the first time since then, he felt it in the bottom of the hole.
“But… how?” Alex wondered, since all Yang was usually sucked in by the Sunhearts. “Did the formation…”
A different possibility came to his mind.
“The Sunhearts,” he thought. “The Decaying Sunhearts that run this formation, they must be leaking Yang outside of it.”
He had expected all of it to get used up by the formation, but that wasn’t the case. He sat there for a while, feeling the burdened strong weight around his mind.
At 15 meters deep, he had to be around 10 meters away from the edge of the barrier, which he guessed was right next to where the formation was. This land was already at a low elevation; any lower and the formation would have to be in water.
It was doubtful it would be there because of issues such as water corrosion.
Sensing the Yang wasn’t that surprising. After all, it was just Yang. It was the most prevalent element in this world.
However, there was something about it that made Alex a little curious. The strength of the Yang he felt was strong. It was strong enough that he wondered if the strength it let out was strong enough to reach the Immortal grade.
While the Sunhearts that Alex had used back in Sunspear had been strong enough to wreck his body, he never actually could sense the Yang within it.
Even in Decaying Sunhearts, the Yang had never been strong enough for him to think anything of it, most likely because there wasn’t much Yang coming out of it due to the fact that it was a single Sunheart.
But, the formation that was running this massive barrier that could keep an Immortal inside would most certainly need more than just a single Decaying Sunheart, each of which had to be strong enough to begin with.
Together, Alex believed that the Yang they released was of the Immortal grade.
And if it was, could he do something with it?
Alex immediately sat down cross-legged and activated his cultivation technique. The Five Yang Divine Path activated as the Qi in his Dantian began circulating, dragging in Immortal Qi from outside of him.
However, nothing was dragged in at all.
The Five Yang Divine Path only worked with Yang Qi and not Yang aura.
Alex stopped for a moment, considering his options. He needed Qi, and not aura, so he had to find a way to turn the aura into Qi. He could do something similar with Blood Aura, but he had his Dao for that.
For Yang, he had no Dao at all. Perhaps he could learn it if he were to try, but that wouldn’t help him right now.
‘I just need to find a way to convert it…’
He paused for a moment.
Convert.
“Isn’t that exactly what my body does to begin with?” Alex thought, quickly attempting something else.
Alex used the Dao of Yang to gather the Yang around him. It was harder than he thought it would be, precisely because of how much burden his mind was already bearing being this down from the safe region.
Still, he had improved enough in the 2 and a half years that he could remain around the 15-meter region and do this at the same time.
The Yang gathered in front of him, converging to a point where it began to glow. He gathered even more, and after just a few seconds, there wasn’t much left in the area for him to use.
He waited for a few minutes, hoping he could gather more, but as his wait lengthened, he realized that the Yang that came off the Decaying Sunheart did so very weakly.
It took many minutes for the area to fill up as much as it did.
Alex took what Yang he had gathered and compressed it even further, making the orb of Yang smaller and smaller. At some point, it was compressed enough that it was the size of a pill. At that size, he could eat it.
Alex swallowed the orb of Yang, focusing on it at all times so it didn’t simply disperse the moment he placed it in his body. He felt the heat of the converged Yang as it slid down his throat until it reached his stomach.
Alex waited for what felt like a long time before something happened inside of his body. The Yang dissipated and then was absorbed by his body, converted into its purest form of Qi.
Which, sadly, was not a lot. It was better than eating True realm beast cores, but not by a lot. By what Alex could tell, he would need to consume nearly a hundred of these before his Dantian was full.
Considering his situation, he couldn’t complain.
Alex used his cultivation technique to refine the new Qi, adding it to his Dantian. Then, he waited around for more Yang energy to gather in the area.
It was going to take a while for him to cultivate with this method, but then, what could he really do? Besides training his Intent, he had no other options here, so finding something else he could do was genuinely a miracle for him.
This would be the perfect thing to occupy his mind when he was feeling bored or worried about everything else.
Alex immediately used his Origin technique to improve each of the eight Origins he could somehow tell were in his Spiritual Sea. When he was done with it, Alex began absorbing more Yang to fill his Dantian.
It took Alex 3 entire days to fully fill up his empty Dantian.
As soon as it was full, he began improving his Origin again.