1940 Secrets?

"A request? What request?"

All of the elders in the room were curious to hear Alex.

"My friend that died earlier today, would it be alright if I take care of his funeral?" Alex asked. "He mentioned to me that his parents are buried in the east. If possible, I wish to bury him there as well, along with his parents."

Tai Guidao's last words and his feelings about visiting his parents kept recurring in Alex's mind.

"Oh, that's very kind of you," the young elder said.

"Very kind indeed," one of the sect masters said. "But that won't be possible. We handle all the funerals for the disciples who die in the sect. If you wish to, you may get his ashes at the end of it all."

"Ashes?" Alex asked. "I won't get to bury him?"

"No."

Alex didn't know how to feel about that. He wanted the poor man to be with his parents, at least in death.

"I see," Alex said. "Then would it be possible for me to be present during the funeral?"

"That's unlikely too," the sect master said. "But we'll have to see. Leave and let us make our decisions now."

Alex could only nod and walk away from the elders. Even as he left, the thought of not being able to bury Tai Guidao hurt him. Would he not even get to be at his funeral?

'I'm only going to get his ashes?' Alex thought. He was in the corridor, surrounded by the lingering Death aura when a thought struck him.

He had been on the opposite end in the past, giving ashes back to the family of the dead. That had been when he was experimenting on the recently dead.

'Shit!' Alex thought. 'Are they experimenting on the dead here too?'

That was certainly a possibility. Given the Death aura around him, Alex felt that if any sort of experiment happened, it would happen in this place.

'Are these bastards going to cut up brother Tai too?' Alex thought. He felt anger at the thought of that.

He now wanted to make sure that was not the case.

Whisker appeared inside of his robes and slowly made his way down until he came out from under Alex. When he was out, he was completely invisible, lacking any and all aura.

Alex felt the Death aura clearly from Whisker's whiskers, the Seeking Mouse sending back loads of information through their shared bonds.

Alex activated Demon Eyes, looking around the place as he walked. The surrounding was filled with black, almost tar-like aura, thick and heavy.

But there was one room that had a thicker Death aura than the rest. At least, there was a thicker Yin aura, which Alex couldn't separate from Death aura because it all appeared black in his vision.

He wanted to go there and check for himself, but inside the house with all the sect masters, he couldn't do that at all. There had to be formations in that room that would trigger the moment they entered.

'Stay here,' Alex ordered Whisker. 'You are going to be spying on something for me soon. Stay hidden for now.'

He couldn't ask Whisker to check immediately. If found, he would be caught. For now, he had to let Whisker hide for a while, at which time he would make his way away from this place.

The less he implicated himself in this, the better.

Alex soon left the house and flew away in the direction he had come from. He could have gone directly to his place, but the female Elder had asked him to meet her in the Alchemy room for some reason.

Alex wasn't sure why, but he felt compelled to go meet her right away.

Alex arrived in front of the Elder's Hall quickly. As he walked in, he could feel gazes upon him. As the person who survived the Nether Ice Immortal Poison, he was a bit of a celebrity in the sect.

From what the sect master had implied, the current first- ranking disciple of the sect, Hei Tingxie, hadn't managed to consume a stronger poison.

Alex ignored the eyes and made his way toward the Alchemy room. Thanks to his employment here, nobody could stop him or ask him what he was doing here.

Alex entered the Alchemy room and found both Elder Ming and Elder Lan inside the room, with the other two staff alchemists in the distance, working on their pill.

"Young Dawnblade, you're back," Elder Lan said quickly, coming to check on Alex. "Are you okay? What happened?"

"Thank you for being concerned about me, Elder Lan. I am doing well for now," Alex said. "The sect masters and elders should be making a decision right now."

As Alex said that, he got back through his bond that people were beginning to leave the Sect master's place. The first one to leave was the elder that he didn't even recognize with the young elder following behind him.

The woman, however, hadn't left just yet.

"They… didn't punish you?" Elder Ming asked. "I was sure they were going to kill you."

"I had done nothing wrong," Alex replied.

"So they let you go? How? They clearly saw that you cheated," the woman continued.

Alex sighed. "I never cheated."

Just to not have the same conversation over again, Alex explained how his body was capable of consuming poison and destroying it. Of course, he made it sound as though that was the main special thing that his body was capable of.

Elder Lan and Elder Ming were understandably surprised, with the two looking at each other, saying something through their spiritual sense that Alex couldn't hear.

"So you could've become the first-ranking disciple right from the start?" Elder Ming asked. "Why did you wait until now to show off?"

"I didn't," Alex grumbled. "They forced me to. They were going to give me that poison whether I wanted to or not."

"How do you know that?" Elder Lan asked.

"Because they did so last time," Alex said. "That First Elder, she tried to kill me because she still believes I was responsible for her son's death. If I wasn't able to handle the poison, I would've died on last year's Assembly."

Those words seemed to shock the two elders as they looked at each other again.

"Only, she found out I could survive it somehow, so this year around, she went for my friend instead. Brother Tai Guidao did not deserve to die today at all," Alex said. His mood once again began going downhill.

Elder Lan seemed to have thought something and asked, "Did the First Elder claim that she tried to poison you? Or did you just assume that?"

Alex looked up, confused. "Why would she claim anything? It's obvious she did it," he said.

Elder Lan nodded. "And this friend of yours that died today, do you know much about him?" he asked.

Alex frowned. What sort of questions were these?

"Not a lot, but he had told me a few things," Alex said.

"Does he have a family outside?" Elder Lan asked.

Alex's eyes narrowed. "No, his parents were long dead. He was a rogue cultivator. Why do you ask that?"

Both Elder Lan's and Elder Ming's faces changed upon hearing the answer. They seemed to be privy to some information that Alex didn't know about.