Alex took Talia to a lone section of the orphanage and broke the news that she might not have wanted to hear.
"You are an amazing woman, Talia. Unfortunately, I can't find the two of us working at all," he lied.
Talia was a bit shocked to hear such a conclusion so early. "But we have only been on one date," Talia said. "Is it because I got captured?'
"What? No, no. It's just me," Alex said. "I just can't feel the spark between us two." That bit was certainly true. While Alex could sense that the two of them would make for a nice King and Queen, they certainly wouldn't make for a good couple.
And the sole reason for that was that Alex simply couldn't find himself being attracted to Talia. Maybe a few more days would've changed things, but he didn't want a Queen in the first place, so he let her down easily instead of taking her on multiple dates only to reject her after that.
"We can still be friends," Alex said with a soft smile. "I have planned to come here during my time stay in Greenheart City, so we will be meeting each other quite a bit."
"I see," Talia said with a dejected voice. "I will accept what you say, your majesty."
Alex gave a small bow and said, "I'll see you in a few days then." Then, he left back to the Palace.
He told the King and others that he was tired, so he went directly back to his room in the palace, not even stopping for his two elders. Once he entered his room, he shut down all forms of entry and sat down quietly when he could finally find peace.
Once he was seated, a voice spoke in his head.
"What's going on?" Godslayer asked. "You are a bit hasty today in everything you're doing. Is something wrong?"
"Is it that noticeable?" Alex asked.
"You came from that sect with children as soon as they were rescued and then made pills without much thought. Had there been something wrong with the pill, you could have harmed a kid," Godslayer said.
"I tried my best to prepare the best pills, but making it any better would've required tons of time, which I don't want to spend," Alex said.
"That's what I'm saying," Godslayer said loudly. "You are being too hasty today. Something happened back in that sect, right? Something that is causing you to be hasty."
"Yes, sort of," Alex said. "My mind is in turmoil and I'm doing my best to not freak out right now."
"What… did you find in that man's spiritual sea?" Godslayer asked.
"It's not what I found in his spiritual sea, but rather what I found in his memories," Alex said. "I went in so I could perform a Spirit Search. I saw it all, you know… his memories… of what he was doing."
Godslayer couldn't help but be curious. "What is it that's got you so riled up?" he asked.
"The knowledge that the guy was talking about was a vile one. It was a knowledge of transplant surgery to pass organs from one person to another," Alex said.
"Hmm? Isn't… that normal?" Godslayer asked.
"It is," Alex said. "Only, the organ that was being taught to transplant isn't."
"What was it?" Godslayer asked.
"Spiritual Roots."
Alex felt a sense of awe as he spoke it out loud. He still couldn't believe such a thing was possible, even though he had imagined it would be.
At the very least, he hadn't expected someone from this realm to have such info.
"What? You can transfer Spiritual roots?" Godslayer asked, equally surprised.
"So you didn't know either?" Alex asked.
"I never truly focused on such a thing, so no, I do not know," Godslayer said. "How did someone like him even manage to find something like that? Wasn't he practically a nobody?"
"He was," Alex said. "In a sense, they are all nobodies when compared to the grander scale of things. However, their founder wasn't."
"Founder?" Godslayer asked.
"Remember the mad immortal that captured us? The sect's founder was someone that left the Northern Continent 8 thousand years ago, right after that mad immortal had stopped his ascension."
"It seemed he was one of the many elders at the time that were involved in the attack on the Snow Immortal sect. Most of the others went and made the 5 Ancient sects, but he decided to leave and come to this place to live a different life."
"The knowledge of the Spiritual Root transplant was something that he had brought along after finding it from the Snow Immortal sect from what I read from the man's mind."
Godslayer frowned a bit. "That answers where the technique came here from, but how did it reach the Snow Immortal sect?"
Alex thought for a bit. That answer he didn't have, so he made two guesses. "The unlikely guess is the Snow Immortal sect's founder, the woman who returned from the Immortal realm gave them that technique."
"It's unlikely because?" Godslayer asked.
"Because there is no way such techniques are freely available in the upper realms, or you and anyone else would've heard about it already," Alex said. "I don't think even Scarlet knows of such a thing."
"Then? What's the other guess?" Godslayer asked.
"The Ancient Battlefield," Alex said without hesitation. "It was a location where immortals fought and died. Many of them likely dropped what they had, and this was one of that."
"So you think this one came from the Immortals? Hmm… that makes some sense," Godslayer said. "Which begs the question, why were the Immortals fighting in this world?"
Alex shrugged. "It was during the war, wasn't it?" he asked. The Undying God had been killed by an Immortal if he remembered right.
"It might have been during the war, but… it was still Immortals fighting. You know what happens when Immortals use too much power," Godslayer said.
"Heavenly Judgment, yes," Alex said. "But… surely there was a way they hid from it. That's what I thought happened this whole time. If the Immortals were never punished by the heavens for using Immortal Qi, then they must have had a way to hide from the heavens."
"That's not impossible," Godslayer said. "But what about when they use Dao? That calls upon Heaven itself to aid them. In that instance, there is no way for them to hide, is there?"
Alex frowned a bit. "That's… true," he said. "What do you think happened then if they weren't hiding from heaven?"
"Simple," Godslayer said. "The Heaven never targeted someone for using Immortal Qi. That's it."
Alex frowned. "What do you mean?" he asked.
"Why is there such a thing as Heavenly Judgment? It's because people are using strength that should not exist in this world, isn't it?" Godslayer said. "Then that means, if there was no Heavenly Judgment, then it is very much likely that the power they used already existed in this world."
Alex's eyes slowly widened. "Are you saying… there used to be Immortal Qi in this world?" he asked.
"Yes," Godslayer said. "There should have been. However, throughout the thousands and thousands of years… the Immortal Qi vanished from this world, leaving only Saint realms to be the peak of what cultivators could achieve."
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