Gacha Sovereign

After that, Alex and Leoz continued their search. Hour after hour passed, but they didn't find a single open space they could exploit. Alex was on the verge of his patient as of now.

The moon kept rising higher and higher, telling him how much time he had left before the gate opened.

"Young master… I am afraid there won't be any empty spot for us." Leoz had refrained from telling this, but he had no other choice because their effort would only be for naught.

Alex gritted his teeth. He knew this already. The kingdoms wouldn't leave such a gap carelessly.

"Haiz… We only have two options now." Alex sighed and paused for a moment. "First, we can join one of the armies that have been stationed around the area. I don't know if you notice it, but do you remember that they actually have a different number depending on the place?"

"Now that I think about it, yes. They do have different numbers. Though I couldn't see the Spiritual Energy leaking from the space, I could still feel it even if we were far away. Every time I felt a strong Spiritual Energy brushing my skin, the number of soldiers stationed was far higher."

"Indeed. We have identified around forty possible holes around the area. All of them have a minimum of five thousand soldiers, while eight of them have ten to twenty thousand soldiers." Alex nodded and stroked his chin, falling into deep thought. "If we assume that there will be a bigger hole appear in those eight areas, everything will make sense."

"Maybe we can sneak inside those eight areas? There is nothing wrong with having more fighters, especially with my 5-Star Martial Saint power." Leoz's words were brimming with confidence.

"It is true, but our objective is only to see whether they are considered as normal monsters by the system." Alex reminded him. "That's why I think it will be better to sneak inside the smaller one and retreat if necessary."

"I understand. We might be able to get some information as well." Leoz nodded. "Still, I think we need to know their strength first because I am not sure whether they have someone stronger than me or not."

"Some of them have, some of them don't. We are going for a group that doesn't have someone stronger than you. It must have the lowest difficulty, and they might act a little polite to you. As soon as we know they are hostile against us, we will abort the mission." Alex nodded.

"I thought you said you were not going to have another interaction with those people?"

Alex shrugged. "I wanted to rely on Nelson, but not that I have calmed a little bit, I think I will have Nelson to investigate the other kingdoms and see if they are friendlier than this kingdom. If that is the case, we can simply change spots and help that kingdom while completing our objective."

Leoz thought for a moment and recalled the first thing Alex said. "That's right. Didn't Young Master say there are two options? What is the second option?"

Alex smirked slyly. "We simply go inside that hole and swipe the enemy inside. Considering their number, the hole, and the monsters, I believe we only need around one or two hours before we can enter the pillar."

"Why is Young Master so confident about this? Have you forgotten about the fact that even Manness feared this place?"

"No. In fact, I have noticed why Elder Manness got scared in the past." Alex nodded. "I have said there are fifty floors inside this pillar, right?"

"Yes."

"I could see ominous energy every five floors. I feel that the true opponents are inside those floors. Meanwhile, there are only Martial Monarchs monsters as the highest on the first floor. I think our group does not fear these monsters, right?"

"If it's all of us, including Anna and the others, using our True Spirit Body, I believe it's just a simple task. However, we only have You, Lady Firia, me, Sherry, Stina, and Kyle. Six of us might get surrounded easily…"

"I have a plan. After that hole is opened, we can rain them down by using my Spatial Gate… Wait! Why can't I think this earlier? Isn't the real solution simple? I can enter the hole and create a Spatial Gate. Due to this, we will be able to handle them by ourselves without interfering with others!" Alex's expression brightened, finally realizing the most and efficient solution.

"Congratulations, Young Master." Leoz smiled and bowed his head. "I believe this is the solution we need in this situation."

"We will try to kill a few monsters first before going back to Firia." Alex nodded with a smile, still feeling happy with this solution. After all, he was the master of Spatial Gate. If he wanted to create it small or big, it would be up to him. In other words, he could control the rate of monsters coming outside the gate.

"Understood." Leoz looked at the sky and said, "There is probably a half-hour left before midnight."

Alex and Leoz then waited patiently before a thunderous sound echoed across the region. They immediately stood up and looked at the pillar.

A giant hole three hundred meters wide appeared on the pillar as monsters emerged from within, charging blindly to the front.

"!!!" Alex was surprised. This place was one of the weakest places in the surroundings. Yet, it had a hole this big. The size alone allowed around thirty monsters to come out simultaneously.

"Young Master. I feel there is something wrong inside the pillar."

Alex furrowed his eyebrows and activated his Spirit Eyes. There was a sudden influx of Spiritual Energy coming from the pillar. All of them started assimilating with this place, increasing the density of Spiritual Energy in the area. With that kind of change alone, it would probably increase their cultivation speed.

At the same time, Alex found that the soldiers started killing the monsters. The monsters released a Spiritual Energy into the air. He recalled the Battle Tower in this case.

"This…" Alex made a weird face as if he thought something absurd. "I think this place will soon be a nice place to cultivate, especially if those monsters keep releasing the energy to the air. Anyway, we should probably go after another fifteen minutes when the situation starts getting out of hand."

Leoz nodded and waited for another fifteen minutes before Alex summoned his Spatial Gate to silently enter the battlefield.

The other gate appeared near the hole, and Alex ordered. "Attack them normally. Don't release too much and expose ourselves."

Leoz then clapped his hand and created a small lightning bolt between his hands.

"Thunder Break!"

The ball flew inside the gate, only appeared again right in front of the monsters. Once it hit a body, it sparked and electrocuted a few monsters around it. Unfortunately, because of Alex's order, it wasn't powerful enough to kill the monsters.

However, he had fulfilled his objective since the main attack was Alex. Alex slashed his sword three times and released three Sword Waves, albeit inside the Space Realm.

"Triple Draws."

"Space Cut."

The three Sword Waves cut the electrocuted monsters, killing seven monsters simultaneously.

[EXP+ 100]

[EXP+ 100]

[EXP+ 300]

…

…

[Gacha Ticket x1]

"Hmm?" Alex's expression brightened when he saw the notifications. He quickly closed the Spatial Gate before anyone could notice and let out a breath of relief. "I am glad."

"Yeah. This is indeed good news. At least, after so many wrongs in this place, we get this one right." Leoz smiled from ear to ear.

"Still, the EXP is a bit too low…" Alex furrowed his eyebrows.

"No way! It's already considered high, you know." Leoz shook his head. "First of all, Young Master is only an 8-Star Martial Monarch, giving you more EXPs. Secondly, these EXPs will need to be shared for SR and UR spirits. Thirdly, if I am the one who kills them, I will only get a messy twenty or less EXPs. That's why I am going for higher-level monsters, but it's hard to find them."

"I see… It seems I have put too much work on your shoulders, Leoz." Alex apologized.

"No, no. I am not saying it is burdening me. In fact, I love this kind of job since this is the best thing I can do. I just want to inform you how hard it is to level up… That's why I said I might need a few hundred thousand monsters with the strength of the Martial Emperor or above to level up two or three times. In the future, it might even be more." Leoz sighed.

"Thank you for your hard work. Let's go back first and wait for Nelson's information before we decide what to do next." Alex smiled and created another Spatial Gate.

"Understood." Leoz followed him inside the Spatial Gate and regrouped with Firia.

A few minutes later,

"… That's what happened." Alex finished telling their condition to Firia.

"I see. You are planning to create a gate yourself for our use. Because you are in control of that gate, you can decrease or increase the rate of monsters coming out of the gate or even close the gate entirely. It will be the perfect plan for us, considering we are a third party in this place."

"Yeah. That's what I think too." Alex nodded and took out Anya's card. "Tell everyone that I will probably summon all of you here within a few days after I confirm everything."

"So, we can raise our levels there?"

"Yeah. This might be the fastest way to increase your levels."

"Sure. I will prepare everyone to get ready. Do you need Nelson to control the surface?"

"No. I want all of the UR Spirits to be here. We can give the surveillance to the N squad."

"I will erase everything in this base then since we are going for a while. We can't be careless." Anya chuckled.

"Thank you. I will meet you soon."

"Yeah."

Alex then tossed Anya's card inside the Inventory before looking at Firia, who seemed to want to say something. "What is it?"

"Nelson has given us a little information earlier. The first thing he investigated was the Tiger Mercenary group. They are searching for you right now in the capital city, except it is futile because you are no longer there. They also said they are going to kill you if they find you, no matter if it is on the battlefield or capital city." Firia said coldly. "It seems sparing him was my mistake… We should kill him no matter the consequence and simply leave the city."

"If we do that, the Mercenary Guild will be involved and probably with the Kingdom itself. That's why sparing him wasn't a mistake, so don't blame yourself." Alex shook his head, comforting Firia. "We can kill them later. Do you remember that the guild master said they were going to fight as well? It will be the perfect time for us to ambush them."

Firia closed her eyes for a bit and sighed.

"Anyway, is that all the information?" Alex asked.

Firia shook her head and continued. "He is investigating the royal family right now. He found out that the name of the challenger in this kingdom was Astennu, while the other one was unknown. After that, he was convinced the other one was Nelson himself."

"Fair enough. I don't hold any grudge with Astennu, so I will let him handle his problem alone." Alex shrugged.

"Nelson is also investigating what kind of treatment will the Royal Family give to Astennu."

"Sure. It's important to see how valuable we are in this place. The wording could be better, but that's about it." Alex nodded in agreement.

"The last thing was a bit mysterious." Firia hesitated for a few seconds before saying it. "According to Nelson, if they managed to pass this ordeal, this place would be filled with Spiritual Energy like in the past. At that time, it would be a perfect time to increase one's cultivation. You can say that this place will be like Heavenly Sword Sect's Battle Tower."

"That's good then. We can raise our strength as well as spirits." Alex smirked, pumping his fist excitedly.