Chapter 2023 Testing Alex left for the training tower that was located in all the different Peaks as well as many other places as well. The tower was free to use a few times a month, so Alex made use of his free entry to test out his strengths. Everything had gone up a step in strength, even his Body Cultivation, which was surprising. Since body and soul were merged as one, it perhaps wasn't that surprising to think that body cultivation would increase along with the Cultivation base, but it was still surprising for Alex that it improved by an entire realm. Normally, the rate of advancement in terms of physical strength was rather low even for Immortal cultivators. So, his advancement being so strong was not something he had expected. He had no doubt that he was clearly because he had broken through to the Immortal realm with not just his Qi but also his body. That was why he was seeing the benefits. Alex tested out a bit more of his attacks, the best of which was still the True Immolation Strike, now at Immortal Origin 3rd realm of strength. Seeing all of the improvement made Alex quite happy and gave him more motivation to continue on this journey. Once he was done testing out his strengths, it was Pearl's turn to test. Pearl didn't have many different attack skills, just the few that he gained through his bloodline and a few more that Bai Jingshen had trained him with. There were four levels of strength to Pearl's attacks. The first was a simple physical attack relying only on his strong body. Using only his body, his attacks were exactly as strong as his cultivation base, which was Immortal Ascendant 1st realm. The second level was just his Qi, which gave him a significant boost in power. With his Qi, Pearl could make his attacks as strong as Immortal Ascendant 6th realm. The third level was when Pearl used everything he had in one attack, using his physical body, Qi, as well as Dao. Doing so made his attacks strong enough to fight against an Immortal Ascendant 7th realm cultivator. That was the most Pearl could do on his own. However, when he called out the mark on his forehead, his power got that much stronger. Using the mark, Pearl could make all of his attacks much stronger, including physical attacks, Qi attacks, and Spiritual attacks. All of this increased by an average of 3 realms, so when used together, Pearl's final attack went on to be as strong as Immortal Origin 1st realm. That had surprised Alex tremendously when he saw it. Alex had always known that Pearl's attributes improved all throughout when that mark appeared, but he hadn't realized that it was by this amount. Pearl switched between his human form and beast form and tried out the same attacks to judge his strength in all forms, but there was nothing different with either form. No matter the form, he was the same cultivator. "Incredible," Alex said as the puppet Pearl had attacked showed his current level of strength. Pearl turned around, the blood-red mark on his forehead slowly dissipating as he took a few deep breaths. He had a wide smile on his face. "This is good, right?" he asked. "I'm so strong, brother." "Yeah," Alex said. "That's just as strong as me when I was in the same realm as you. What is that mark on your forehead really? Can you not tell?" Pearl shook his head. "I can't tell you what it is, brother. Grandpa was very wary of anyone finding out. I'm not supposed to show this unless my life is in danger." "Oh!" Alex said. "I understand. I won't ask any further." Pearl nodded in thanks. "Although, I suppose I can tell you what I am doing," he said. "I'm burning my Blood Essence to get momentary strength." Alex's eyes narrowed. "You're doing what?" he asked, nearly screaming out the question. "You shouldn't do that Pearl. It's dangerous. Don't you remember what happened last time you did that?" "No, no, it's alright," Pearl said quickly, his human hands floundering in an attempt to gesture what he was saying. "It's a sort of technique, so I won't really be able to do what I did back then unless I want to." Alex was still wary. "Try not to do that at all if you can," he said. Pearl nodded. While Alex was thinking about something, he looked down at his own hands. He was still not used to how long his fingers were and how they could wrap around things to grab them tightly. That sort of thing was not possible for a beast at all. "Brother," he said, looking up at Alex. "Hmm?" "Should I use a weapon?" he asked. "A weapon?" Alex asked in surprise. "You want a weapon?" "Shouldn't I?" he asked. "Almost everyone uses weapons anyway." "I guess so," Alex said. "But there are many that don't use weapons either. And to learn weapons after you reached the Immortal realm…" Alex didn't really have much idea of what he was to do. He looked at Pearl and saw how he wasn't used to his body just yet. It would still take him a few days before he got the hang of it. "I think you can use it," Alex said. "You aren't used to your body yet, so you don't have any set ways. You can be trained any weapon if you want to learn it." 𝒻𝓇𝑒𝘦𝘸𝑒𝒷𝓃ℴ𝑣𝘦𝑙.𝒸ℴ𝘮 Pearl nodded enthusiastically. "Yes, I can learn," he said. Alex chuckled and brought out Midnight. "Here, try and see if you can use a sword." Pearl nodded and held onto Midnight. He frowned a little immediately, groaning almost. Midnight was heavy. Not just physically, but mentally as well. "Come on, Midnight. We're practically family. Let me use you for a while." Midnight seemed to accept Pearl's words and finally let him use them. Both the physical and mental weight vanished almost instantly and Pearl's expression returned back to neutral. He held onto Midnight for a moment, trying to get a hang of keeping himself up while holding onto the sword. With Qi, that was easy. Without it, he needed some time to get used to it. Pearl began moving around the sword with less finesse than a man who had held onto a sword for the first time. His swinging was unnatural and erratic, and he nearly missed the entire puppet a couple of times. He learned quickly though and soon he could move the sword around decent enough to hit the target when he wanted to. He continued training with the sword for a few minutes longer before handing it back to Alex. "Good work," Alex said. "If you keep on learning, you will be good soon enough." Pearl shook his head. "No, I don't want to learn a sword," he said. Alex was somewhat surprised. "You don't want to use a weapon then?" he asked. "No, I do want to use a weapon. Just not a sword," Pearl answered. "What weapon do you want?" Alex asked. "I only have a sword for now, but I can make one for you with blood." Pearl thought for a bit and said, "Spear."