He almost reached out to the water to cure himself when he suddenly realized what he was trying to do and stopped.

’Wait, this is Yin water. If I use it now, I will lose my yang,’ he thought. If that happened, there was likely nothing in the world that could prevent him from dying in this case.

So, instead of absorbing Yin water, he decided to collect it and use it later.

Getting objects out of his storage bag was incredibly hard at the moment. Alex flexed his yang as hard as he could and somehow even more came out of him, surprising him.

With the little buffer between him and the surrounding Yin, Alex managed to bring out some giant jars that he kept around for medicinal pastes.

With his ice-cold hand, Alex dunked the jar into the puddle of Yin water and started draining it out. Once the jar was full, he exchanged it for another one and continued.

After about 3 jars, the small puddle was finally empty except for a few drops which were impossible to get because of the crevices they were in.

Alex exhausted himself somehow when he pushed himself to force out the yang, so now he needed to take care of himself. As the yang energy was lowering, Alex felt his body stiffen.

So, without any hesitation, he sat on the ground and started cultivating. His yang Qi moved incredibly slowly, but wherever it went, he felt the warmth it brought to his body.

While his outer body slowly froze, his inner core maintained its heat, and slowly that radiated outside as his yang started recovering and perhaps even getting stronger than it was before.

The more he cultivated, the more his yang grew and the better he felt. Slowly, the cold wasn’t hurting him as much.

As he continued, something sensed the yang coming from him and slowly rose out from below the puddle.

As it emerged, Alex didn’t notice it at all. It wasn’t until he felt something conflicting with his yang did his attention deviate and he noticed it.

What came up from below him was a white orb with sometimes blue light shining from it. Even from the intense wall of Yang aura that was between him and this small white orb, Alex could feel the frigid Yin aura coming off of it.

Alex was curious, but also very scared. The moment the white orb had emerged, it was already tugging on his yang and fighting with it. Slowly, it was invading through the yang and reaching to him too.

If it continued, he would soon start having some trouble. In fact, he was already starting to feel so cold that he felt his body shiver harder than ever before.

It wasn’t just him too. The moment that small orb emerged from the ground, it was as if the entire world froze. The wind stopped blowing, the temperature only got colder and even Alex’s Dao which was keeping him somewhat warm was starting to ask for more than Alex could provide to continue doing what it was doing.

He wanted to stand up and run but it was already too late.

Alex could only think of doing a single thing to protect himself. He flexed his Yang again. Using every single part of his will and body, Alex forced all the yang in his body to come out and protect him.

Yang gushed out of him like a broken dam as it pushed aside the yin from the surrounding. However, as if happy to notice that the small frigid orb also started pouring out Yin into the surrounding.

And as if that was an invitation of some sort, Alex’s body started producing even more yang to combat the yin, which forced the orb to create more yin.

The feedback look started creating so much yin and yang that soon Alex’s body became a battlefield of two powers, neither of which he could control

As Alex grimaced in pain, the orb did something he would have never expected it to do. The orb flew directly into his stomach and disappeared.

Alex felt horrified at the thought of an object creating so much yin in his body and just as he expected, his body soon grew cold and stiff from the yin.

His warm face became ice-cold as the blood drained from his face. His breathing became difficult.

Alex felt the orb hovering above the naval area on his body and providing frigid Yin Qi to his entire body. Soon, his body started shutting down from the coldness it couldn’t handle.

Just then, something unexpected happened. Something emerged from his naval area. Never before had he known that there was something in his naval area, and now it showed itself.

Alex saw his body glow with intense light as the coldness of the yin was soon replaced with the hotness of the yang.

Not the warmth, the heat.

Alex felt his body burn with incredible pain as the hot yang moved through his meridian. At the same time, the orb provided more yin again and the murdering cold returned.

Soon, the heat and the cold came together. Instead of nullifying each other, however, they retaliated against each other, wrecking Alex’s body in the process.

Alex knew what was happening by now. He had realized that the orb was very much likely the treasure he had been looking for. Only, he did not expect it to be so terrifying.

As for the hot source of yang that emerged from his naval area, Alex realized it was either fully or at least in part the power of the yang fruit he had eaten nearly 10 years ago.

All this time, the power had remained hidden in his naval area, slowly giving away yang as time passed.

He should have realized that a human with a True realm could never fully refine the power of the sun itself.

The yang and the yin, the fruit and the orb, the heat and the cold, they started fighting each other directly in his body.

Neither was stronger than the other and that only meant it would take a really long time before a winner was to come out of the two’s fight.

Realizing his body was going to be wrecked for a long time, Alex immediately sat down in a meditating position and started cultivating with his Yang technique.

He hoped it would give just the tiniest edge to his yang power and help it win over the orb.

As he cultivated, the yang and yin continued fighting and they would do so for a long time.

* * * * * *

After her son didn’t message her for over a week, Helen started getting worried. She sent messages of her own, but they never reached her son.

Helen told Qin Shan about her worry and he soon established a searching party that would go to the Icy Hell to look for her son.

When the members of the guilds, the Han family, the Heaven’s Peak school, and the various other people realized that they were looking for Alex, the alchemist that made a 92% Immortal ranked pill, they were more than happy to go search for him.

Within a day they reached the vicinity of the Icy hell. They covered a massive area as they searched the snow domain, but they never found any sign of him.

They slowly moved so it took them a while to search everything, but even after a whole week passed, they didn’t find anything.

Helen had told them about the messages she had received at the start where her son talked about the freezing coldness of the place, so she knew he had come.

When even after another week they didn’t find him, the searching party was forced to accept that Alex had died and his body was likely eaten by the beast. Or worse, he died in the cold further away where even Saint realms weren’t safe.

When they returned, the news spread through the entire empire and soon many mourned the loss of a genius, and maybe even more so the recipes that genius was able to acquire.

Everyone was now fully accepting of the fact that Alex had died.

All except two people.

Helen and Pearl knew for a fact that Alex was still alive. Pearl told her that their bond hadn’t yet broken so there was no way Alex had died at all.

That however only made Helen more worried as she started to believe that her son was suffering a fate worse than death.

In fact, there was one more person, or rather one more beast that knew Alex was alive.

The Jaguar regularly returned to the cliff at night to watch the bright light at the center of the valley down below. He knew that light was Alex, and thus knew that he was alive.

Only he didn’t know if he was safe. Regardless of the situation, the Jaguar would continue to watch over Alex as that was the command he had received.

He would wait for Alex to return. One would wonder what the jaguar would do If he only knew how long he would have to wait. After all, it would take a while for Alex to return.

End of Book 2: New Beginnings

* * * * * *

- – Extra from Shen Jing’s life – –

Shen Jing had returned back to his home nearly a year ago. He had come back for some special tasks that he needed to complete, but before he did so, he needed to have an audience with the family ancestors.

He wanted to tell the elders about Alex and how great he was. He was sure the ancestors would love to hear about him. However, in the entire year he had been here, the ancestors were never out of cultivation at the same time.

He had expected it to take decades before they all got together, but to his surprise, just a year later, they had all gathered up and were now asking for him.

Shen Jing walked into the halls with his head bowed down. He could be arrogant and bold in front of the humans back on the Western Continent, but in front of these ancestors, he was but a young baby that was still sucking on his mother’s teats.

A single breath from them was enough to kill him if they wished to do so.

So, Shen Jing showed his best respect to everyone in the room and greeted all of them.

Many of the ancestors sat alongside the hall on massive chairs that were more pedestals than chairs. They viewed him from up above, providing a different set of pressure on Shen Jing.

Each of these ancestors was a monster of their own right, with legends that went back thousands upon thousands of years.

He walked to the center of the hall and kneeled before the giant curtain which only showed the silhouette of the oldest ancestor of their family.

”Child, rise,” a voice arose from behind the curtain.

Shen Jing slowly rose to his feet, but he still didn’t dare look in the direction of the curtain. In fact, he had to use all of his will to keep himself from looking up at all.

”Why am I hearing conflicting reports about you?” the ancestor asked in a soft voice, but that sent waves of pressure on Shen Jing.

”There was a misunderstanding, ancestor,” Shen Jing replied. “The first report was a wrong accounting of what really happened.”

”Misunderstanding, huh? Then explain to us what really happened,” the ancestor said. “Explain what you have been doing all this time instead of your duty.”

”Yes, ancestor, and it’s a very interesting chain of events that you will absolutely want to hear,” Shen Jing. “To start off, I will have to tell you where I have been all this time.”

”I was in a unique place, a place known as Earth.”