Alex followed Ma Rong down the mountain. The time was late morning so a lot of people were already in the sect valley going about their own business.
As soon as she left the mountain, she took a sharp right turn and walked towards another mountain.
'One of the alchemy gardens?' he thought. This was Alex's first time entering the alchemy garden, so when he finally got to see what the mountain was like, he was extremely surprised.
When he first heard the word 'garden', he had expected a well-organized and well-kept botanical landscape. But it was anything but that. This looked more like a jungle that no one had visited in over a century.
There was no proper walking path, plants grew wherever they wanted, and there was no way to tell what was required in alchemy and what was just useless weeds.
"Why is the garden so disorganized, master?" he decided to ask.
"Hmm… is this your first time? The garden is always like this. We try not to interfere with how the plants grow and only take what we need. Although sometimes it's hard to find exactly what you are looking for." She said
Alex looked around a bit more. He was ignoring the feeling he had when he saw an alchemy ingredient. He was jaded to the feeling and could control himself now.
He used his spiritual sense to look at the different plants. Various information flooded into him, even telling him what the ingredients were. He didn't even have to focus to know now.
As he went forward, he stopped when he saw his master had stopped as well. He tried to look at what was in front of her. When he saw the flowers, he was surprised.
"A Spirit Cleansing Lily?" he asked.
"Yes. It has been in this garden for years now. It's highly regulated by the elders, so nobody gets to even look at it under normal circumstances."
She turned towards Alex and asked, "Can you tell me which one is the real one?"
Alex looked at the flower bed and walked towards it. After reaching it, he simply pointed to a blue flower in the midst of the flower bed.
Ma Rong looked at him nervously, "Are you absolutely sure?" she asked. He nodded confidently. Ma Rong took a deep breath and grabbed the blue flower with a nervous hand.
"Here goes nothing." She picked the flower. She half expected all the rest of the flowers to wilt, but they didn't.
"I did it. I did it. Haha, I finally got a Spirit Cleansing Lily." She was so excited that she nearly jumped up and down. After she settled down from her excitement, she looked at Alex like he was a gem. "So, you really have the talent to tell apart the alchemy ingredients huh. That is gonna come in handy very much."
"Give me your nameplate." She said. Alex took out his nameplate and handed it to her. She was about to change something in the nameplate when she noticed he already had a pill registered under his name.
"You have already made pills? Didn't you join less than 2 weeks ago?" She asked.
"Yeah. I made it the day before I left to hunt." He answered.
'Monster,' was all she could think.
"When did you start making pills?" she couldn't help but ask.
"Oh, I started the same day." He replied
"Oh, is this the only pill you were able to make that day?"
"No, I made 8 of those pills. I had sev- Nine batches of ingredients and failed the first time. After that, I succeeded in all the other attempts. I gave the 10% harmony one to the disciple hall, and sold the remaining 7 for points." He answered.
'Monster. He can't be called a genius any longer. Monster is the only word that fits him.' She was shaking internally hearing his success rate. 8 out of 9 success rates was something normal alchemists would only hope for.
A beginner making a single mistake and succeeding the rest of the attempts was unheard of.
"You gave them 10% one? What was your highest harmony level?"
"Hmm… if I remember correctly, it was 16%."
Ma Rong's eyes were wider than the flower she was holding. "Monster," she said out loud.
"What?" Alex asked. 'Did she just call me a monster?'
"Nothing," she said as she focused back on his nameplate. She did something to the nameplate and returned it. And then she said something that shocked Alex, unlike anything he had felt before.
She said, "You are now a core disciple of the Hong Wu Sect, with the privileges of an elder."
Alex had a problem grasping at the concept of what had just happened. "But I haven't completed any tests. How can I be a core disciple?" he asked.
Ma Rong simply said, "Of course you can. I am the sect leader. If anyone had problems with that, they can come to talk to me. I will go tell the elders about what you did, and not even they will argue against me."
She took out a medallion from her storage bag and started talking into it. "Great Elder and all the numbered elders. Please come gather in the Elders hall within the next hour. I need an emergency meeting with you all to talk about some important topic."
All around the sect, the great elder and the different numbered elders, namely first elder to 18th elder heard the announcement and started preparing to go to the Elders Hall. It was not always that the sect leader herself called for a meeting.
Once she was done making the announcement, she turned towards Alex and said, "Thank you. Thanks to you, I can also unlock my Spiritual Sea and Spiritual Sense. Go back and do what you want, for now, I need to go to the meeting. I will come to meet you tonight."
Alex watched as she left the garden. He looked at the time and it wasn't even 9. He decided to look around the garden a bit longer.