Alex cocked his head in confusion towards the last sentence that the Second Elder had just said. "One… of us? I don't understand, elder," he said.
"Sigh… After the beast invasion in the capital, when it was time to return, everyone was fine, except you. So, they spent a day searching for you before Sect Leader Wen asked the rest of the group to return back to Scarlet city with haste."
"During that time, we found information, through a letter left behind that Wan Li had decided to go find the bandits that killed his parents. So, he is now gone from the sect as well."
"He did not leave behind any information whatsoever as which direction he went to, or when he left. He might have even changed his face, so we don't really know where he is gone too. A few elders are gone… but it's hard to track down an alchemist when he really wants to stay hidden," the second elder said.
"I see…" Alex said. His eyes drifted away as he thought about how Wan Li must've felt when he learned about his parent's death. The hurt, the pain, the anger, the sorrow— he had kept them all deep inside him, never letting it show.
'He must've been thinking about revenge for a very long time,' Alex thought. He was about to think of something else when the Second Elder spoke.
"I'm leaving now. It's good to know that you are alive and well, Junior Yu. I will let the rest of the elders know about it," the Second Elder said.
"Ah, right. I was on my way to the elder's hall to notify everyone when these children called you, and you called me," The Grand Elder said as if he had forgotten to do something.
He then turned to Alex and said, "You don't have to worry about anything else, child. Its night time, and you must be tired. Go and rest. The rest will take care of your master for now."
The Grand Elder and the Second Elders turned around to leave.
"Grandmaster, wait," Alex said.
"What is it, child?" he asked.
"Do you perhaps know why Master went to the forbidden fields?" he asked. That was a question that was in his mind for a while now.
Grand Elder thought for a while and said, "You know… I don't think she ever gave us any reason to go there. The elders all learned about what happened in the Forbidden Fields and rescued the disciples from there."
"After that, once your master said there was something she needed to check there, the elders just followed her. However, just an hour or two after going there, she fell sick and had to be rushed here, at which point her sickness just got worse," the Grand Elder said.
"I see. I will ask the master directly if she had any reasons then. Good Night Grand Elder, Second Elder," Alex said as he bowed a little towards them.
"Go, child. Rest," The Grand Elder said and left with the Second elder in tow.
Alex didn't move for a while however and instead thought, 'Master must've been worried about the development in the Forbidden Fields, so she went to check it. But the yang energy there got her ill, so she probably found nothing,' Alex thought.
'Sigh, whatever. I will think about this stuff later,' he thought and went to his home he hadn't visited in over a month.
He walked in and saw that the lanterns had already turned on for the night. He took one off and walked into the courtyard.
He placed it on the ground and took off the covering to see the flame on its own, along with the metal plate at the bottom.
"I really did remember correctly. I can't tell what metal this is, but this is the same one I drew on," Alex thought. He placed the covering back on the lantern and got up.
"Aaah," he said as he stretched. He really hadn't stretch this good in a while.
"Might as well take a bath now," He thought and took off his clothes as he jumped into the pool. The cold water washed away all the dirt and waste his body had accumulated naturally in the last month.
Without asking, he called Pearl out as well. Pearl for one hated being in the water. Every time he was called out, he got really flustered as if he was going to die anytime soon.
However, from the emotion that was transferred along to Alex, he only hated the water and found it no threat.
This time too, he started to splash around and didn't want to stay in there at all.
"Hate! Hate!" the message got sent into Alex's head as Pearl used his spiritual sense to talk. He soon swam properly without splashing around and made his way out of the water.
"You're going nowhere," Alex said as he caught Pearl once again. Pearl tried to get out of his grip, but Alex's strength when he combined his body and Qi was too much for Pearl to handle.
Pearl had to stay there in agony as Alex washed him carefully; Pearl had been out in the dirt for too long and had trained with him every day, so he really needed this bath.
Once he was done cleaning himself and Pearl, he walked out of the pond and let Pearl do whatever he wanted. The first thing Pearl did when he was let go was snarled back at Alex.
Alex found this quite amusing and thought nothing more. He quickly dried himself off and helped dry off Pearl too. After that, Pearl was no longer angry with him.
Alex wore the other core disciple robe of his and started cultivating. He got Pearl to cultivate as well and soon he was dual cultivating.
As he fell into a trance, once again like every other time, he fell asleep.
Around 6 in the morning, he woke back up. He looked at the time and thought that he had quite a few times to go before he had to go to eat breakfast and get ready for his classes.
So, he decided to go check on his master.
When he reached there, he only saw 3 girls there, the rest including Fan Ruogang and Zhou Mei had gone back to their houses in the Core Mountain.
The 3 remaining girls were still taking care of her, but it didn't seem like they had to do anything in particular. They could've left for the night and it wouldn't have mattered a bit.
Ma Rong was still unconscious and the floor was still covered with a layer of frost despite the water there being cleared away. With nothing more to be done, he thanked the girls and walked away.
He went to the disciple hall and saw if he needed to mention his return to the sect. Thankfully, he was exempt from the Contribution point stuff, or he would've been expelled by now.
He got a few spirit stones and some rather weak pills as the monthly compensation. Alex nearly laughed at the spot as to how bad they were.
'Two 30% Common Rank pill, and 50 spirit stones. Before I sold my first pill, I would've thought that this was a really expensive compensation that only core disciples got," he thought.
Now, he knew just what sort of luxury the core disciples had from being so talented in Alchemy. He checked the contribution rankings and the alchemy achievement rankings.
His name was nowhere to be found in the contribution ranking as he had no more contribution to the sect. As for his alchemy achievements, due to not passing along any pill for the last 6 or so weeks, his rankings had dropped down to the 50s.
'Should I provide some pills to up my rankings?' he wondered for a few moments. 'I don't think so. I can easily just give a heaven-grade pill and become an elder,' he thought.
Thinking that he went back to his house and logged out.
******
Elsewhere in the real world.
A car appeared outside a giant metal gate and stopped. From inside, Hao Ya walked out with a briefcase in her hand. She wore a long, sleeved black dress that ran up to her knees.
Below that, her skin was covered with stockings. She wore no jewelry except a single ring on her hand that held a large ruby-like jewel.
She didn't even wear a watch aside from the ring. Her hair was untied, but she had a sunglass pushing her bangs away from her face.
She walked up to the gate in high heels and pushed it open. She walked inside and entered the massive mansion that belonged to the man that was responsible for the game of Eternal Cultivation.
She walked to the door she had waited upon previously back when the man was just done making the capsules. She saw that the door to the room was open, so she decided to enter.
Inside was a massive room that didn't match the size seen from the outside at all. She walked in and went past a huge number of glass cylinders and searched for the man, but he wasn't there.
'Is he in the courtyard?' she wondered and walked back out.
Behind the massive mansion, was a small courtyard that was full of well-trimmed lawns and a massive pond in the middle. If one got close enough, one could see something very large moving inside that pond.
Just before the pond, the man was sitting in a lotus formation and had his eyes closed.
"You finally found your way here," he said as he opened his eyes.
Hao Ya frowned when she saw him sitting there in front of the pond. "You could've let me know you were here. I wouldn't have to walk through that room if you did," she said with a pout.
"Haha, what's the hurry. Nothing is going anywhere," he said with a laugh.
"Whatever here's your stupid data you wanted," she said as she tossed the briefcase over to the man.
The man's eyes lit up. "So, it's out already huh. I wonder how it has changed now," he said as he took the stack of paper out of the briefcase.
Once it was out, he started reading it slowly.
"Oh," he said in surprise at the very first thing he saw. "There are over 400 Million capsules sold around the 17 cities? That's a lot more than I had imagined. Wait, what was the number for the helmet again?" he asked and closed his eyes.
He thought back to the previous stack of paper he read and said, "ah right, 250 Million. So, we've had 150 million people join us on our venture huh? I hope some of them are good."
"Although I have to say, I am quite smart to realize that I would need such a large room to accommodate those stuff," he said.
"That reminds me, when is the next shipment of materials coming? The current supply is already ending," he said.
"I have brought it with me, you don't need to worry about that. Just read those data," Hao Ya said.
"Tsk, why are you so cold towards me from time to time?" he asked.
"You damn well know why," she said in an angry voice.
"Ah, yeah. Uhh… I will do something about that for sure. Don't worry about it," the man said and looked back into the records.
His eyes went over a list of data and sighed, "half of them died huh? That's really unfortunate," he said and kept on reading the pages more and more.
"Sigh… why do they keep on rushing through their cultivation so much? I thought everyone would know that's bad by now," the man said.
"Well, at least this girl with the only Ancient grade body has seemed to have slowed down a lot in her cultivation and is fixing her cultivation base right now."
"It seems not all hope is lost."
