Watching attentively the many carriages and its forces, Alexander frowned.

Thinking for a bit, he shook his head.

'No... even with my highly superior battle experience, I can't bridge multiple stages of cultivation head-on... especially when facing multiple opponents as well... I'll just run away!' His mind resolute, Alexander's determined plan contrasted with his greedy heart.

Forcing some vegetation to make noise far away from him, Alexander also forced the surrounding greenery to wave as if blown by the wind, soon leaving his hiding spot, running far away, passing by the mountain range while flying as close to the ground as possible to minimize visibility.

"Hmm? Did I hear something?" Looking around curiously, the middle aged man ignored Alexander's planned impact on the surroundings after a while.

Now far into the distance, Alexander was not sure how to proceed.

'I need so much Tribulation Cloud Essence, but I doubt anyone below the Cloud Immortal Realm would even have more than a thousand.'

Alexander's greed reaching an all time peak did not make him reckless.

'While I said that after reaching the Cloud Immortal Realm I wouldn't... it's apparently time to be a rat again! I have to do what I must, and these people are just blatantly trying to die, flaunting their wealth and power like this.' Planning ahead, he took out many space rings from his internal world, some unfortunate rings collapsing due to the Celestial Realm's laws.

'Bless my past self for not putting anything important in lower quality space rings!' Sweating from seeing so much of his wealth simply disappear, Alexander carefully placed everything he could within his internal world directly, especially when the surviving space rings were showing cracks on their surfaces.

"My lady! This subordinate has not found anything more related to the mysterious deaths of so many Bronze Sects' sect masters. I propose for us to depart!" Kneeling, the grey haired middle aged man spoke with confidence, an elegant yet childish young lady's gaze on his person.

"Great! Uh, I mean, how unfortunate! I guess we have no choices left, so we'll depart as soon as possible!" Glad to be going back home, the young lady had a slip of the tongue.

A few hours later, the many carriages were currently heading back to the so called Delghnar Mansion, retracing their leftover prints on the ground.

'?' Raising a brow in vigilance, the middle aged man stared ahead, before squinting his black eyes into narrow slits.

'What is this?' Quickening the pace, the man reached the suspicious place, soon taking a step back with high momentum, evading a sudden laser of colorful light.

'?!' Shocked by a sudden trap, the man also realized the beam of light to be somewhat ethereal.

'There is no damage visible post impact...' Stroking his chin, the man carefully stepped forward again, this time, two other beams of light shone with sharpness.

Purposefully getting himself grazed, the man confirmed most of his theories.

'At least my skin did not take any damage either...' Raising his closed fist, the man indicated for the carriages to stop in place.

"Bring me the worst soldier here!" Shouting, his head not turning, a battered young man soon approached.

"Captain! This subordinate is here as per your request! I have not been told what sir captain has planned for-"

"AAAAAHH!!"

Not letting the soldier finish his sentence, the middle aged man simply threw the young man far ahead, causing him to roll on the dirt in front, sudden beams of light piercing everything in sight, or so it seemed.

'Still no damage whatsoever, I guess it's safe, probably an illusionary array... maybe even a natural array as well... the world is a mysterious and unpredictable place after all.'

Still unsure, the man also realized that contouring the esoteric array would be a true nightmare.

'Mountains everywhere to the right, a dense forest of unknown danger to the left, going around would take months! Might as well head straight in, I doubt anyone in Tuzim is strong enough to scare me!' Determined, the man did not even bother alerting the young lady in the middle carriage, marching forward again, aware of the potential dangers.

Ignoring the countless beams of light as if spears flashing by all around them, the middle aged man started to let his guard down.

'It's been almost an hour, yet not a single of these beams of light seem dangerous, we aren't even trapped either! I can clearly see and feel ourselves move in accordance to the path, it's just a beautiful array meant for relaxation, if not, then I am at a loss!'

Passing by the gigantic array, just when the middle aged man entered the second third of the path did he suddenly frown, dodging to the side.

'?!' Shocked by the sudden danger, the man looked perplexed as the dangerous beam of light did not seem to contain anything different, leaving no traces behind.

'Did I think wrong? Am I panicking over nothing?' Unsure, the man still kept walking, but this time armed with a wary heart, marching much faster than before, meant to test the waters before any carriages could reach this place.

Half an hour later, the man was back to his careless self.

'I was just crazy, even these weird beams don't do anything, I'm just so stupid somet-'

'?!!'

A beam of light hitting the man right in the heart, which happened many times before, caused him to shiver, his heart impaled by the usually tame light.

'Fuck!!'

"On gua-! Urk!" Collapsing, the man felt his body turn heavier by the moment, his vision blurring.

Being continuously hit by many light beams caused the man to gurgle as his own blood started to drown him.

Barely a minute later, the peak Cloud Immortal Realm captain died in confusion.

Witnessing this scene were three other guards, their grey armors rustling greatly before the sound vanished, and so did their bodies, the three soldiers along the captain's corpse gone without leaving a speck of blood or a sound behind.

Hiding the now four corpses, Alexander retrieved the captain's space ring with greed.

'Guerilla meant arrays are just so profitable! Just a single Illusionary Light Spear Array was enough to utterly crush a powerful Cloud Immortal Realm cultivator! The people of the Celestial Realm sure are careless!' Laughing, Alexander transferred the wealth of the captain as well as the soldier's to his own.

'Just these four have a combined amount of 35 000 Tribulation Cloud Essences! Madness!!' His eyes wide, his heart powerful, Alexander felt exhilarated.

'Now time for the best part!'

"My lady, I cannot find the guard captain anymore! I wonder where he went?" The servant aggravated, she complained audibly.

"Hmph! This stupid monkey! I always hated him! I am the daughter of Arthur Tulis, one of the strongest experts within the Demonic Land Region! How could I, Bella Tulis, be looked down upon each and every single time by a lowly guard captain?! Once we get back home I will personally talk about this with my fa-!"

The carriage's roof shivering, the carriage's windows breaking apart, their weak structure unable to contend with Alexander's Celestial Qi used during the array's construction caused the two women's protections to be useless. The arrays within the carriage not even aware of what happened, the spears of light appearing docile to them.

The outcome was as predicted, the two ladies along the many other carriages and guards were impaled countless times by colorful light rays.

Done with it, Alexander retrieved the array with ease, its core always on his person.

Walking over many dead bodies, his plan had been a crushing victory, slaying even a rich peak Cloud Immortal Realm expert while barely lifting a few fingers here and there.

"What a fruitful haul!" Done collecting all of the wealth present at his very feet, Alexander estimated the Tribulation Cloud Essence gathered to be over 200 000 bottles! Not only that, but he also found an extremely valuable currency, something he had only seen inside the books he read about on the Celestial Realm.

Taking out a red and somewhat orange irregular crystal, its material as clear as air made his eyes open wide in anticipation.

"This should be the so called Marrahva Crystal, isn't it? Not only that, but there are also a good ten thousand of these!"

'From my understanding, these are used to cultivate during the Blooming Lotus Realm.' Having spied on the group of carriages along the lady inside, Alexander held a certain grasp on these crystals' function.

'It's great that I have more than enough to reach the third stage, but for the fourth... I need fifty million Tribulation Cloud Essences! I could try to use these Marrahva Crystals... but I already know that I'm nowhere near strong enough to do so...' Not only due to the pulsating power from these clear crystals, but also from knowledge he had gathered, Alexander knew full well not to play with his life as such.

'I can always sell some of these crystals, I'm sure people would be dying for these, especially peak Cloud Immortal Realm cultivators! I wonder how much of a loss would they be willing to make just for a chance at breaking through a bottleneck?'

Once everything was settled, Alexander went back to cultivate and study at his flatten mountain top.

Barely five years later, Alexander's seated body shook.

'Third stage Cloud Immortal Realm! Now that the expansion of my Celestial Core is done, I need fifty million more to get the last stage, the Celestial Core Condensation Stage...'

Sighing in defeat, Alexander was ready to sell his crystals.

'I can only sell two thousand of these at most! I need the leftover eight thousand to reach the second stage of the Blooming Lotus Realm when ready.' Farsighted, Alexander stood up, dusting himself in the process.

His plan already formed from hearing the rich young lady and reading her books, he departed.

"Time to make a quick buck!"