Chapter 474: Surprise

Alex already knew how to use Sword Intent. All that was left was fine-tuning what he did know to the extreme to make the most use of it. 

After that, he could finally start thinking about Sword Qi, which even he had to accept was quite far away. 

According to Du Yuhan, it had taken him just 6 months of constant sword use to learn Sword Intent. That was after putting his all into the sword for all of those 6 months. 

As for the Sword Qi, it had been 6 years since then, and he could barely form it enough for a single attack. 

That was enough for Alex to know just how long he would have to persist to learn Sword Qi. Plus, he needed to find his own path before he could even attempt to form the Sword Qi.

After a full night of practice, Du Yuhan left in the morning. However, it wasn't over. Alex needed more training, and given how strong he was, Du Yuhan finally felt like he found someone he could compete with. 

Alex went back to his house to do what he needed to for the day. He got some breakfast, went to his classes, and returned back. 

He had decided to continue the practice after 5 pm the night, so Alex wanted to go to the fighting hall to take care of his challenges. 

However, surprisingly there were no challenges. 'Did they give up now that I'm at Rank 3?' he wondered.

Since he still had some time before the practice started, he decided to do something. He went behind his master's manor and started bringing out some formation flags before putting them all over the open land. 

He carefully placed the formation, making sure where they all went and how they were oriented. 

Once it was all done, he simply needed to turn it on. Except, he couldn't. He didn't have enough True Qi to sufficiently power the formation for sure. 

For now, he was just making sure to remember the spots he should put the formation flags when the time came. 

He pulled them all out and put them back on the ground at the exact same position, with the exact same orientation.

Once he was sure that he remembered it all and could easily reproduce the formation, he kept them all back. 

At the same time, Du Yuhan returned back and the two of them started their training all over again. 

Time slowly passed while the two of them trained, and before they even knew it, nearly 4 hours of training had gone by. 

"Let's take some rest. We will start again in 20 minutes," Du Yuhan said as he huffed from the lack of breath. 

Alex wasn't nearly as out of breath and that surprised Du Yuhan a lot. As a body cultivator, Alex just didn't get breathless as easily as the others did. 

Still, he sat down and rested for a bit. 'I should breakthrough after this,' he thought.

Suddenly, Du Yuhan felt his storage bag vibrate. He took out a talisman from his bag and read the message. 

BANG

At the same time, the door to the training hall fully opened and a Wen Cheng with very shocked emotions walked into the room. 

Alex was surprised to see that. "What's going on, master?" he asked. 

"It's changed," Wen Cheng said. 

"What's changed?" Alex asked. 

"The rank. The number 1 rank changed again," Wen Cheng said. "We have a new prime disciple."

"What?!" Alex said in surprise. "You mean someone other than Yang Ma?" 

"Yes," Wen Cheng said. "Yang Ma was just beaten by—"

"Trevor," Du Yuhan said from the side as he put down his talisman with a bit of surprise on his face too. 

"Yes," Wen Cheng said. "You got the message, I see. Trevor just challenged Yang Ma to a battle and won against him." 

Alex was still surprised and then he thought of something. "Wait, isn't Trevor that one guy that stopped going up in the rankings?" he asked. 

From what he remembered Wen Cheng talking about him, the player should have become a disciple of the Fifth Elder. 

"Yes, that's him," Wen Cheng said. "He came back after a more than a month-long hiatus, and he came back strong."

"…how strong?" Alex questioned. 

Wen Cheng shook his head when he said, "his fight against Yang Ma… wasn't even a fight. It was way too one-sided to be called a fight. That little guy came back way stronger than I would've imagined him to get."

"He's so very faster than you too at cultivating," Wen Cheng said. 

Alex and Du Yuhan were both shocked when they heard that. Du Yuhan's ambition was to become the strongest. So, when he heard someone getting called Strong made him want to fight this fellow named Trevor. 

"How strong is he, sect leader?" Du Yuhan asked. "You said he easily beat Yang Ma. As far as I remember, Yang Ma was in his 3rd Mind Tempering realm, right?" 

"Yes," Wen Cheng said.

"Then… is Trevor in the 5th realm?" Du Yuhan asked. Du Yuhan himself was in the 4th Mind Tempering realm. Adding on the fact that he had a very mediocre spiritual root when it came to learning strong abilities, if he didn't know Sword Intent, he would most likely lose to this guy too."

"No, he is much higher from what I've heard," Wen Cheng said. 

"Higher than 5th realm? 6th?" Du Yuhan asked. 

"No, this person can breakthrough very easily without cultivation. I'm sure he's in the 7th realm, if not 8th," Alex said. 

"How do you know that?" Du Yuhan asked. 

"He's… similar to me in how fast he can cultivate," Alex said.

"You know something?" Du Yuhan asked curiously. 

"I-I'll tell you some other times," Alex said. 

"Still, he can't be in the 8th realm, right? I haven't even heard of his name before, so he shouldn't have been that strong," Du Yuhan said. 

"It's just a hunch. In fact, he could even be in the 9th realm," Alex said.

"There is no way that is true," Du Yuhan said. 

"That is true," When Cheng said from the side, stopping the both of them from talking any further. 

"What?" Du Yuhan exclaimed. "He's in the 9th Mind Tempering realm?" 

"Yes," Wen Cheng said. "I'm worried poor little Mei will never be able to take back her spot."

Du Yuhan felt the same. Only Alex was a little less concerned about that. 

"That's… not necessarily true, master," Alex said. "You see, I don't think-- no, I know his cultivation base isn't stabilized at all. At best, it could be equivalent to 7th or at best, 8th Mind Tempering realm at best." 

Wen Cheng's eyes shined as he finally remembered. "Right. Meaning that if they fight, little Mei will have a slight chance at victory if she can play her cards right," Wen Cheng said.

"Right," Alex said with a smile. "Also… if Sister can't take her down then… I might go and do it myself."

Wen Cheng was surprised at the level of conviction he could hear in Alex's voice. 

"Are you sure about that?" he asked.

"I believe I have a very high chance of beating him after I breakthrough once more," Alex said. "And if I use everything in my arsenal, I can beat him with 100% guarantee."

"I might not be as strong as brother Yuhan here, but I'm sure I can at least do that much," Alex said. 

Wen Cheng nodded when he thought about how strong his disciple really was. 

"Little Yuhan, are you sure you don't want the spot?" he asked.

Du Yuhan simply shook his head. 

"I see," Wen Cheng said. "Alright, you guys keep practicing. I will go back to my tasks."

Wen Cheng turned around to leave. However, just as he opened the door, he remembered something and turned around. 

"Oh, right. Yu Ming, make sure to go easy on him. His pride has been broken, so… be a little cautious how you go about the fight tomorrow, okay?" Wen Cheng asked. 

"Tomorrow?" Alex said with surprise and thought about it. "Ah, right. I will make sure to make it look like I barely won, master."

"Actually, no. That would make him feel worse. Just show that you are strong and that you were hiding it all this time. Once he sees the difference, the loss won't hit him as hard as it will if you acted weaker," Wen Cheng said.

"Oh, okay," Alex said. He still needed to learn a bit about understanding how others thought and felt. 

"Do you still want to train?" Du Yuhan asked. 

"Yes," Alex said and got back up. Even though it hadn't been 20 minutes yet, they both felt like they were totally rested after hearing the news. 

They could only imagine what the entire sect would be feeling like right now after hearing that the second strongest person they knew of in the sect right now lost to a newcomer in the sect. 

Alex could only imagine the news it must've made. While the many elders focused on him and stopped him from going up in ranks, they were clearly blindsided from the surprise 1st rank from this disciple that went into hiding for over a month. 

Now that he was nearly in the True realms, he was sure to make some changes in the rankings. Or at least, they thought so. 

After training for a bit longer, Alex and Du Yuhan both decided to stop the training there for the night and went back to their home. 

Tomorrow was going to be a hectic day.