7] – [Lush World]

As the view all around him started to change, Alexander stood motionless, waiting for the spatial fluctuations to stabilize.

Soon, the surroundings changed again, this time flashing a bright white before suddenly turning into green.

Alexander finally payed attention, looking in front of him, seeing nothing but green.

Raising a brow, he looked around a bit more, understanding that the green he saw was part of a giant leaf of some kind, almost touching his face.

Frowning, he brushed the leaf aside before a new sight appeared, brown, only brown. With annoyance building up, Alexander took a step back to try and take in the view.

'Are you for real?'

Much to his dismay, the entire place he was in seemed like a giant, lush jungle. Every direction he looked, all that could be seen was either vegetation or… some more vegetation.

Exhaling his pent up annoyance, Alexander raised his right hand in front of him, turning his palm toward himself followed by putting his middle finger and thumb close to each other, almost touching. He concentrated trying to limit his strength as much as possible.

After a few moments, limiting the incoming martial art to the level of an average Dao Heart Realm cultivator, a small, deep blue orb exuding the feeling of profound truths formed in the space between his middle finger and thumb. Then, Alexander snapped these two fingers, crushing the orb before tearing it apart like goo. Right after this scene, a blinding white light from deep within the orb covered multiple kilometers around him before a powerful sound echoed throughout the entire Sealed World.

This was one of Alexander's favorite martial arts, the [Dao Blast]!

While unassuming, the weird, small orb actually contained Alexander's understanding of a Dao. While the might of the explosion was forcefully limited by Alexander, at full strength, destroying a quarter of a Tier-10 World would not be a problem!

As the blinding light started to fade, Alexander took another look around him.

Seeing the flat, empty terrain made of dirt, covered by a blue sky, he simply sighed before releasing his Divine Sense, quickly finding the exit.

Alexander did not waste time and immediately teleported next to it, looking below his feet. A trap door made of black iron was in view. Frowning, Alexander stomped on the defenseless trap door, blasting it open along with its frame.

Jumping inside, Alexander saw narrow stone stairs going deeper below, following them for a few minutes, a door frame made out of stone appeared in front of him, and after walking past it, Alexander was greeted by a grand hall, made out of the same stone used for the door frame.

Looking some more around, Alexander quickly estimated the hall to be around fifteen meters large, thirty-five meters long with a high arched ceiling reaching a height of sixty meters.

Near the end of the hall, a flight of stairs reaching ten meters high led to a platform. On it, a giant brazier illuminating the hall with its orange glow.

Before reaching midway toward the flight of stairs leading up to the brazier, Alexander saw a blue, translucent figure appear out of nothing.

The figure was flying above the brazier, its back, left defenseless, facing Alexander.

Seemingly not paying attention to Alexander, the figure looked at the brazier below, its hands behind its back with leisure.

Alexander immediately recognized the figure's appearance.

'Soul Imprint! Probably the maker of this place either leaving a recording or a sentient soul fragment…'

Cultivators below the Nascent Soul Realm would, for the majority, die because their body succumbed, extinguishing the soul in the process.

But beyond the Nascent Soul Realm, cultivators took their soul even more seriously than their body as staying alive with only the soul was possible.

This caused cultivators to not only cultivate their souls as well, but also create Soul Arts and many more wonderful things. One of such Soul Arts was the separation of a part of the soul used to either live if the main soul died or leave behind recordings by removing the sentience of the soul, among others.

So seeing this figure, Alexander could tell what it was from a glance, having seen them countless times before, doing it himself even.

'I'm not hiding yet it doesn't react to me like a sentient one would. Probably a recording.'

Alexander expected it to be a recording, as no souls would let themselves be defenseless like this. Before he could think further, the figure moved its mouth, confirming his guess.

"You… who has managed to reach this place…"

"Listen!"

"I am Yvan, the Sun Sword!"

With a look of pride on its face, the figure introduced itself before following without stop, as if oblivious to its surroundings.

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"You have managed to reach this place, slaughtering your way through countless powerful Demonic Beasts, I applaud you! This must've been hard… but do not fret, as the rewards are more than worth your hardships!"

Alexander could not help looking at the back of the figure with a wry smile.

'Yeah! Countless Demonic Beasts that I did not even see! Such hardships!' With his [Dao Blast], any beast below the Dao Fusion Realm would be reduced to dust, and this is exactly what ended up happening earlier.

His thoughts however, were once again interrupted by the figure floating above the brazier.

"Therefore! Acknowledge me as your master! Become my disciple! Originating from a Tier-3 World I became a powerful Dao Fusion Realm master, I am-"

The figure could not even finish its words as Alexander, tens of meters away, casually waved his right hand, dissipating the soul on the spot.

"Alright, I can already guess where this is going… Well, that wasn't great, let's leave."

Alexander's figure suddenly vanished before reappearing in front of the space ripples used as the entrance.

In front of him, the group of disciples from the Flowing Leaves Sect greeted his eyes.

"Your excellency! How was it? Did you manage to obtain something worthy of your trip?"

Turning to see who talked, Alexander's eyes locked on an old man. It was the same old man, Grand Elder Yong, he had seen before.

"Yes, well, it was not much, I at least know why this Sealed World was placed here…"

Grand Elder Yong could not reign in his curiosity and asked.

"Your excellency, would you mind sharing? We were always curious as to why such a fortuitous opportunity of this caliber was placed here."

Alexander seemed to be lost in thoughts for a few moments before nodding.

"It's fine, it's not complicated anyway, the maker of this Sealed World seemed to have originated from here, he was a native of the Lower Realms."

Shocked filled the face of everyone present, including Grand Elder Yong.

'A Dao Fusion Realm master, native of…'

Looking around, Grand Elder Yong finished his thought.

'…some backwater, muddy place like this? Incredible!'

How could Grand Elder Yong and his group not be shocked? Reaching the Dao Fusion Realm was not uncommon within the Upper Realms, as they often either ruled Tier-5 Worlds or went in pursuit of a higher Martial Dao by cultivating inside Tier-6 Worlds.

After all, while Tier-6 Worlds were the strongest within the Upper Realms, they were not rare. Inside them Dao Fusion Realm Experts were barely considered strong. So, inside Tier-6 Worlds, be it natives of this world or outsiders that wanted to try their luck, the Dao Fusion Realm was not too hard to achieve.

But to even manage to reach the Upper Realms from the Lower Realms, no matter how talented, this often meant these people were nothing short of incredible talents, real gems!

Let alone managing to reach the peak of the Lower Realms, getting strong enough to pierce through the barrier separating the Lower Realms from the Upper Realms was a monstrous task for them!

Even Alexander did not disregard Yvan's accomplishments, as after all, he did so himself multiple times in the past. Even though Alexander started from a Tier-4 World when he ascended from his former Universe, he still had to reach the Main Worlds then the Primordial Main Worlds. Having done it himself, how could Alexander not know how hard it was, he himself almost died each time he tried, failing multiple times as well!

"Hey! Do any of you know where to find Tier-2 Worlds controlled by Gods and Goddesses?"

Recovering from his shock, Grand Elder Yong thought for a moment before pointing to his left in the distant void, soon cupping his fists at Alexander.

"Around here I believe, I am not sure however, so I hope your excellency won't blame me if you cannot find what your excellency is searching for!"

Looking in the distance, Alexander nodded before disappearing from his spot.

—–

Flying into the beautiful void, Alexander passed by many worlds, lost in thought.

"If only space was this beautiful back in my native Universe… Here, everything is colorful, blue, green, red, purple, so many colors illuminating space…" Rambling a bit, he remembered the distant past.

After flying around for a few more weeks, Alexander finally found a proper target.

'Took long enough! Since when is it so rare to find such worlds? Has there been some little shit going around here, killing every single interesting natives they could find, leaving me without even the crumbs?!'

Looking below him, Alexander saw a giant, blue planet drifting through space peacefully, orbiting a small star.

This was a Tier-2 World!

Releasing his Divine Sense once more just to be sure, he quickly confirmed that there indeed was a target worth playing with. His Divine Sense locked on what seemed like a young woman in a white dress with long blonde hair and purple eyes shining a pink radiance from inside.

One would not pay much attention to her if it was not for her current position, inside a white room alone looking at a white screen of light with a yellowish tint to it. As if it was made from holy light. The room however could not be seen by most inhabitants of the Lower Realms, her room seemed to be inside a different dimension!

"Hehe! Found you! A goddess of the Mana Grounds, lucky me, let's make her regret summoning people!"

It was known that inside the Universe's Lower Realms, some Mana Grounds possessed beings that acted as deities, their most peculiar ability being their summoning powers!

It was a gift of the Heavens that could even summon cultivators from higher planes!

Of course, if they dared to summon them, being slapped to death or tortured for eternity would be the most likely outcome. After all, if powerful cultivators like Alexander were to be summoned out of nowhere, how annoyed would they be?

And so, because of such summons, their abilities became known, but not only that, some powerful cultivators publicly gave amazing rewards for anyone bringing back the heads of these deities!

So having some weaker cultivators slaughter these deities one after the other was not uncommon!

Some even used them as target dummies!

After Alexander finished analyzing this world, he then had a sudden thought.

"This Yvan gave me a good idea! Let's take in some disciples from the Mana Grounds, then let's see how far I can make them grow without forcefully increasing their cultivation!"

Alexander intentionally did not want to do such things like forcefully promoting strength, after all, if all he did was place his hand on mortals to forcefully make them some of the strongest cultivators alive, where would be the fun in that?