Gacha Sovereign

The group was staring at Alex and Lin Xingzhi until they couldn't see them again. Xue Lang looked at the token in his hand and stored it carefully. Even if he lost his Space Ring, he couldn't afford to lose this token.

They soon decided to continue their journey with their own complicated feelings.

Meanwhile, Alex and Lin Xingzhi wandered around and arrived at a random forest and landed there to think about where they should cultivate.

"You are going to use the Fire Grass first, right?"

"Yeah. After that, we can go around the world and just enjoy our time." Alex nodded.

"It's good then." She nodded while clapping her hand. It transmitted a certain signal in the form of a shock wave.

Alex couldn't comprehend it other than the little amount of energy he saw with his Spirit Eyes.

Lin Xingzhi soon smiled and pointed her hand in the opposite direction. "There seems to be a huge cave in that direction."

"What did you just do earlier?" Alex nodded while asking.

"Nature is alive, you know. It takes me a thousand years to learn the gesture and a kind of language, but I can comprehend what they are saying. When I asked them about some places to live, they kindly replied to me with that direction," Lin Xingzhi explained.

"So, the first energy wave is the technique to ask your question?"

"Yeah. I used the shock wave to ask anything. The grasses here, the trees, the earth, the wind and many more things. What you think is a natural disaster usually has their own consciousness." She smiled.

"I see. Respect nature… I guess this saying is certainly true." Alex nodded in understanding.

"Well, that saying is intended elsewhere, but I guess you can use it in this context as well." She nodded.

Alex only smiled and followed the direction she pointed at earlier. "Let's go."

"Sure."

"By the way, what part are you going to refine now?"

"It's bones. This will improve my strength greatly like the previous refinement, the tendons. If I complete these two and use Spirit Step and Dragon Aura, I think I can match Rank 8 God's in raw strength alone. As for whether I can defeat a Rank 8 God or not… I am not really sure.

"After seeing the gap between the Rank 10 God with Rank 9 God in the Devil World, I am confident that I can beat a Rank 8 God with the way I am now. However, I will be heavily injured in the process.

"Of course, if I am fighting a fire user, they will just kneel in front of me due to the Fire Authority. As for the others, I will need to fight hard. I just hope that this body refining will elevate my strength to a new height."

Lin Xingzhi looked at him and nodded in agreement.

"There is also another reason why I hope something like this… The last two refinements are my flesh and skin. Unlike the other two, it won't increase my prowess anymore nor my cultivation speed. Instead, it will focus on my recovery speed.

"By refining my flesh, my internal injuries recovery will be boosted. This will surely help me in many ways. As for the skin, it is for outer injuries. Wait a minute, don't you know this already?" Alex narrowed his eyes.

"I have read it once, but never think more than that. Other than becoming the manager of your system, I also need to take care of a few problems, so I can't just sit in front of the system and observe you." Lin Xingzhi shook her head in disappointment.

"I see. Else, you will become a NEET." Alex teased her.

"Pfft… I don't mind becoming one, though. I can do whatever I want during that time." She smiled. "I guess I can push all the works to you since you have returned."

"Wait. What?!" Alex widened his eyes. "No, no. I certainly don't want that. I have my hands full with my cultivation alone."

"Fufu…" She chuckled. "Well, I am already a God King, so I can spare a bit more time for other stuff like this. Anyway, we have arrived."

She stopped and looked at the cave entrance.

Alex immediately scanned the entire cave with his Spirit Eyes, finding no energy inside it.

"The cave is about fifty meters deep inside, and there should be nothing in our surroundings."

The two nodded at each other and entered the cave as Alex covered the cave with Illusion Array, and Lin Xingzhi patched the entrance with dirt.

Alex snapped his finger as his Pure Fire appeared and flew toward the end of the cave, brightening the entire cave.

"By the way, we need an air if you want to cultivate, you know." Lin Xingzhi reminded him again. Although Cultivators didn't really need air for a period of time, they still needed an abundant amount if they were cultivating. They simply couldn't be bothered by that during the cultivation, so they might need a hole to circulate the air.

However, Alex had another solution. He made two Spatial Gates, one on the inside and one on the outside, circulating the air back and forth. At the same time, another concealing array had been placed to hide this Spatial Gate, allowing Alex to not get disturbed during this process.

Meanwhile, Lin Xingzhi started shaping the stones using her power to make a livable home for a while. Alex then went toward the deepest part of the cave, took out the fire grass, and sat on a lotus position.

"Haiz… More pain." Alex let out a long sigh. "It has been a while since I last refined my body, but it seemed I would be reminded about the pain again."

As much as he wanted to skip this, he couldn't only do it. He swallowed the grass and started circulating the energy.

The grass melted in his mouth, and the Fire Energy burst out to the point it came out of his body, covering it with fire.

This fire began burning his body for an hour or two.

This process would never take this long, but since he had become a God Rank Expert, it was bound to happen.

He waited for a few hours before it had grown accustomed to the hardness of his body. At that time, the fire flared up before disappearing as if it was never there before.

However, Alex could feel it… The feeling of the fire crawled into your skin, then into your flesh, before entering his bones.

The pain began to spread all over his body as it started its refining process. As much as Alex had prepared for this, he never expected that refining his Divine Body would lead him to more pain than he had ever imagined.

"AAAAHHHH!"

Alex screamed out of pain.

Lin Xingzhi even stopped for a moment and stared at the darkness. She knew about the Undying Fire Body a bit from Alex and his former friend. However, she never expected that Alex would scream like that despite having gotten used to it.

This proved that there might be something that he first experienced for the first time during this refining.

And it turned out she was right. What Alex experienced was new to him. Unlike the previous refining, the refining this time took a few processes.

First, the fire would burn his skeletons into ashes, making him a human without bones. He even wobbled around a bit for a few seconds before it created another set of bones.

Unfortunately, this set of bones was only a mortal bone. He needed to direct his Divine Energy to stimulate the fire energy coming from the grass to strengthen it, allowing him to transform the bone into one that suited the Divine Body.

After all those processes, he still needed to fight the fire energy overbearing ability. He could stop the pain by using his Pure Fire, but it would surely end up winning.

Because he needed to endure all this process at the same time, he couldn't help but feel the pain several times more than he first expected.

Still, it took a lot to defeat the man called Alex. Alex soon regained his breathing and grew accustomed to the pain. His pain tolerance increased exponentially during this process.

As much as Lin Xingzhi wanted to call him a masochist, she needed to let him complete his body refining first.

She simply watched him during this whole time while using the energy around her to erect a barrier, so no one would enter this place.

It took Alex a whole month before he stopped screaming, but Lin Xingzhi felt nothing about it. She believed that Alex would beat that pain as soon as possible. And she was right.

When Alex stopped screaming, he never screamed again even a single time. He might let out a groan every now and then, but it was not as extreme as the past ones.

"His situation has become stable." She nodded after sensing the energy covering his body. "His friends took him a hundred years in the past… Although it had passed my original calculation, Alex should be able to refine his body to the maximum within only three decades… Well, he almost passed the two decades mark soon, so there was no point in saying he needs two decades."

Alex kept cultivating and felt the embrace of the energy inside his body.

Finally, Alex opened his eyes after a long seven months.

"Ho?!" Lin Xingzhi sensed it and immediately headed over to his direction with a smile. "You have finally woken up."

"Yeah. The strength I got earlier was insane. I might need to consolidate my situation first, but I am confident in beating a Rank 8 God."

"That's good." She smiled and nodded. "For now, consolidate your own strength first. I will be guarding you for another few weeks."

"After I finish this, let's go around the world, shall we?" Alex apologized as well because it took him twice the time he predicted earlier.

"You don't need to worry. Watching you is enough for me… Hehe, it's not like there is any difference between watching you from the screen and here." She grinned.

Alex nodded, feeling grateful for her understanding. He then closed his eyes again.

It took him another week to consolidate his strength, but before he opened his eyes, Lin Xingzhi furrowed her eyebrows when she saw the token that they gave a few months ago lit up.

'This… I think I will go this time.' Lin Xingzhi decided and left a note for him before going toward the direction of the token.

It took her only a few minutes to reach Xue Lang, but what she saw next completely shocked her. Never in her imagination, she would think that there was a huge disturbance where Xue Lang activated the token.

She saw many people dying, including someone who wanted to take Xue Lang's life. It was at this time, she decided to step in.