It was late at night, but the smile on Alex's face was as bright as ever. He looked at the badge on his hand and the rank 3 written on it.
He was excited like a little child whose parents just bought him his favorite new toy he had seen on TV.
'Yes! Finally, the damn rank is mine,' he thought. He would've certainly got this rank a few weeks ago, but then he suddenly had to take a detour and go heal his sister's father.
However now, he finally got to fight as he wished and got the rank he wanted.
He didn't even waste time walking as he ran up the side of the crater and very quickly reached Du Yuhan's house.
He walked up to the door and knocked on it. He waited for a while and Du Yuhan finally showed up, slowly opening the door.
Du Yuhan put on an annoyed face when he saw Alex's face once again.
"Why is it always you? Can't you leave me al—"
His words were cut short when Alex simply put up the badge close to his face. Du Yuhan saw the number 3 on the badge and shut up.
His annoyed face immediately turned serious as he looked at Alex and asked, "You really got it?"
"Yes," Alex said with a sense of pride.
Du Yuhan was still a little skeptical, so he took out a talisman and communicated with someone through it. He soon got an answer and his skepticism vanished, leaving only a surprised expression on his face.
"You really did beat little Bing? That's quite surprising," he said. "However, If you can defeat Bing Li, then you should be close to Yang Ma too. Why don't you go for him as well?"
Alex shook his head. "That's my sister's rank, I don't need to take it back for her, she can do it herself. I only needed to take the 3rd spot so you can teach me Sword Intent," Alex said. "So, are you ready to teach me now?"
Du Yuhan sighed and said, "Yeah, I promised, so I won't be going back on my word. However, it's already nighttime, do we really have to practice right now?"
"I usually like to practice at night. If that's not okay with you then we can change it to morning or evening," Alex said.
"No, the time is fine, but what about training ground? You know we can't make much noise when others are cultivating right?" Du Yuhan said.
"Oh, don't worry about that," Alex said. "I know a place."
* * * * * *
KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK
A young man had his eyes closed inside a room in a core disciple's house.
The young man was tall and had a very well-built body. He had short, spiky green hair which a face that couldn't be called anything but handsome.
KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK
The knocks kept coming from the door. Not only that, his storage bag was buzzing too. However, he didn't move at all.
After a few minutes, the young man finally opened his eyes and sighed. "I shouldn't play this game for so long. I nearly died of hunger," he thought.
He then realized his talisman was buzzing. "Hm… who's calling me?" he wondered and picked up the talisman.
"Who's outside?" he wondered and stood up while looking at his talisman. The message was from his master who told him to come and meet him as soon as he could.
'That idiot is calling me? He never calls me anymore after telling me to hide from the public eye as much as I can,' he thought.
He took out his badge and put it on the wooden block next to the door. The door opened and suddenly someone pushed it open from outside to walk in.
"Huh? O— Master, what are you doing here?" he was surprised to see his master, the 5th elder here. "I thought you wanted me to meet you at your place."
"That was over an hour ago," the fifth elder said in an annoyed voice.
'The hell is wrong with this idiot?' the disciple thought.
"Are you aware of what has happened in the sect?" the fifth elder asked.
"Uh… no, I was cultivating," he said.
"The Sect Leader's disciple is back and took the 3rd rank. He defeated someone in the 3rd Mind Tempering realm," the fifth elder said.
"So? That's not hard at all," the disciple said.
"Tha- that's not hard?" the elder said with an astounding face. "How high is your cultivation base to—"
Finally, he checked his disciple's cultivation base and suddenly shut up. "S-so high?" he said in surprise.
"Of course it is," the disciple said. "You told me to cultivate in secret. This is what I've been doing all this time."
"Bu-But you were just at the start of Meridian Tempering realm not 2 months ago," the elder said.
'Yeah, well I would've been much higher if my parents let me play it as much as I wanted. Now that I've got my own place, I was able to finally cultivate without all the nagging,' he thought.
"So, what are you doing here, master? It can't be that you want me to take down this sect leader's disciple right?" he asked.
"What? Yes, that's what i—"
The fifth elder lost his train of thought again as he checked his disciple's cultivation base once again. 'How is this possible?' he couldn't help but think.
The disciple scoffed at his master's dumbfounded face and said, "So you want me to go challenge him tomorrow?"
The fifth elder was still a little distracted, but he quickly gathered his thoughts and looked back towards his disciple.
"I did come here to see if you could challenge him but turns out you are far stronger now than I had imagined. So… change of plans," the fifth elder said.