Alex was inside the jungle in the dead of night. The moon was shining brightly in the sky. For some reason, the moon always shined brightly in the sky.
The moon never went past being a half-moon. It changed its states between a full moon, half-moon, and in-between. So, he never had to worry about the night being dark in the game.
He didn't know if it was an intentional change from the developers, or they just wanted to let the players know this world was not their own.
But, the moon didn't matter to him anymore. He could see a lot better at nighttime now that he was a cultivator. Especially when he went into focus mode, his vision would amplify as well, letting him see the most minute of things in bright light even in the darkest of caves.
So, walking in the jungle at night felt no different from the day to him. He took a different path from the one he took during the day so that he could encounter more alchemy ingredients, and hunt more monsters.
He realized that nighttime had way more monsters than the daytime. Most of the monsters seemed to only come out during nighttime, and he had a great time hunting them.
He wasn't particularly happy about the hunt or fascinated with killing. He was just happy when he thought about how many points he could get from these monsters.
Time slowly went by while he kept finding new materials, and encountering quite a few monsters.
It was about 2 am at night when he suddenly heard something.
Rustle Rustle
He immediately went into focus mode and started looking around to see if he could find what was making the noise. Time was slowed down, so he saw a bunch of leaves hanging from a branch on a tree move unnaturally.
He kept looking as he waited for a monster to appear from behind it. As the leaves parted to show what was behind them, he was surprised.
The thing making the rustling noises was actually a pair of females. He looked at them with wide eyes, while they also seemed to be surprised to find him.
They both seemed to be around 20 years old and held a small thin sword in their hand. They were both beautiful girls, but one just seemed infinitely more beautiful than the other.
Alex was still in his focus mode. He quickly looked at the less beautiful girl. She was wearing a yellow robe with blue linings around the robe. Her thin sword looked simple and made of steel.
There was a slight shine to it, but it wasn't very much.
The other girl on the other hand was something else. She was probably the most beautiful person he had seen in real life or in-game. She was wearing a similar robe to the first girl, with yellow all over it.
However, unlike the blue linings, this robe had red linings on it. She had flowing black hair that shined with a hint of blue in the moonlight. The sword she was holding looked like a crystal sword and was shining with a blue hue to it.
Even without the focus mode, one could see the shining from the sword. Alex looked at his own steel sword in hand and felting like laughing at the dull blade.
He turned off his focus mode, still surprised at seeing peoples in the forest at 2 am.
"Hello," he greeted.
The girl with the blue linings looked at him and asked," A disciple from the Hong Wu Sect? What are you doing here?" she practically demanded the answer.
Alex frowned a little, but still chose to answer, " I'm here to hunt monsters." He said.
"What monster could you possibly want to hunt in the middle of the night?" the girl asked once more.
"Meng Meng!" the other girl said, clearly disapproving of the rude tone in her voice.
"I'm a sorry senior sister." The blue linings girl immediately apologized to her senior sister.
The senior sister looked towards Alex and asked, " Are you looking for any specific monster, fellow Daoist? Do you require our help?" she asked.
Her tone was polite as she asked her question with a smile. Alex looked at the junior sister with a bit of focus and was shocked.
[Bone Tempering 7th Realm]
The girl was already in the 7th realm of Bone Tempering. That was 6 realms higher than his own. Judging from her tone, her senior sister must be stronger than her.
He slowly looked at the senior sister. His already wide eyes became even wider.
[Mind Tempering 5th realm]
'Holy Sh*t,' he couldn't help but cuss. This was the highest cultivation he had seen on someone so young. In fact, this was the highest non-hidden cultivation he had seen yet in the game.
To reach her level, he would have to cross the entire bone tempering realm, the organ tempering realm, and the meridian tempering realm. He wondered how much Qi that took.
The girl was 5 realms away from becoming a cultivator in the true realms. The girl looked at him with a weird look, and he realized he hadn't answered her question yet.
"I am just hunting random monsters, and am not looking for anything specific. So, thank you for your offer, but I will have to decline it." He tried to say no as politely as he could. This girl could probably kill him if she wanted to.
She didn't seem that type of girl, however. "Very well then, fellow Daoist. We shall take our leave". The girl turned around and walked off. The other girl also quickly followed behind her not giving Alex another glance.
It took a while before Alex was back in his usual mindset. He walked on from where he was and started looking for the ingredients and the monsters once more.
Slowly time passed by as he hunted the monsters throughout the entire night. The first rays of sunlight were scattered through the forests from the east.
It was about time to leave the forest, and log out of the game.