"What about the merchants? Have their numbers really dropped that badly over the course of the month?" Wen Cheng asked the group of elders in front of him.
He was currently in the Disciple's Hall which was also the Elder's hall of the Tiger sect. In front of him were many elders ranging from ones that were in charge of security, and fights, to elders that were in charge of disciples, and rules to elders that were in charge of sales and finances of the sect.
They were all gathered together for the weekly meeting at the end of the week before they took their one day of a break on Sunday.
"Yes, Sect Leader. Ever since the beast hoard attack 3 weeks ago, the merchants have been scared that it will be a repeated thing and have decided to stop selling anywhere for a while."
"It is taking us way too much to convince them to go to other cities with their goods," an elder who was in charge of finance said.
"Sigh, so I guess that the disciples haven't been earning as much then?" Wen Cheng asked.
"No, Sect Leader. Compared to last week, we have seen a slight increase in earnings, but it's still nowhere compared to what it was before the Beast attacks," the elder said.
"What about other sources? Are the sales going well in the market?" Wen Cheng asked.
"It's not bad, I guess, but it's certainly not good either. Due to the lack of new people coming into the town, the overall growth has stagnated for the market too," the elder said. "If this continues on for even two months, we will have to start selling sect treasures to keep our businesses afloat or deny entry for new disciples."
"Sigh, I'm sure something good will happen," Wen Cheng said. "Elder Xuan, you are the person that knows the most about beasts amongst us. Do you have any idea what is possibly going on with these beast hoard attacks?"
Elder Xuan simply shook his head. "There are many possibilities, sect leader. I can't tell exactly what is causing these beasts to act the way they are," he said.
"Possibilities? Like…?" Wen Cheng asked.
"Well, there are 2 big possibilities in my mind, "Elder Xuan said. "First is that there is a hidden danger in the Southern Forest, and it's driving the beasts out of their home and into our lands."
"Another possibility is that there is something in the Crimson Empire that they desperately want, so they are gathering strength and launching attacks periodically," Elder Xuan said.
"Wait… Periodically? Do you mean that there is a chance that they will attack again?" Wen Cheng asked.
"Yes, Sect Leader. If I'm not wrong, then there is another attack coming in very soon. We need to prepare," Elder Xuan said.
A small fear started brewing inside of Wen Cheng's heart. "Elder Jiang, Please go to the Hong Wu sect and send them a message from me telling them that there might be another Beast hoard attack soon. We need them to be as prepared as we will be," Wen Cheng said.
"Yes, Sect Leader," An Elder stood up and walked out.
"Sigh, let's just hope the beasts don't amount to the same as back in the Cardinal City. That was a truly horrific sight to behold," Wen Cheng said as he shook his head.
"That's all for today. You can return back to what you were doing," Wen Cheng said as he dismissed the elders.
The elders started leaving one by one, and in the end, only 2 remained. One of them was the First elder who Alex was familiar with on a basic level.
The other person was a fat man with short hair and a small stubble on his chin. He wasn't too fat, but his short height made him look overweight.
"I guess congratulations are in order, Mister Sect Leader. Your disciple put on quite a show today," the First Elder said.
"Hehe, I bet you wish you would have gotten him, don't you?" Wen Cheng said with a chuckle.
"Of course, who wouldn't?" the First Elder said with a smile.
"Seriously though, I watched the fight and I was surprised too, " The fat man said. "Very soon, he might beat my disciple and I might end up as the fourth elder," he said.
"Don't joke around, Dong Chen. Little Ma is still very strong. If not for Yuhan and little Mei having unnatural strength, I have no doubts he would have become the Prime Disciple by now," Wen Cheng said.
"Alas, those two do have quite the unnatural strength, don't they? One's spiritual root is so strong that she can control water as if she commands them, and the other has such deep respect for swords that he has already touched onto the realm of Sword Qi."
"Seriously, what sort of monsters did you two raise?" he asked.
"Alright, let's talk about this later. I'm late to train my disciple," Wen Cheng said and walked out. The other elders decided to leave as well.
Wen Cheng walked onto the lantern-filled sect crater in the evening with stars glittering all over the sky. The white moon shone quite brilliantly tonight.
He looked around for a bit to see how everything was and flew away. That was the quickest way to return back to his manor on top of the mountain.
As he reached the mountain, he released his spiritual sense to look inside the training hall and saw both Luo Mei and Alex training.
Just as he was walking in, he noticed something with his spiritual sense. Every time Alex attacked, there was a slight hint of light that unstably formed on his sword that would disappear as soon as he attacked.
"No way!" Wen Cheng thought in amazement. He immediately walked in and indeed saw the same thing happen once again in front of his eyes.
The two of them stopped fighting when they saw Wen Cheng enter the room. "Oh master, you're back," Luo Mei said.
"Yo-You… that was Sword Intent. I saw Sword Intent just now, didn't I?" Wen Cheng asked, fully flustered.
"Yes, Master. Junior brother has started to learn about Sword Intent. He was waiting for you to return and teach him what you can," Luo Mei said.
"Uhh, You know I don't know have Sword Intent, right?" Wen Cheng awkwardly said.
"You don't have to have it. Just teach him what you can," Luo Mei said sternly.
"Oh, right, Of course, I'm going to do that. Come here, Yu Ming, tell me how you got it," Wen Cheng asked.
Alex explained everything he could to Wen Cheng and told him how he acquired his current low-level Sword Intent. Unfortunately for Alex, Wen Cheng didn't know a lot about how Intents worked, only how it was acquired.
So, for the next 2 hours, he made Alex fight with him using solely a sword and nothing else. It was similar to his fight with the lionesses, except he didn't have his life in danger.
Still, Wen Cheng didn't hold back when he hit him. Every single strike, he put in enough force to leave Alex gasping for breaths. Alex needed to learn Intent, and simple training wasn't going to achieve that.
Finally, Wen Cheng stopped after seeing Alex have a hard time even standing up. "Alright, let's stop here for today. We will continue it tomorrow," he said.
"Arghh…" Alex grunted as he stood up. "Okay master," he said.
"Sigh, I'm sorry I can't teach you anymore. I don't know Sword Intent myself," Wen Cheng said.
"It's okay, Master. I can learn it myself," Alex said. "I will leave for now."
"Alright, go and cultivate. Since it's Sunday tomorrow, you can take the day off too," Wen Cheng said.
"No, I will come back, master. I need to learn," Alex said.
"Sigh, do what you must. I will be here if you need me," Wen Cheng said.
Alex nodded and left. It was close to 10 pm the night, and the air was getting chilly too. 'It's starting to get cold here too, huh?' Alex thought.
His body hurt quite a bit, but it was slowly healing itself. So long as his body didn't have broken bones or really bad wounds, his normal Qi would heal itself up.
Still, he had quite a few internal wounds this time and he couldn't just wait for it to get healed while he kept hurting all the time. So, he brought out a pill and ate it.
Soon, the energy from the pill washed over his entire body and healed him from inside out. "Ahh, that feels better," he said.
"Sword Intent… so, master can't teach me much about it, huh?"Alex thought. "I guess I can still learn it on my own."
He returned back to his room and started cultivating with Pearl. Before he knew it, as every single time, he fell asleep.
He woke up in the morning and stopped cultivating. He logged out to have breakfast with the ladies and returned soon enough.
"Should I continue trying to improve the pills?" He wondered for a few moments before choosing not to. Any improvements he could make now would be minuscule in comparison to what he would learn if he learned the formations.
"I should try and make the True formations in the formation plates I bought. Although, I will need master's help to test them later on," Alex thought.
So, he left his room and went to the Production hall. There was quite a large number of people who had decided to make stuff on their free day.
Alex walked up to the elder and got a formation making room for the entirety of the day to try and learn his formation carving skills.
The formation-making room was just a simple room with a Formation tester inside. Aside from that, it was just a sturdy room where Alex didn't have to worry about making formations of any kind
He first started with the common formations and made those. Once he felt like he was ready, he moved on to the True rank formation plates.
The True rank formation plates were definitely must stronger to carve on than the common rank ones.
"It seems I will have to take it slow or I will make too many mistakes," he thought and took his time with every single stroke he made.
By the end of the day, he only made 3 True rank formations that ranged from 36% to 51%. He stopped there and walked out of the room at around 4 pm.
"Do I go train next?" he wondered. He wanted to go directly to his Master's manor and start training again, but he realized that might not be the best choice.
He had someplace else in mind that he thought was the best choice to go right now.
