Nearly 3 months passed since the day Alex started going to the poison school. He learned what he could in those 3 months, becoming ever so learned about how poisons and their antidotes worked.
It was only when his knowledge rivaled that of a Level 8 poison master that Alex decided to no longer visit this place. He was done with what it had to offer.
To get any better than he had, he would have to practice on his own, and as such the school visits held no meaning anymore.
Alex had visited a few more places in this time, going around the city to take part in auctions or gambling houses. He also visited fighting arenas that one could pay to fight in, where others could watch and bet on him.
Seeing the level of the fighters there, Alex held no interest at all. Besides, it wouldn't fit a king like him to fight some regular person just to show his dominance.
He went over to the Alchemy school a few times, to see how they were doing. He also met up with Hao Ya, who was already gathering a few people to spread the news about the player's home being the central continent and that they should be allowed to go back.
Alex's small speech at the end of the alchemy competition had helped her cause quite a lot. She had mostly talked with those that were in the school itself, as well as those in the residential area.
She knew that the population of players in the Eastern Continent was quite a lot, so the number of people she could find was also quite a lot. Most of them were weaker players, but there were also quite a few strong ones.
Finding the weaker ones didn't help her cause as much as finding stronger ones did, as weaker people had little to no voice in making the emperor move, even if they themselves were the ones that needed to leave the most.
At the same time, finding strong ones would help her a lot, but it could also backfire in her case as those would be the ones that wouldn't want to go back.
There was a delicate balance she had to find here through the hopefully kind hearts of the people.
After that, she would have to wait until the Emperor was out of his closed cultivation.
Alex continued visiting the other schools to learn about them. He had decided to take some classes in the artifact school at some point before visiting it, which he was going to go to last. There were still 2 other schools that had to visit, and he had decided to visit them both now that he was done with the Poison School.
The Royal School of Beast Taming had a headmaster that was surprisingly a long-beaked Crane. The crane had a name, Blackdot, apparently named by the man that had bonded him many millennia ago when he was just a young bird.
Now, he worked in the Royal School to help new cultivator meet and learn about beasts, as well as bond with each other.
"Is it that surprising, your majesty?" the bird asked. "Seeing a beast, instead of a human as the headmaster of this school?"
"Absolutely," Alex said. "But just because it's surprising, doesn't mean that it is necessarily something I hate or disapprove of. I mean, who am I to judge? Our ruler is a beast as well."
"Haha," the Crane laughed a bit. "I shouldn't have worried about visiting your Alchemy competition in that case. I thought I would ruin the mood and did not visit."
"I wouldn't have," Alex said with a bit of a chuckle in his voice.
"Then I apologize for assuming something about you that I shouldn't," the Crane said.
"Um, can we start the tour?" Alex asked.
The crane nodded and took Alex to see the school. The Royal School of Beast Taming was quite different from the other schools in that there weren't many buildings there.
Aside from some places for the students to stay and a few libraries and such, most of the rest of the area was just an open space where the people trained with their beasts.
There was also no level system in this school as anyone with a beast easily became a beast tamer.
"Everyone seems quite happy with each other," Alex said, looking around at the students that were running around the place. Most of them actually turned out to be little kids.
"We let youngsters come and meet with infant beasts that live in the school," the crane said. "Most are offsprings of beasts that remain in the school or those that have either been neglected by their parents or were just orphaned."
"We let the youngsters come and play around with the beasts, try to see if they're compatible so that they can maybe bond with each other," the crane said.
"This all seems quite a friendly environment," Alex said. "So I'm assuming there is no bond of servitude here."
"No," the crane shook his head. "While there are many that do that, we in this school only allow bonds of equals. If anyone is found forming a bond of servitude, we often force the person to break their bond and do it again."
"That's… something, I guess," Alex said as he looked around. "How many beasts does a person bond to on average?"
"On average?" the crane thought for a bit and answered. "I would say they mostly just bond one. But if you mean how much they can, then it's usually two. We discourage trying to go for even 3 as it thins out your spirit quite a bit, allowing for it to get damaged easily."
"Given how hard it is to heal a wounded spirit, we stay away from multiple bonds," the crane said.
And here was Alex who had spread his spirit into 6 directions already with his 3 beasts and 3 artifacts. He started worrying a little about his future.
The 8th Undying god had died due to some spirit injuries as well, so he needed to be careful.
"Do you have bonded beasts yourself, your Majesty?" the crane asked.
"I do," Alex said. "But they're quite shy and like to spend their time inside their beast space most of the time."
"Oh, you should force them to come out once in a while, your majesty. We also teach how to increase confidence in beasts by having them interact with other humans," the crane said.
"I'll think about it," Alex said. "Thank you for the tour."
Alex returned back to the palace afterward, leaving the school. That now only let the painting school that he had to visit.
After returning, he asked for a few glasses of refreshing juices to be brought over and had the elders as well as Pearl and Whisker drink it.
He was deciding to go make some pills as it had been quite a few days, when a servant came and passed along a message.
The crown prince wanted to meet him.
"Oh, send him in," Alex said and waited for the Crown prince to arrive while he placed Pearl and Whisker back into their beast space.
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