Alex woke up in his cottage at nearly 7 am in morning. He had stopped training 2 hours later last night, and come back to the cottage to cultivate.

He had only cultivated for 4 or so hours, but that was enough.

[Breakthrough]

<Congratulations, you have broken through to ‘Bone Tempering: 1st Realm’>

With all the Qi he had accumulated throughout the last few days, he had enough to break through to the next minor realm.

The requirement for Bone Tempering 2nd realm was 150,000 Qi now. He logged out of the game for now. He had to go hunt some monsters today, so he quickly had his breakfast and returned to the game.

He went to the disciple hall and requested leave from the sect for 3 days. Once it was approved, he walked out of the sect and went to a random tavern near the eastern gate.

He purchased a room for 3 days and logged out from there. He went to have his lunch with his roommates. Today was Sunday, and there were no classes for anyone.

Alex never asked them questions about their cultivations or talents in the game. He felt that if he was to keep secrets from them, it was only fair he didn’t inquire answers from them.

After finishing their lunches, everyone returned to their room and logged into the game.

Alex opened his eyes in the tavern. He walked out of the city through the eastern gate and entered the forest on the southern side of the city.

He walked slowly in the forest trying not to miss any alchemy ingredients. Along the way, he found a few different ingredients, including a dwarf berry. This dwarf berry was quite hidden in the bushes and would be unnoticeable if not for his focus mode enhancing his senses.

He was constantly turning on and off his focus mode so as to not miss anything. He walked along a bit more, keeping any ingredients he found before he met a monster.

It was a skin tempering realm monster, so he didn’t even bother using any special technique. He just lunged at it and gave it a good pounding on its head.

<Congratulations on defeating ‘Shiny Hyena’>

<You have obtained ‘Shiny Hyena Core’>

<You have obtained ‘Shiny Hyena Urine’>

“Ughh. Is that an alchemy ingredient as well?” Alex wondered. To think the monster would drop urine as a loot.

After selling the corpses last time, he had come to find out that the monster cores and materials were actually alchemy ingredients. So he had decided he wouldn’t sell it that easily this time.

He continued walking as he went deeper and deeper into the forest. He found many different alchemy ingredients and killed quite a few monsters as well.

Some dropped cores, some dropped materials, sometimes both. However, killing monsters never dropped weapons or armors like in other games.

Well, Eternal Cultivation wasn’t ‘like’ other games. He walked on for quite a lot of time, but couldn’t find any monsters that could make him use more than just one slash of his casual sword swing.

Finally, after searching around for the whole day, he found a Muscle Tempering 8th realm monster that didn’t die to a sword swing.

“Alright. Time to try my new technique on an actual enemy.” He though. The monster was a feline monster with patches of cloud-like design on its body.

[Cloud Leopard: Muscle Tempering 8th Realm]

With him currently at the 1st realm of Bone Tempering, this situation was the equivalent of when he fought a Muscle Tempering 3rd realm Earth Snake, as a Muscle Tempering 6th Realm cultivator.

The leopard had seen him approaching and was starting to crouch, ready to attack. Alex also got into his attack stance as well. He held the steel sword with both of his hands to the side, kept both of his feet wide, and took a deep breath.

He went into focus mode.

The leopard jumped. It was about 10 meters away from Alex, but it was going to cross the entire distance in a single jump.

The jump felt slow to Alex, but not as slow as everything else around him. He slowly moved his Qi around and started infusing it into the sword. The sword showed some resistance to his Qi, but quickly accepted it.

Just when the leopard was 2 meters away from him, Alex swung his sword. Due to both of them being at similar cultivation, their speed wasn’t very far off.

However, because Alex was still ahead, his sword reached the leopard’s head before the leopard’s claws could reach his.

CHOP

In a single smooth sweep, the leopard’s head came off its body.

<You have defeated [Cloud Leopard]>

<You have obtained [Cloud Leopard Core]>

<You have obtained [Cloud Leopard skin]>

Alex looked both surprised and happy. He remembered when he had such a hard time with the snake, and now he could kill this monster with just a single strike. Even though [Smiting Blade] was a mortal grade technique, it was still a battle technique nonetheless.

“I wonder how strong my attacks would be if my sword was anything but a mortal grade.”

Alex was now out of focus mode. He kept the cloud leopard’s body into his inventory and walked off. It was getting dark, so he returned back.

He walked into the city without having to pay 2 silvers anymore. His nameplate was now a form of identification that the city guard accepted.

He got into his tavern room and logged out. He called his parents again, waiting for his roommates to log out of the game. Once they logged out, he went to have his dinner and got back to the room.

Once again, he logged back into the game. He cultivated inside the tavern room for a few minutes to get back what Qi he had lost during the day’s hunt.

Once he was ready he walked out of the city. This time, he wouldn’t return until the sun came up.