Alex was breathless for a few moments while he held the book in his hands. He was also severely lacking in Qi and blood at the moment, which made him feel even more tired.
'It ate so much blood that I thought another page would open up for a moment,' he thought.
The Blood God's Manual now held an unimaginable amount of death aura, which it wasn't letting go of at all. It was the perfect vessel to keep it contained until necessary.
"Amazing," Godslayer said. "Let me know when you find some Darkness aura too. I can only consume the two of them together and grow. Alright, I'm going back to sleep now."
Godslayer's excited voice quietened down, leaving Alex alone in the ravine.
Alex spent a few minutes cultivating to get back what little Qi he could for the time being. Once done, he called out to Scarlet to let her know that he was done.
"What was it? How did you do it?" Scarlet got curious.
"It was just some object with a lot of death aura. I took away the death aura, and it's fixed now," he said.
He had to lie about the Divine creation as mentioning it would cause more problems than solve it. If by some chance it led to the discovery of Godslayer inside of him, the senior from the Central continent might end up destroying him while he was weak.
As much as a problem Godslayer was to others, he also solved a lot of things for Alex. Also, in the years he had lived with him, he had come to appreciate the sword spirit which had grown quite a lot.
"Let's leave," he said and flew out of the ravine. The sect leader and many other elders were patiently waiting for him to come out. When he did, they silently waited for him to say something.
"It's done. You guys should be free to learn the sword aura without killing yourself now," Alex said.
The sect leader gave a deep sigh of relief. "Thank you so much," she said. "I can't imagine how I can ever repay you."
"You don't have to do anything," Alex said. "As I said earlier, I'm doing this because of a favor I owe the Emperor."
"Ah right, gather up your disciples and elders so I can get rid of the aura inside of them."
A few minutes later, there was a line of people waiting for him to help them.
Alex cultivated while he worked on their death aura. About a few of the way through, he had already started realizing that he wasn't needed here at all.
In fact, the death aura was starting to disappear. Perhaps it was because of the disappearance of the divine spirit that the death aura no longer seemed to hide inside their dantian as well.
So, Alex decided to not help the one that did not need his help urgently. He called the ones that were on the death door and started treating them only.
Alex left the Broken Ravine sect sometime late afternoon after he removed the death aura hiding in everyone.
He stopped by the Lightsong City which was close by to see what was happening with the players.
Once he learned that they were all properly being transferred, either using massive boats or in burst with the teleportation formation, he made his way toward the radiant city to meet the emperor once more.
It was evening once more when he arrived at the Radiant City. The sun had gone down when he was led to the Throne room.
"You're back already. I thought I wouldn't be seeing you for a long time," the emperor said.
"I was planning on coming a few days later initially, but I decided to move that forward a little bit," Alex said. "I got rid of the problem in the Broken Ravine sect. There was something that was causing them to die early. It has been fixed now."
"Oh," the Emperor hadn't expected that. "Thank you."
Alex nodded and reached into his robes before bringing out a handful of storage bags. He judged the number for a bit and decided that much was right.
He tossed it at the emperor who swiftly caught it and gave it a curious look. "What… are these?" he asked, looking at the 20 different storage bags.
"Look inside," Alex said and waited for the emperor's reaction.
As expected, the emperor's eyes went wide when he suddenly stood up. "This!" he shouted out loud.
He had expected to get some pills or alchemy recipes given who Alex was, but what he saw was something he would never have expected.
He looked at another one and another one. By the time he was done with all 20, his surprise had disappeared and all that remained was fear.
Fear that he was about to get into a debt that he couldn't possibly repay.
"Why did you give me 20 Saint Spirit veins?" the emperor asked. "Do you want something in return?"
Alex chuckled a bit. "No, I need nothing," he said. "I'm simply returning them to you since it belongs here."
The emperor was a little confused. "It belongs here?" he asked. "What do you mean by that?"
"Ah," Alex realized something. "You don't know about the war from over 4 thousand years ago, do you? If I remember correctly, the Wei clan became the royal family only over a thousand years ago."
"War?" the emperor asked. "What war?"
Alex gave a small explanation of the war that had ravaged this place in the past and how they had lost almost all of their Saint Spirit veins.
It was only after the explanation that he fully understood that Alex was returning it to him.
"Why?" he asked. "You could've kept it and made use of it to improve your own kingdom."
"Yes, but I wouldn't feel right doing so," Alex said. "In a sense, I always felt indebted to the Western Continent, both this and the other empire. So, if I had made use of those spirit veins, I would've only ever felt guilt."
"Instead, I'm returning them to you, and with this, the debt I feel I owe will have been paid as well," Alex said.
With this, he will have cut off most of his connection to the Western Continent.
"Do whatever you want with it," Alex said. "My job here is done."
The emperor himself showed Alex to the gate from where Alex swiftly departed. Late evening, Alex arrived at the Flowing Brush sect and met up with his mother who was with Qin Shan.
After talking for a while, Alex gave him a Saint Spirit vein as well.
"This is for all you've done for my mother in my absence," he told the old man. "Thank you, senior Qin."
Qin Shan couldn't help but be surprised by what he had received. He was sad that his disciples were going to be leaving for a long time, but he had gotten something in exchange that would help improve the rest of his sect's disciples.
Alex and Helen stayed there for the night, and the very next morning, they said their farewells and returned back to the Beast realm.
Updat𝒆d fr𝒐m freew𝒆bnov𝒆l.c(o)m