Alex watched the young man walk back to the Tiger sect's seating area and everyone jumped to congratulate him.
Seeing that Alex was the only one with a different set of clothes from the rest, the young man couldn't help but wonder who he was.
"This is my disciple, Dong Duxin," the sect leader introduced.
"Hello," Alex said.
"Hello," the young man returned his greeting with a curious look.
"This is your senior. He graduated over 10 years ago," the sect leader explained. "He's the one people bring up when wanting to be part of 2 sects at once."
"Oh," the young finally realized who he was speaking to. "It's good to meet you, senior."
"Congratulations on the win," Alex said. "Brother Yuhan must be teaching you quite well."
"He's a great teacher when it comes to Sword Intent," the young man said.
"I know. He taught me how to use Sword intent too," Alex said. "Where is he, sect master?"
"He's back in the sect. He's one of the elders now," the first elder said.
"And sister Su Min? What about brother Yang Ma?" Alex asked.
"They both left the sect after graduation," the sect leader said. "Su Min is here in the capital. She's part of the formation guild, while Yang Ma returned back to his clan."
"Sigh, this really brings me back to 10 years ago," the sect leader said while shaking his head.
"You look so young, senior brother," Dong Duxin said. "How old are you?"
"Me? I am… uhh… 26 I believe," Alex said.
"26? No way," Wen Cheng and the sect leader said at the same time.
"That would make you 15 when you graduated away. That's not right, you should be more like 29," the sect leader said.
"I know I should be 29, but due to some things I went through on the other side, I'm missing 3 years of my life," Alex said. "So physically, I'm 26. That's what the formations will tell you too."
"26?" the young man couldn't help but be surprised. "You're only 2 years older than me?" he asked.
"You're 24? Then I guess yeah," Alex said.
"Right, what's your cultivation base now?" the sect leader asked.
"I…" Alex decided to remove his concealment as there was no point in hiding it at all. As the veil lifted, Wen Cheng, the sect leader, and various other people around him couldn't help but gasp.
The disciples didn't know what was going on, but the elders did.
"Tr-True King!" Wen Cheng was completely blown away by the revelation. "You already reached the True King realm?"
"Yes," Alex said. "I did so about 3 years ago."
"Your cultivation isn't that bad either, master. You're already on the verge of entering the True Emperor realm," Alex said.
Wen Cheng shook his head. "I entered the True King realm when you hadn't even begun cultivating yet. A dozen or so years later, I finally managed to reach its end. This is really slow in comparison to you," Wen Cheng said.
"Don't worry, master. I have pills that will help speed up your cultivation. If used properly, you should be able to get close to entering the Saint realm within a decade or two," Alex said.
"I… I can enter Saint realm?" Wen Cheng asked.
"I'm absolutely sure," Alex said.
The group soon forgot about the matches down below and continued talking with Alex.
Alex openly answered any question they had about his life and the life of people on the other side of the forest.
They were surprised to learn how many Saint realms there were and how True Realm cultivators were known as the younger generation.
Alex explained the reasons too. The Luminance empire had a higher concentration of Qi, not to mention they also had a lot of Spirit veins of various grades improving the cultivation process of many.
Not to mention, most of the items in the Meteor shower had dropped on that side of the map, so they were more advanced than the rest.
Had the western continent not been looted 5 thousand years ago, they would be some of the greatest powerhouses of the entire world.
After talking for over half a day, Alex decided to leave them. "I will go check up on the Hong Wu sect. Do you know what building they are staying in?" Alex asked.
"It's the same one as ours," Wen Cheng said and gave directions to the hotel.
Alex nodded. "I'll see you later, master," he said and walked back to his mother.
"When are you going to introduce us?" his mother asked.
"Soon," Alex said. "I need to go find my other sect. Apparently, they took the day off. If I don't return by the time this whole thing ends, you can follow them and reach the hotel where I'm going."
"Either that or just go to the royal palace along with senior. I will go by there later as well," Alex said.
"Alright, go do what you want to," Helen said.
"I'm coming too," Pearl said, but Alex didn't let him. If Pearl left with Alex, no one would be here to look after his mother.
While he wasn't worried about her getting hurt, he was worried about her getting lost in this new place.
Finding her then would be quite troublesome.
So, Alex left the coliseum alone and made his way west towards the hotel where the Hong Wu Sect was staying at.
The path to the hotel somehow felt familiar while also completely new at the same time. He felt like he had walked through this exact same street 10 years ago too, but most of the shops weren't the same, so he couldn't be sure.
After 20 minutes, he made his way to the hotel and requested the staff to send a message to the people from the Hong Wu sect.
Alex waited for nearly 10 minutes before someone walked down the stairs.
Alex saw the woman that walked down and was surprised to see how much she'd changed. Her childish looks no longer remained as she had a sophisticated attitude now.
Alex was surprised to see her in elder robes, but that shouldn't have been a surprise when he really thought about it.
Her eyes turned from confusion to surprise back to confusion again.
"It's good to see you, Fanfan," Alex said.
"Mingming?" Fan Ruogang asked skeptically.
"Yes, that is me," Alex said.
"Mingming! What? How?" she couldn't form proper sentences as one thought after another kept bombarding her mind.
"Greetings to you to—" before he could finish speaking, Fan Ruogang jumped onto him and gave him a tight hug. The childish happy-go-lucky girl had apparently still not disappeared.
"You're finally back, the 5th elder will be happy to see you," she said. "Wait, I need to tell Wanwan and Meimei."
"Is brother Wan Li and sister Zhou Mei here too?" Alex asked.
"No, they're back in the sect, but I'll send them a message," Fan Ruogang said.
"Brother Yu, is that you?" someone came down too.
Alex turned to look at the big and buff man that seemed to be an elder too. "Brother Kong?" Alex asked.
"So it's really you," Kong Yuhan said.
"Brother Kong, you seem to be doing quite well for yourself," Alex said after noticing his cultivation base in the True Master's realm.
"I don't doubt you are doing quite good too," Kong Yuhan said. "Way better than me, no doubt."
"I'm doing fine," Alex said.
"Come on up. Let's talk in our quarters," Kong Yuhan said and the three of them walked up the hotel floors.
Alex asked about the current situation of the sect. Apparently, the sect went through a small downfall after what had happened 10 years ago, but that only lasted a year or two before more disciples joined the sect.
Now the sect flourished as any First-grade sect would.
The current sect leader was called Song Wushen, who was previously the 8th elder during Alex's time. The 4th elder had taken over the position for a while before they decided to choose a leader for real and Song Wushen had gotten the majority of the vote.
Alex talked with Kong Yuhan and Fan Ruogong for a while as no one else he knew had come on this trip to the competition.
The conversations lasted for nearly 3 hours before Alex decided to leave, not before promising to return back to the Scarlet City along with them.
