Alex wasn't as concerned about losing his rank as he thought he would be. The only thing that changed was that he would have to live in a slightly less nice-looking house for the night, but he was never concerned about the aesthetics of the place he lived in anyway.
Once he went to the new place, he gave Xiao Huang his own room and went on to cultivate for the night.
Once he was inside of a room, he didn't need to worry about Xiao Huang seeing Pearl, so he was free to cultivate. He only wished that Xiao Huang did not call to ask him for something, as he wouldn't be conscious for the night.
With that thought, he started cultivating. With his body cultivation reaching the 3rd realm of Meridian Tempering realm, he was getting closer and closer to his own cultivation base. So, the pain he was feeling was also growing more and more.
It took him a few seconds to adjust to the new pain and be able to focus on cultivating. Once he did, he soon fell asleep.
Alex woke up on the morning of Thursday. The moment he woke up, the pain he felt had increased once more. Pearl had once again broken through and was now in the 4th Meridian Tempering realm.
'Are such fast breakthroughs okay?' he wondered. Beasts were different from humans in how they were cultivated, and how they broke through. But, it was still weird to see that Pearl was breaking through so quickly even at higher realms.
'He hasn't trained much ever since we came back to the Tiger sect, so maybe I should stop him from training as fast as he is. I should definitely stop feeding him so many beast cores,' Alex thought.
He needed to leave, so he found Xiao Huang and told him he was going to spend the whole day studying something and let him get out of the room.
Xiao Huang was also eager to go roam the city today, so he left early to find Luo Xing as well. However, before he left, he asked Alex to let them know when he was challenged by Trevor.
Alex nodded and went back to his room to log out.
He walked out of the capsule and finally had a moment to think. 'My parents sent me to study, and yet here I am playing games. And somehow it worked. I wonder what they'll think once they learn I've left university for good?' he thought.
Today was the last day before exams which due to the assignments he already had, didn't carry much credit. He simply had to attend all of the exams to pass at this point.
He sighed when he thought of all this and put it out of his mind. After that, he went to have his breakfast.
* * * * * *
It was late in the afternoon and the green-haired Trevor was in his master's room, looking at his frustrated face.
"Where the hell do you go all day long? I called you so many times. Can't you at least respond if you can't come?" the Fifth Elder shouted angrily.
"I told you, master, I need to be somewhere else during the day, so I can't do anything for that time," Trevor said, with a hint of anger in his voice as well.
"Don't run your mouth in front of me. I thought you were a talented young individual but turned out you were trash who couldn't even win against someone who is weaker than you," the Fifth Elder shouted.
"I could understand if it was with Du Yuhan, I heard he had Sword Qi, so it's understandable if you lost to him. But how the hell did you manage to lose to a girl that's 2 realms weaker than you?" he continued shouting.
Trevor showed signs of frustration as he himself was thinking about the same point. There was no reason for him to lose there, but he somehow managed to lose anyhow.
"Her attacks were way stronger than any I'm used to," Trevor said. "Also, my attacks were weirdly ineffective against her."
"That's because you tried to fight her Superior Water spiritual roots with your Dual Earth-Metal roots. No matter how strong your attacks were, they would lose a bit of strength against her. I taught you this, and yet you kept using those skills against her."
"Even an idiot would realize that at some point he needs to change his tactic and start fighting physically," the Fifth Elder said.
'This fucker! If it weren't for him giving me stuff for free, does he think I would stay around, facing such humiliations?' Trevor thought.
"You know what? You will go to the Fighting Hall right now and fight Luo Mei again. You need to beat her and become the first rank disciple no matter what," the Fifth Elder said.
Trevor tried not to show the anger in his voice and spoke, "What if the Du Yuhan guy comes to take the rank away from me if I win, what do I do then?"
"No, he won't. He didn't take it when Luo Mei was missing, so it seems he doesn't really want the rank for himself. Either that or the First Elder isn't pressuring him at all. That disciple is an idiot too, not taking the opportunity to win."
"Sigh, why are there so many idiots in our sect," the Fifth Elder sighed.
"Okay, I will go and challenge the gir—" Trevor stopped speaking when his badge started buzzing in his storage bag.
"What's wrong?" the Fifth Elder asked after he stopped mid-speech.
"I don't know. Let me check," he said as he took out his badge and saw the challenge being issued.
"That's… the guy from yesterday; the one whose position I took," Trevor said.
"What? Did the Sect Leader's other disciple challenge you?" the Fifth Elder asked in surprise.
"Yeah, it's him. Should I wait, or go right now?" Trevor asked.
"That guy is an idiot too. How is he so confident to challenge you after you beat him yesterday?" the Fifth Elder asked.
"I… didn't," Trevor said. "He didn't show up to the fight, so I got the rank by forfeit. He must be coming to take back his rank."
"I see. No need to wait at all. Just go and beat him. As far as I know, he should be hiding his strength and is around the 5th Mind Tempering realm. But you'll surely win. Go!" the Fifth Elder said.
Trevor nodded and walked out of the room. He didn't waste any time as he walked over to the fighting hall and went to the stage to wait for his number to be called out.
After their numbers were called out the first time, there were people that had started gathering around the stage, waiting to see the fight. Everyone knew who the 3rd ranking disciple was and who was coming to take his title back.
So, they were ready for a show to begin.
The fight that was taking place on top of the stage right now was coming to a close. The Elder refereeing the match stepped in to stop one of the fighter's attacks and pronounced him the winner.
Then, he called to Alex and Trevor. Both of them were ready for the fight, so they showed themselves and walked up to the stage.
The Elder nodded when he saw them and took away their badge.
Alex looked at Trevor and was a little surprised at how different he looked from the normal person. Green hair didn't look as natural as red or light bluish hairs did, even though their existence didn't seem that different.
Alex hadn't asked how Trevor fought at all, as he wanted to learn to fight him by fighting him. When he saw Trevor take out a sword, he sighed; there wasn't going to be many challenges from a technical perspective.
Now, he could only hope that Trevor had some unique techniques up his sleeves so that he had some fun in the fights.
Alex was also thinking about how much ability of his he should use for some moment. Soon, he finalized on only using Common Qi, followed by not using spiritual sense at all.
Even though that was one of his strongest strengths, he wanted to keep that for unless he needed it. As for his other techniques such as invisibility and teleportation, he didn't want to use it as it wouldn't be much fun to use them in a simple fight.
Alex then took out his sword as well and got into a fighting stance. 'Earth and Metal, right? I wonder what other spiritual roots he has,' Alex thought.
"FIGHT!" the elder shouted.
Trevor's sword immediately started glowing with brown color as he sent the slash flying towards Alex. This was the attack of a 9th Mind Tempering realm cultivator, so no matter how confident Alex was with his own body, he wasn't going to risk it at all.
So, he dodged to the side and sent a glowing brown slash of his own to see how Trevor would react.
Instead of dodging, Trevor directly hit the slash aside. He felt the strength of the slash he had just felt and scoffed at it; it was too weak to be effective against him.
Alex smiled a little as well. His scouting attack had been misjudged as an actual attack. He could have some fun with this.
Without stopping, Alex sent out 4 other slashes, each the same strength as the last one, except for wood slash, which he attacked using the 2nd strike of the Elusive Heavenly Sword technique.
Since that was the only slash not from a mortal grade technique, Trevor mistook that to be Alex's strongest attack.
He was starting to get overconfident now. All he thought now was that Alex was weak.
Trevor's sword started to glow with yellow color, and at the same time, his feet were starting to release some unnoticeable brown lightly. He then brought his foot upwards and slammed it onto the ground. With the same momentum, he slashed his sword too.
A flying yellow slash that targeted Alex came his way. Alex wanted to dodge, but he didn't notice the brown light underneath the slash that was faster than the slash itself.
Before Alex could do anything, the brown light reached his feet and suddenly rocks started spiking out of the grounds, immediately interlocking his feet. Alex couldn't move anymore.
The metal slash still flew towards him, and there was no way for him to dodge anymore.
'Screw it,' Alex thought. Playtime was over, and it was time for him to fight seriously.
His sword started lighting up with yellow light as well; he was using mental energy too. Only, everyone could see that Alex's yellow was much more vivid and close to golden color compared to Trevor's.
Without much wait, Alex slashed and a yellow slash flew directly towards Trevor's slash and struck it.
