'Oh no,' Alex thought as he felt the new strand of Qi come out of his body and enter the cauldron. The Qi immediately split the pill into two giving him horrifying thoughts about the result.
He wanted to control the Qi, but as usual, it was beyond his control. The separated clumps of powder suddenly started sucking in the energy from the cauldron, taking in the remaining energy he had managed to keep in there thanks to the Elemental Guidance.
Time was ticking down while the pills were still sucking in the energy.
Alex only had 10 seconds remaining on his time when the pills were formed. Without hesitation, he took one pill out of the cauldron and gave it to the Elder as he had no time to look at it himself.
As for the second pill, he couldn't think of how to covertly take it out now. He couldn't use his Qi manipulation or simply put his hands inside to grab it. There was only one thing he could do now.
Using an intense Qi manipulation, He crushed the pill inside the cauldron, scattering it everywhere. He then watched the Elder put his pill inside the pill tester. He hadn't touched the pill yet, so he didn't know if he had passed yet or not.
He watched with bated breath as the fog on the pill tester started to rise from the metallic plate. Slowly, the fog went up the glass beaker of the pill tester, soon reaching 10%.
But it didn't stop there, it kept on going up as more and more fog appeared on the beaker. At around 16%, the fog slowed down. Alex started worrying. It went up to 17%, which made him a little happy, but still worried.
'A little more, just a little more,' he wished worriedly. 18%, the fog went up once again.Ā And again it went up to 19%.
'Just one more, please,' Alex started praying. He could almost swear that he looked at the pill tester for an eternity before it went up.
20%.
A big smile appeared on Alex's face as he saw the number. He had passed. The pill tester didn't stop there however, it went up 4 times more and stopped at 24%.
He had safely passed the test by a huge margin. The Elder looked at the harmony level of the pill and nodded. He then turned around to Alex and said, "Congratulations, You've passed the exam. You are now a core disciple. Give me your nameplate."
Alex took out his nameplate and handed it to the Elder. "You can go and sit with your friends in the audience now," The Elder said and walked away. Having nothing else to do, Alex took his storage bags and walked back to the spectator's zone.
While walking back, he could hear the sigh of relief, the sigh of disappointment, the cry of sadness, the optimism, and a whole lot of other emotions on the voice of the numerous disciples that took the test.
He looked ahead to the spectator's zone and saw that Kong Yuhan was smiling happily while talking with Zhou Mi, who herself was smiling as well. The ever-frowning Zhou Mei was smiling too.
'It seems she passed,' Alex thought.
Alex went to a relatively isolated section of the spectator's zone and waited for the results. Only after a few minutes did the elders return back to the hall.
"Alright, we will now announce the disciples who have passed the exam," the Elder said.
"For the first list, we have 9 new inner sect disciples. I will call your name and you come on the stage. The list is based on who passed the earliest," the elder said. He then started calling out names. Every disciple he called would walk up to him, whereupon they would be handed 2 sets of new robes, a new guidebook, and their nameplate.
One by one, the new inner sect disciples were called to get their stuff. Once the disciples took their stuff, they walked back to the spectator zone. Kong Yuhan had at one point managed to find him and had made his way over to Alex.
"Brother Yu, how was your exam?" he asked.
"So-so, I would say. At least I passed," Alex replied.
"Well, passing an exam is always good," Kong Yuhan said.
One after another the disciples went up to the elder and returned back. Soon, the 9th name was called upon. The disciple walked a little ashamedly, hiding his face from the crowd as much as possible, and made his way up to the elder.
After taking his stuff back, he hurried his way back to the spectators.
"Now, let's move on to the new Core disciples. This time, we have a surprising 3 new core disciples," the elder said.
"Woah, 3 at once? That's a good amount. But, brother Yu, didn't you say you passed? Why was your name not called yet?" Kong Yuhan asked.
Alex was still waiting for his name so he simply said, "I did pass. It will come up soon probably."
Kong Yuhan was about to tell him he was wrong and that the names for inner sect disciples were done when the first name on the Core disciples list was named.
Hearing the name, a male disciple walked out of the group of people with his head held up high and a smug smile on his face.
"Tsk, it's not sister Mi who was first?" Kong Yuhan clicked his tongue as he said that.
Alex was a little surprised to hear him care about the order at which the names were called. "Is there an importance to the order of names being called? He asked.
"Not really, it's just thatā¦" Kong Yuhan started to get a little embarrassed as he searched around for words to speak. "It's just that the new core disciples get their houses based on who came first. Since I was the only disciple to pass last time, the one who passes first this time is housed next to me, andā¦ I really wanted it to be Sister Mi."