Maybe it was the influence of adrenaline, but the more he thought about it, the more Alex realized they had greatly overestimated the sect master’s abilities. If he was so omnipotent, why did he leave Lou Chen be? And not only him – there were definitely other strong grand elders who had guessed how he ‘cultivated’. Then why?
The only logical answer was – he was not certain he could defeat them or defeat them in a way he came out unscathed!
Few lifetimes ago Alex would’ve inwardly kicked himself for not thinking of a such simple thing earleir, but now he long knew there was no reason to bother himself with the past he couldn’t change. Lou Chen was dead and so was Muchen, but if Alex’s assumption was correct, they both provided him with a unique opportunity he might not come across otherwise.
Rushing through the valleys and forests of the core sect, Alex calmed down and regulated his breathing. He ran over different scenarios several times playing the upcoming encounter in his head like a movie with different endings.
Grand elders number one and two, who had their residences closest to the sect master, were probably in the close door cultivation and from what Alex knew they hadn’t had any disciples in many years. Thus it was no wonder he didn’t meet anyone on the way. Besides some harmless wildlife, the whole region seemed deserted and even somewhat spooky.
This feeling intensified when he arrived at the end of the valley, the foot of the Immortal mountain.
After stepping out the forest at the end of a large, empty field Alex saw a golden temple built in a similar style to the huge golden gate at the sect’s main entrance was, except this one was not guarded and the whole place looked completely abandoned without a single person around. Most likely the sect master’s residence was built in a way to leave an impression of it being an actual gate to the Immortal realm and if this was Alex’s first life, he maybe might’ve believed it. Now, on the other hand, he knew this was a place where countless people have died as a sacrifice for one dude to live a bit longer.
Then suddenly Alex noticed something that instantly elevated his mood – the temple’s door that at the first glance seemed to be open was, in fact, not there. Obviously Lou Chen came over and simply kicked it in announcing his arrival. Of course, such move was heroic, elegant and stupid at the same time, but it fit the old man’s character well.
After coming a bit closer, Alex noticed that inside of the temple, or rather, the sect master’s residence, was a complete mess. Broken furniture and splatters of blood were all over the place. Once again Alex sighed in regret thinking he allowed the old man to come alone – they definitely overestimated the sect master’s strength and together stood a good change against him. Especially because the amount of blood Alex saw surely didn’t belong to Lou Chen alone. In addition, there were no signs of his body.
Alex quickly assessed the situation and went according to one of his earlier plans. In the unlikely scenario if the sect master was present in full health, Alex would’ve tried to play fool as if he was here looking for Lou Chen. It was unlikely such theatrics would work, but if the sect master was not injured, it meant that most of Alex’s assumptions were wrong and he would’ve soon died anyway. But the signs of the sect master being hurt were there, thus Alex quickly began to hide the branded needles all over the place.
Openings in the floor and walls, pieces of broken furniture and broken decorative vases – Alex hid the needles everywhere. There was no telling when the sect master would return, therefore he tried to act as quickly and silently as possible. When he was done ten minutes later he had less than twenty needles left.
Alex sat down in the middle of the main room and closed his eyes. After verifying he could feel the locations of his hidden weapons, he recovered Qi to the fullest, but before he turned to the next part of the plan – a throughout search of the residence, he realized that one of the needles for some reason was somewhere below the floor and several meters at that!
Already after the first look it was clear there had to be hidden rooms in this place, but to find one this easily was surprisingly lucky. Alex didn’t intend to complain though – he even pinpointed the entrance quite quickly, but to find the lever that opened it took some time. The mechanism was a bit confusing – while he knew the room was below, the entrance was hidden behind another wall and the blood marks also pointed at that.
When he finally managed to get it open, contrary to his expectations Alex saw not a room, but a long flight of stairs stretching down in the darkness. The part that made him stop indecisively was the large amount of dried up blood telling that someone down there was in a really bad condition or even dead.
Even though Alex was certain that the ‘someone’ was Lou Chen, the old man was tough and theoretically there was a slim chance of him still being alive. Alex weighted his options for a minute and then with a sigh stepped on the stairs. The fate of the old man didn’t matter in his decision – the main role played the likely condition of the sect master. Alex had to act swiftly to not let the sect master recover one bit.
Still, he didn’t rush down. While trying to be as silent as possible as well as to not step in the dried blood, Alex slowly climbed the stairs down.
After few meters there was a turn and Alex stealthily glanced behind it only to freeze in shock. A couple of meters from him the sect master was climbing the stairs up. Of course, the man noticed Alex at the same time and his expression was not less shocked, but it slowly turned into a wide grin. The stairway was dark and the only light sources were behind each of them, but it was enough to recognize each other.
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Alex didn’t intend to linger around wondering why neither noticed each other earlier and rushed up the stairs at the fastest speed he could, but before he reached the top he knew the sect master was right behind him. Purely out of habit Alex focused on his ‘plan b’, but the only damage he took was a kick in the butt that propelled him towards the ceiling of the main room.
But no matter how the impact and, afterwards, the fall hurt, it didn’t prevent the cogwheels in Alex’s brain from turning at lightning speed. Luckily he didn’t have to draw a new fancy plan. If one didn’t count the embarrassing way the sect master greeted him, it couldn’t go any better.
The last part was confirmed when the sect master slowly, step by step climbed up and Alex saw the man was missing one of his arms. He was bloodied all over and there was a long bloody scar across his right cheek as well, but for some reason he was in a good mood.
‘Is it because the Soul merge allows one to regrow the missing limbs?’ A quick thought passed through Alex’s mind, but then the sect master spoke and Alex regained full focus.
“And to think that the mighty Lou Chen would pick a worthless idiot as his last disciple!” The sect master said in a condescending manner, “You’ve been here for over a decade and still have not completed your first soul merge. Well, I guess two brothers can’t be both equally talented, can they?”
‘He can’t tell?’ Alex was inwardly surprised, ‘Or he can’t use any mental techniques because of the injuries or a Qi deprivation after the fight with Lou Chen?’
Earlier Alex already decided to not try any mind techniques on the sect master in case the man had some peculiar defenses, therefore he went along with one of his previous plans – he dropped on his knees and began banging his forehead on the floor.
“I’m sorry! Sect master! Please! Just let me see my master!” Alex almost cried while focusing on the branded needles he hid in surroundings.
“Hahaha! No worries! I’ll reunite the two of you.” The sect master laughed, “But first, I want to hear where did you learn that weird mind-shielding technique. I thought I got rid of the last remnants of the Li fami …”
The sect master’s mocking speech abruptly stopped and Alex immediately got up, took few steps towards the man who had his face turned into a pin cushion. Eyes, nose, cheeks and even moth had tens of needles stuck in them and besides the few that missed, more than fifty of poisonous needles surprised the sect master at the same time.
Alex didn’t linger though. He approached the sect master and with a swift motion broke his neck. Then he grabbed a broken piece of wood and after few failed tries inserted it deep in the mans skull – just to make sure he would never breathe again.
The fight, if one could call this sneak attack such, lasted only for a split second and Alex knew his success was mostly due to Lou Chen’s previous efforts. It was unlikely that the sect master would’ve failed to react if he was at full strength.
Truth to be told, on his way here Alex hoped for a couple of needles to hit the target, not for over half of them. If he knew it would go this easy, he wouldn’t have spent so much time and effort in refining a whole hundred and Lou Chen might’ve survived as well.
“Sigh. What an idiot.” Alex said looking at the sect master and shaking his head in disappointment, “You should watch more movies in your next life – the bad guys always get f*cked because they talk too much.”
After verifying that the man was truly dead, Alex searched him, but apart from a third eye socket with a missing eye under the headband he didn’t find anything.
‘Now everything makes sense.’ Alex thought to himself, ‘Thank you, Lou Chen.’
After heaving a long sigh, Alex wrapped the sect master in a carpet and carried down the stairs. Few meters further from where they initially met, there was a large room and it still had a light on that allowed Alex to look around.
The room was basically what regular people would call a ‘living room’ with nothing special about it, thus Alex checked behind the two doors at the far end.
This time he was pleasantly surprised. Turns out the sect master didn’t hate books – rather the opposite – he had gathered a huge collection and behind one of the doors there was almost as big library as the cardinal Theodor had in his basilica. And there were not only Qi techniques and research documents, the sect master even had registers of the disciples he ‘helped’ transcend to the realm of Immortals and personal notes where he wrote down his own experience of the process.
The prospects of spending few decades learning techniques of this world lifted Alex’s mood. The time didn’t matter much in the core sect and all he needed was for everyone to leave him in peace.
With this thought he hurried back up and began to clean the sect master’s residence. The most urgent thing he needed to do was to fix the main entrance. Of course, it would never look the way it did originally before the Lou Chen’s visit, but it was not that hard to make it look ‘ok-ish’.
When Alex was more or less satisfied with the door, he began to clean the rooms. Unfortunately there was no way for him to create new furniture thus the only thing he could do besides gathering the rubbish was to wash floors and walls.
He continued to clean for two days and in the end the place looked somewhat surreal – as if someone had put it up for sale and all that was needed was for the new owners to arrive. He didn’t know how long the sect master was normally absent or if he ever had long closed door cultivation sessions, but it was reasonable to hope to have at least a couple of years of this place to himself.
Alex intended to use this time sorting out the library and then leave taking the most interesting items with him. Obviously he didn’t intend to get involved with the sect’s politics – the storm that would take over the world after the sect master’s demise was too dangerous. Of course, there was the question on how to actually get out from both the core and the inner sect, but Alex hoped he could use Wang Hao’s help when the time came.
The worst part about spending time in the library was the nostalgic mood Alex fell into. The moment he began going through countless books and scrolls, his mind unwillingly turned to the memories about the Academy of saints and, mostly, Nabia. Everything resurfaced – the times of him studying, them living together in the Qi pond and the pain of loosing her after the emperor killed him.
At first it was still bearable, but, mostly because of the last part, on the second day Alex found himself being unable to focus on the task at hand. After a bit of inner struggle, he left the library and began to aimlessly explore the residence again.