1168 Mental Defense
The elder with Alex wondered why he took a set of robes with him when there were so many other treasures that should have caught his eye.
“Your majesty, is there something unique about that robe?” he couldn’t help but be curious about it.
“Yes,” Alex said as he handed the talisman with the information about the robe to the old man.
The elder took the talisman and read through it calmly. However, by the end of it, his eyes wide as a duck’s egg.
“How… how can something like this exist?” he couldn’t help but ask.
“I don’t know,” Alex said. “Which is why I’m so surprised too.”
He pulled the cloth a bit and found it really resilient. “It is also very durable. I shouldn’t have any problem fighting in it,” he said.
“You should definitely wear it, your Majesty,” the elder said. “That is perhaps the best thing in this room.”
Alex nodded. He felt the same as well.
He kept the robe in his storage and looked through the rest of the stuff. He came across a few treasures for mental protection and tested how strong they were.
Of them, only a single necklace showed any sign of being worth it. Given the strength of his own spiritual energy, he could defend against any mental attacks that the other artifacts could.
This necklace, however, could defend Saint Transformation realm of mental attacks, which he wasn’t yet capable of.
“Can you use a mental attack on me?” Alex asked the elder.
“Attack you, your Majesty?” the elder said with wide eyes. “I could never.”
“No, please. I want to test something,” Alex said.
“But how could I attack you, your Majesty? If I were to hurt you by some chance, I could never—”
“It’s an order,” Alex said sternly. He needed to test the before and after results of a spiritual attack on whether he was wearing the necklace or not.
The elder sighed in the end and complied with the order. “I’m not the best at using mental attacks, but still, please be careful,” he said and launched an attack at Alex.
Alex braced himself for the mental pain that was going to come next. He was ready for the head-pounding pain and only hoped that he didn’t faint.
He had pride in his own spiritual energy, but this was a Saint Transformation realm cultivator that he was going up against. Pride did little to stop an attack of such might.
Alex waited for the attack to hit, and waited, and waited. However, the attack never came at all.
“What are you doing?” he asked. “Attack me already.”
“Huh?” the elder was surprised. “But… I did. I already attacked you. How are you not hurt?”
“What?” Alex was confused now. “You didn’t attack me at all. I didn’t even feel anything.”
“But I did,” the elder said softly. “I must’ve made a mistake, your highness. Let me do it again.”
Alex prepared himself and watched the elder ready his attack as well. However, once again, the attack didn’t come.
“You weren’t hurt?” the elder asked.
“You attacked already?” Alex was surprised. “How come I don’t feel any—”
His words paused as his eyes slowly moved upward. He reached up with his hand and pulled down the crown on his head.
The coolness he felt in his mind disappeared instantly, leaving him with what felt like a drowsy mind.
“Uhh… try again,” Alex said.
The elder nodded. He launched an attack, and Alex definitely felt this one. “Argh!” he cried out in pain and stumbled a bit as he fell to the ground. His vision went black for a few seconds before it slowly came back to him.
It took him about 10 seconds to slowly get back up and even then his head hurt quite a bit. He shook his head and half a minute later, the pain finally subsided.
He reached for the necklace and wore it. “Can you do it again?” he asked.
The elder nodded and attacked.
The necklace suddenly vibrated and stopped the mental attack from reaching him. It couldn’t completely protect him, but what did remain of the attack was of no worry to Alex. His spiritual energy easily destroyed the remaining attack, leaving him unharmed.
“Not bad,” he thought as he touched the necklace. “However, it is nowhere near as good as this crown.”
Alex placed the crown back on his head and immediately felt the difference of night and day when it came to how the crown affected his mind.
The coolness took away any remaining pain he was feeling. “Damn, why did no one tell me that the crown was a mental defense artifact?” he asked.
“We… weren’t aware,” the elder said. “We don’t know much about the crown after all.”
“You didn’t experiment while you were with it? You have 5 thousand years to do so,” Alex said.
“It is a crown that belongs to the ruler of the continent, we didn’t dare touch it except for when it needed cleaning,” the elder said.
“I see,” Alex said as he touched the crown. “I can’t just wear it wherever I go, so I think I will keep the necklace too.”
Afterward, he searched the treasure room for a few more things, but nothing substantial stood out to him. He did notice a very large amount of spirit stones kept in a few storage bags in one corner, which could be used to fund whatever idea it was that Scarlet and the rest required.
‘The royal army can certainly use it,’ he thought.
Alex left the treasure room, very satisfied, and closed everything. With the formation working again, no one could tell that the throne room led to the Treasure room at all.
“Your majesty, your father has returned,” someone reported to him.
“Ah, good,” Alex said and went over to where his father was. He was resting in one of the rooms along with Ren Guanting who had gone out with him.
Whisker jumped onto his shoulder the moment he entered the room, and elder Ren stood up to greet him.
“How did it go?” Alex asked. “Any complications?”
“None, your majesty,” the elder said. “We had the people take both pills one after another. The antidote pill healed them from the toxins, and the sweating pill made them sweat out all the red dust in their body.”
“Oh,” Alex was surprised. “The sweating pills actually worked on the body cultivators? I would’ve assumed that it wouldn’t.”
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“I see,” Alex said. “Maybe that’s how it works on body cultivators.”
“Now that they are healed, do you have any plans on what we should do with them?” the elder asked.
Alex thought for a bit. “Do you know what we should do, father?” he asked.
“Send them home,” Graham said. “While I don’t believe anyone has an actual home to return to, just sending them to the Wasteland where they can live as a tribe should be enough. That is what they had been wishing for the longest time while they were kept on that godforsaken island.”
Alex gave some thought to the suggestion and nodded. “Give those people two choices. They can stay here and cultivate as they like. We will give them some resources to get started.”
“However, if they choose to, they can return to the Wasteland where there should be locations with Phoenix fire that don’t have people living in it yet,” Alex said.
“As you say, your Majesty,” elder Ren said.
“You may leave, elder.”
Ren Guanting bowed and walked away from the room.
“You really have quite a bit of power, don’t you?” Graham said while showing a surprised face. “I would’ve never assumed somebody strong like her could ever listen to you.”
“These 10 elders are loyal to the throne, so they are very respectful of me,” Alex said. “As long as I don’t cross some sort of boundary, they should be willing to help me with everything they can.”
Graham nodded. “Anyway, I’m feeling exhausted for some reason. I will go rest in a bit,” he said.
“Oh right, before you go,” Alex spoke as he brought out something and handed it over to his father. “You should learn this technique. You have already gone through Mortal Cleansing, so you will need to start cultivating soon. This technique will help you with that.”
“Oh, really?” Graham said excitedly as he took the Purelake Qi Absorption Method. He flipped the book and started reading. However, as he went along, his smile turned to a frown.
Alex frowned as well when he saw that. “Is… something wrong? Do you not like the book?” he asked.
Graham gave an awkward look as he turned to his son. “Forget about not liking the book, I can’t even read it. What language is this written in?” he asked.
“It’s the demon lan— ah, I forgot. You don’t know the language of this world,” Alex said as he slapped his forehead. “You will need to learn how to read and write the language of this world.”
“That will take some time, won’t it?” Graham asked. “You can’t just learn a language in a short time.”
“You can if you have an eidetic memory,” Alex said. “Here’s what we’ll do. Whisker will stay with you and read everything that is written in that book, so you can start cultivating immediately.”
“Once you can cultivate, you will use this Spirit Cleansing Lily and open your Spiritual sea. After that, learning anything, including the language, will be a piece of cake.”