this would make sense butt i highly doubt he remains top 9,the mc literally has 2 missions,reach ns and kill he gang and wipe out the He clan. niki being niki,would use this medium to show that hey,it wouldnt be easy for you. cus if you actually read the book,you could easily tell by the muchens last confrontation,mc is alr top 5 at the very least strength of the arena strength table. and this is before the dao cucumber,dreamweaver help,xiwen help and all that stuff. which means mc will most likely rival the yang boy at least by the tourney so ask yourself this,would niki keep he gang as pretty much fodder to the mc basically making mc have the ability to beat him in like 5 attacks? (if we take your version in which he stays at top 9) as a possibility? cus if you dont know,niki alr said ruo didnt even use his dragon transfo to make it to top 10 and the yang gai is still way stronger than ruos dragon transfo which shows the difference in power level of the top 3 and the top 10. so in my opinion,if we can speculate,its either he gang has become a bum (for now) which means he might not participate in the tourney cus i highly doubt niki would make an important character who will probably be a pain in the mcs back when both are shangtian get mopped easily OR he makes he gang get a significant boost cus niki doesnt leave these kind of mysteries without them having a large pop happening with them. he gang not leaving would have maintained his 9th position as shown throughout the 2 yrs of mcs coma. when ruo came,he was still 9th,before ruo came,he was still 9th so him leaving the sect just to come back and be 9th again seems very unplausible especially if he wants to fight in the tourney, highly doubt even people like ai would be easy in the tourney so i highly doubt he gang would be the same level as before,cus most of the top 10 would likely be filler so making he gang have a rise would make sense since someone like su da or de would be not that necessary to the story progression so imo at least top 5