Seeing Anne stare at him like he was a monster he just smiled embarrassed.
"How powerful is your martial spirit!?!" She couldn't help but practically shout.
"Well uh… It used to be second only to deities and gods in its past lives…" Zane responded.
She just stood there stunned silly. The last 3 realms of spiritualism were known to all, it's just not many people know the realms in between the hero realm and those realms in this world.
She had to take a deep breath before calming down her heart. "Zane… Are you joking with me?"
Zane shook his head. "I myself don't understand it, Anne, but I'm telling you it's true."
She stared at him trying to determine if he was lying but she really couldn't see any deceptive signs.
"Is this related to your past life?" She asked gently.
Zane nodded, he wasn't surprised she knew since his adoptive mother, Elaine, could have told her.
"Anyways let's go, we need to leave before the city is surrounded." Zane said to which she nodded.
[I'll help both of you this time, you might feel a little weird for a second as I'm going to take control of a part of you for a split second.] Alina stated.
'No need, I can open a portal myself.' Zane thought.
[I know but that item of yours only has 3 uses and should only be for emergencies.] Alina countered.
Zane ultimately agreed after a bit of back and forth. He felt like he was relying a bit too much on Alina, and he didn't like it.
In the end, she outstretched his hand and a portal opened in front of them.
"Come, let's go." He said clutching his head with one hand from the dizziness he felt. Just her taking control of him for a second was enough to make him feel dizzy.
Anne looked at him worriedly seeing this. "Was that some sort of high-level technique?"
"Something like that. Don't worry about it, let's just go." Zane replied to which she nodded albeit reluctantly. They hopped through the portal and ended up 25 miles away. This distance shocked her.
'Even if he used a spatial treasure to support the portal… The amount of energy required to open a portal to travel this far would be enormous for a 1st martial realm.' She thought.
She wasn't wrong either, Alina had depleted over half of his energy to use that. However, half of his energy was 6 times that of the average spiritualist in his realm of spiritualism.
'Can't you use your own energy? Fuck.' Zane couldn't help but think.
[You're the one who felt you were relying on me too much.] Alina quipped.
'Fair enough.' Zane replied.
Looking up he saw they were on a towering mountain well above the clouds.
[Look behind you.] Alina said with a gloating tone. Obviously, she was upset at his earlier tone with her.
Looking back he found Anne was stunned. Looking over where she was looking his jaw dropped to the point you could fit an egg in it. There was a pond behind them, however, this wasn't your typical pond… It was full of myriad spirit water!
[Boom, I brought you to the biggest treasure in the area. You're welcome.] Alina snorted. He could have sworn he heard the sound of a mic drop as well.
Alina didn't hesitate to transform to her wyvern form and shrunk her size down before walking in. The myriad spirit water splashed when she walked in. However, it was only after she walked in that she remembered this wasn't her main body. So instead she let Zane temper his foundation as much as he wanted.
Zane gladly obliged. What a joke, a single drop of myriad spirit water couldn't turn an ordinary mortal into a peak 4th mortal realm spiritualist on the verge of breaking through to the 5th mortal realm. Yet there was an entire pond here.
With him entering the pond the water rose to the edges of the pond threatening to spill out but a simple containment rune activated keeping it from leaving the confines of the pool.
The moment he started absorbing myriad spirit water, his martial spirit opened its mouth in his profound vein and began absorbing a portion of it as well.
In this manner, he began solidifying his foundation filling in the holes he left as he charged to the 1st martial realm. After a few minutes, his foundation was rock solid and he began adding on to the tower that was his foundation, building the next floor.
Several hours passed in the blink of an eye, during which he reached the pinnacle of the 1st martial realm.
Although reluctant he stopped there, he had ascended rather fast so he wanted to take some time to learn some skills, etc in the near future.
'Alina, thank you. For staying with me all these years… It must be difficult, having to sit and play babysitter for that immortal.' Zane gave a long overdue thanks.
[… It's fine. While it is a bit boring, it has its moments. I'm just happy to have a life at all.] She responded.
'Oh? What do you mean?'
[As you might have guessed, I'm like an alternate personality of that immortal who's watching over you. The thing is though, I'm usually almost never awake… It wasn't until she assigned me to protect you that I was allowed to be awake again. So although I don't have my own body, I'm more than happy to even be awake and allowed to live life. Even if it's only as a ride-along.]
'I… I'm sorry to hear that.' Zane replied slowly, he truly did feel bad for her after hearing that.
[I told you, it's fine. Don't hate her for it either please.] Alina replied worriedly. She truly didn't want Zane to hate or dislike her creator.
Zane nodded clearing his thoughts. He looked over to Anne, got out of the pool, and transformed back to human form with his clothes already on.
She couldn't help but blush seeing his well-developed muscles through his shirt. Zane just smiled.
[Careful skipper, she might just end up falling for you at this rate.] Alina teased.
Zane cleared his throat "Aren't you going to store the pond for your clan?"
She shook her thoughts aside and nodded bringing out a gourd of sorts. Putting it into the myriad spirit water it began sucking up the water rapidly before the entire pond disappeared in a matter of minutes.
They began walking down the mountain which had a spiraling path to its base.
Arriving at the bottom they found they were surrounded by people. They were all looking at Zane and Anne wearily.
Zane's heart thumped at the thought of fighting so many people at once. There were at least one hundred people.
"Who are you 2?" The leader of the group approached.
"I'm Rudman, This is Annie." Zane responded calmly.
"I see, well, give it up."
"Hmm? Give what up?"
"The treasure at the top of the mountain. We detected spiritual signatures at the top of the mountain coherent with a treasure but they ended up disappearing before we could get here. Yet, you come down the mountain not long after we arrive. So hand over the treasure and we can go on our way."
Anne was about to speak but Zane spoke to her mentally [It's fine, I'll just give them a treasure and it will be fine. I can kill them later to get it back.]
He sent his spiritual sense into his spatial storage necklace and brought out a halberd, it was a 9th sky rank exalted artifact.
"Here you go." Zane said with a smile handing it over.
Everyone was stunned.
"Y-Your just…"
"I have no need for a halberd, my weapon of choice is a sword. Hers is a bow so it's not compatible with either of us." Zane 'explained' interrupting the guy.
He slowly nodded.
He went to grab it but Zane didn't release it from his grasp.
"I just want one thing in exchange, it's not much." Zane said.
"What is it? If we have it it shouldn't be a problem."
Zane looked in the crowd for the 2nd time and noticed a certain heaven shock wyvern who didn't recognize him or Anne due to the fact they changed their faces and body structures before entering.
"That heaven shock wyvern, a brother of mine has a bit of beef with him. If he can survive a strike from me, the weapon is yours for free. If he fails I'll require a profound treasure in exchange for it." Zane said pointing at the heaven shock wyvern in question. It was a known associate of the heaven shock wyvern prince that caused Zane to run. To be more precise, he was his junior brother.
The wyvern looked at him with a glare.
"A mere 1st martial realm dares target me, a 2nd martial realm?" He growled.
Zane nodded calmly.
"Very well then, on behalf of the entire group I accept." He responded coldly.
The moment he did, an explosion rang out, and a mist of blood and guts formed where he previously was.
Zane had swung the halberd so fast the poor wyvern couldn't even react and was turned to blood mist.
Zane sighed "I didn't even enhance it with my martial spirit… what a waste."
Anne snorted "It's understandable, he only had 6 meridians awakened after all."
Zane nodded. The strength of one's body at a certain realm is directly correlated with however many meridians they have awakened a bloodline can only do so much. Of course, that's excluding any body tempering they have done.
Everyone backed up in fear seeing this.
Someone who regained their wits was about to attack but the leader stopped him. "We had a deal… Don't."
This person scowled "Fine."
Zane nodded "Indeed, we had a deal. Here, take the halberd." He said handing the halberd to the man.
The man was stunned "Y-Your really giving it to me despite him…"
Zane smiled "Someone capable of circumventing the restrictions of the realm is not simple, it's better to have more friends than enemies."
It's true, this man was actually a 1st profound realm and had somehow circumvented the restrictions here. Of course, he was restricting his foundation to be equivalent to a 3rd martial realm spiritualist.
The man nodded slowly before allowing Zane and Anne to leave.