As Alexander was flying into space looking for some more Tier-2 Worlds... he soon froze in the middle of nowhere.
Seeing this, one would think he had been sneak attacked, others would even argue that he was sick.
But it was much worse...
'I swear I heard a 'ding'!' Alexander did not make a single move, as if he had become a statue, trying his best to listen around him, his forehead drenched in cold sweat.
*Ding !*
"Here!" Turning his body around and punching the void, he accidentally shattered an entire Tier-1 World that was close by.
Unfortunately, his nightmare had just begun as he quickly realized that his punch failed to connect to anything.
'There is a stupid system near me!'
*Ding !* *Ding !* *Ding !*
As these sounds echoed inside his ears Alexander immediately teleported a couple hundreds of kilometers away, expecting to either see something or to have the sounds stop altogether.
However...
*Ding !* *Ding !* *Ding !* *Ding !*
*Ding !* *Ding !* *Ding !* *Ding !*
*Ding !* *Ding !* *Ding !* *Ding !*
*Ding !* *Ding !* *Ding !* *Ding !*
As the sound kept on resounding multiple times each instant while, along with it, blue interfaces made of light kept on appearing with gibberish written on it, Alexander could not help roaring.
"Screw you! Who dared to put a Fake System on me?! You better pray I don't find you!"
Indeed, in this Universe, systems of all sorts were present, often manufactured by either proficient artisans or by powerful cultivators, the former being the most commonly seen.
But as systems often used an interface to interact with its user, many different types of systems had been designed.
Out of the myriad of types, the Fake Systems were meant to cause the host to suffer through both mental and physical pain for as much and as long as possible.
For weak beings, such systems caused most of them to die a horrible death often out of suicide. But for powerful beings like Alexander, other than feeling beyond annoyed, they also knew how to deal with such things.
And so, as Alexander finished roaring insults and hexes, he used his Divine Sense to encompass his entire being, from his flesh, cells, atoms, particles, his clothes and even his aura. It only took him a few seconds to find the system in question. It looked like a small dark green ball with, engraved on its surface, the pattern of a blazing sun. The size of this ball was minuscule to say the least.
Seeing the pattern on it, Alexander understood what had happened, this system was put inside his body by the old man with orange hair he met right after being unsealed.
"..."
"I see..." Alexander could not stop his veins from bulging all over his body.
"Then I hope you won't mind me when I go and slaughter some of your sects!"
After finishing his rant, not forgetting to utterly crush the ball, he simply continued to fly in search of interesting Tier-2 Worlds.
-----
After some time, Alexander was about to lament at his bad luck, not finding a fun target after a few days...
When suddenly, he detected a group of people ahead in the middle of space some hundreds of thousands of kilometers into the distance.
'Are they natives from a higher plane?'
Alexander could only speculate on their origin as inside the Lower Realms, beings that could go through the void's environment were a minority.
He first thought that they were from Tier-3 Lower Worlds, but the aura they emanated was not in the same league as natives from the Lower Realms.
Getting closer, Alexander was only the more confused, as seeing the cultivation base of the crowd far into the void, he quickly evaluated their potential origins.
'Most of them are juniors at either the Earth Realm or the Sky Realm, the former being actually the rarer kind.'
Seeing this, Alexander raised his brow, as after all, one would expect the lower cultivation base to be more common than the higher one. Not that it mattered as, in the end, such cultivation was mediocre at best.
Cultivators began at the Qi Sensing Realm, trying to breakthrough to the Qi Refining Realm, above was the Foundation Establishment Realm, Qi Master Realm, Profound Realm, then Earth Realm and Sky Realm.
As for the elders around the juniors, few of them were middle aged men and women, all of them at different stages of the Heavenly Realm, the level right above the Sky Realm.
As for the three old men, surprisingly they had a much higher cultivation base. One would expect them to be at the next major realm right above the middle aged men and women, the Star Realm. Yet they were actually above it!
Out of the three old men, two of them were right above at the Golden Core Realm, while the strongest one was even stronger at the Nascent Soul Realm.
'Makes no sense, the Golden Core Realm is impossible to achieve in the Lower Realms, let alone the Nascent Soul Realm! The only explanation is that they come from a higher plane and descended willingly. Is it related to those youths?'
To surpass the Star Realm, one had to ascend to the Upper Realms. Like the Lower Realms, the Upper Realms were a layer within the Universe, hosting either Tier-4, Tier-5 or Tier-6 Worlds.
To reach the Golden Core Realm, one needed to at least be cultivating inside a Tier-4 World.
'Let alone travelling to the Lower Realms, why would they bring their juniors here, there is nothing of worth in the Lower Realms, especially for people originating from a higher plane...'
What confused Alexander was why those black robed elders did not just take their juniors away. Even if an ascension to the Upper Realm was extremely dangerous, even for Star Realm experts, it did not mean that it could not be bypassed. Someone at the Golden Core Realm could very well force their way through. The Heavenly Way would never care for something so trivial.
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'Are they making them slaughter some natives of these Lower Realms to get used to murder?'
Even while being puzzled, Alexander did not seem to be slowing down one bit, if not for him going even faster than before.
After a few hours of slow flight, Alexander reached the group of cultivators.
-----
Inside the group, the young men and women, dressed in light green robes with yellow accents, were asking questions to their elders.
"Senior brother Jin, I feel stuck! It has already been a few years, yet my body is stuck at the ninth layer of the Earth Realm!
Even though my body should have advanced and reached the tenth layer, giving me a peak Earth-Tier body, I just can't manage to make it! No matter what elixirs I use, they just feel ineffective!" A young man with short brown hair lamented to a blue robed middle aged man.
Raising his finger, the man named Jin was truly baffled, reprimanding his junior.
"Junior Tao, you must be patient! A cultivator should not try and reach for shortcuts, knowing this, why are you using every elixirs you can find?
I even saw you, last month, eating an elixir directly off the floor! Where did you even find it?!" Senior brother Jin could only look dumbfoundedly at his junior brother.
"Careful!"
Before he could continue berating this young man, he heard a rattling voice from behind. Turning around, he saw a black robed old man looking in the distance with a frown.
"What is wrong Grand Elder Yong?" As the middle aged man was about to ask someone else, he suddenly felt a powerful aura engulf him.
Drenched in cold sweats, the man could only, like everyone else, struggle for his next breath.
Seeing the states of everyone in his group, the strongest old man earlier called 'Grand Elder Yong', could only narrow his eyes at the young man in simple white robes a few tens of meters away from him and his juniors.
Even as a Nascent Soul Realm expert, he had not realized Alexander to be so close. This frightened him deeply. And it clearly was not just a matter of a concealment artifact or the like.
After all, to step mid-air one needed a Sky Realm cultivation base, as for basic flight, one must be a the Heavenly Realm at very least. However, to do so in space, the Star Realm was a necessity.
So how could the old man be happy? Having to deal with a suppressive aura on top of maintaining most of the group together as only the other two black robed old men could fly in space alongside him. If only he could have brought some more peoples at the Star Realm and above, he would currently be in a better position. Alas, it was too late to regret, not that it could be done anyway.
"Your excellency, what may I help you with?" The old man in black robes quickly tried to probe this mysterious young man.
"Why are you all here?" Alexander asked a simple question, yet, when he noticed the reaction of the old man, he could not help feeling slightly surprised.
"Your excellency, we are just touring here, taking in the scenery for our juniors to gain inspiration from!" The old man seemed impatient, let alone his half-assed answer, Alexander could only ask again.
"Then why have you been here for at least a few hours?"
The old man stiffened hearing this.
'He was watching us?! I couldn't tell! This man is dangerous!'
Panicking, the old man quickly answered, this time cupping his fists.
"We were just taking a break your excellency, can we not?"
"No, no, you can... It's just that I feel like you lied to me too many times, my hand may just slip out of anger and kill one of you..."
The old man just stood unmoving after this answer, not believing someone would be so daring.
It was only after Alexander slapped the void in the direction of a young man in light green robes that the old man was forced out of his reverie.
Seeing the unassuming blue colored gust of aura homing on the young man as well as its might, the old man could only go all out, pushing his peak stage Nascent Soul Realm cultivation base to the limits before rushing forward. Standing in between the young man and the attack.
Only after punching the gust of aura and barely managing to disperse it did the old man heave a sigh of relief. The next words of Alexander however, felt like hammers crushing his ego.
"Barely... Aren't you a peak Nascent Soul Realm cultivator? You should have a Perfect Nascent Soul, how did you barely manage to stop my random attack... I even went and limited its power to the middle stage of the Nascent Soul Realm..."
"T-The... middle stage..? Limiting..?"
The old man looked disheveled after this revelation, remembering the attack, he simply could not refute it, he wanted to, but he did not dare to!
"Alright, now that you seem to get it, what is going on here?"
Looking around, Alexander's gaze met with most of the people inside the old man's group, each of them looking down every time they met with his eyes.
"Grand Elder Yong, is this man stronger than you?" Hushing, a black robed old man near Grand Elder Yong was asking for clarification, not sure about the current situation.
"I'm not sure... if he really was limiting his power in that strike just now, then he definitely is! I could barely stop it after all and it seemed like a casual move from him..."
Remembering the simple attack, Grand Elder Yong shivered.
"If it really was a casual move and not a secret technique meant to look simple, then we are doomed!"
"Then why not just tell him? It's better than to die!"
Contemplating the suggestion of his junior brother, Grand Elder Yong nodded his head before saying with his fists cupped.
"Your excellency, I won't lie to you, this is a Sealed World! We managed to find it a few years back, and since then, our Flowing Leaves Sect managed to use it as a training ground to give our disciples some fortuitous opportunities!"
Alexander raised his brows, his thoughts running wild at such a rare occurrence.
'Sealed World?! In here?! Even if it is possible for a native of the Lower Realms to make a Sealed World in the middle of space, for it to attract the greed of Upper Realms natives... This is obviously abnormal!'
Sealed Worlds were worlds created using Space Laws. Most often than not, the creators also used the Dao of Space in their creation.
Such worlds were rare and commonly used as inheritance grounds, where dying cultivators decided to leave their legacies for the later generations.
While Alexander did not really care about such petty things, he was still curious about its content.
"So, what did you find? I won't take it but I am still wondering what in the Lower Realms was enough to catch an entire sect's attention from the Upper Realms."
"Your excellency, this Sealed World was apparently made by a Dao Fusion Realm master! Unfortunately for us, only juniors at the peak stage of the Sky Realm and below can enter!"
After sighing at this situation, Grand Elder Yong continued.
"Even with my current cultivation at the peak of the Nascent Soul Realm, just surviving the powerful arrays' onslaught every time I get too close is more than difficult!"
"As for what we have found, the best treasure we got until now is a Cloud-Tier spear, while it did not reach the supreme grade, it was still at the peak of the perfected grade!"
Artifacts were, like almost every item in this Universe, organized with both tiers and grades.
The swords that Alexander gifted inside the Golden Dungeon were Mortal-Tier, their grade either low, middle or high. Above the high grade was the perfected grade, and above even this was the strongest grade, the supreme grade.
As for the different tiers, above the Mortal-Tier was the Spirit-Tier, often just weapons possessing any kind of energy, above this tier was the Profound-Tier, mostly meant for Profound Realm experts. Then came the Earth-Tier used by Earth Realm experts, beyond was the Cloud-Tier, using these artifacts one would probably find either Sky Realm or Heavenly Realm experts.
'Dao Fusion Realm? Why would a cultivator at this level of strength bother making a Sealed World in the middle of nowhere in the shitty Lower Realms?'
Alexander was confused by this information, for someone who had not only surpassed the Nascent Soul Realm but also the major realm after called the Dao Heart Realm, calling it eccentric would be an understatement.
'Was he that bored? Instead on focusing toward the next major realm, trying to form his Saint Embryo, he goes around making a Sealed World here...'
'Even if he did not have the potential to reach the Saint Embryonic Realm, as a Dao Fusion Realm cultivator, standing at the top of a Tier-5 World would not be difficult!'
'I guess I'll go take a look then...'
Before Grand Elder Yong could ask if they could leave, he and his group watched powerlessly as Alexander's figure shot forward in the direction of the space ripples far behind them, directly entering the Sealed World.
"What about the arrays..?"
All Grand Elder Yong could do was wonder why he even bothered doing all that just for someone to simply skip the arrays.