With a body close to Immortal Origin, Alex could hold up a weight of just slightly more than 3000 tons. Meaning, that if he wanted to, with just his body alone, he could make it to 12000 steps and higher.

However, doing so would severely weaken his body for the rest of the climb, so he didn’t do something so stupid. Instead, he slowly began incorporating his Qi into his body and used that to lessen the weight significantly.

When his body and Qi were together, the weight he could handle would suddenly more than double that. He was sure that meant he could get to 14000 steps on his own.

For more than that, he would have to use his Intent.

Alex’s stride stunned the people who had to slow down for their own sake. They couldn’t believe how a person so weak in their cultivation base could make it so high up the mountain without a look of stress.

Most believed he was hiding his cultivation base, and a few even believed he might have a physique that helped him.

Truth was, Alex did have such a physique. He hadn’t tested the limit of how much pressure his body could help him ignore, but he planned on doing that today.

He had to for the sake of the tickets.

Alex was guaranteed to cross 16000 steps as he had been that close even just 15 years ago. That would give him a ticket. However, perhaps because the Sect Master didn’t believe him to do any better than that, he had been given two more requirements.

If he could reach 18000 steps, he would get 2 tickets.

If he reached 20000 steps, he would then get 2 more tickets.

Alex was going to try for the first 2 tickets no matter what today. As for the second one, that was where he wanted to test his physique out.

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His feet took him to 12 thousand steps and further. He had made it past hundreds of people by now, with no more than 2 dozen ahead of him, some who were ready to give up.

When Alex walked past a woman in the late Immortal Origin realm around 13000 steps, she could not believe what she was seeing. She tried to force herself to keep going because of him but had to give up in the end.

She lost all will and accepted the medallion she was given.

Alex watched the woman leave. Another person had given up, and the sun hadn’t even reached its zenith for the day. How many more were going to give up?

The people Alex reached in the steps could no longer be considered his peers. They were so far up in cultivation base that it would be ridiculous to consider them anything other than seniors. When Alex passed the 14 thousand steps, the weight of it all had grown a bit too much for him to handle by himself alone.

He used blood aura, but that helped him for no more than 200 more steps. At that point, he had to use his spiritual energy. He had to use his Intent.

This was the moment when things would get truly dangerous. He needed to make sure he didn’t fail from here on forward.

Alex knew he needed to push against the pressure with his Intent, but Intent on its own was not as useful. That was something he had come to understand more clearly over the last couple of years.

While pure Intent alone was strong, It was not as strong as Intent that had trained in that specific thing for a long time.

Despite his strong Intent, Alex could not just take a saber and start using Saber Intent. He would fail to generate any effect at all.

Sure, it would be easier to learn it and hone it thanks to his Intent, but he would still have to do it. And right now, he needed to do a similar thing with the pressure surrounding him.

He needed to attune his Intent to the pressure that surrounded him so he could better understand it, and thus use his Intent in a more effective manner. That was the same thing he was going to have to do starting tomorrow when he started making the Heavensent Invincibility pill as well.

For Saber Intent, Alex would have to get a saber and start using it to hone his Intent. For this pressure, there wasn’t such an easy way. So, he needed to rely on something else to learn it.

Alex immediately sat down on the stairs, feeling the enormous weight of the pressure on top of him. It was a lot, but not something he couldn’t handle for now.

What he was going to do next would be rather stupid, had Alex not had half a day and an entire night to work with.

Alex brought out a canvas and his paint and started painting. Several people were immediately confused by what he was trying to do. Watching someone weaker than them sit a step further than them was already confusing enough. And now they were watching that same person paint?

Even Elder Shang was taken aback by what Alex was doing. ‘What is he trying to do?’ she wondered. The helpers around her were equally confused as well.

Alex closed his eyes and let the pressure settle on top of him. Instead of fighting it, he tried to understand it.

What was this pressure? What was this weight? What sort of feeling did it give him when he felt it?

He tried to evoke a feeling in himself, an inspiration for his art. A thought came and he began painting.

His hands moved quickly. This painting was not meant to be accurate. It was just there to represent what he felt. He used colors, green and brown, streaking around the triangular shape he drew. His strokes were both thick and thin, and wildly different in other places.

Then, just a few minutes later, he finally stopped as he drew the simple thing the weight evoked inside of him.

A Mountain.