Alex had gone to the eastern side of the Scarlet City for 2 days straight now. So, he decided to visit the western side this time. When he walked out of the western gate, he felt a sense of deja vu as he remembered that this was the place he was first brought to when he logged in.

He started combing the outer areas of the forest for alchemy ingredients and was very happy when he realized there were a lot of them here. Unlike the eastern side where he had foraged for 2 entire nights, the western side’s ingredients were pretty much in an immaculate state.

He started picking up all the ingredients he could find. He didn’t know how many of them he would ever even find a use for, but he still kept them just in case.

He ignored most of the Skin tempering realm monsters unless they were too annoying to ignore, it which case he would just lift them up with his Qi and smash them into the ground. He was at least that good with his Qi.

For some reason, however, he could not do the same with himself. When he started lifting heavier stuff with his Qi, the first thing he tried it on was himself.

He was fascinated with the concept of controlling his whole body with his Qi and thought it would be practically flying if he could do that.

But alas, the most he could do with himself was hover about 20 centimeters off of the ground. He had tried a few more times, but 20 cm was the best he could do.

He hadn’t tried after reaching Bone Tempering 1st Realm but had assumed the result would be the same. Still, he was happy he could lift other objects as well.

He had also realized that when using Qi manipulation on anything with cultivation, it became increasingly harder to move them with Qi the higher their cultivation was.

It was as if higher cultivation monsters were resistant to lower or similar cultivation’s Qi amount.

After finishing the outer part of the forest, he walked into the inner part where the Muscle Tempering realm monsters lived.

<You have defeated ‘Night Shade Monkey>

<You have obtained ‘Night Shade Monkey Core’>

<You have obtained ‘Night Shade Monkey’s Blood’>

Alex kept the monkey’s corpse and walked along. He didn’t see a lot of cultivators on this side of the forest. He had seen quite a few Skin Tempering realm rogue cultivators on the outer edge of the forest, but there were almost none where he was.

It didn’t take him long to realize why that was. He had walked for over 5 hours and had yet to see a single monster above Muscle Tempering 6th realm.

Granted he was combing more area due to his search for the materials, but it still should not have taken him this long to see a monster with cultivation close to his.

‘No wonder there are no cultivators here. There are barely any monsters, to begin with, and even if there were, one would have to walk in so deep to find them.

Alex kept walking forward. The night was particularly cloudy today, but his vision was still not hampered at all. He walked a little bit further and met his first Bone Tempering realm monster.

It was a giant bird that had a particularly sharp beak. He focused on the bird and something popped up above it.

[Green Blooded Owl: Bone Tempering 1st Realm ]

The owl started flying up when it saw Alex. At first, Alex thought the bird had run away because it did not want to fight him. But soon he realized that the owl was actually just gaining some distance to create momentum. Once the owl reached the appropriate height, it turned around and fully dived towards Alex.

Alex activated Focus Mode. Time slowed down. He could see the individual feathers on the bird and could hear its silent dive even from so far away.

Alex readied his sword and started pouring his Qi into it. Every time he did that, he would feel a resistance from the sword as if it was not accepting the Qi but eventually accepted it.

He felt like he was filling a water bottle with its cap still on. Only that the cap had holes in it and could actually fill, but took a lot of time.

As the owl swooped down, he swung his sword, and the Smiting Blade did its job. With the increased penetration powers of the blade, he killed the owl in a single swing.

<You have defeated ‘Green Blooded Owl’>

<You have obtained ‘Green Blooded Owl’s core’>

<You have obtained ‘Green Blooded Owl’s beak’>

He kept the bird’s corpse in his inventory and took out the core. He looked at it and thought,

‘The first time I saw a core, I mistook it for a pill and ate it. Can I still do that?’

Without thinking for another moment, he put the pill into his mouth.

<Sun God’s Divine Yang Body disintegrates everything>

<The monster core’s element aligns with your spirit root>

<You have gained 92,168 Qi>

“Oh wow, that’s a lot. Should I eat another one too?” he said to himself. He took another bone tempering first realm monster core and ate it.

<Sun God’s Divine Yang Body disintegrates everything>

<The monster core’s element aligns with your spirit root>

<You have gained 81,243 Qi>

“Hmm… that’s not as much as the first one.” He quickly let go of this thought and opened his status. Once he did that, he immediately broke through.

He was now Bone Tempering 2nd Realm. He decided not to eat any more core since he needed contribution points. He wandered around until sunrise, and finally turn back to return to the city.

BOOM

A massive explosion shook the very earth. Alex stumbled a bit from the shock wave he felt. The explosion happened very near to where he was.

He ran towards the sound, and within minutes saw a massive scene of destruction.