"Oh, Lady Zhan left already?" Alex asked in surprise. "I would have thought she would wait for me to discuss the pills with me."
"I believe she had some success in her pill," the king said.
"Oh, did she? Good for her," Alex said. "But then… why rush home? Is one of her family members sick or something?"
"I don't believe so," the King said, thinking for a bit.
"Well, that's not something for us to think about," Alex said. "I will go rest for now."
"As you wish, your Majesty," the king said.
Alex went to his room and cultivated overnight, even bringing out Pearl and Whisker to let them cultivate as well. He let them know about the insides of the secret realm and the new Dao he learned.
The very next day, he went back once again.
He found Yao Ning easily in the Metal section of the realm. As for Liang Shufen, he didn't find her at all.
She was either in an obscure location of the realm, looking at paintings and objects of weird importance, or she was in one of the rooms at the edges learning Dao.
Either way, Alex didn't worry about her and quickly went back to the Metal section to see if he could learn a lot more about the various Metal Dao.
Aside from the Dao of Magenetism, there turned out to be only a single dao from the Metal Dao that he had yet to learn about. To his surprise, it turned out to be the Dao of Conduction.
Alex already knew about the Dao of Heat Conduction, so he didn't think it would be that much harder to learn about the Dao of Conduction. However, he couldn't have been more wrong.
Not only did he need to be well-learned in the conduction of Heat in Metal to learn the Dao, he also needed to be well-learned in the conduction of Lightning in Metal.
Alex shook his head when he remembered that he did know about this dao beforehand. It had just been so long that he had forgotten about it.
Dao of Conduction was one of the Daos that Bai Jingshen had told Alex that he knew back when he appeared as Shen Jing.
After spending the entire day in the Metal section, Alex finally left and went to the next section, which was Wood.
From the very start, it was a question of whether he should even spend his time in this place at all. With how bad his Wood Spiritual root was, there was little point in trying to learn.
Still, Alex went in with little hope in his heart that he would get something out of this visit. If nothing, he could at least learn of a few Dao and maybe work toward it in the future.
The fact that Wood Dao had the most sub-Daos of all did not help Alex's cause at all.
Not only was Wood responsible for its own Dao, but it was also responsible for its variants such as Wind, Lightning, and even Sound.
Learning about the Dao of Wood and the Dao of plants was already hard enough. Adding things such as Gale, Rot, thunder, Music, Swiftness, Stillness and many other Dao made it almost impossible for Alex to understand much of what was going on at all.
Alex spent 2 days in the Wood section before leaving the place out of frustration.
The next section was the Earth section, and it was filled with Daos that Alex found easy to understand but hard to master.
Dao of Earth was something he had already learned about. So if he tried to for a few days, he was certain he could learn the Dao of Sand or Dao of Soil too.
But he didn't want to spend his few days here trying to gain the dao when he could do that when he was outside.
After learning as much as he could about the two Dao, he moved on to the more unfamiliar ones and tried to understand what they meant.
The Dao of Crystal was a dao pertaining to the quartz and other crystals that formed inside of the earth.
The Dao of Glass was a dao that was related to the Dao of Sand which could be used to turn to glass.
The Dao of Mineral was also a dao pertaining to minerals that formed inside of the earth.
The Dao of Gravity was the first dao that did not have to do with the physical appearance or property of Earth.
The Dao of Hardness was the dao that understood the Essence of being as durable as the rock itself.
The Dao of Heaviness was the dao that understood the Essence of being as Heavy as the mountains themselves.
After going through these various Daos in what took him 4 days, Alex walked out and went for the final section of the 5 elements, the Water section.
Alex knew absolutely nothing about Water dao. Having been born in a place where Oceans weren't a thing, he never really knew much about water.
Even now, there wasn't much he knew about water as he knew about Fire, Earth, Metal, or even Wood for that matter.
So, the trip through the Water section ended with gaining almost nothing out of it.
He learned a thing or two about the various daos that he could learn from them.
The Dao of Water, the Dao of Steam, the Dao of Ice, the Dao of Mist, and a few others. But he still struggled to understand the other ones that should have been so obvious to him.
'Later,' he thought to himself and walked out of the Water section.
In total, he had spent nearly 27 days inside of the secret realm already, and in 3 days, it would be time for him to leave.
With 3 days to go, Stanley entered the Yin section.
As soon as he was in there, he felt uncomfortable. Perhaps it was because of his body, or just because this was Yin, but he felt a weird atmosphere here that he didn't feel elsewhere.
As soon as he saw the very first item, he understood why that was.
On the very first object was a sealed corpse of a beast, slowly decaying. It was sealed inside a spherical glass contained, the beast being a large fox-type animal, based on what remaining hindlimbs he could see.
The beast was decaying, but it would never fully decay as it had been stopped in time, the decay lasting forever now.
However, it wasn't just decaying because it was dead either.
Alex could tell that the decay happened because of someone's Dao. He could feel a strong intent coming from the corpse that was decaying the beast.
'Dao of Decay,' Alex thought immediately. He didn't even have to really feel it or understand it to know what it was. He just knew that was what it was.
Decay.
He felt repulsed by the sight of the decay and the intent behind it. That was the weird atmosphere he had been feeling.
He shook his head and quickly walked away to the other parts of the Yin section.
The very next section he arrived at had a painting with a strong aura of Darkness.
Corruption was how Godslayer had described Darkness's aura. Corruption of everything that was good and moral.
Shadow darkens things, but Darkness corrupts them, that was what Alex needed to remember. He looked at the painting for a long time, trying to understand the corruption, to try and see the darkness.
Could he really understand anything from here? He wasn't sure, but he tried.
"What's going on? Darkness? Huh?" Godslayer woke up in a hurry as the Intent Alex took in entered his Spiritual sea.
"Ah, my bad. Weren't you asleep?" Alex asked.
"I was, but I woke up. Did you find the Darkness aura as I asked?" Godslayer asked.
"No, I was just looking at a painting drawn with the Intent that held Darkness aura," Alex said. "I'm trying to see if I can learn anything."
"You better not," Godslayer said immediately. "Unless you want to turn like me, unable to discern right from wrong, forever stuck with a single goal to kill all gods."
"Oh," Alex said. "But don't you still have that goal? Albeit a little less."
"No," Godslayer said. "My new goal isn't so much one-tracked. I'm not only looking for vengeance. To kill the ones that I know are my enemy… and to find out why they are."
Alex was surprised by the seriousness in Godslayer's voice. "You do not remember anything prior to your corruption?" he asked.
"Just bits and pieces, I think. Faces and names," Godslayer said. "Not something I want to talk about right now."
"Ah, okay," Alex said. He began explaining to Godslayer where he was and what he was doing.
After listening to him, Godslayer gave a single suggestion to Alex.
"Don't learn too many Daos before reaching immortality."
It took a bit of explaining from Godslayer, but Alex managed to understand what he meant.
Dao was something that made one able to cross the threshold to immortality. But it was also something that could be a crutch.
Each Dao had tribulation lightning associated with it that one would have to face. If Alex continued learning as many Dao as he could, he would have to face dozens of tribulation lightnings, each stronger than the last.
And that could be the thing that failed him from becoming an Immortal.
The heavens truly did not allow for something good to exist at all.
Alex accepted Godlsayers's advice, and after just briefly looking through the secret realm, he got out.
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