Ma Rong shook a little when she heard the question. It seemed she found the question a little too hard to answer.
"I can't tell you right now. You will find out on your own someday. You naturally finding out what is happening is the best we can hope for," she said.
Alex was now even more intrigued. 'What does she know? And why is she trying to hide it from me?' he wondered.
"Still, Master, I can't go into cultivation knowing I might end up being late tomorrow. Why don't I just cultivate body?" he said.
"Don't worry. Just go and cultivate. If nothing else, I can guarantee that you will wake up on time," Ma Rong said.
"That's a lie right, Master? There have been many times when I woke up at random times," Alex said.
Ma Rong saw that the conversation was going nowhere, so she said, "If you don't wake up on time, then it will be on me that you couldn't take part in tomorrow's competition. I will take the blame. Now go and do as I say."
Alex finally saw that she was really serious about this. He nodded and left to his room. He sat down on his bed and started wondering.
'Why is she not telling me this? Is something wrong with me? Is this a disability? Do I have a short lifespan? What is it?' From Ma Rong's expression and tone of voice, he knew that it wasn't anything good.
However, he was unable to tell if it was anything bad either. He thought of many possibilities, but in the end, none of them fit the situation.
'Sigh, I guess I will do as she says,' he thought and called out Pearl. The moment Pearl came out, he told him to stay quiet and sneaked a glance at Wan Li who was busy reading his book.
Alex put Pearl into his robes and told him to start cultivating. Pearl didn't meow once at all and started cultivating. Soon, light spilled out of his robes and numerous cuts started appearing all over his body.
Wan Li accidentally caught sight of that and nearly screamed. "Brother Yu, are you okay? What happened to you?" he said, clearly concerned about his situation.
He immediately brought out a bunch of pill bottles and started flipping through them to find ones that would help Alex at the moment.
"Don't worry about me, Brother Wan. This is my cultivation method. I'm fine," Alex said.
"A-are you sure? You have so many cuts all over you," Wan Li said.
"Yes, I am sure. Please get back to your reading," Alex said. He then thought of something and said, "I'm going to meditate now, so, please don't bother me overnight, okay?" he asked as politely as possible.
"Sure, Brother Yu," Wan Li said and got back to his studies.
Alex started to meditate. He took a deep breath to start his Qi cultivation, but the pain made it hard to focus. It was nearly impossible to blank out his mind when he had to constantly keep on feeling the pain.
'Ignore the pain. You've felt it many times already. Ignore it,' Alex said to himself and started focusing back on the cultivation.
He ignored the pain as much as he could, but as soon as he let his mind slip away, the ignorance would slip away as well and the pain would bring him jolting back to awareness.
He kept on trying to cultivate Qi many times after that, however, most of the time he would forget to ignore the pain.
'I can't keep on doing the same thing and fail without changing my approach.' He decided to try something else.
He started to split his consciousness. His mind was capable of focusing on 10 different things at once, although it was a little difficult. 2 things were a piece of cake.
He used a small part of his mind into ignoring the pain and the other big part to start meditating. He took deep breaths in and out. Soon, he was starting to feel like letting go of all control and just fall asleep.
But Alex kept the ignorance in check and made sure to never let go of it.
He failed to do that. In the end, he let go of the ignorance and the pain was back. Fortunately, this was enough time to fall unconscious.
Alex slowly opened his eyes as pains creaked throughout his body. "OW! OW! OW!. Pearl stop," he ordered. "Meow," Pearl said as he stopped cultivating.
The cuts all over his body disappeared and the body returned to its pristine state. In fact, it looked like he got a little bit stronger.
"Wait, did I miss the match?" he quickly turned his eyes towards the top right to check the time. It was 6:12 am.
He had woken up on time. "Woah, so master was right. But why? Damn, if only she explained to me straight and didn't say anything convoluted like 'it's better if you find out on your own' sh*t," Alex thought.
"Damn, isn't it time soon for us to leave for the tournament? I must be getting really hungry outside. I will eat something fast and return back," Alex thought and quickly logged out.
He freshened up quickly and went to the kitchen as fast as possible. He reheated some of the foods that remained from yesterday's party and started eating them.
'I can't get hungry prior to 12 pm,' he thought and ate. After eating, he returned back to the game. Wan Li was still reading his book.
"Brother Wan, I think you should get ready to leave," Alex said. Wan Li was distracted by Alex and looked up from his book. "Did you say something brother Yu?" he asked.
"Aren't you going to leave? It's time for the competition," Alex said.
"Huh?" Wan Li immediately looked towards the window and saw the morning light.? "Oh, it's already daybreak," Wan Li said.
"Yes, Brother Wan. So get ready, we are leaving for the competition."