Alex had been so excited to finally find a city he could enter, only to be disappointed by the fact that it was actually a Sun Wraith.
The incoming Sun Wraith was no doubt strong, but he didn’t fear it at all. Partly because he could just make it ignore him. All he had to do was go invisible.
Sun Wraiths were also notoriously weak in mental strength, and could easily be destroyed.
However, since Alex was training with all the beasts that he met, he decided to train with the Sun Wraith as well.
The Sun Wraith had noticed him some time ago and was rushing directly toward him. As it got closer, Alex could see its shape as a large hippo with many horns jutting out from the bottom of its jaw.
As it arrived, Alex swung his sword. He let out a strong attack, intending to deal with the Sun Wraith in a single attack. But the Sun Wraith was far too strong to be dealt with so easily.
It took on the slash and headbutted Alex, throwing him far away.
Alex stopped himself halfway in the air, feeling the pain of the impact. The feeling of his ribs cracking and healing immediately after impact was not a fun one, and neither was the feeling of his skin burning upon contact.
The power of Sun on this hippo was far stronger than any he had met before. It was also so incredibly hot that he feared if he spent more than a single moment in contact with the Sun Wraith, his clothes would burn away.
Blood armor appeared around him, flowing like a robe on top of his regular clothes. It covered his storage bags too, which he needed to protect.
With all of that, Alex jumped back into the battle.
The Sun Wraith was impossible to deal with all on his own. It wasn’t so powerful that he couldn’t dodge its attacks or fight back against it, but nothing he did put a single wound on it.
It wasn’t a real beast, so it didn’t even get hurt. It was just a spirit, empowered by the pure Yang gathered inside of a Sunheart. So, there was only one way to defeat it.
Alex fought the hippo for as long as he possibly could in the air before he came absurdly close to dying. Seeing as he couldn’t continue anymore, Alex let it approach him one last time.
When it was right next to him, he used Heaven’s Impact.
The hippo struck him as well, tossing him far away. Alex felt his bones break upon impact and heal right after. He stumbled through the air for a few seconds before stopping himself and flying right back toward the hippo.
The hippo was dead, but its form remained.
The energy of the hippo would slowly dissipate. Alex wasn’t going to let that happen.
He flew next to it and immediately used his Intent to contain it. This was the power of a near divinity, and he would consume it all to cultivate. He feared it a little, standing next to it.
He could feel the power within it. This would be far stronger than any infected beast core he had eaten until now. Stronger than even multiple of them combined.
Alex concentrated it all into one tiny ball, or at least tried to. But the ball ended up being larger than a human’s head. If he tried to condense it any more than that, it would likely become as strong as Divine Qi, which Alex couldn’t control.
So, he fragmented the energy into smaller shapes, making around 10 digestible ones.
Then, one by one, he ate them.
Alex felt his mouth burn and heal as he ate each one. The energy was a wreck on his body. He immediately flew down from the sky toward a rocky region and found a crevice for himself to stay in.
With so much energy wreaking havoc in his body, he quickly began cultivating.
Each time Alex cultivated, he couldn’t help but be saddened. Without his cultivation pills, the rate at which he cultivated was rather slow. He had reached the Immortal Origin 4th realm some time ago, and even after so many years of cultivation, he had barely made any progress.
Thankfully, it seemed things would get slightly faster now. Just the amount of energy in each infected beast core was going to be much higher than ever before, allowing him to cultivate for much longer at a time.
As he ate the meat of the beasts, his body would also improve at a significant rate, which would lower the time he had to spend in any cultivation realm.
His blood was already very strong, and his spiritual energy was rapidly improving as well. As a result, all he really needed to improve was the Qi and his meridians. That wouldn’t take longer than a few dozen years hopefully.
Alex fully expected to reach the next realm within the next 30 years with his current rate of cultivation.
He cultivated the hippo’s energy for some days. By the time he was done, his Origins had improved quite a bit and his cultivation base had made noticeable improvements as well.
When he was done, it was late at night, perhaps after midnight. As Alex got up and out of the rocky region, he knew that over 5 days had passed. He got out of the place and onto the sand where he continued his journey to find civilization.
Alex fought a couple of beasts and gathered their meat. It wasn’t long after that the sun appeared on the horizon.
Alex fixed his course a little in an attempt to head directly toward the center.
‘Is it my imagination or does the land continue to slope upward?’ he wondered. It was quite difficult to tell if what he was looking at wasn’t the result of some mirage in the desert.
As he thought that, Alex heard a whistling sound from somewhere. He turned around just in time as something flew past his ear and onto the ground.
Alex turned to look at the thing behind him in surprise.
‘An arrow?’