He kept track of the beasts that walked into his spiritual sense’s range, and those that walked out of it.

At the same time, he started thinking of what he needed to do next. He hadn’t even got to think about anything previously before the bat attacked him.

Now, he finally had some time.

’First of all, I need to go find my cauldron. If everything is fine, It will still have its lid on it. Otherwise, the items may have been scattered. At that point, I can forget about finding anything,’ he thought.

’Still, I need to find the cauldron if nothing else,’ he thought. He was glad that he had his sword in his hand at the time, or he would have to survive in this forest without a sword. That would have been terrifying.

He then focused on the beast’s core in his hand. That was a True Disciple 8th realm core. Did he dare eat it? What would happen if he ate something that was so far above his own cultivation base?

He didn’t know yet, but he needed to at some point, so why not now? However, he stopped himself from putting the core in his mouth like he was popping a pill.

There were two dangers to that at the moment. The first was a minor one. That was just him not wanting to show Shen Jing, who was probably watching him right now that he could do that.

Second and most importantly, it was guaranteed that he would have to go into his spiritual sea to fight the remnant of that snake that was in the core.

If at that time something attacked him, he would die without knowing for sure. So, he decided to not risk such an important decision.

Since it was nighttime, many nocturnal beasts were out, so Alex hit as well as he could while following Shen Jing’s order. Given how eccentric he was, Alex didn’t doubt he would beat him if he did anything wrong.

Just going invisible was already pushing it in Alex’s eyes.

With a similar state of mind, Alex cultivated non-stop for the entire night and quickly replenished his Qi.

Just as he was done, a voice drifted into his ears.

’Don’t forget about the sun,’ it said. Shen Jing had come to remind him of the thing Alex had to do every 2 or 3 days.

Alex got out of the tree and flew up to an open location. Once he made sure there was nothing out there, he strained his meridian to push all the Qi he could to bring out a small sun in front of him.

Once it was out, he cut the connection to his Qi, and after a few seconds, it disappeared.

”Argh!” he thought at the slight prickling pain he was feeling all over his meridians. 10% of his Qi was gone once again, with only 90% remaining.

He would have to survive with that.

Alex went back to the tree and did something he should have done a long time ago, but he gave up very easily each time around. That was to use his Qi and spiritual sense to erase the markings of the previous owner of the storage ring on his hand.

Alex jumped back into the crown of the tree with the Fivefold Pear and sat down to use his spiritual sense on the ring.

He started off with the Qi. As he poured the Qi onto the ring, the same thing happened that would always happen. The ring did not accept any Qi as if it weren’t meant to.

However, Alex had gotten too many confirmations for that to be wrong. So, he tried again. He failed once again.

He tried again, but he failed then too. And again. And again. He kept trying for as long as he could. While he understood that he couldn’t break whatever barrier he was facing by simply punching at it, again and again, he hoped that it would weaken it a little.

Once he felt tired of doing that, he started using his spiritual sense. Alex felt a force repelling his spiritual sense as if the ring didn’t belong to it.

Usually, he would give up at this stage, but now, he fought. At a time when his spiritual energy was the most important resource to him, he fought back.

He had to. Without the storage ring, he would miss out on a lot of different things that he wouldn’t want to.

The number of resources on these mountains was too great for him to skip out on them, and have his heart bleed.

So, he tried. Once again, and again. He tried and tried until… something slammed onto him from the left.

Alex felt a pain travel up his shoulder as he immediately sent out his spiritual sense around him. A cat-like creature with the fur of black stood on top of the tree crown, staring directly at him.

”Dammit! I lost focus on my surrounding,” he thought. He had put all of his spiritual sense towards breaking into the ring and he had forgotten about the dangers surrounding him.

The cat-like creature jumped towards him. Alex was still on the ground and was about to swing the sword in his hands when he sensed another of the same beast coming from behind him.

’Dammit! How many Night Lynx are there in this place?’ he thought. He twisted from his location, dodging the first Lynx, and used his sword to block the 2nd Lynx’s attack.

From his senses, he could tell that they were both in the True Master 3rd realm and True Master 5th realm, respectively.

Alex could easily win against them. He just needed to land his attack on the two Lynxes.

The first one came for him again, and Alex ducked while at the same time swinging his sword above him.

The sword was about to cut the Lynx, but then the Lynx suddenly turned into a black liquid and managed to slip away.

”What?!” Alex thought. They had some defensive skills that seemed to make them hard to kill.

’I should have read some books that were more thorough on each of the beast’s abilities,’ he thought. Although each beast usually learned something different, so it might not have been as useful as he hoped it to be.

Alex teleported suddenly, appearing behind the 2nd Lynx and cutting it too. But once again, it turned into some sort of ink-black liquid and reformed a bit further away.

’Can I not kill them?’ Alex thought, but he could see the Lynx be a little tired despite not fighting for very long.

’The skill must take a toll on their body then,’ he thought and went on the offensive again.

Since both the beasts were in the True Master realm, long-range attacks, despite being a combination of Qi and Sword Intent, would not work on them.

Suddenly, one of the Lynxes roared loudly, making Alex a bit dizzy. Just then, the 2nd one dashed towards him and slammed its claw on his chest.

Alex was thrown back and slammed onto a tree, from which two monkeys jumped down to attack him.

Alex swung his sword and the weak monkeys died without knowing what had killed them. With barely True Disciple cultivation, they should have known not to interfere at this point.

After all, beyond the Mind Tempering realm, all beasts gained a certain level of intelligence.

Alex ignored the monkey’s corpses and put his focus back on the battle with the Lynx. While the monkey’s corpse was enticing for its loot, he needed to fight the Lynx quickly before another beast heard their battle and came to fight him afterward.

The 2nd Lynx ran towards him and Alex ran towards it too. The first Lynx roared again, sending Alex’s mind into chaos, but he quickly grabbed onto his little sanity following which his body healed him from the mental pain.

He then slashed onto the 2nd Lynx which once again turned into an ink-black liquid that moved a little further away to reform itself.

When it did, Alex was already on top of it. He slashed at the Lynx once more, and the tired Lynx’s body automatically turned itself into ink-black liquid once again.

However, Alex followed it once again. The First Lynx tried to help, but Alex ignored it completely. For as long as he knew where the Lynx was, he didn’t need to worry about it.

After 2 more turns of changing itself into the black liquid, the Lynx’s body finally gave up and couldn’t change any longer.

That was when Alex struck and chopped its body in half. Seeing this, the first Lynx tried to run away, but that was the beast that started it all, so Alex wasn’t going to let it get away under any condition.

He teleported close to it and cut it a few times, by which its body gave away too, and Alex killed it.

Alex let go of the sword and turned his hand into a golden claw that dug into the corpse of the beast and pulled out the core.

Since he couldn’t keep the other parts anyway, there was no need in being careful about how he took out the core.

He then moved to the other Lynx’s body as well as the monkey’s bodies and took their cores out too.

Then, he looked around at the dead bodies of the beasts and understood that if he stayed here, he would have to fight more beasts that came to eat these corpses.

So, he grabbed his sword and walked away.