After reading through the hilt, Alex still was capable enough to read through most of the blade of the sword.
He started reading, focusing only on the words of the blade as well as understanding the meaning behind it. He couldn't just look at the words and try to understand them later by remembering everything.
Because the Intent tended to imprint itself onto one's mind, Alex would have to doubly fight back against the intent if he tried to learn it later.
As such, even if it was a bit harder, he had to learn everything at once.
Alex wasn't just fighting back the Intent on the blade either. He was using it as a whetting stone for his own Intent to get it to become sharper and stronger than it already was.
If he could handle it all to a certain extent, his Intent would improve by leaps and bounds. And if his Intent improved a lot, so would his usage of Dao.