1937 To the Sect Master's Courtyard

Murmurs rang around from the ground as everyone realized what poison Alex was going to consume. They spoke many things about him, all of which either contained the words 'suicide', 'bold', or 'stupid'.

The Elder in charge of the assembly, now ordered by the First Elder, handed over a dark vial to Alex.

Alex took the vial and looked into it to see the same liquid as he had from the previous year. The Nether Ice Immortal poison.

Last year, he hadn't recognized it and had thus consumed it without knowing. This year, he had asked for it. It was out of anger, but he had still asked for it.

"Hurry up and drink it," the Elder in front of him demanded of Alex.

Alex glared at the Elder one last time and downed the vial of terrible poison.

The feeling of numbness spread through Alex's tongue and then his throat, but before the numbness could change into freezing cold ice in his body, Alex used his Yang energy to destroy it immediately.

It took but a moment for all of the poison he ate to be destroyed at once. Meanwhile, he stared defiantly at the man in front of him, who waited to see Alex struggle.

He didn't struggle. There was not a single change in his expression. All he did was give the man a mocking smile and say, "Thank you for the poison," and then he returned back to the ground.

An air of silence permeated the sect as all disciples and elders stared at Alex in shock.

Just moments ago, they had thought him to be a dead man standing, and now he was alive and the poison he ate was nowhere to be seen.

Where had it gone? Certainly not his body. They would've seen effects on his body had it entered. There was absolutely no sign of him being affected by any poison. He simply fought it.

Immediately, the word 'cheat' started popping up in everyone's minds and then their words. Accusations began flying around, each one claiming Alex to have done something to the poison.

No one believed he consumed it.

Alex glanced around the place, watching everyone point fingers at him and call him names. He found it hard to care what these people thought of him.

As he looked around, he only saw a single person who was showing any different emotion from the crowd. In fact, Hei Tingxie, the first-ranking disciple of the sect, held a smile on her face.

It was a curious smile, one that had a thousand thoughts behind it and was definitely not what it seemed on the outside.

That was the only thing that prompted Alex to wonder what she was smiling about. Was that a way of her acknowledging her new competition? Did she not also believe that he had cheated?

Two Elders came from the side and landed in front of Alex. One of the Elders was the female elder he had seen in the Alchemy room.

They grabbed him by the arms on both sides and remained there while one of the Sect masters came down to meet him.

"You are a curious fellow, aren't you?" the man said. "I haven't had a disciple disrupt an assembly twice on the same day before."

Alex didn't say anything and simply waited for the accusations to come.

The sect master looked Alex in his eyes and gave a small smile. "You don't seem afraid. Have you trained yourself to such a limit that you have even lost the ability to fear?" the man asked himself. "That can't be right. That outburst earlier suggests that you did feel something when your friend died. Tell me, why don't you fear?"

"Why should I fear, sect master?" Alex asked. "I have done nothing wrong. Shouldn't the one that fears be someone who did something wrong?"

The sect master raised an eyebrow. "Are you suggesting that you used no underhanded means during your poison consumption just now?" he asked.

"Yes," Alex said.

"He's lying," the First Elder said as she flew down from the air. "You must punish him for cheating, sect master. He broke the sect rule."

"I did not," Alex said with no added emotion to his voice.

"You know you did. You most likely ate a pill to help with the poison in advance. We will find the truth soon enough," the First Elder said.

"Brother Houmian," another one of the sect masters came down from the sky. "You are disrupting the assembly. The disciples are waiting for their turn."

The sect master in front of Alex nodded. "My mistake, brother. We should move this somewhere else." He turned back toward the two Elders grabbing Alex. "Bring him to our courtyard."

"As you say, Sect Master," the two elders said and began carrying Alex into the air, taking him in a certain direction.

They quickly flew in the direction of the mountains where the Elders lived. After flying across two mountains, they came across a low-rising hill in the center of a bunch of tall mountains, at the top of which was a small house.

The house was no larger than Alex's own place and was at the very back of the mountain ranges. And it wasn't as extravagant either.

He had been to Inner Sect disciple's places that looked better than this. It appeared the sect masters weren't materialistic at all and lived a rather humble life.

The female elder on his left began pushing him into the house, but the male elder on his right remained where he was.

"Elder Ming, what are you doing?" the male elder asked.

"Taking him inside. Isn't that what we came here to do?" the female elder surnamed Ming asked.

"Is this your first time here? You should know better than to enter the sect master's house, especially in their absence. We will wait for them out here."

Elder Ming held onto Alex's arms tightly, but they loosened a second later. "You're right," she said. "I don't know why I thought it would be different with the disciple here."

The other Elder said nothing and just waited.

No one spoke to anyone else and Alex was left alone, lost in his own thoughts. Time passed quickly and the sun went down the mountain to the west, casting a large shadow over the small hill and the house.

The sky was still alight with sunlight, but evening had come to the tiny hill they stood on.

6 figures flew from the direction of the valley. 3 of them were the sect masters, and the remaining 3 were elders.

Alex immediately recognized the First Elder among them and felt his anger brewing inside of him again. As for the other two, one of them was the young Elder from his trial last time, and the other one was someone Alex didn't recognize.

Alex waited for the 6 to come down.

Just as they were passing the final mountain to come to the hill, Alex felt something touch his mind. It was the female elder.

"If you manage to live through this, meet me in the Alchemy room afterward," Elder Ming sent a direct message through her Spiritual sense. "I and Lan Douhan will be waiting for you there."