Ma Rong looked at the complete non-existence of Alex in front of her and was surprised. "So he got past the elders using this and the invisibility technique?" she asked.
"Yes. It's quite a good combination actually." Alex said as he used the Veiled Light technique as well.
Suddenly, he was out of sight as well. Ma Rong immediately sent out her spiritual sense, and only then did she manage to find him.
"You learned this technique already too?" she asked.
Alex stopped using the invisibility technique, and also stopped concealing himself. "Yeah."
"Have you already learned the Elemental Guidance technique I gave you?" She asked.
Alex couldn't understand why she was asking all of these questions, so he simply answered, "Of course. I learned it the moment you gave it to me."
'Heavens! Is he even more of a genius than I thought he was?' Ma Rong couldn't comprehend how he could learn everything so fast.
"Listen to me. If anyone asks you how long it took you to learn the techniques, tell them it took you a few days or a week at least. If it is heaven grade or higher, tell them it took you about a month. Never tell anyone you learned it in a few hours."
Ma Rong was very stern about it. Alex didn't understand what she was talking about.
'Why can't I learn it so fast? I'm already using up so much time by not using the system's learn function.'
"Is learning in a few hours good?" he couldn't help but ask.
"It's beyond good. Most normal people take about 2 to 5 days to learn a mortal grade technique. Earth grade techniques take them a little over a week. They can't learn a Heaven Grade technique without studying the book for about a fortnight or more. While Immortal grade techniques may take the cultivators anywhere from a few months to a few years to completely learn."
"I myself was called a genius and it took me about 2 months to learn the [Flickering Shadows] technique. If someone with malicious intent finds out that you have so much talent, they might harm you out of envy and pettiness."
"So, make sure you do not let anyone know about your talents. Doesn't matter if it's in cultivating, learning techniques, or alchemy. Always learn to be modest, and never reveal your true talents. Not even to your closest friends."
Hearing the serious tone in Ma Rong's voice, Alex got serious as well. "I understand, master." He said.
"Good. Go and learn the technique from the library later. It's a movement technique that should help you a lot. Most of the alchemy techniques in the library should be useless to you now that you are so practiced at Qi manipulation and have spiritual sense. As for the battle techniques, don't even bother learning them."
"Since you will go to the Tiger sect in a few days, you can learn the techniques from there. They have a far better collection of battle techniques than we do." Ma Rong advised him.
She taught him alchemy a bit longer, but there was no longer anything left to teach him. Not unless he got into the True Realm.
"I will stop coming here from tomorrow. I don't have anything else to teach you until at least 50% of your Qi turns to True Qi. After that, I will give you advice on how to make True pills." Ma Rong said.
"Turn Qi to True Qi? Don't you just acquire True Qi after you enter the True realm?" Alex got a bit confused.
"No. It's the other way around. Only after turning all of your Qi to True Qi do you finally enter the True realm. Even then you have to break through to the True Realm. Most people with low talent will forever be stuck in the self tempering realm. Few pills help to elevate the chances, but even then it mostly depends on your base talent itself."
"Have you ever felt a bottleneck before?" she suddenly asked.
"Bottleneck? Like the one that stops you from breaking through to a higher realm? No." He said.
"I thought so. Then, you don't have to worry about it much. Just cultivate normally, you will definitely enter the True realm." Ma Rong stood up and started preparing to leave when she suddenly remembered something.
"Oh, and there is something you should know about. In less than a month, there will be an Annual Sect competition that will take place in the Cardinal city. Many different types of competitions will take place there. I want you to take part in Alchemy-related competitions, so prepare for it."
"If we win in the alchemy competitions and we somehow do well in other competitions as well, we might get enough points to become a first-grade sect. The Tiger sect is already ridiculously close to becoming one. We need about a few hundred points to become one. Hopefully, we can do it this year."
Ma Rong seemed hopeful about the competition.
"Master, what's a sect grade?" Alex was a bit confused. He didn't think he had ever heard about those before.
"It's just an arbitrary term made by the Crimson empire to let the various cultivators know how good a sect is or how well it can train its disciples. "
"Every year the various sects from around the empire come together to take part in the competition, and those that win get points. As the points accumulate, their grade increases. We managed to get to the second grade almost a decade ago. Only now are we finally reaching the point where we may reach the first grade."
"Of the many competitions, we can win in maybe 2. The alchemy ingredients recognition competition. And the pill-making competition. We always did well on those. If we somehow do good on a few more, we will surely get the 1st grade."
"So, I am counting on you to do good on those two. As for the others… we will see when the time comes." Ma Rong left after saying this. Alex got into thinking for a while before logging out to go to classes.