Within the illusionary formation, Lute had trained for nearly four hours. Recklessly expending his Qi and utilizing Qi Explosion Tactics. He’d already mastered the Art and Techniques, as if he was its original creator, but merging Arts turned out to be much more difficult than expected.

Lute released another palm, full of explosive might before he crumpled to the ground panting, breathing erratically. He hadn’t rested even once.

‘To think that there would be such a drawback to the Laws of Severance… but it’s to be expected, I doubt the Spiritual God intended for his inheritance to go to someone that wasn’t already on the Divine Path.’

As he focused completely on trying to merge Qi Explosion Tactics with the Thousand Ways Scripture, eventually, sharp pains would come from the very depths of Lute’s body; his head began to feel as if it was being crushed. This was the drawback of trying to merge Arts and Techniques. Lute was too inexperienced and weak.

After repeated failed attempts, the pain gradually grew, and the more Lute realized, it wasn’t a physical problem, but a spiritual problem. Even though he could successfully merge the arts as long as he had enough time, which was precisely the problem. His soul was too weak; he could only focus on merging the arts for roughly two hours with any degree of success before the pain began to transmit.

After this two hour limit, the success and breakthroughs of merging the arts decreased by a noticeable level. It wasn’t without its success, but after the three hour threshold, the pain was too great, and Lute stopped attempting to merge the arts for fear that he would permanently injure his soul. Instead, he opted to familiarize himself even more with the three techniques of Qi Explosion Tactics which were, Exploding Palm, Burst Steps, and Qi Burst Guard, despite achieving mastery, executing them without a flaw, knowing when to use the techniques in combat was a different matter altogether.

With every punch, Lute’s Qi would explode outward violently, causing a noticeable disruption in the air. The Exploding Palm was an extremely simple technique, but its difficulty lied in not disrupting Qi flow while exploding it outward in a violent manner. If there was an error, the explosive penetrating power would drop exponentially.

This was the same concept for Burst Steps, and Qi Burst Guard, if the flow of Qi was off slightly, then it was the equivalent of wasting Qi.

The Burst Steps allowed for instantaneous straight line movement, it was difficult to move in any other way because of the fine-tuned control needed while exploding the Qi, the slightest error, and the cultivator would propel forward and violently slam into the ground face first.

This wasn’t a problem for Lute though, he had an advantage as he could modify a technique to better suit his capabilities due to the severing the Art from Heaven’s Way. His modification, instead of taking many small steps for his burst of instantaneous movement, he changed the Qi flow, allowing for long strides that had equal power.

This allowed for more movement, and the ability to turn instead of only moving in a straight line. The speed dropped by half, but now the technique could be considered to have two forms. The faster form was suitable for charging forward and not changing direction. It was better for head on clashes. But this new adjustment was another form, while it was noticeably slower, Lute could change direction while using it, this allowed for him to not be disadvantaged if he was unable to clash directly with his opponent.

As for defense, the Qi burst guard was actually useful, synergizing with Lute’s already tough physique. Instead of covering the body with Qi and absorbing the attack, through the method of Qi Burst Guard, when he was struck, if he pulled off the technique properly, it would counter the opponents strike, causing the Qi they used to rebound upon them, disrupting their actions.

The downside to the technique, the Qi Burst Guard couldn’t be used if you were covering your body externally with Qi. It needed to explode outward from the meridians at the exact moment of contact. One mistake and a cultivator would suffer grave injuries if they were even a millisecond off in timing.

However for Lute, he didn’t typically cover his body in Qi for defense due to the Primordial First Physiques toughness, it would just be a waste of Qi since the defense of Qi covering his body was hardly superior to his physical body. The only reason he deigned to cover his body in Qi in the past was he had no other use for it, there was only Shifting Time Collapsing Void, but he could only use that when the First Path of New Beginnings was open.

But now that Lute had techniques he could use Qi for, it was even more of a reason not to cover his body externally with it, and it would be a waste. Now, since he gained the Qi Burst Guard, even if he messed up the timing, the injuries he suffered wouldn’t be anywhere near as severe due to his physique.

There was only an hour left, Lute stopped everything he had been doing and cultivated, restoring his Qi. In this time period, he completely mastered every technique. He was even satisfied with the fusing progress of Qi Explosion Tactics and the Thousand Ways Scripture.

‘Mortal Realm Arts are indeed easier to learn compared to Arts from the Divine Realm, putting in the same amount of effort, I am learning them in half the time, as for the merging process, minor completion is already good progress,’

The last hour quickly passed, light flashed, and Lute’s illusionary world disappeared, he once again was surrounded by other trial participants. Some of them looked extremely depressed knowing that they failed, then there were some who had their noses pointed towards the sky in their arrogance thinking no one could compare to their comprehension ability.

As for Lute, he didn’t pay attention to anyone other than himself. He mastered the Art and Techniques given to him, so now he had to focus on purposely making mistakes to hide his mastery.

‘To think my problems are that I need to suppress myself, I really am an enigma.’

Lute sighed in dismay, “At least I have attained minor completion.”

The minor completions he was thinking of, was the progress of merging Arts based on how they were performing. The stages Lute chose were minor completion, middle stage, and grand accomplishment. Minor meant that he could technically use the merged arts, but the proficiency and power would be drastically reduced. While grand accomplishment meant that the Arts could be considered merged, able to be used at complete strength.

At minor completion, the power of the merged Art would be around thirty percent, at middle stage, it was above sixty percent, and grand accomplishment meant they could execute the merged Arts at ninety-five percent or higher of its true capabilities.

Minor completion was where Lute was at right now when merging Qi Explosion Tactics and the Thousand Ways Scripture, when he used the merged form, the power output he obtained in two hours was roughly thirty-three percent. But progress was slowing down as he fine-tuned and mastered it. Also, with the time constraints due to a weak soul, it would probably take around a week to achieve the middle stage.

While Lute was lost in thought over his progress and the need to hold back his power, the announcer once again flew up into the air, preparing to announce the next phase of the trial.

“For the next phase, when it is your turn, please share with your judge what technique you have learned, you will then be instructed to perform it at a testing area. If you have failed to learn a technique, don’t waste our time and leave. The offensive area will be a totem imbued with formations for durability. When you strike it, the strength of the light emitted will represent your progress. In the movement area, you will be put into a cage with a Vicious Beast, supervised by an Elder. As for the defense, you will suffer and an attack from an Elder.”

The options were laid out without any hidden criteria, it was relatively straightforward. As Lute was pondering which technique he could show off without exposing himself, nearly one hundred participants stood up and left with ashen faces, they hadn’t even comprehended a portion of one technique.

‘Each has their demerit. If I went to the offensive area, I might not be able to hold back my strength. For the movement area, it is abnormal for a cultivator to win one on one against a Vicious Beast, and as for suffering a strike from an Elder, that is just asking for me to be exposed. It really is a pick your poison situation.’

With a problem for each testing area, Lute finally decided to head towards the speed testing area, which had the fewest trial participants. Although he could go to the offensive area, even if he subdued his physical strength, it would still be out of bounds, the strength would be far above what he should be capable of.

Going to an elder to suffer one attack, while seemingly simple, would expose his physique and true capabilities, there was no way that he would be able to hide it against a disadvantage of more than three Great Realms.

This left the only option as the speed testing area, it was…hopefully…. The easiest to fake, Lute planned to evade at the very last second, intentionally putting false mistakes into his Qi flow and footwork, in order to hopefully deceive the eyes of the proctoring Elders.

Approaching the cage, Lute noticed the disparity in trial participants was easily discernable. Over two hundred had gone to the offensive and defensive technique areas. While a mere fifty were at the speed testing area. Apparently no one wanted to test themselves against a Vicious Beast, which was understandable as no one typically lived with them for a period of months such as Lute.

Their understanding of a Vicious Beasts behavior, strengths, weaknesses, and intelligence was paltry compared to Lute.

Waiting for his turn to take the trial, Lute noticed someone staring at him, clearly with a hint of disdain and mockery. The emblem he was wearing, Lute didn’t recognize the dragons head engraved upon it. But that was all he could see, and with his limited knowledge of politics, that observation was useless.

‘Seeing as how I’ve never met this person before, he probably has a grudge against the Windcross House.’

The brash youth then began to walk over towards Lute. Clearly with something to spout off about how Lute didn’t belong in this place.

“Time for the shit show to begin, I expected something like this eventually, but who would’ve thought it would occur so soon.” Lute muttered under his breath, cursing the fact that he had bad luck when it came to situations such as these. Why did he have to attract trouble?

“Who do you think you are, thinking that you belonged in the area of nobles? Do you have any idea how disrespectful it is to not prostrate yourself before your betters?” The unidentified youth said snobbishly.

Lute turned towards him, one of his eyebrows rising by the second. This person had a problem with him because he was in the same area? How narcissistic could you get, how much did you have to love yourself and look at yourself in a mirror to think that no one could even be within a hundred feet of you?

But what disgusted Lute the most, this noble seemed similar to Glen, he was flaunting his cultivation, trying to suppress Lute with his aura of a cultivator at the fifth level of the Nascent Qi Realm.

Now that he was a half-step into the Nascent Qi Realm, almost through the bottleneck, and now that he learned three techniques, Lute was confident he could fight blow for blow with this person, even if he couldn’t win, he could at least force a draw.

Despite feeling that this person didn’t know how utterly stupid his actions were, Lute attempted to give respect for the fact this he was meeting a noble and it would be better to not make an enemy out of his family, even with Seren’s protection.

But he did have bottom line, he wasn’t going to submit, at the most he would apologize and walk away, which was what he intended to do.

“My apologies sir, I will quickly leave this vicinity then.” Lute said, forcing himself to sound as respectful as possible, attempting not to think of breaking these egotistical idiots’ arms.

With that said, Lute bowed, this was the closest he would come to prostrating to this youth. Turning around he began to walk away, towards the opposite side of the cage, putting well over one hundred feet between him and the youth.

However, this person clearly couldn’t see two feet in front of him, reaching out to take a mile after being given an inch.

He was annoyed that Lute hadn’t trembled at all under his aura, and the fact that he didn’t have a submissive look at all. He didn’t even prostrate himself on the ground as he instructed. He dared to defy someone of his stature?! To think this person was so conceited just because he was sponsored by the detestable Windcross House, he was still a commoner, and had to act as such before someone like him.

Imbuing his hand with Qi he reached out, grabbing Lute’s right shoulder with all of his strength, attempting to stop Lute and force him to submit. If it was the last thing he did, he was going to make sure this tramp knew his place.

“Know your place commoner filth, kneel!”

The moment he grabbed Lute’s shoulder, the atmosphere seemed to change, so much so that everyone in the speed area, Elders and trial participants included, began looked in Lutes’ direction. Even the caged Vicious Beast began to grow aggravated, striking at its chains.

What they saw was a Nascent Qi Cultivator with his hand reaching out, imbued with Qi, about to strike what the Elders could see –as disciples were too weak to see through Lute’s concealed cultivation- was a Peak Foundational Qi Cultivator, but Lute suddenly grabbed his wrist, and no matter how much the Nascent Qi cultivator struggled, he couldn’t escape the iron clad grip.

The youth began trembled slightly, now that he touched Lute, he felt like he just touched ice, his hand lost feeling and went numb. Lute stopped mid step, with his left hand he reached out and wrapped it around the wrist of the noble, squeezing so hard the wrist began to turn purple from blood constriction.

Turning his head around, Lute could no longer contain his anger and contempt for this person, he had given enough respect, and yet with that hand, this person seriously thought he could brazenly grab him and force him to kneel?

That was an action that surpassed Lutes bottom line, to try and physically make him submit after he gave in and forcefully acted with formalities of respect. That was the equivalent of asking for a death match.

Lute freely let his Slaughter Aura out, his face contorting slightly in rage and disdain, an evil grimace upon his face. His eyes had gone from tranquil and quiet to becoming an ice cold gaze that was so sharp it seemed to pierce into the depths of anyone’s soul. He looked as if he was ready to kill.

But Lute remained logical, he knew the rules for the trials, “Do we need to resolve this outside of the property that the Fallen Tide Hall rules? If you think that you can casually touch me without suffering the consequences, then you are a blithering idiot.” Lute said harshly, at this point he didn’t care if he exposed his true realm jumping abilities; there were some things you couldn’t let go because it was your bottom line, your ultimatum, and for Lute it was his morals.

He wouldn’t let someone push him around, nor would he let them think that he was weak and could be manipulated or abused. If this person thought that Lute would let him have his way, then he was about to suffer under Lute’s wrath.

Lute was simple, if someone gave respect, even if he didn’t like them, he’d reciprocate it, but if someone acted rudely, he would throw all formalities out the window and make sure that person knew not to mess with him.

This was one such situation. Lute already tried doing things with formalities, attempting to avoid conflict, but since it failed, he would gladly assert his position as someone not to be trifled with.

From the points of view of everyone present, they were confused. Despite the astonishing aura Lute was emitting that made some of the Elder’s question if they should forcefully intervene. It seemed more like Lute was a cat puffing out his fur to look bigger. He was at the peak of the Foundational Qi Realm whereas as the noble, while acting as an idiot and embarrassing himself was an intermediate stage Nascent Qi Cultivator at the fifth level, he should easily be able to annihilate Lute.

That was the thoughts of the trial participants, but a small faction, a very small number of the Elders were intrigued, because they noticed that Lute had his opponent in an ironclad grip, so much so the wrist was turning purple and blue from constriction, and no matter how much they struggled despite being a higher cultivation, they couldn’t escape it. And he should’ve easily been able to escape because not only was it a difference of a Great Realm, it was even a difference of five levels.

So maybe what Lute said was backed by the ability to really fight at half a Great Realm higher than his cultivation, which although wasn’t unheard of, it was extremely rare, typically rare talents that joined the Primordial Sects were capable of this feat of strength.

With his threat finished, Lute let go of the wrist, causing the struggling noble to fly backwards, and landing on the ground. Lute didn’t even bother to look at him as he continued walking, going to start his trial of speed. But in the distance he heard one final threat.

“You will pay for this shame; I am Elias Kaydriff, the inheritor of the head position within my family. Watch your back peasant, or you might find yourself in a predicament.” Elias said as his voice cracked and became high pitched, he didn’t seem imposing at all, and was just another idiot thinking that they had power but in reality it didn’t belong to them.

Lute smirked as he walked away, not caring to answer.

‘Walk into the dragons’ lair, then you better prepare to die, but for someone who was terrified by Slaughter Aura and has no backbone, you are just a coward.’

Lute smiled, once again returning to the subdued, gentle and tranquil atmosphere he had from before. No longer showing a hint of the malice and intent to kill, this change didn’t go unnoticed by other trial participants, as long as they held a shred of rationality, the danger they felt from Lute rose by multiple levels and he was not to be taken lightly.

All he was thinking about now was how to hide his true fighting abilities even more. After what he said, naturally some of the Elder’s would be suspicious of his strength because you don’t casually threaten to thrash a cultivator who was five levels above you, especially with a Great Realm included in a disparity.

‘Hopefully, hopefully I didn’t dig a grave for myself, and I can go unnoticed, clearly some of those Elders are interested in my true fighting abilities, but so far the only one who should know is Alda, as for anyone else, it should only be their intuition.’