1263 The Hong Wu Sect

"Father, are you sure it will be alright? What if that man comes again?" Ronron asked.

"You have your master's treasures don't you?" he asked. "You will be safe. There's the blood core I gave you as well."

Ronron nodded.

"Where is Pearl, by the way?" Helen asked.

"He's in the Beast realm trying to evolve," Alex said. "He should be staying there for a while, I don't know how long."

"Oh! Did you meet the new beasts that came there? They had a scary aura. I didn't want to stay there after seeing them," Helen said.

"I guess they are scary," Alex said.

"I don't remember much about the beast realm but there was that one beast that threw me out. What was it?" the older Alex asked.

"The puma," Alex remembered. "I didn't see him this time around. He must have been in closed cultivation as well," Alex said

"I see," the older Alex said. "I remember hating him a lot."

The family of six talked with each other for the better part of the 20 minutes it took them to reach the other side of the massive city where the Hong Wu sect lay.

When they arrived, the guards immediately bowed to Helen and called her a Guest Elder. Thanks to her, they could all walk in without any problem.

The older Alex could feel tears filling his eyes as he saw the outer disciple mountain remain the same as it was all those years ago. He remembered walking up this dirt road to the side of the mountain before going down to the sect valley.

The disciples wore a light green robes and watched the group of six walk past them. They bowed toward Helen when they saw her. She was way too big of a figure in the sect to not be recognized by the outer disciples.

"Who's the current leader of the sect?" Alex asked.

"It's a woman named Shao Chun," Helen said. "Do you know her?"

"Shao Chun?" Alex thought for a bit but he didn't remember such a name. "I don't think I know her, is she new?"

"No, she's apparently been here for the past 70 years apparently. It's weird you don't know her," Helen said.

"It's not like I know every elder," Alex said. They continued walking down the mountain toward the valley when Alex saw someone waiting at the gate to the valley.

A man that seemed to be in his late 30s had a shocked expression on his face as he stared in their direction.

Helen smiled and said, "I told him I was coming and that there was a surprise for him so he had to wait there for me."

The man looked at Alex and couldn't believe it. "Martial Nephew?" he asked.

"Martial Uncle," Alex spoke happily and walked down the road to meet the man.

The older Alex felt a wave of anxiousness hit him as he realized who he was looking at.

It was Lang Shun, Ma Rong's junior disciple brother.

He nervously watched Lang Shun and Alex greet and hug each other happily. They talked for a few moments before everyone walked up to them.

"Sister Helen, you should have warned me about this," Lang Shun said. "I wasn't ready for this."

"You're still not ready," Helen said and turned toward the old Alex. "Guess who this is."

Lang Shun looked at the older Alex and frowned a little. He looked familiar to him, but he couldn't remember where he had seen him. That was surprising to him because he was supposed to have perfect memory.

"Who is this?" he asked.

"Remember that one time I told you the truth about the players?" Helen asked. "The one where I said our bodies were controlled by minds that were elsewhere?"

"I do remember that," Lang Shun said. "You said something about clones back then. Is… he a clone?"

"He's my clone, martial Uncle," Alex spoke. "He was one that was in control of my body when the master took me in as her disciple."

"Martial Uncle," the older Alex walked forward and bowed. "I'm glad to see you're doing alright."

"You're… Alex too?" Lang Shun was a little perplexed, surprised, and quite thoroughly confused.

Alex had to explain properly what was going on and how this Alex had been living a normal life in the Central continent.

Lang Shun turned his head towards Ronron in surprise. "That's your daughter?" he asked.

"Yes, martial uncle," the older Alex said while gesturing for Ronron to come out. "Her name is Maron. I named her after master."

"Ma Ron?" Lang Shun asked.

"It's all one word. Maron," Ronron quickly said. "Greetings."

"Wow, your daughter is already so grown up, and she's even in the True realm," Lang Shun couldn't help but be surprised.

Alex introduced the rest of his family to Lang Shun as well.

He turned back to both Alex and said, "I'm glad both of you got to come back, even though it has been so long since you did."

"I'm glad too, Martial Uncle," the older Alex said.

After talking there for a while, Lang Shun asked them to come along with him so they could talk in the elder's hall.

The group looked around at the valley as they walked away. The various different buildings that were available around the valley seemed to have changed drastically over the last 3 decades Alex hadn't been there.

To everyone else, it looked completely new.

Alex noticed a massive black stone that had words written all over it, some of which constantly changed. It was the Contribution ranking and the first person on the list was someone named Kong Yumin.

"Are the disciples these days good?" Alex asked. "I assume the level of alchemy has gone up a lot."

"Yes, it's gone up quite a lot," Lang Shun said. "Not only do we have more diverse recipes, elder He has been giving us quite a bit of knowledge on improving the pills, so the level of alchemy for even the disciples has become better."

"They also have medicinal pastes for most ordinary requirements, so they are forced to make better pills as a result, so the public can only be satisfied with the best of the best pills," Helen said.

"I see," Alex said. "So, that Kong Yumin should be quite good at pills."

"She is," Lang Shun said. "Last I remember, she could make Immortal-grade pills on occasion. They are only common pills, but it's still quite a feat. Her True pills are only a little worse, but she's getting there."

Alex looked surprised. "That is truly quite a feat. How is she so good?" he asked.

"Guest elder He is quite biased toward her," Lang Shun said with a chuckle in his voice. "You will understand why when you meet her later."

Alex was a little confused but he decided to not care about it. He continued asking a little more about the sect and came to learn quite a lot.

Hong Wu sect was now the best sect in terms of Alchemy and due to its popularity, was also one of the better sects when it came to just strength.

It had steadily grown to become one of the best sects in the entire empire, even better than the Tiger sect. The Tiger sect was strong and well-known, but it was nowhere close to the Hong Wu sect in terms of popularity.

The Hong Wu sect was now the main sect any and all youngsters from all around the empire wished to join, which had forced the Hong Wu sect to make its entrance exams harder, which forced only the best of the best to get through as well, improving the overall standard of the sect by that much more.

Due to the improvement in pills as well as the talent of the students that joined, the disciples had started breaking through the realms fast enough to still remain a disciple since they broke through to the True realms in just a year or two.

As such, the Hong Wu sect was forced to increase the threshold of graduation from entering the True Realms to entering the True Master realm. There were talks of maybe increasing it to the True Lord realm, but that hadn't been decided yet.

For alchemists, they now had to make a Heaven Grade true pill to graduate early, if they had at least been a disciple for at least 3 years. Otherwise, 20 years was how long they could remain a disciple before graduating.

Alex asked about the sect leader and found out that she had been there since long before he had even arrived. She was one of the numbered elders during his master's time and was Lang Shun's senior by a few years.

With the other elders growing old, she had ended up becoming the sect leader after all this time. Her Alchemy skills weren't that good, but her understanding of Alchemy, and more importantly, her leadership skills were more than good enough to be the leader.

"Where's Grand Elder?" Alex asked. "I wish to meet him as well."

Lang Shun stopped. "Oh… Master passed away," he said with a solemn face.

It took Alex a moment to register what he had just heard. "Grand elder… passed away?" he asked. "He had just entered the True Emperor realm when I was last here."

"That was over 30 years ago," Lang Shun said. "Thanks to you, he had managed to improve his life span by a bit, but around 9 years ago, he tried to force a breakthrough because of his ending life span and ended up suffering another Qi Deviation that killed him."