Alex's mood got a little better once he met up with Kong Yuhan and the rest. Talking with his friends made him forget about the problems, at least for now.
Kong Yuhan seemed to be doing good right now. He had gotten together with Zhou Mi and was quite far ahead into his cultivation base as well.
He was in the 8th Meridian Tempering realm right now. 6-7 months ago when Alex had met him for the first time, he was 9th Organ tempering realm.
'He must've focused on Alchemy more than cultivation,' Alex thought. After a bit of conversation with them, he went on to the house at the peak of the Core disciples mountain. He had never been here before, but he had heard a lot about it.
Alex saw 2 green-robed elders standing guard in front of the house. Both of those elders seemed fearsome too as Alex could tell just how strong they were.
'They are truly worried that he will leave again, huh?' Alex thought as he greeted the elders.
"Can I go meet him inside?" Alex asked.
The elders seemed to have no problem with this. Apparently, they seemed to be used to this even. Alex thanked the elders and walked in.
Surprisingly, the house was in a much better condition than Alex would've expected it to be. The tables, beds, chairs— They were all clean and properly maintained.
'How did they keep an empty ho— ah, it must've been her,' Alex thought. Fan Ruogang, she must've taken care of the place in his absence, Alex thought.
The door opened ahead of Alex and a young man walked out. Behind him, Alex could see fire coming out of a pit in the room. 'He must've been making some pills,' Alex thought.
"Hello, brother Wan. How are y—" Alex's eyes turned wide as it took a moment for his brain to process what he was feeling.
"Brother Wan, you… how are you in True Master realm?" Alex asked in surprise. The aura the youth was giving was not that of a mere Self-tempering realm cultivator, but rather a True realm expert.
"Oh, brother Yu Ming, I heard you had returned. Good for you," he said in the most unenthusiastic way possible. Then his face changed, as a wave of seething anger appeared on it.
"You must've let them know about me, right? Why did you do it? I was so close to finding my parent's murderers," Wan Li said.
"Brother Wan," Alex wanted to say something, but he felt like he could understand him just a little. Alex wanted to get back to secret realms to stop them from basically sending Pearl to a death sentence as well.
He didn't know what he would do if he truly did die. He had come to love his little buddy a lot.
However, he still understood why this was bad. Revenge, Alex thought, was not really fine, but understandable given what a person was going through.
But revenge in this condition when victory was basically impossible, Wan Li was just throwing his life away.
"Brother Wan, I won't tell you what to do or not to do. I just want to ask you, do you think your parents would be happy with what you're doing? Do you think they would feel proud of watching you give up what they loved the most?"
"I can't really give you much advice but… just take care of yourself okay? Your parents would want you to be happy," Alex said.
Wan Li looked angry, but there were tears forming in his eyes. Alex understood that Wan Li had already thought of this stuff.
'The pain he feels must be terrible. I pray no one else has to feel it,' Alex thought. Seeing that Wa Li didn't really want to talk with him, Alex left the place.
He went to the Elder's Hall and met up with his Grandmaster and Martial uncle. From there he learned how they had been dealing with the sect matter the last 2 months.
With Alex taken away by the beasts, Ma Rong had been depressed to the point that nothing in the sect was getting done. Fortunately, the grand elder and Second elder helped a lot.
After talking with them, Alex met up with his master and let her know that he was going to the Tiger sect.
He wanted to spend some time there as well before he made any choice.
"I really want you to choose to stay with us, but I won't force you. Do what you want," Ma Rong said.
Alex nodded and left. He went out of the sect and walked around the city before making his way to the Tiger sect.
His senior brother was still the guard's leader so he talked with him for a bit, explaining what he had been doing and the choice that he was going to have to make.
After talking for a while, he went up the mountain.
It was mid-day, so a lot of disciples were out in the sect, simply walking around. Alex walked amidst them, looking at the easy-going life.
He took out his badge to check what his rank was now, but it seemed that they had truly considered him dead as he had fallen to the lowest rank possible.
Alex chuckled a little and shook his head before he continued walking.
He made his way to the top and walked towards his sister's house. He wondered if she knew about the choice he had to make. He wondered if she even knew what his cultivation base was.
Just as he walked towards her house, the doors to another house opened and a person walked out.
"Brother Yuhan, how're you doing?" Alex asked when he saw Du Yuhan walk out of his house. Du Yuhan stared at him with a confused and surprised face for a while before speaking.
"Wow! They didn't lie, huh? You really did come back from the dead twice," Du Yuhan said.
"Back from the dead huh? I guess you could call it that. Although, I was nowhere near as much in danger either of the time," Alex said.
"Either way, it's good to have you back. You're going to take your 3rd rank back now, right?" Du Yuhan asked.
"Uh, I'm afraid I cannot," Alex said and pulsed his aura a bit before hiding it once more.
Du Yuhan's eyes went wide when he felt what he did.
"True realm?" he asked, to which Alex nodded.
"Dear God, that is so fast. You were barely at the beginning phase of the Mind Tempering realm just 2 months ago. How are you progressing so fast?" he asked.
"I can't really explain it right now. Maybe later on," Alex said. "I'll see you around, brother Du."
Alex left and went to his sister's house. He knocked on the door and waited. The door opened to reveal that it was Meng Yun.
"Oh, hello sister Meng, how are you?" Alex asked.
"Oh, it's you. Welcome back. I heard you came back yesterday. Are you okay?" she asked worriedly.
"Oh, I'm fine. Nothing to worry about," Alex said. He walked in and went to the living room to meet with Luo Mei.
He found his sister cultivating normally, and she opened her eyes when she heard her come in.
"You're back already?" she said with a confused face.
"Haha, why? Do you not want me to?" Alex asked with a chuckle.
"No, I thought you would stay there for 2 weeks before you returned," Luo Mei said.
"Oh," Alex's smile disappeared. "So, master didn't tell you huh?"
Luo Mei's face changed. "Tell me what?"
"I have unofficially graduated from the sect," Alex said as he sent out his True realm aura. Luo Mei's eyes went wide when she felt that.
"You reached the True realm? What? How? Why?" she was having a hard time comprehending it.
"I reached it a bit more than a week ago," Alex said. "Since I'm in the True realms, it means I've graduated, and am no longer a disciple of the sect."
"Oh, so you are going to become an elder faster than me huh? I'm kind of jealous. I still have 2 more realms to go through," Luo Mei said.
Alex's face changed. "That's something I wanted to talk to you about, sister," he said. "I… I don't know if I will be an elder."
"Huh? Then what? You can't stay a disciple, you know," she said.
"I know. What I meant is… I will have to either choose between becoming an elder here or becoming an elder in the Hong Wu sect. I talked with both masters and they want me to make a choice by the end of the week," Alex said. "I was hoping you could help me with it a bit."
"What? Of course, you have to choose Tiger sect then," Luo Mei said without even thinking.
Alex laughed a little. There was no point in asking for help in a choice from someone that was biased to one of the choices.
He really had to come up with it on his own.
"Let's forget about that for now. I will think about it more later on," Alex said. Then he looked around the room and didn't notice someone.
"Where is sister Xing?" he asked. He had seen her yesterday.
"Oh, she left for her sect this morning. She had been staying here for way too long and needed to return back desperately, so I sent her today," Luo Mei said.
"Is that so?" Alex said. "I needed to thank her for the formation blueprint she fixed. I guess I will do so later."
