Eternal Cultivation Of Alchemy

The girl named Su was staring daggers at Alex. Now that it was revealed that he was the direct disciple of the sect leader, he was another obstacle most people would have to fight against once Luo Mei graduated from her Prime Disciple spot.

Du Yuhan on the other hand didn't seem to care about that for some reason. According to his perspective, he was going to be the next prime disciple regardless. 

"Hey, brother, what's your name?" A guy sitting below Alex turned and asked Alex. 

Alex didn't know who the disciple was, but he still answered nonetheless. "I am Yu Ming," he said. 

"Hmm… I see. My name is Yang Ma. Nice to meet you, brother Yu," he said. The guy had a square face with no facial hair and a head full of slightly red hair. He wasn't as tall as everyone around him and seemed quite short. 

Alex didn't know what to say to the guy, but then he remembered the rankings from the Tiger sect. 'Yang Ma… that's the third rank holder in the sect,' he thought. 

He quickly checked the man's cultivation base and found that he was in the 2nd Mind Tempering realm. Based on combat alone, he was probably stronger than Wan Li. 

"So, Brother Yu, how did you beat that fatty Huo? You made him unconscious for 3 days from what I hear," Yang Ma asked. 

  "I…" 

"Screw off, Yang. My junior brother doesn't need to answer you anything," Luo Mei said from the side. Alex was a little surprised, but he decided to remain quiet. 

Yang Ma's face twisted for a split second before becoming full of smiles and said, "Ah, if sister Luo doesn't want her junior brother to have new friends, then I can't do anything." He turned back and focused on the arena in front of him. 

'That's one fake person. He can't even hide what he is thinking,' Alex thought. It might have taken him a little more to realize without Luo Mei's help, but given how blatantly hypocritical the man was, Alex would sooner or later know not to trust him or be friends with him.

He turned his attention back to the arena as well and looked at the different competition floors that were getting ready. 

There were 3 competitions being held for the 8 am slot. An artifact-making competition, a talisman-making competition, and a formation escaping competition. 

Out of those 3, only the formation competition seemed to be the one that had nothing to do with production itself. That would come later on.

"Make sure to pay attention to the competitions. You will a lot more from these than you can from just reading about it in some books," Luo Mei said. 

"Ah, I should have paid attention yesterday too then. I was too focused on my upcoming competition, and don't really remember what happened in most of the other ones," Alex said. 

"Nah, yesterday was ingredients themed, so there was no reason for you to remember what happened there," Luo Mei said. Alex nodded after listening to that. 

"Hmm… she is taking place in today's too?" Luo Mei said softly, but Alex managed to hear it. He looked to where she was looking and saw a bunch of people walking out of the coliseum gate towards the Formation arena.

Alex saw a man from the Hong Wu sect and another lady from the Tiger sect. But the one he looked at curiously, and also seemed to be Luo Mei's target of attention was the girl that Alex found familiar. 

"Do you know the girl in the red robes, sister?" Alex curiously asked. 

"Yes," Luo Mei said. "She is my sister."

Alex thought he heard wrong for a second. But once enough time passed and his brain comprehended what he had just heard, he asked, "Huh? Your sister? Now that I think about it, she really does look like you."

'No wonder I found her so familiar,' Alex thought. 

"But why is she in a different sect and not Tiger sect? Also, I don't remember you mentioning anything about a sister before," Alex said. 

"Our father won't let us go to the same sect so that we both can independently grow. And since our father doesn't have a son, whoever ends up being the strongest will take over the family once he retires from the head position," Luo Mei said. 

"So you will be the head of the family once your father leaves the position?" Alex asked in surprise. In his eyes, Luo Mei was a million times better and stronger than her sister.

"Although, why not do it by seniority. Whoever amongst you two is old could just become the family head," Alex said. 

"Can't do that. We are both of the same age, and were born on the same day," Luo Mei said. 

"Woah, are you guys twins?" Alex asked. 

"No," Luo Mei said as she shook her head. Alex was a little confused. Luo Mei smiled and continued, "She is my half-sister. We both have different mothers." 

"Ah, I see," Alex said. He wanted to ask some more but Luo Mei didn't answer anything. So, he instead just watched the formation exam that was beginning. 

There were 10 different formation flags around the stage and the slight fog was gathering on the surface of the stage. The host explained that the purpose of the competition was to leave the stage without lifting the formation or destroying it. 

The formation reminded Alex of the Qi gathering formation back in the special alchemy garden place, but it was nothing like that. 

According to the host, the stage was going to be massively expanded on their location alone, and the contestants were all going to be randomly allocated inside. 

Then the Illusion formation would be started and the contestants would have to find a way to stop getting confused by the illusion formation. They would then have to leave the formation as fast as possible without getting in the way of any other participants or messing with any of the formation flags. 

The fastest person to escape won.