Alex had been ready for the energy to go unstable and explode, so when it did eventually happen, nothing bad happened along with it.

The energy was strong, but low in quantity so the explosion wasn’t that dangerous either way. Even if Alex had been caught up in it, he would’ve survived with a few missing organs at best.

He let Memory stay in his Soul Space while he pondered on what he had just learned.

Intent was what he needed to train out of anything. Intent was what made everything work in this world.

From using techniques to creating Sword Qi to applying a Dao, to dampening the power of something— everything needed Intent.

Intent came in many forms, but it all boiled down to the same thing. It was how strong a person willed something into happening.

While Intent was tied to Spiritual energy, it wasn’t the same thing. A person could have very dense spiritual energy and have an Intent that was barely above a mortal level. freewebnvel.com

Similarly, a person could have a very strong Intent but have a weak spiritual energy. These cases were rare, however, as it was difficult to grow one’s Intent without improving their Spiritual energy first.

“I need to improve my Intent,” Alex said to himself. “The stronger I can make it in general, the more ways I can make use of it.”

He remembered what elder Shang had told him. She had asked him to do what he had done to the stairs and things would end up working more times than not.

“Intent it is then,” he thought.

While Alex had decided to train his Intent, it wasn’t so easy. Each thing had its own version of Intent. He couldn’t improve his Intent for suppressing energy and convert it into Sword Qi. That was not how it worked. If he wanted stronger Sword Qi, he had to train his Intent there as well. The same was true with Dao.

Everything needed its own variation of training to learn. However, there was one way where Alex could train his Intent for various things by doing the same thing.

Painting.

Painting was a fantastic way to hone one’s Intent surrounding something. Alex could even maybe go on to learn a Dao through the painting while he was training.

That was another thing to be added to everything else he had planned on doing. So, Alex began it all over again.

He made all the pills that would be necessary for the closed cultivation as well as got himself a few blank canvases to work on.

While he was inside his cave, he could work on improving his Sword Intent and regular Intent.

Alex focused on his cultivation for a long time. His Demon Eyes had now settled at the 3rd stage, and his Undying physique was getting closer and closer to reaching the 3rd stage.

He had reached the precipice a long, long time ago, so it would only take him so much time before he reached the next stage. At stage 3, so long as a sliver of Alex’s soul remained, he would come back to life. The Undying Physique was simply incredible.

There was another advantage to cultivating the Undying Physique, something that Alex hadn’t even focused on at all, but had ended up causing a great change.

Whisker, who had the Undying bloodline, could only cultivate when Alex cultivated the physique. Since Alex had been cultivating non-stop for years now, especially with Immortal Qi that was around him, Whisker’s cultivation speed had skyrocketed as well.

He was getting stronger and stronger. 3 years after Alex broke through to the Immortal Ascendant 4th realm, Whisker had reached the Saint Transformation 8th realm. A few more years, a few more cultivation breakthroughs, and Whisker would end up becoming an Immortal as well.

Alex wondered, would Whisker have to go through lightning tribulation?

Whisker’s existence was a weird one. He was a mouse, born from an egg, created by the experiment of the previous Undying God. A Seeking Mouse was not supposed to be able to cultivate, but he could.

But… Whisker wasn’t really cultivating when Alex really thought about it. He was. He was the one cultivating, and forcing the cultivation base into Whisker.

In that case… who would face the lightning tribulation? The one that became an Immortal? Or the one that dragged the other to become one.

Only time would tell.

Alex met Pearl twice in the 3 years and stopped his cultivation when he finally ran out of pills again. He was making steady progress toward his next cultivation base, which he was sure he could reach within the next 4 years. He was halfway there already, and with his Spiritual Energy and Body Cultivation far surpassing his cultivation base, the improvement was getting easier as well.

So, all the cultivation really had to do now was to improve the Dantian, improve the meridian, and then improve the blood aura. Once that had reached an acceptable threshold, Alex could move on to the next realm.

Alex took a small break after the 3 years. He needed to go get some more supplies, but he was a little lazy right then. So, instead, he checked on his Soul Space, focusing on his Inner World.

The Demon Realm inside of him was improving nicely. In the nearly 30 years it had been since he had put the realm into his Soul Space, Whisker had managed to grow the world into a fantastic one.

Most of the houses and buildings within the fifth mountain where the demons used to live had been completely stripped away of anything. The entire mountain had instead been turned into an Alchemy mountain instead. It wasn’t just the mountain either. Every single piece of land that had any potential as an Alchemy ground had been turned into one. Unfortunately, since there were only so many Saint Spirit Veins within this realm, only a few Saint ingredients grew within the Demon Realm.

Alex glanced through the alchemy regions for a bit, but that was not why he had looked inside. He had come to properly check on the growth of the two plants.

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The Nine Yang Divine Tree was planted on the 2nd mountain to become the ‘sun’ of this world. The World Tree was planted on the 6th mountain, as far away as it could be put from every other living thing within this world, while still being inside of the Demon realm.

Both of these trees had long since taken root in the land they had been given and had flourished so much more. Alex had been feeding them quality ingredients from time to time when he was working as an alchemist in his store.

After he started cultivating though, he had left the task of feeding the two plants to Whisker who seemed to have done his job rather diligently.

The Nine Yang Divine Tree had grown large, reaching nearly 10 meters tall now. It was beginning to look like a proper tree now. On the contrary, the World Tree still appeared young, no more than a tree in its infancy. However, despite that, the tree had grown and was now nearly 50 meters tall.

Alex could only wonder how large it would be when it grew to its maximum height.