Alex waited for Pearl to be done with the final phase of his transition to the Saint realm. He watched from close, but still far as Pearl’s Qi slowly improved past the thin boundary that kept him from being a Saint realm.
As soon as he did though, Alex saw the changes immediately.
The tiny Pearl slowly grew in size as his body also began healing from what little wound it had suffered.
The palm-sized Pearl was now the size of a normal cat. He grew a little more and became a little bigger. He increased even more and reached his normal size.
However, he didn’t stop.
He grew even more, growing far beyond how big he used to be, and grew even further until he was as big as Lady Ren had been all those years ago.
The Saint realm Pearl was a massive beast that overshadowed anyone that stood beside him.
He was as big, if not bigger than the Jaguar and Puma too.
Alex quickly flew over and was surprised when he saw Pearl up close. He had to look up just to see Pearl who stood over 2 meters tall.
“Holy shit! You’re so big now,” Alex said as he gave him as big a hug as he could. “Congratulations, Pearl. You did it.”
Pearl turned towards Alex and looked at him with a curious face.
“What’s wrong?” Alex asked and checked Pearl all over. “You’re fine. Why aren’t you speaking?”
“I… can speak,” Pearl spoke with a confused expression on his face.
“Of course, you can. What’s so surprising about that?” Alex asked.
“I don’t know,” Pearl said. “It… feels weird, like I just learned to talk.”
“Are you alright? Do you feel fine?” Alex asked Pearl. He couldn’t understand why Pearl would say something like this.
“Give him some time, senior,” Ma Tianxin spoke as he flew up to Alex. “He just entered the Saint realm so the heavens have graced him with the ability to speak the human tongue. Most beasts get confused when they just learn the language all of a sudden.”
“Ah, right,” Alex said. “Saint realm beasts learn to speak on their own. Nothing’s wrong with you. You’re just confused because you were taught how to speak while already being able to speak.”
“So… should I speak or not now?” Pearl asked.
“You can speak. Since you’re in the saint realm, it is fine now,” Alex said. He had always asked Pearl to communicate using spiritual sense, but now that was no longer required.
“Haha, I can speak,” Pearl said.
Alex giggled too. He brought Whisker out and showed him that Pearl had succeeded.
When the tiny little mouse saw the giant cat in front of him, he panicked so hard that he nearly fainted. It was only after he was told that that was Pearl did Whisker finally stop being scared.
Pearl even changed his size to become a small kitten to prove that it was him.
Alex looked at Pearl curiously at that time. He wasn’t sure if his eyes were playing tricks on him, but… Pearl looked even younger than before.
“Alright, we need to leave now. Your commotion should have attracted people and you also need some rest,” he said.
Pearl nodded and changed his size back to being big again. Alex put Whisker back into his beast space. Then, with Ma Tianxin, the 3 of them started flying north.
Ma Tianxin kept asking anything and everything he had been keeping to himself. He wanted to know why there were lightning bolts falling from the sky. He wanted to know how a beast could learn Dao and so many other things.
Alex explained what he could, leaving the rest for the young man to figure out by himself.
Alex and Pearl had already hidden their cultivation base, so they were just a simple cultivator to anyone sensing them.
After flying quite a bit far, they slowed down as the various saints would no longer come looking for them for the disturbance they had caused.
He didn’t want Pearl to get the same attention he had received.
Not only was a beast breaking through with a lightning tribulation too big for the saints to ignore, but if they noticed his other specialness by happenstance, Alex also wasn’t sure what they would do.
For now, he would hide Pearl as much as possible.
‘Fortunately, he didn’t grow to look like a tiger,’ Alex thought. ‘Maybe that will only happen after he’s evolved.’
Alex took Pearl into his beast space and let him rest. At the same time, he brought out a ship where they sat and slowly cruised through the snow regions of the State of Shuang.
The state of Shuang looked no different than any other state, aside from Re. Due to the mountain ranges, and constant snowfall, it was all white with a few signs of color here and there.
There were volcanic mountains in places that gave heat to the villages below and it got progressively more common the further north they went.
This was one way the common people survived in this place.
After flying for just a couple more hours, Ma Tianxin pointed his index finger in front of him. “There, can you see it?” he asked.
Alex nodded. Even if there was a fog hiding it, the line of people and the increasing number of settlements around the area was enough to tell him that the Blue Spring sect was in front of them.
Alex saw a similar walled-up city-like sect as he had with all the other ones that previously belonged to the Snow Immortal sect.
As they got closer, a few people flew up to stop them, at which point Alex let Ma Tianxin do the rest.
He took back the ship and stayed behind Ma Tianxin as he took Alex down to the sect gates.
“You will need to record your Qi right here, senior,” Ma Tianxin said at the gate.
Alex nodded and did as told and let the people record his arrival. He gave his name as well and was finally let enter.
He saw a group of people lining up to enter, and when they saw him enter so easily, they felt quite frustrated.
But what could they really do? Ma Tianxin was most likely the next Sect master after all.
Alex looked around the sect and saw most of the disciples walking around with beasts in their care. It was quite surprising for him to see so many beasts intermingling with the humans since he had never been to a Beast taming sect before.
‘Is it always like this?’ he wondered. He looked through the beasts, trying to see if there were any names he didn’t know.
To his surprise, there were quite a few of them. He wondered why these beasts weren’t recorded in the Western continent, but when he saw what was common in between them, he understood immediately.
These were beasts that could only be found in the cold regions. Since the cold regions in the Western continent were mostly non-existent for until about a thousand years ago, it was easy to understand why there were no such beasts in the Western continent.
Ma Tianxin saw him slow down and called back to him. “Come on, senior. We’re right there.”