547 Three Weeks

As soon as Alex arrived on his base, he locked himself in his bedroom. They still had three weeks before the Strength Plateau opened.

Judging from the previous refinement, he would still have time to refine his body using the Flame Heating Lotus.

"I am going to refine the blood vessel. According to the refining manual, I need to burn the Flame Heating Lotus to extract its essence. Then, I swallow the essence, and the body will start the refinement. Not many explanations to be honest…" Alex sighed while taking out the lotus and placing it on his bed.

"After refining my blood vessel, my absorption speed should increase. I hope I don't take too long to reach 5-Star or even the consolidation process. After all, this will be the last internal refinement that could increase absorption speed. The next two would be tendons and bones where I would get a boost in strength." Alex shook his head and focused back on the lotus, "Anyway, I shouldn't waste more time. I still need to get used to the absorption speed after refining my body."

Alex grabbed the lotus and burned it with his Pure Fire. The fire inside the lotus quickly melted as Alex's Pure Fire slowly gained control of the lotus fire. The Pure Fire slowly entered the deepest region of the lotus and slowly took out the essence.

Surprisingly, there was a resistance when Alex lifted it. He couldn't help but comment, "I see. This must be the reason why I need to refine the lotus first before I can take the essence."

After knowing what to do, Alex proceeded in the burning process. The lotus slowly burned to ash, as the essence slowly revealed its appearance.

The essence was a little red fluffy ball. He activated his Spirit Eyes and found that the lotus's fire energy slowly disappeared while the essence released intense fire energy.

"It looks like the essence is providing the entire lotus with a fire element. Now that I have taken the essence out, the lotus has no supply of energy and will slowly rot. There is not really much information about this lotus even in my knowledge, so it is intriguing. In any case, it will soon go down to my stomach…" Alex chuckled as he swallowed the little red ball.

As soon as it touched his saliva, the essence suddenly melted into a liquid and flowed down his throat before arriving into his stomach.

At the same time, his Pure Fire slightly vibrated by the incoming essence and marched to his stomach before purifying and refining the essence.

It took only a few minutes until all the essence liquid evaporated into gas, turning into something similar to air. It pierced through his stomach before going inside all of his blood vessels.

The gaseous essence slowly bloated his blood vessels, forcing them to expand. Of course, bloating the blood vessels would lead to injuries if done poorly. However, the lotus expanded it little by little as to have the vessels adjusted themselves with the new size. Lotus's fire energy and Alex's Pure Fire allowed this process to be possible. Even if this lotus fell into Fire God CLan's hand, he believed they wouldn't have this refining technique.

The process was very slow, and within that time, Alex experienced pain, more painful than the second refinement. After his preparation, the pain was still in his expectation, so Alex didn't let out a single shrill for the entire process. He simply clenched his fists, gritted his teeth, and endured it.

It took him a week to finally finish the refining process as his fire dimmed down before he opened his eyes. He didn't know why, but he felt like the skin was absorbing the air around, giving a cool breeze to his body.

He raised his hand and checked the flow of energy with his Spirit Eyes. There was not much different from before, except the energy could flow more smoothly and in a bigger capacity. He tried to channel Spiritual Energy to his hand, and surprisingly, it flowed faster than usual.

Then, Alex started absorbing the Spiritual Energy nearby. He was surprised by the result once again because as soon as his body began absorbing, the Spiritual Energy around slowly dried up.

"This… With this speed, I might be able to enter another stage within a month… Though as soon as I enter Martial Monarch Stage or even Martial Saint Stage, it wouldn't be that fast, considering I wouldn't get another boost like this." Alex was happy, but also couldn't be overjoyed. After all, this would only give him a momentary boost in the Martial Emperor Stage.

"In any case, I should get used to my new cultivating speed first." Alex shook his head.

He tried many things about this new cultivation speed from absorption speed to consolidation speed before trying his fighting speed. This was new territory for him because with how fast he could channel the energy, his speed would increase as long as his physical body could keep up.

Unfortunately, his speed was still nowhere near enough to handle the Spiritual Energy speed, resulting in him slowing down a bit. He could move one or two steps ahead, but it was not that omnipotent. Not only was it risky to play that way, but it also took a huge amount of mental energy from him.

In the end, he abandoned the idea since, at least, his expanded blood vessel allowed him to create a stronger move by channeling more Spiritual Energy. The only problem would be his energy reserve. As long as he could keep that in mind, his fighting prowess would increase.

Two weeks later,

Alex let out a deep breath as he wiped the sweat on his forehead. He had gotten used to everything with this refinement. If he had another week or two, he might even reach 5-Star Martial Emperor.

Unfortunately, Alex and the others had to prepare for the Strength Plateau.

In these two weeks, there was no major event after the Joyful Union Sect extermination.

In fact, the matter of extermination was so big that no matter could be compared to it. All influences on the Northern Continent were stupefied.

After all, destroying a single sect was hard enough for a big Blackwade Clan, let alone the little Spirit Nest. However, even with the little number they had, they could destroy the huge Joyful Union Sect with just a little help from the Blackwade Clan.

There were many resistance and revolts going around because of the lack of male and female prostitutes from the Joyful Union Sect.

They banded together to ask the city lords to create another brothel.

At first, they didn't think about this because as soon as the storm passed, the Joyful Union Sect would surely rebuild the brothel and start servicing them.

Unfortunately, with the Joyful Union Sect was out of the picture, their thoughts were shattered.

The city lords used their strength to suppress the town from creating a ruckus. There was even a period where they needed to kill on sight. Luckily, the city lord was far stronger than all of them. Even if they brought second-rate influences with them, the difference in strength was still apparent, and the commotion quickly suppressed.

A few city lords were happy with the situation since they didn't like the brothel, while some were in anguish because they used the brothel.

However, no one was actually brave enough to provoke the Spirit Nest unless they had some reassurances with how mysterious they were. This tense situation allowed Alex and the others a peaceful time in the base.

Alex came out of his room, finding Anna and the spirits inside the living room.

"Master, have you finished your practice? Or do you need more time?" Sherry ran to him and hugged him while wagging her tail around. She only needed to use the shapeshifting technique to hide her ears and tail on the outside, so everyone always saw her revealing her proudest ears and tail.

Alex patted her head and smiled, "Of course, I have finished my practice. This Strength Plateau seems very important to me, so I can't skip this one and end my training."

"What is the condition around?" Alex asked Anna.

"According to Nano, who is currently watching the Strength Plateau, many influences have gathered there as it will open tomorrow. The most important thing would be the Fire God Clan and Blackwade Clan.

"Fire God Clan has many elders to participate in protecting their people, including their sect master. The same as them, the Blackwade Clan brings a few thousand people to confront them. Although the way hasn't started, we can assume that this battle will surely suck.

"In any case, we have stationed a few people around our border and the other influences. It seems they are interested in the information about Spirit Nest, considering we are a newborn influence with extraordinary power." Anna explained.

"It's good then. We want the others to have enough information to misunderstand us, making them hesitate in attacking us as it would give us an advantage in everything, such as negotiation or battle." Alex nodded and pondered for a moment. "How about Rose?"

It took Anna a few seconds to realize Alex's real question. "Rose is still harassed by that douchebag since he has yet to know the real situation of his family. Do you want to go back after this event? Or do you want to deal with the Fire God Clan first?"

"Hmm… I couldn't care less about this Fire God Clan. We have done enough to the Blackwade Clan by destroying the Joyful Union Sect… with their help of course. As long as the Fire God Clan doesn't do anything to us, I won't do anything to them. Yet, I still need someone to monitor them."

"Actually… They are planning to call a reinforcement from their main clan to help them in fighting us. However, it will take one or two months for them to arrive with reinforcement. As long as we finish our business on this continent then go to the Sacred Continent, it should be fine. Besides, if they want to target Rose, she has Ngina with her. Ngina could warn her to avoid them." Anna shrugged. "Of course, this grudge won't be forgotten. After we destroy the Fire God Clan, we shall have the clan in this continent pay the price."

"Yeah, you are right. Though I have another plan." Alex sighed.

"Your plan?"

"I don't know what I will do with the Fire God Clan though. After all, they are still passive-aggressive. I don't wish to be someone that will destroy an entire clan for the slightest grievance. Just ask the N squad to monitor them first, and if they truly make a move against us, then I will decide after that." Alex shrugged before explaining his plan. "I am going to consolidate my foundation first on this continent. After that, we will fix Rose's problem and go to the Sacred Continent to fulfill my promise."

"Oh, you want to consolidate first. Well, it will take a few months, but considering how we are hidden from everyone else, it should pose no problem. They will just think we are hiding from them and unbeknownst to them, we have gone to the Sacred Continent." Anna nodded.

"Yeah. Anya, do you want to add something?" Alex turned to Anya.

"We don't have enough information about the Fire God Clan, so I suggest one of the N squad needs to go there to check their progress and such. No one should find them as long as they are careful, and we will use the Fire God Clan as a base to get information about the Heavenly Continent."

"Well, who do you think I should choose?"

"Nano will be good."

"Sure. I will ask Nicole to take over him after we arrive." Alex nodded. "Since we are done here, shall we go?"

Everyone nodded and entered their respective 'home' as Alex made a teleportation array and disappeared.

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