Alex logged back in and woke up in the familiar grassland. He stood up from where he was sleeping in the grass and looked at his wound immediately. Fortunately, it was all but healed.
"2 more fruits should do it," he thought. He would go back to the cliff once he was hungry. For now, he decided to start looking for the yang jades.
His tattered robes were not a good sight to look at and he desperately wanted to take another robe out from inside his storage bags. Unfortunately, due to his qi not working, he couldn't.
"God, even if my spiritual sense just worked, I could do something," he thought. He tried to push out his Qi, against the pressure of whatever was suppressing it, but in the end, his efforts were futile.
Next, he tried Spiritual sense once more. He tried to push the suppressing force once more, using a lot of his spiritual sea in the process.
It was working. He was pushing back the suppression force from his mind and was starting to be able to use his spiritual sense a little. It was one a few centimeters around his mind, but that was a positive result nonetheless.
In the end, he ended up drying his spiritual sea in the process and stopped. The suppression force slammed back, making him unable to use it again.
Alex breathed heavily as what he did took a lot of effort out of him. Beads of sweat appeared on his forehead and he was feeling really hot right now. After resting for a while and cooling down, he moved on.
Every location in this place looked the same. There was not a single tree in sight and the entire land was covered in grass. If it were not for the cliff behind him and the sun's location, Alex doubted he could even remember where he had been and where he had not with his eidetic memory.
He walked on and on and on, for hours on end but still didn't manage to find any yang jade.
"Damn, just how rare is it?" he thought. He continued searching and searching and found that he had searched every single place in the grassland. He only had 2 places left to be searched.
One was the cliffside where the disciples were. He could go along the base of the cliff and see if there were any. He could also try to swap fruits for yang jades with the desperate ones if they had any.
The next place was the river bank. There could be some there, but Alex hesitated a bit due to the danger his Martial uncle said was there. However, he couldn't stop now because of some danger.
He was quite thirsty too, so it was the perfect time to go there. He reached the river bank on one end, where the cliff met it. The other side of the river was a desert that Alex had seen previously.
He didn't have time to admire it last time given that Zheng Min was dying and he was busy helping him. He did however remember the yellowish-red sands. Those were quite surprising to him.
When they had mentioned that a desert was a land filled with sands, he had assumed it would be white sand, like the ones found in river banks, but this was different.
"How different are the other places too? These volcanoes, glaciers, oceans," he couldn't help but wonder.
He drank water from the river and was about to leave when something rustled behind him. He immediately turned around to see what it was.
Surprisingly, or maybe as expected, it was a monster. It was a normal-looking scorpion, with a black exoskeleton and a pointed tail that was sure to have venom in it. The thing that surprised Alex the most was its size.
It was nearly 2 meters in length and a meter in width. He looked at the scorpion with wide eyes, and the scorpion looked back. The scorpion showed no contemplation before it directly ran towards him to attack.
It tried to snap at him with its two pincers in the front, but Alex was fast enough and he jumped back. The scorpion didn't stop, however. It continued moving forward and tried to snap at him a couple more times.
Alex didn't have to worry much, however. His Elusive Heavenly Sword was good enough for him to dodge the monster's attack. He tried to look for an opening to smash the beast's head.
The scorpion attacked him once more, trying to snap at him. But Alex managed to dodge and threw a punch at its head.
Suddenly, the scorpion's tail came at him, faster than any attack that the scorpion was doing until now. Alex hastily dodged backward and the venomous stinger barely went past his head.
Had he been a second late, he would have lost his head right now. Even if his body was strong enough to survive the hit, the poison would surely kill him.
Putrid smell hovered in the air as Alex subconsciously breathed it in. Realizing what he was doing, he immediately exhaled every single breath of air he had taken just now.
"That was close. I nearly breathed in the venom," he thought. He didn't know if the venom in fact did work like that or not. But it was never a bad idea to prepare against the worst.
He once more tried to attack the scorpion, only this time he was ready for the stinger. The stinger came as expected and went past him. Just as the tail was outstretched, Alex jumped on the scorpion's back and grabbed its tail with all of his body.
And then, he ripped it out. Surprisingly, the scorpion's defense wasn't as strong as he had assumed. He rotated the ripped tail and slammed the stinger back into the scorpion, killing it in an instant.
Only then did Alex got off of it, and look a large breather. The fight hadn't lasted long, but it was a very dangerous one, and he was happy to have won in the end.