Alex was holding dearly to Pearl, ever so vigilant of his current situation. He still didn’t trust the beasts completely, and the only reason he didn’t struggle to fight back was that somewhere in the back of his head, he was curious to see what was going to happen.
On the slightest hint of anything bad happening to him or Pearl, he would do his best to get himself out of there.
“I know you are worried, young human and nothing we will ever say will get you to trust us right now. So, just trust on the fact that despite us being so strong, you are alive right now,” the White Cat said.
Alex looked around at the forest underneath them. They were moving so fast that almost everything looked like a blur to them. He decided to use focus mode to see what was underneath them.
“What are you doing?” the White Cat asked Alex suddenly.
“What?” Alex asked, controlling the focus mode back.
The White Cat scrutinized him with her golden eyes for a few moments before taking them off. “Nothing,” she said.
‘Can she sense it when I use focus mode?’ Alex wondered and stopped doing that.
“Who are you, uhh… miss?” Alex asked.
“I am Ren,” Lady Ren said. “You can call me Lady Ren, human. And as for you my child, you can call me grandma.”
She gave a sweet smile towards Pearl with no hint of malice at all.
“Grandma? Are you very old?” Alex asked.
“Boy, speak respectfully to Lady Ren,” the Jaguar said.
“Let’s just kill this human,” the puma said.
Alex immediately cowered as the saint beasts started releasing their aura once more.
“STOP IT!” Lady Ren shouted. As soon as they did, the two beasts stopped using their aura on Alex and he could finally feel free again.
“I told you two to stop this hatred you have, and you still keep it up?” she asked.
“Forgive us, lady Ren,” the jaguar said.
“But lady Ren, it was the humans that—”
“Not another word. It doesn’t matter what the humans did. You can’t use the crime of a few to hate on the many,” lady Ren said.
“I-I’m sorry,” the puma said.
Alex looked at them curiously. “What did the humans do that you hate us so much?” Alex asked.
“It’s because of humans that this continent is as bad as it is,” lady Ren said with a sigh.
“Why? What? did they do?” Alex asked.
“Haha, no need to ask so many questions right now. Why don’t you answer my question first,” lady Ren asked.
“Uhh… If I can answer it, then sure,” Alex said.
“How did you come upon that child?” she asked.
Alex was surprised that was the first thing she wanted to know. “Pearl? I found him by chance I should say,” Alex said.
“His name is Pearl?” Lady Ren asked with amusement. “That’s a nice name.” She then went close to Alex and looked at Pearl with a smile again and said, “Nice to meet you, Pearl.”
“Meow?” Pearl looked back at Alex to find out if he should answer at all or not.
“Go ahead,” he said. This wasn’t the time to hide what he knew or could do. The more he showed off himself, the higher his chances at survival would become. There was also the chance of them wanting him so much that they wouldn’t let go of him, but that at least meant that he would live.
As for leaving, given how fast he could cultivate, it wouldn’t take a lot of time. At least not the ‘nearly a decade’ that Lady Ren predicted.
Pearl looked back towards lady Ren after getting the permission and said, “Nice to meet you too.” Only, he didn’t say it out loud but used his spiritual sense to speak.
Just as Alex expected, a face full of shock appeared on her face. “How did you? How does he have spiritual sense?” she asked.
“I gave him a Spirit Cleansing Lily,” Alex said.
“A… Spirit Cleansing Lily? I’m afraid I’m not familiar with flowers. Can you tell me what it does?” she asked.
“Sure,” Alex said. “It unlocks one Spiritual Sense without needing to enter the Saint realm.”
“Hmm, do all humans have spiritual sense then?” she asked.
“Are you planning on just asking questions and not answering any?” Alex asked.
“Oh, my bad. Go on ask what you want,” she said.
“Who are you exactly to these two? You are much weaker than them, but they respect you very much. I thought the beasts followed a hierarchy of power,” Alex said.
The other two didn’t seem offended at the question and instead started giggling.
“Oh, they do follow the hierarchy of power,” Lady Ren said with a chuckle as well. “The fact that you call me weak just means that you are weak yourself. Cultivate for a few hundred years, and if you are lucky, maybe you will start finding inkling of my strength then.”
Alex was surprised when he heard that. “Are you very strong?” he asked.
“There are only a handful of beings stronger than me on this floating piece of rock,” she said.
The way she said it, Alex couldn’t help but believe her. “Are you at the peak of the? Saint realm?” he asked.
Lady Ren gave a mysterious smile and said, “it’s my turn to ask the questions.”
“Oh, sorry,” Alex said. “Please ask.”
“Regarding Pearl, can you tell me more about the circumstances you found him under?” she asked.
“Uh, I was in the forest one day, and he and his mother crashed into the forest. She was very heavily wounded and couldn’t even fight a common beast. When I helped her fend off a wolf, she asked me to take care of pearl, and… she died,” he said.
“I see,” Lady Ren said with slight tears in her eyes. “So my granddaughter died just like that huh?”
“Yea— wait, your granddaughter?” Alex asked with shock on his face.
“What? You think I want to be called grandma by just any other beast?” Lady Ren said.
“Are you telling me Pearl is your…?”
“Great-Grandson, yes,” she said. “Or at least I think he is. There shouldn’t be another White Cat beside me in this realm, and the only ones that have been was my daughter.”
“Where is she now?” Alex asked.
“We married her off to a beast in the Eastern Continent,” she said. “So I think the White Cat you met might have been my granddaughter. Although, she could have been my great-granddaughter as well. Sigh, I can’t tell how much time has passed in the outer world.”
“It should have been about 5000 years since the Princess’ marriage, Lady Ren,” the jaguar said.
“Has it only been 5000 years? I thought more time would’ve passed already,” she said.
‘Only… 5000? How old is she?’ Alex wondered.
“So you aren’t certain that Pearl is your descendant, right?” Alex asked.
“No, of that we are absolutely certain,” the puma said. “After all, we had his mother’s body brought to us a few months ago.”
“… wait, Pearl’s mother’s body went to you guys? Why?” Alex asked.
“It was someone who recognized her kind and brought the dead body to us and left without letting us know. We wanted to find more out, but we couldn’t at the time. But it seems we now have the answer,” the jaguar said.
“Wait, wait, wait,” Alex said as something didn’t make sense to him. “You said you married your daughter to the Eastern continent, right? Then why were Pearl and his mother here?” he asked.
“That…” Lady Ren stopped for a second as the same confusion Alex had appeared on her face as well. “You’re right, how was she here? You said she was wounded too, right? Then there was no way she flew across the Blue.”
“Well, how did you marry off your daughter to the Eastern Continent in the first place? Did they fly all the way there too?” he asked.
“Don’t be silly, human. The ocean is not something one dares to cross even at the higher realms of the Saint Realm. There are many beasts in the ocean that will kill you before you even know what is happening,” the Puma said.
“Then how?” Alex asked.
“She teleported there,” Lady Ren said.
“Teleported?” Alex asked. “You can teleport between continents? Isn’t that very far away? How many resources would that use?”
“It is far,” lady Ren said. “That was why they were teleported twice instead of once.”
“Twice?” Alex asked.
“People would first teleport to the Central Continent, and then to the other continent. Since the central continent is at the center, it was used as a mid-point to go to before going to your desired continent,” Lady Ren said.
“Central Continent?” Alex asked with confusion. “You mean the 5th continent that people can’t enter?”
“Oh, you know about that?” Lady Ren asked with surprise. “I’m surprised humans have this much knowledge of the world. I assumed that after the teleportation formation stopped working, they wouldn’t be able to get any more information about the outside world. It seems I was wrong.”
Alex didn’t say anything and let her believe what she thought of it. “so the teleportation formation is not working anymore?”
“No. Humans found it useless after they stopped working due to the central continent no longer being accessible and destroyed it. they plundered the resources keeping it alive, and thus is no longer usable,” Lady Ren said.
“I see…. What happened in the central continent making it unable to go to?” he asked.
