Sam doesn't know that someone has labeled him a Bastard far away. One must wonder how he reacts if he knows that.

Right now, he is on a deserted island that doesn't have any living beings. Even the trees are dead. Except for some weird type of grass and some thorns, there is nothing there.

He had dug out a big pit and there is a large energy cell of Dark element inside it.

He is going to create an illusion that the shadow sword is destroyed. He has to agree that he was being overconfident when he just kept the shadow sword with him given that all the major powers will come after him.

If it was Past Sam with no companions his attitude should have been alright. Now that he has friends, he believed that he should think before he made decisions.

Now, he is waiting for the expert the temple-head is going to send here to be the decoy and to his surprise, the person is Moriya.

"Nice to meet you again. I heard that you joined the Thunder-God temple."

"Yes. I needed a place to start since I decided to expand my horizons and thunder god temple is the nearest choice."

Sam is extremely blunt with his words. Moriya didn't seem to mind and said.

"Everyone has their own reasons, no matter how trivial or important that reason might be, you still joined us. Anyway, I heard that you need me for some act. What should I do?"

"Just stay within the vicinities with full-on defense. Don't let your guard down. Not even for a second."

Moriya nodded and stood at the seashore, while Sam is at the center of the island.

After a few minutes, Moriya felt a huge wave of energy fluctuations and the dark element energy was in extreme turmoil in the place.

He saw that the spiritual energy all over the island getting into turmoil and the waves hit him really hard.

If he is not guarding himself, he would really be injured.

After the explosion, the spiritual energy on the whole island is a mess.

He ran to the center to check on Sam. He has no confidence that he would survive if he was the one in the center of the explosion.

The Dark element energy is wreaking Havoc everywhere and he saw Sam standing in the center of the crater without any damage. The only stable spiritual energy zone on the island is around Sam.

He walked out slowly and said.

"We are done here. All you have to do is say to the world that you are injured and are in the process of healing. It would be better if even your disciples don't know."

Moriya subconsciously nodded. Sam boarded the harbinger and was about to fly away, but he remembered something and said to Moriya.

"The soul chasing butterfly that is following me for two days has died and you might want to tell that guy whoever it is that controlling the queen butterfly to send the new one."

With those words, he left the place.

Moriya came to his senses when he heard Sam's words. Soul chasing butterfly is one of the biggest secrets of the Thunder-god temple. Only a select few have access to the information about it.

Even among the elders, Moriya is the only one who knew about it.

He doesn't know how Sam knew about it, but those words are not just a reminder. He once again looked at the destroyed island and went back to the temple to report to the temple-head.

Sam created the blast for two reasons and one of them is obviously to tell the world that the shadow sword is destroyed and another reason is to give the temple-head of the thunder god temple a message.

Two days ago, when he had the meeting with him, Sam noticed that the temple head is a bit weird. He smiled and his words seemed genuine, but he couldn't shake off the feeling that is warning him against trusting that guy.

Even if it wasn't for that feeling, he still has to give them a warning. Human greed is hard to predict and control. Although Sam gave them enough meteorite sand and they could create spirit weapons given enough time, there is no telling, what the temple head will think.

The world might be fooled that the shadow sword is destroyed, but the temple head knew it wasn't and he might covet it.

So, Sam created this blast and revealed the existence of the soul chasing butterfly to tell them that he is resourceful enough to know about their spying system and also has enough means to deal some damage to them.

He has to go through this all because he doesn't have enough strength.

Sam went back to the quarters that are given to him. Jack and Philip are also given one near them,

As they agreed, Sam has every privilege as a Core disciple, except for one. The entry to the Temple library.

Even though they didn't talk about it, Sam knew his boundaries. Even if he wants to go, nobody would stop him, but he would have to deal with the consequences as when he wants to leave this place, the temple can use this as leverage to hinder him.

So, the trio agreed to not visit the core areas of the thunder god temple.

After his arrival in his residence, Jack and Philip came in to discuss something.

It is about the whole thing about the chance with the Beast faction. Philip and Jack went to ask around about what this is all about. They even made some acquaintances as the people in the core residence zone are curious about the new core disciples.

This is the place where the Core disciples, Elders reside, so the people here are of some status. If there are any newly promoted disciples, then they would have already known it, but there is none of that.

That is why they are extremely curious, which reduced their effort.

They made some acquaintances and learned that there is an event that is happening in three months.

"They said that there is a competition among the six major powers to settle some disputes of resources among themselves. We don't know the exact details. But there are three categories in the competition.

Candidates below Age fifty and cultivation below pre-transcendence

Candidates below Age thirty and cultivation below Nascent

Candidates below Age twenty and cultivation below the Grand realm.

The factions will send their elite teams and even the killings are allowed. It would be in a tournament-style and there is no need to hold back and no strings attached."

Philip gave a gist of the event.

"So, what are the requirements for the entry?"

"Only the people in the top ten list can enter. There will be new ranking lists released based on the requirements and the top five people are the only ones who have a choice to enter the competition.

The rankings are decided based on the duels between the candidates. Any candidate can challenge another candidate who is within the ten ranks higher than him.

Since we just arrived, our names are not even on the list, so we have to challenge the last candidate and climb up the ranks."

"How many candidates are there?"

"Three hundred and twenty-five."

Sam was dumbfounded and Jack explained.

"Most of the internal disciples are eligible. There are only ten core disciples suited for this category and they are already occupying the top ten places, although the remaining candidates don't get to participate, these act as some status symbols so they are extremely competitive of this thing."

"I will go alone. We don't have to win this thing for the thunder god temple. You guys keep a low profile. We don't want to involve in their affairs much."

As they were discussing, someone came and knocked on the door.

"Come in."

The door opened and Nicholas came in. He looked more robust than before. He wore the same clothes as the rest of the core disciples.

"How are guys you doing? It has been a while" Nicholas is as bright as ever as he greeted them with a smile.

"Well, it has been a while, but you didn't seem to have changed at all. You are wreaking havoc everywhere you go." Philip commented from the side.

Sam looked at him with a puzzled expression then Philip explained.

"Nicholas is a star here. He recently broke through the grand realm and he is already knocking on the doors of all the people who are in the initial stages of the grand realm.

The fresh news is that last night some of the guys had enough of his shit and decided to beat him up, but he accidentally let of all restraints and beat the crap out of them. You should have seen them. There are five of them and they will need at least a month before they could recover.

They are currently removed from the ranking list."

Sam smiled at this. Nicholas must have been carried away with excitement instead of being angry for the ambush.