The master learner attains the high levels of mastery because they are humble enough within to learn. Thus masters are humble of spirit. Yet, student, they are the boss of you because they are the master! Confidence is not ego. Earned skill is not ego. Being of greater ability is not ego. Assuming you can become a master in such short time is ego. Become an apprentice so that one day your master will be proud that you exceeded them. That is what real mastery is.
The toil of the apprentice was the hard, hard road to becoming a master, the price paid not in money but sweat and hardship.
The master only took the most gifted apprentice, for one day the youth would need to surpass the master and it would take a high standard of starting talent for that to even be possible.
The road of the apprentice is what it always was - observe, practice, imitate, master - and this is why the highest masters were the most sought after to serve, and why they could be such cantankerous bastards.
There came a day, after days that blurred into each other, when the apprentice realised that she had met the level of the master and surpassed it. More than that, the master had realised it too. As long and difficult as their journey had been, it was time for each of them to take on a new student and their hearts struggled under the weight of that inner-revelation.