Alex was stopped at the gate of the Hong Wu sect by the elders to check if he had permission to leave the sect, or not. But after looking at his nameplate, they immediately let him go.
Alex simply smiled and walked along the outer sect mountain.
'It's only been 2 weeks and I'm already getting nostalgic,' he thought. He walked down the mountain and reached the sect valley.
'This place is as rowdy as ever,' he thought as he laughed to himself. The disciples, both outer and inner were walking around the sect valley, minding their own business.
"Hmm… Let's go see if the ranking has changed in any way," he thought and walked to the disciple hall. In front of the Disciple Hall was the black rock with constantly moving figures that spelled out the names of the students in the rankings.
He looked over the contribution ranking and saw virtually no difference from the time he left the sect. His name had in fact went lower by quite a bit due to not contributing enough.
'I guess that's alright,' he thought. He saw no point in the contribution points for now aside from eating in the restaurant. If he really wanted to, he would do so in a restaurant outside.
He then walked to the back of the black stone and looked at the list of Alchemy Achievements. The names were once again the same. Only this time, it was a problem.
'Where am I then?' he thought. He started looking lower and saw his name around rank number 33. 'Huh? I've made a Heaven rank pill, and that puts me to rank 33? That's impossible.'
He remembered his master saying that even core disciples had a hard time making Earth Grade pills with high harmony, and yet his Heaven Grade pill didn't give him much Alchemy achievements. He also had a lot of other pills that should have increased his ranking by a lot.
'Just what is going on? I should ask master,' he thought and took out a communication talisman. He then started sending a message to his master.
"Master, I'm back. Also, I need to talk with you about something." He sent the message. He waited for a bit and got a reply.
"Come to my residence."
He skipped the rest of the places and walked straight to the sect master's mountain. In a couple of minutes, he reached his home, but he skipped that as well and walked straight to the sect master's home.
He spread out his spiritual sense to see where she was and found her in her alchemy room, so he decided to wait outside. After a few minutes, Ma Rong walked out.
She looked at Alex and said, "You are back quite early. Isn't there still 2 more days to go before you had to return?" she asked.
"Yes, master. However, something happened in the sect that forced me to leave early," he said.
Ma Rong got curious and asked, "What happened?"
Alex proceeded to explain everything that happened between him and Huo Tu and how he beat him using Heaven's Impact. After listening to it all, Ma Rong said, " You made a good choice. I don't know how Wen Cheng could've handled it all without revealing your relationship. That would've only added fuel to the fire at that point."
"So, was that what you wanted to talk about?" Ma Rong asked.
"Actually no, Master. I saw the ranking stone and found out that my name was in the 33rd position for Alchemy Achievements. Does making a Heaven Grade pill not put me in even the top 30?" he asked.
"Oh, that? Of course, it does. It's only that I never registered your pill in the first place, so you weren't high in the list." Ma Rong seemed to be quite casual about it as if it wasn't a big deal.
"You didn't register my pill? Why master?" he was confused and was starting to get a little annoyed as well.
"I didn't have time to absorb what you had really done at that point and had agreed without thinking. But later on, when I was about to register the pill, I finally remembered something very important that was not very much remembered because of how rare it was."
Alex was both confused and curious at this point. "What is this important thing, Master?" he asked.
"There is this rule amongst the core disciples where they have to make 50 pills with over 35% of harmony and register it to the sect. If they manage to do that, they are eligible to take a test to become an elder."
"However, if any disciple can produce a Heaven grade pill, they are automatically promoted to the rank of an Elder. Because at that point, the sect deems it useless for a disciple to remain a disciple."
"As such, had I registered your pill and someone realized that there was a heaven grade pill made from a disciple, the Sect would be in an uproar, and you would be forced to work as an elder from then on. Meaning, you wouldn't be able to enjoy the freedom you have right now."
Ma Rong explained the situation to the best she could. So, Alex finally understood what was going on.
'I see. So I was this close to suddenly becoming an Elder huh. But, is that really bad?' he wondered.
"What are the downsides of becoming an elder, master?" he asked.
"There necessarily isn't one aside from not having free time. However, if you, who became a cultivator just over a month ago, were to become one, it would seriously slow down your learning and training time. You would be forced to do work for the sect at a higher rate than the normal contribution."
"Alchemy is a slow and gradual process, so most of the elders don't actually mind not having much time since they wouldn't be able to do anything if they even had one. However, you are different," Ma Rong said.
"You are more talented than anyone I have seen in my life. So if there were even a single thing that hampered your training and cultivation, that would be disastrous."