The day that the research students were meeting to leave for Star city, Alexander had shown up to walk Clark and Maria there. Isa was surprised because she knew that Clark had a mentor, but not that it was a famous professor within the school.
"You two didn't tell me that you had such an important backer!" Isa's whispered scolding didn't phase Clark at all.
"Clark can't use his mentor to get things from other people. He just trains him and sends him to tough challenges." Maria had this as Alexander's forte by now. It was pretty clear that Alexander would purposefully make things harder and harder, even becoming the temporary villain, to improve his student.
Creation is hard, cheer me up!