Alex crawled out of the artifact, his body fully healed, but his mind still remembered the pain. He tried to stand up, but his legs shivered. Half of it was out of fear, and the other half out of the coldness that he felt in his dantian.

While his body used up his Qi to heal him and restore the blood he lost, the Yin in his body had made things worse than normal. In this empty dantian, the Yin was all he felt.

He quickly got into a meditating pose and started using the Five Yang Divine Path technique to draw in the strong Yang Qi from the surroundings. His body slowly calmed down afterwards and the Qi helped push away the coldness as well. 

He looked back inside the artifact and saw that half of it was filled with his own blood. The pool of blood had submerged most of the metal ingots.

With a flick of his wrist, the blood flew out of the artifact, leaving only the metal inside. As it was all his own blood, it had a pretty strong blood aura.

Alex looked at it for a few seconds and wondered if there was a chance that he could absorb his own aura and get himself strong. He didn’t even hesitate to try.

However, it ended up being impossible. “Thought so. Otherwise, it would’ve been too easy.” 

He took all the blood and placed it into the Bottomless Flask. The artifact was made to improve any liquid that he stored in there, but it was doubtful it could do the same with blood.

However, that wasn’t really why Alex kept it there. He simply gathered the blood for the next time he was to use it to make Blood Beasts.

He put away the flask and the Mountain Crushing artifact and dressed up. Once dressed, he checked his own strength to see how strong he had become. Unfortunately, it was hard to test something like that on his own.

He would have to find something to test his strength on, that could also tell him how strong he was. “I should buy some strength testing artifact sometime later,” he thought to himself. That was the only solution.

For now, even without any testing apparatus, he could feel that he had grown stronger… albeit by a little bit.

“I’ll have to use a lot more spirit stones until I find another method to use this thing. Dammit, why doesn’t my Qi work?” he wondered.

As he thought along the lines, another idea came to him. “Hmm… that might be possible,” he thought. “But I’ll have to test it later.”

He did not want to go through the same thing just yet. “How long was I even in there?” he wondered and pulled out something.

The VoidSand Hourglass.

He looked at the time that the hourglass told him in accordance with the continuous flow of the Voids and inside of it and realized that over 2 days had passed.

“It didn’t feel that long.”

Alex went to find the elders. From them, he found out that the two kings had already left for their kingdom. 

Even Lady Zhan had already left. She left before anyone as she carried not just her own items, but the items that the Crown Prince had bid on. She had to go provide it to him as soon as possible.

So, the only one that Alex could meet was the Gold King, who too was busy as he had to deal with problems that always came up after the month-long Golden auction.

There were fights that broke out, customers that couldn’t pay what they bid, auction houses that didn’t deliver the item that they promised, etc. He would have to deal with anything that got a little too big for his officers to handle.

“Use this for now,” Alex said, giving the two elders the Mountain Crushing artifact. “Follow the book and don’t let it run for too long. If you lose a lot of blood, eat these pills.”

He tossed the elders a pill bottle.

“Where will you be going?” Liang Shufen asked.

“To meet with the girls.”

Alex went to meet with Jai Heiyun and Hao Ya in a hotel room where they were staying.

“Your Majesty,” Jai Heiyun got up and bowed, while Hao Ya remained mostly indifferent to Alex’s arrival.

“What took you so long?” she asked.

“I used an artifact to train my body for the last 2 days,” Alex said. “How have you guys been? Did you like the auction?”

“It was amazing, Your Majesty,” Jai Heiyun said excitedly. “So many different items for sale. So many things that I didn’t even know existed.”

“Yeah? You should have seen the ones that were being sold on mine,” he said. “Look at these?”

He showed off a few of the things he had bought, letting the two girls handle them. He didn’t have the Mirror and the Mountain Crushing artifact on him, but everything else he did.

The girls were mostly fascinated by the Nine Clouds Wind Fan due to its ability to teach them Wind Dao. They gave little interest in the gauntlet and didn’t even bother to look at the flask.

Jai Heiyun was interested in artifacts and talismans, so she showed interest in the Frostfire Inkbrush, but she didn’t show more enthusiasm than that.

“What did you guys get?” Alex asked.

The girls showed off their own items that they had bought, and Alex’s eyes fell on a Black Fan that sent off wisps of black smoke as it moved.

“Is this the fan that you guys asked me money to buy?” Alex asked.

“Yes, that’s it,” Hao Ya said. “Ended up costing us 77,000 Saint Spirit stones. So expensive. I’ll find a way to pay it back, don’t worry.”

“No, no,” Alex said. “Don’t worry about the money. Consider it a gift from me for my daughter’s senior sister. Whose is it anyway?”

“For now, we decided that I would keep it, but any one of us could use it if need be,” Hao Ya said.

Alex took the fan, leaving behind a trail of black smoke and suddenly opened it. The opened fan let off more smoke, and Alex could see a hint of a demonic face painting onto the black body of the fan.

“Shadow,” Alex said, sending the aura that the fan gave off. “… and Space?”

“Here, let me show you,” Hao Ya said and took the fan from Alex’s hands before quickly moving over to a corner of the room. She flicked open the fan and swung it toward Alex, sending out a long trail of black smoke at him.

Alex prepared himself, but the black smoke simply moved past him without doing anything to him.

However, a moment later, he felt space warp a little. The next moment, Hao Ya was standing behind him.

“It’s a teleportation fan, that uses shadow aura,” she said. “It’s called the Silent Shadow Fan.”

Alex turned around and looked behind her. “And it cost you 77 thousand Saint spirit stones?” he asked.

ραndαsΝοvεl ƈοm “Yes,” Hao Ya said.

“This… this is just the Flickering Shadows technique, but slower,” Alex asked.

“I can’t use your Flickering Shadows technique,” Hao Ya said. “I don’t have Yin spiritual root.”

“Oh, right,” Alex said. “You have it, right?” He turned to ask Jai Heiyun.

“I do,” Jai Heiyun said. “But I haven’t been able to learn that technique yet. Haven’t really given it much time.” She gave a slightly awkward smile.

“That’s alright,” Alex said. “You find alchemy-related techniques to be of more importance, I understand that. But since you can use the technique, let Sister Hao take the fan.”

Jai Heiyun nodded. “I’ve been of the same mind as well.” She turned around to Hao Ya. “You really should take it.”

“Are you sure? It’s… It’s so expensive though,” Hao Ya said.

“You don’t understand how rich I can be, sister Hao,” Jai Heiyun said. “I can make pills for just a few days and I will have enough money to buy that fan all over again.”

“Are you sure?” Hao Ya asked.

“She will have to make quite a few pills, but I’m sure she can do it,” Alex said. “Take it.”

Hao Ya hesitated no longer and kept the fan for herself.

Alex conversed with the girls for a while longer. He hadn’t met up with the alchemists for the past half a year with how much time he had been spending by himself. 

There was nothing new for him to learn, except for the fact that the young man named Wu Shun whom he had taught a few months ago had started showing some rapid improvements.

Alex was very glad to hear that.

“By the way, do you have any news on the Ivory Kingdom?” Hao Ya asked. “I heard something happened there, but everyone is so tight-lipped.”

“There’s a barrier around the place,” Alex said. “Some Immortals came down, set it up, and… I think they left.”

“Immortals?” Both of the girls got curious.

“Yes,” Alex said. “Could even be more than just Immortals. I thought they were here for your Master, but they left without him, so I don’t know.”

“The barrier is said to stay there for a  year or so, so I think we will know what really happened afterward,” Alex said.

“Is that so…” Hao Ya said. “I can’t contact my master, so I had no way of telling what was happening. I wonder if he is safe.”

“I don’t think you have to worry about him,” Alex said. “They would have to do more than just that to get to him, considering how dangerous the path to the inside of the Central Continent is.”

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