Chapter 410: Battle against the Lionesses (1/2)

Pearl ate the pill and meowed, making an 'ew' sound in Alex's mind.

”Haha, you don't like the taste?” he asked as he smiled seeing Pearl's disgusted face.

”No,” a sound came back to his mind. Alex waited for a few seconds and just as he thought, sharp claws appeared from inside Pearl's fingers that were about 2 centimeters long.

'20% gives 2 centimeter long nails, 16% gives 2 centimeter long nails and now 26% gives 2 centimeter long nails as well. Does that mean that the 2-centimeter increase in the pill is a constant regardless of the increase in harmony?' Alex wondered.

'No, I don't know if there is a difference in the pill's effectiveness between humans and beasts, so I can't make any conclusions right now. I need to wait until my nails go away so I can take another one. After that, I need to test if taking in 2 pills back to back causes anything. For that I might need to go find the swine again since that is too dangerous to check on my own,' he thought.

”Meow!” Pearl said from the side to urge him to keep on moving.

”Alright, Alright, let's go,” he said and followed the path once again.

He walked for another half an hour and was starting to doubt if there was something wrong with his luck, or something was wrong with this place in general.

”There are just too few beasts in the forest for some reason. Did the rest die during the 2 previous invasions?” Alex wondered. Not only that, there weren't any disciples in the forest from either of the 2 sects that he came across.

”Damn, is there a curfew I didn't know about? That would make sense considering that the beast attacks happened twice already,” he wondered. Still, he was out already, so there was no point in thinking about this problem.

He searched through the forest and found a lot more alchemy ingredients than he would have imagined. While their potency and number weren't to the same level as the ingredients from that one place in the southern forest, they were still better than what he had gotten the last time he had come to this place.

This time was especially better since he had nearly 45 meters of distance covered every second he moved. So, his harvest was a lot higher than before.

The ingredients he got started to refill the larger storage bags he had gotten in the cardinal city, while Pearl fought off the few beasts they came across.

They were now at the precipice of where the Organ tempering realm beasts started showing up. Only once they went deeper and deeper did the number of beasts start to increase once again.

So, Pearl got plenty of chances to fight the beasts and won almost all battles in a single attack. Only a few beasts needed more than a single paw attack to kill.

The beast corpses and ingredients were also now slowly filling his storage bag as well. They walked for an hour collecting both dead plants and animals as they made their way deeper into the forest.

Alex looked at his right finger once again. It had been nearly 4 hours since he ate the pill and it still didn't show any signs of changing. It didn't elongate, shorter, get weaker, or just fall off.

'This lasts for quite a significantly long time,' Alex thought. Since he knew the pill worked and make the nails stronger at least, he was starting to think of names to call it.

This was a pill he discovered, and he had full intention of naming it himself.

”Nail Elongating pill?… probably not. That sounds boring. Long Nail Pill… is also bad. Strong nail pi—” Suddenly, something entered Alex's area of Spiritual sense.

”Oh!” Alex sensed and slowed down a little. About 20 meters in front of him was a lioness-like beast that seemed quite strong. Alex smiled a little when he saw its cultivation base.

[Cloverstung Lioness - Meridian Tempering 1st Realm]

They were now at the Meridian Tempering realm. That was the perfect realm for someone to be Pearl's opponent.

Sensing the high cultivation realm, Pearl got wary too, but he was still confident in his own strength and walked forward to challenge the lioness.

The lioness got confused for a second watching the kitten walk out to fight, but soon discovered that Pearl wasn't as simple as he looked.

She got into a stance, ready to fight and so did Pearl. Suddenly, both of them clashed against each other and started hitting each other.

Pearl's 8th Organ Tempering realm Qi and Body cultivation based were just as strong as the Lioness' 1st Meridian Tempering realm, if not more.

They both slammed their claws at each other, but Pearl's body was smaller, so he was more nimble at dodging, while the Lioness got hurt by each strike.

Her patch of skin on the back that looked like a giant clover, the origin of her name, was starting to bleed. Alex could see that Pearl was doing quite a lot of damage, most of which he could associate with the new pill due to the long gashes in the lioness' back.

Slowly, but surely, the lioness started to get weaker and more fatigued, while the small Pearl was just as energetic as ever.

'He really is stronger than a 1st Meridian Tempering realm beast, albeit not by much. I guess he can be compared to a 2nd Meridian Tempering realm beast in terms of strength. Now I wonder what would happen if we put elements into the mix. It doesn't look like that lioness has any elemental attacks though,' he thought.

It didn't take much longer for Pearl to fully defeat her and finally the fight ended.

Suddenly, Alex heard movements. Another Lioness appeared in his spiritual sense, this one a little stronger. Alex was about to tell Pearl to get ready for the next fight when a much stronger lioness appeared once more.

He frowned a little. Pearl couldn't fight this one at all. After that, another appeared, then another, then another. Soon, there were around 10 lionesses standing in a group about a few meters away from them.

Alex hadn't managed to keep the body inside the storage as Pearl had just finished fighting, so the pride of lionesses saw the dead body of their companion and started to get angry.