Sam's staff left a deep crack on the statue. The upper half of the statue was almost completely riddled with cracks and there is a hole on the contact point.

Sam's staff was completely broken, the metallic staff almost broke like a rotten wooden stick.

Sam didn't halt his attacks there. He stepped forward and then held the broken staff tightly before stabbing the broken side straight into the hole that was created by the hit.

The stone pieces flew to the back of the statue and the statue collapsed.

Sam took a step back and he is panting.

He exhausted a lot of spiritual energy. His main aim when cultivating the body refinement is to improve his defense. Not for the attacking purposes. But it sure did come in handy when needed.

Sam jumped high into the air and grabbed the spiritual energy bubble. As soon as he touched it, the bubble disappeared and he caught the five strands of hair in his hand. He threw them straight into the divine dimension without a second thought.

After dealing with that, he stepped down the stage.

He didn't deactivate his body transformation. Rather he placed a space jade in his mouth and started absorbing spiritual energy continuously.

Even though he won, he too some injuries. But this time, he couldn't heal directly. The rest of the candidates are watching him cautiously.

Sam felt his internal organs are shaking. This is the shock from the staff hit he landed just before it was broken.

He sat cross-legged and stabilized himself. He stayed like that for a few seconds and after noticing that others are still looking at him. He frowned in displeasure and took out a pill. He has tons of pills that he got from the Old one. There are even healing pills that can heal Consummate realm cultivators.

Some lower-level cultivators might even die just by taking such a healing pill.

Sam started digesting his pill.

In his mind, he was thinking that he should beat the crap out of these people when he got the chance. Because of them, he has to take these disgusting pills. In his opinion not only, they are bitter and tasted awful, they don't do any justice for the precious herbs that were put into them.

In fact, he preferred the dishes that were cooked with those herbs over pills. That is why he wouldn't take them unless it is an emergency or absolutely necessary. But because of these guys, Sam had to take these pills.

His anger can be felt from his aura and Arman further confirmed that it has to be Sam.

Because only he would have such a reaction when taking pills. And how did he know about that? That is not a pleasant thing to remember as Sam beat the crap out of him because he saw him taking pills in one of their sessions.

He kind of understand why Sam has such a reaction when he linked the disguise and not using other elemental powers.

He felt like it is not going to be good for the rest of them.

Sam opened his eyes and walked towards the next platform. The eye technique scroll.

Sam didn't cultivate any form of eye techniques and from what he knew the original Golden Gaze-fiery eyes could see through good and evil, hidden things, thoughts, and many other things. So, he figured that this lesser version might be similar to the original even if it is not as powerful.

The person near the eye technique scroll is actually Arman himself. He picked that because there is nothing left for him to take.

When Sam is near him, he secretly gestured him to target the next one the platform which has wine gourd.

At this moment, the 'man' from the herb garden is still healing herself and the platform for wine gourd is already empty.

"Just go for it. Don't preserve anything." He whispered and dropped a space jade at his feet.

Arman picked it up without raising any suspicions.

And entered his spiritual sense into it only to see the lightning saber inside.

This is the same saber that was completely subdued by Sam. But since Sam is giving him permission and the spirit is sentient and also familiar with Arman, he can use it. But the full prowess of the blade couldn't be shown.

Arman is still satisfied.

Next time, he entered the one with the gourd of wine and took out the saber. He started concentrating his energy on the blade and a large lightning saber was formed. With a single slash, Arman made a devastating attack.

This time, at least the monkey statue didn't understand what he was really doing and waited. Unlike Sam who held his hand directly in its place not letting him attack at all.

The fight was almost over after that attack. The statue became extremely weak and Arman started squeezing his energy reservoir dry.

The battle is bloody at least, Arman is soaked in blood while the statue was filled with cracks.

Slowly, Arman was able to grab the victory and the wine landed in her hands. The 'man' from the herb garden is speechless. She didn't think that her platform was the first one to be targeted.

Sam nodded at Arman's performance and climbed up on the next platform. He took out another staff and spiritual energy roared around him.

The same scenario almost repeated. Except for this time, as soon as Sam broke the statue's staff and stabbed the piece of staff inside, he felt a piercing pain in the left abdomen.

The statue also stabbed him back.

But Sam didn't let go. He just went through with offense, completely ignoring the pain he is feeling.

After the fight is over, he took down the reward and stored it in his storage.

He came down and leaned his back against the nearby tree.

He lifted his shirt up to see what the damage is like. There is something wrong with the wound. He could feel that the staff didn't just pass through him. It was stabbed diagonally upwards and it hit the rib.

Both the rib and the staff broke. The stone fragments of the staff were stuck inside and some of them even pierced his lungs.

He took off his shirt completely. When the candidates saw the scars on his body, they felt chills all over.

Sam's body looks perfectly sculpted, any warrior will have a great body like that of course, all of their bodies are not aesthetically pleasing, but Sam's bone structure makes him look great.

But those scars are like the art of a crazy person who wanted to ruin the look of the body and failed. All that gave him is the scarily handsome look. The men are jealous except for one 'man' though.

But when they thought of the battles that they have to go through to get what Sam got on his body, they abandoned the ideas.

The watched keenly on what Sam is doing.

To their surprise, he didn't hesitate before pulling the staff out like its nothing, his eyes are still cold and unfeeling. No one saw a hint of pain from it.

When they saw the staff's edge, then only they understood that the injury is more than what they thought.

Arkiv who got acquainted with Sam previously stepped forward to see if he can help. But as he neared Sam, he got a dangerous feeling creeping down his spine. He felt that if he took one more step, he would be dead.

At this moment, Sam is emitting the killing intent and if they really did come here, he might kill them.

He is pissed off because he was injured this badly.

After all, if not for the fact that he had to maintain the disguise, he wouldn't have to worry about using all the attacks in his arsenal. He is confident that he could defeat the statue without taking this bad of an injury.

He is pissed at the major powers. If the major powers stopped being nosy and minded their own businesses, he would have come into the Palace of inheritances without a care in the world.

But now, he has to disguise so that the war wouldn't start prematurely. If the Beast faction is implicated because of him, he would have to intervene.

Sam shook his head to clear these thoughts off his mind.

He took out a dagger from his storage and started cutting the wound. He made a large incision. It would fit his whole palm without any problem.

He cut the flesh and placed his palm inside. When it brushed past the internal organs, he felt a soul-searing pain, but he made sure that he has as little contact as possible.

He reached the lowest part of the lung, where the shards of the stone staff are punctured in.

He delicately held one of the shards and plucked it out. He felt like the air was completely pumped out of his lungs forcefully.