Chapter 409: Different Tests (1/2)

Alex was handed a book about the different ingredients that he could end up using soon. The book didn't have that many ingredients, however, as such books were expensive to get.

”If only the ingredients book in the library explained the energies and effect of the ingredients just as this book did. Although, knowing how they looked and where they were usually found isn't that bad of information to know either,” he thought.

He reached back to his home, and by that time he was done reading the book. He could've done that right in front of Zhou Mei and returned her the book, but that would be showing off way too much.

He went to his master's home to check on her and saw that she was still sleeping.

So, he returned back to his home and decided to test his pills. He sat down in his courtyard and took out the pink pills. There were way more than 20 of them, and honestly, he did not know what to even do with them.

He quickly checked the harmony of all the pills and recorded it in his mind. He took out one of the pills that was exactly 20% in harmony and waited as he took a short breath.

Although he was sure it wasn't poisonous, he still got a little scared about using the pills on himself as they weren't something he could guarantee wouldn't hard him.

”Dammit, I need to stop being scared so much. I'm pretty sure my body will destroy anything it deems toxic,” he thought. He looked at the time and waited, waiting for the perfect opportunity.

The time was currently 6:34, so he waited. Then, it became 6:35.

He ate the pill. Suddenly, the energy from the pill spread through his body, and the nails in his fingers started to grow. They grew until they were about 2 centimeters longer than before and stopped.

”Damn, that's really long,” Alex mused to himself. He didn't know the exact length, so he took out a piece of paper to mark the exact length.

”Now… do I just wait?” he thought. There really wasn't much to do other than wait and test how long the nails lasted.

”Wait, I do need to check their strength too,” he thought and decided to test the nails of his left hand. He thought for a few minutes about how best to test the strength of the nails.

Finally, he came up with something. He looked through his storage bags and pulled out a few things to set up a little contraption for the testing.

He dug a little and stuck block of wood that was flat on top. Then he took a really strong string and tied it to one of the black cauldrons and tied the other end of that string to the nail on his pinky finger.

He pulled up the pinky finger until it was placed on the flat top of the wooden block. After that, he made sure only the part that needed to break was the only part that was part that was exposed from the wood's surface.

Meaning, he only kept the newly grown 2 centimeters of nail out of the surface. Once that was done and the cauldron freely hanging, he started to bring out the empty pill bottles he had.

He dunked them in the lake and put the filled bottle into the cauldron. One after another, he added one by one.

No matter how many he put in it though, the nail just didn't seem to break. He kept on putting in more, and that was when he started wondering, 'Does me being a body cultivator influence the strength of my nail at all?'

He had just thought that when the flexing nail snapped in half. Thankfully, he had secured his finger in place, so it didn't hurt a single bit.

”Finally,” he said as he picked up the fingernail and weighed the cauldron with all of the bottles in it. Even with his body cultivation, he could feel a slight weight to it.

”That… should be around 30 kilos hung from a single fingernail at the very front. Not bad,” he thought to himself.

He kept back all the stuff into his storage bag and decided on the next thing he had to do. He was already testing the duration and had tested the durability. So, it was time to test the limitations of the pill and see if it affected anything other than a human being.

So, he called out Pearl.

”Meow!” Pearl called out, finally free once more.

”Brother!” Alex heard in his mind; he smiled. That was what he had been teaching Pearl to call him for the last few days in the formation and he finally did.

'I probably shouldn't have thrown him in the water the moment we returned. He might have called me that yesterday,' Alex thought.

”Hey, little brother,” he started calling him now. ”Do you want to eat something?” he asked.

”Eat?” Pearl's voice came into his mind, followed by an intense emotion of want. ”Meow!” He shouted in elation.

Alex felt bad that the thing he was going to be eating was actually a pill. In addition to that, he wasn't sure of the effect of the pills on animals, so he couldn't really bring himself to force pearl to eat it right away.

”Sigh, I should at least test once on an actual beast,” Alex thought and walked out of the house with Pearl behind him. He quickly took out a piece of meat and gave it to him for now.

”You want to hunt? I'm going out to hunt,” Alex said as he walked through the evening sect valley and went up the outer sect mountain. However, he didn't go down to the gate. Instead, he hid Pearl in his robes and flew west from where he was currently. With him activating invisibility and completely killing away any aura, it was impossible anyone witnessed him leaving at all.

The walls of the Hong Wu sect entrance were actually the wall of the Scarlet City, so Alex could be outside the gates of the city from the very start and didn't need to leave through the city.

He could have asked the elders before he left, but he didn't know if he would ever get approval that way from them considering his worth to the sect.

He flew at top speed, but still took a little over 10 minutes to reach the forests outside of the walls. From there on, he wanted to rush inside, but he needed to scour the forest for what little ingredients he could find.

He dropped down and walked through the forest. His spiritual sense spread the full 22 meters it could and looked at everything. He took Pearl out, who was walking beside him to let him know of any dangers if he wasn't fast enough to catch any.