Alex had cultivated in small bursts throughout his time in the Hundred Blossom Valley, which he had to do to keep a handle on his Yin Qi that built up inside the dantian.
A day of Qi buildup would disappear in just a few minutes of cultivation, so it was easy enough for him to do it.
However, when he felt that he didn't need to do it all the time, he stopped towards the end of it. The few days he remained there hadn't been bothersome, but once he left, the build-up had reached a limit that he needed to go for a long cultivation period.
He could tell that he was also going to break through soon, so he decided to enter closed cultivation as soon as he could.
He told King Jin what he had to do before disappearing into his room and started cultivating. Immediately, a tremendous amount of Yang Qi gathered onto him, turning into the higher grade of Qi as they entered his dantian.
There, it immediately fought with the Yin Qi and started forming neutral Qi that flowed back into the Dantian, refining it even more so.
He struggled for a bit with the strong Yang Qi and stopped an hour later when he couldn't handle it anymore. There was still a lot of Yin Qi, but he could rest now without worrying about what would happen to him.
Once he felt ready, he started cultivating again.
It took about 3 short cultivation sessions before Alex got rid of all the yin Qi. Once it was gone, he could go back to cultivating normally.
He didn't just cultivate, of course. He also improved his body, eyes, and spiritual energy. At the same time, he started learning the Wood ingredients in order to make a pill that would improve his Wood Spiritual Roots.
Since he had no help this time around, unlike the time with Water and Earth pills, it would certainly take him a lot longer than he could expect.
Since he couldn't spend every day on this, it would take much longer than anything before. Maybe just as long as it had taken him for the Dao pill.
Pearl and Whisker were right there with him, training with him. Pearl was close to entering the Saint Foundation realm, so Alex helped him.
Due to Pearl's Dao knowledge, he would be assaulted by an Inner Demon. Even knowing that Pearl bravely entered cultivation to break through.
Alex had no idea what he went through in there, but when he came out, he had broken through to the Saint Foundation 1st realm.
Whisker was excited to see that and wanted to break through himself. However, having no real way of cultivating himself, on top of having a rather average talent, he couldn't even break through past the Saint Condensation 2nd realm he had reached a long time ago.
Alex cultivated for nearly a month after that before he was ready to break through as well. His breakthrough came suddenly and passed just as quickly as well.
All he had to do when he reached the bottleneck was to think of breaking through and try it. With his talent and preparation, he easily did it.
Now, the Golden Core in his dantian was starting to fill 80% of the entire thing. Once it grew to 90%, he would be in the Saint Core 9th realm, and when it reached 100%, he would finally move on to the next realm.
Alex looked forward to that.
After a day or two of cultivating to stabilize his cultivation base, Alex walked out of closed cultivation and went to meet up with his elders.
They congratulated Alex for his breakthrough, and soon the others in the palace came as well.
King Jin happily spoke to Alex. "Congratulations, your majesty. You broke through successfully," he said.
"Thank you," Alex said. "It took some time, but yes."
"Ah, how jealous I am," he said. "If only I could break through so easily like you too. May I ask how you broke through twice in a row?"
"Twice in a row?" Alex was a little confused. "Ah, no, no. I didn't. My beast broke through with me."
"Your beast?" the King looked surprised. He hadn't known that Alex had a beast with him.
"Yeah," Alex said. "I would introduce you to him, but he's quite shy and doesn't want to come out."
"That makes sense," the King said. "I was a little confused when I thought you broke through but your cultivation base only went up by one. I was foolish."
"How long was I in closed cultivation?" Alex asked. "Two months?"
"A month and 22 days," Lady Yao quickly mentioned.
"I see," Alex said. '4 months before it will be 2 years since I came to this continent. I should go meet the alchemists soon.'
"Oh right, your majesty," King Jin spoke. "His Royal Highness, the Crown Prince replied to your request."
"My request? About the Beast Paradise?" Alex got interested in the topic.
"Yes," the King said. "He replied about a month ago. He said that you could go, but it will have to be a few months later."
"How many months later?" Alex asked.
"About 8? No, 7 now," the King said. "The Prince said that he needed some ingredients from the Beast Paradise himself for some pills he was planning to make and said that he was going to go there on his own."
"If you wish, you could join in 7 months later in his journey."
Alex frowned a little. "I can't go there on my own?" he asked.
The King hesitated a bit. "It's like this, your majesty," he spoke. "Ever since some time ago, the beasts have stopped being friendly for some reason and had completely stopped allowing people to go through their borders."
"Why?" Alex asked curiously.
"Honestly, I think it's because of your people," the King said.
"My people— oh, the players," Alex realized. "Did the players do something?"
"I'm not really sure. But around the time when the players started to grow a lot, there were instances of some stronger ones going to the Beast Paradise to hunt the beasts. While many that tried were killed, people still came."
"So, they closed the Beast Paradise entirely and now only do trades around the border and exclusively with the few merchants that are allowed to go to its borders to trade things that come out of there," he said.
"If the rumors are true, even the Crown prince won't get to enter simply. He will be escorted. Only his Majesty should have the authority to go in and out without worrying about the consequences."
"I see," Alex said. That part of history wasn't written in the books. Was it because it was recent?
He wanted to curse the people for making the situation like this for him, but then again, he too had killed many such beasts himself, all to improve himself.
So he really couldn't do anything.
"Then… 7 months later it is," he said. "Can you contact the Prince and tell him that I wish to go in there with him?
"Of course," the King complied.
Alex now needed to think of how he could spend the next 7 months. Did he go back to the Capital and spend his time there, or did he just roam around this land?
Since there wasn't much he could do back in the capital right now, he decided to roam the cities of the Emerald Kingdom, as he had in the recent past.
Before that, King Jin had truly wanted to gain some Alchemy lessons from Alex, so Alex decided to teach him a bit.
The man had been more than helpful to him on multiple occasions, so he didn't feel it bad to teach him a bit. He kept the more important knowledge to himself, but even the ones that he didn't hide were new information to the King who easily gobbled it all up.
Jin Xiaojian was a competent alchemist on his own, reaching Level 7 long ago when he had been in the Royal School of Alchemy. It was partly also his proficiency in Alchemy that had gotten him this position anyway.
They all had something in them that adhered to that Kingdom. He was an alchemist, Mao Yingtai was an excellent fighter, Tan Qiu was a merchant, and so on.
King Jin could make pills in the Immortal grades regularly, but not consistently. After Alex taught him a little more about how the pills worked and how symmetry was important, his level in Alchemy was sure to improve.
Alongside that, Alex left him 5 different generic pill recipes that would certainly help him improve even more.
The man tried making pills with the new recipe and his average harmony on all those pills went up by nearly 7%. If he worked even harder, it would go up even more in the future.
After spending a month on just this, Alex finally decided to leave Greenheart City for good.
He would probably return in the future, but it was impossible to say when. King Jin wanted to come with him and try to learn more from him, but he had a kingdom to rule, so he couldn't rule.
Reluctantly, he said his goodbyes, letting Alex roam the remaining cities.
Alex went through the rest of the northern cities, visiting the unique places in the 6 months of time that he had.
Then, 6 months later, he arrived at Brightfalls City, where he was to wait for the Prince who would be arriving there any day.
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