Alex and the others arrived at the formation outside of the secret realm.
"Are we here?" Qin Shan asked.
"Yes," Alex said without even looking around. Looking around wasn't going to help a lot anyway given how much change the place had been through in the last 10 years.
"What do we do now, Al?" Helen asked.
Alex brought out a compass device and checked the direction. "The place where I'm to go Scarlet City is in that direction about half a day's worth of flight on our ships."
"Or we can go to the capital first, the Cardinal city that's just an hour away in that direction," Alex said.
"Let's go to the capital first. I want to start from the place where the Fu Ancestor established his own empire," Qin Shan said.
"Very well, let's fly to the capital then," Alex said.
Qin Shan brought out his ship which could house all 3 of them and the two beasts. Then, he launched towards the direction Alex pointed to.
Alex didn't directly take them to the capital but instead towards the east side of the capital.
He didn't want to be seen coming from the south as that would cause too many questions that he didn't want to give answers to.
"The Qi here is quite weak," Qin Shan casually mentioned as he flew.
"Yes, this place was most likely hit quite hard in the war that took place 5 thousand years ago," Alex said casually as well.
"Huh? War? 5 thousand years ago? What are you talking about?" Qin Shan asked curiously.
"Uh… I will explain later," he said. "Just know that this place doesn't have many Saint rank spirit veins."
"I see," Qin Shan said as he continued looking at the scenery.
The group soon reached the eastern wall of the capital city. They landed on top of one of the mountains and then flew down to the ground.
As they walked towards the city gates, Alex noticed some things hovering near them in the sky. It wasn't him that noticed them however, everyone did.
"Does your empire like showing off their ships or what?" Qin Shan asked after seeing the massive ships that hovered outside the capital.
"Those are most likely the ships belonging to the many sects. They put it out here to show the people that they are here. It's a pride thing I guess," Alex said.
"Your capital doesn't seem that big. Does it have that many sects?" Qin Shan asked curiously.
"No, these ships are from sects all around the empire. If I'm not mistaken, there should be an annual competition taking place inside, which is why so many sects are gathered in this place," Alex said.
"Oh, a competition huh? I'm curious to see just how your competition goes," Qin Shan said.
Alex turned around to the jaguar and asked, "Senior, are you coming in with us too?"
He wanted to tell the jaguar to stay outside, but he couldn't bring himself to be this rude.
"Don't worry, unless they are in the Saint realm, their perception will pass away from me," the jaguar said.
He then activated some sort of technique that made Alex unfocused and lazy when he looked toward him. Every time he tried to pay attention to him, his eyes would drift away and look at the ground beside him.
It wasn't until he used his spiritual sense that he managed to keep track of the jaguar.
"That's… such a weird skill," Alex said.
"It's nothing compared to yours that can completely hide your aura from anyone in your own rank," the jaguar said.
The group reached the gate and quickly paid their way in. On the way, Alex asked if there was a competition going on inside. When he found out there was, he asked what day of the competition it was.
According to the guards, today was the Top 64 competition, which was going to start anytime soon now.
'Top 64,' Alex thought. Which meant if the competitions hadn't changed in the 10 years, there would be the beast competitions and the maze competition this day.
Alex made his way through the city and arrived at the coliseum not long after. Since they had come from the eastern side of the city, it barely took them any time to get there.
Alex purchased 3 tickets for themselves and walked into the coliseum. The halls weaved and wove through the coliseum before popping them out to the audience stand.
Alex turned to look towards the sects, but no one was there yet. 'They must be getting registered,' Alex thought.
After waiting for a while, the sects started coming out one after another.
Blue robes, red robes, orange robes, green robes, and all sorts of robed figures walked out onto the stands.
"The contestants are here," Alex told them.
Qin Shan gave a quizzing look as he turned towards Alex. "Am I missing something? Why are there kids in the stands when they haven't even reached the True realm yet? They are asking to die," Qin Shan said.
Alex chuckled a bit. "People here are weak compared to the Luminance Empire. So Common realm is the equivalent of True realm over there," he explained. "Lower than 25 years and not in the true realm yet, that is the requirement for participating in the competition."
Alex looked at the stands waiting for his own sect's people to come out. He half expected to see Ma Rong walk out from inside with a bunch of disciples around here and a few elders including the First elder.
Of course, that was just wishful thinking on Alex's part.
As he was lost in his own thoughts, something brought him back to reality as he sensed something land on him.
His eyes shot upwards as he saw a group of people fly into the coliseum.
The Royal family was there. Alex saw the Emperor, the Empress, the two princes, and the princess, along with another female that was likely married to one of the princes.
"Saint Foundation realm," Qin Shan said with a bit of surprise. He hadn't expected someone this strong to come here.
"The Emperor," Alex said. "He's noticed us. I should go say something."
"You can talk later," the jaguar said. "I will go speak to him now."
The jaguar disappeared from their side and arrived high in the sky in front of the Emperor. However, even then no one noticed him being there.
The jaguar returned after a few minutes of talking.
"What happened?" Alex asked.
"I told him I'm not here to cause trouble but to look after you three. He asked us to come by the palace later," the jaguar said.
"I see. We can do that," Alex said and finally moved his eyes back to the stands on the other side.
Just as he did so, his eyes landed on a thin figure that slowly walked behind a group of disciples. His posture looked resolute, but his body said otherwise.
Someone else was the leader of this group of people and Alex quickly realized who it was.
'The First Elder huh?' he thought. The bald man led the disciples to the stands and they all seemed to follow him. Which meant he was likely the sect leader of the Tiger sect now.
Alex looked at the others and didn't recognize anyone else. None of the kids there were around when Alex was part of the sect.
"I will be back soon," Alex said and walked away from the group.
Alex took the round way around the coliseum and before he even reached the other side, the competition had already started.
Top 64 was underway and people were out to fight already.
Alex ignored the fight and made his way to the sect's seating area. When he arrived at the location, there was a guard that didn't let anyone other than sect members enter.
This would cause a bit of a problem to any other person, but to Alex, this was no trouble.
His cultivation was already concealed, so all he needed to do was hide his body. At a moment's notice, his body turned invisible.
Then he teleported directly into the seating area before making his way towards the Tiger sect's seating area.
He undid his invisibility when he reached there and stood behind the weak-looking figure.
"Master?" Alex called out uncertainly.
The weak figure turned around, letting Alex see a fake right arm along with a real left arm that was missing 3 fingers.
In his face was a shadow of confusion. However, that didn't last long as he saw who had just called him and what he had just called him.
His eyes went wide as he realized who was standing in front of him at the moment. It was his disciple.
"Yu Ming?" Wen Cheng asked, unbelieving of his own eyes.
In the nearly 70 years that Wen Cheng had been alive, Alex had been in his life for just a single year, in fact even less.
However, he would never forget the face of the disciple that meant so much to him. After all, no one had ever left an impression on Wen Cheng as Alex had.
"Yes master, it's me," Alex said, his voice breaking at parts.
"Yu Ming!" Wen Cheng's shock finally made its way to his voice and soon tears started forming in his eyes.
Using both his real and fake hands, Wen Cheng hugged Alex tightly. "You're back, my disciple. You're back!"
Alex started tearing up as well as he hugged his master even more tightly.
"I'm back, master."
