Lute entered the trial of speed. Clearing all thoughts except passing the trial from his mind, there was no use worrying about problems and events he had no control over. If Elias still wanted to confront him in the future then he would deal with it, but not before. What mattered now was facing what was in front of him, and that was a Vicious Beast.

The elder presiding over this trial blandly repeated the same lines that he had said nearly fifty times now, a mandated sentence for each trial participant.

“You are to use the evasive technique you managed to comprehend. The time limit is five minutes. Failure is unsuccessfully dodging an attack of the Twin Tailed Thunder Leopard.”

Upon speaking the mandated sentence, the elder locked Lute in the cage. Flipping an hourglass, sand started to fall. The Twin Tailed Thunder Leopard was released from its chains.

With hiss that made any of the trial participants…. Any except Lute, feel a chill move down their spines. Its two tails were moving about violently, clearly angry at being subdued and forced to fight. It was going to kill at least one person if it was the last thing it did.

Unfortunately the last trial participant for the speed trial was Lute, who had a plethora of experience versus Vicious Beasts, as well as the feline types. If it came to predicting the Leopards behavior, thought processes, their strengths, and weaknesses, out of all the participants, Lute had the greatest advantage.

This was the results of living alone surrounded by Vicious Beasts; they couldn’t take any action that he wouldn’t be able to predict. Lute stood there, waiting for the Twin Tail Thunder Leopard to pounce.

It was at the first level of the Nascent Qi Realm, or known as a rank two, and its eyes were filled with only hate for Lute. But he paid no mind to it; there wasn’t any reason to fear this beast.

As the hourglass clock slowly ticked down, the Twin Tail Thunder Leopard finally made its move. Flexing its leg muscles, it lowered itself down to the ground before exploding outward, with a sweeping circular motion, running not in straight lines, but snake-like motions. Trying to disorient Lute, it constantly moved in and out of his blind spot.

‘It’ll take more than shifting in and out of my vision to win against me.’

Lute stood there, waiting, and waiting. Under the Elder’s scrutinizing gaze, he slowly and methodically revolved Qi through his body in the method that the Qi Burst Steps indicated.

This was the first purposeful mistake Lute made; revolving his Qi at an alarmingly slow rate was expected when you had barely five hours to learn a technique, it would all be for naught to hide his comprehensive strength if he was able to instantly use the technique without a time buffer.

As the Twin Tail Thunder Leopard rapidly approached Lute, he still didn’t move. Waiting for the opportunity to arise, which finally presented itself right before the Elder was about to intervene if Lute didn’t attempt to dodge.

As fangs and claws approached his neck, Lute finally used the Qi Burst Steps. But this time, he didn’t use them to their full capabilities although he was able to. With straight line movement, the Qi Burst Steps moved in sets of five steps. If you could successfully explode the Qi from your legs, the five steps would allow for instantaneous straight line movement that was hard to keep up with.

This was Lute’s second intentional mistake, narrowly avoiding the claws and fangs of the Twin Tail Thunder Leopard; Lute was now standing two steps from where he was previously. He had only used two of the five steps, refusing to use any more.

Enraged, the Twin Tail Thunder Leopard continually assaulted Lute without rest, stirring up sand and dust within the iron cage. A flurry of motion ensued, each time, Lute narrowly avoiding a claw slash of fangs to his throat. Sometimes he would purposely make mistakes in the footsteps, or fail at revolving Qi through his body.

However, since these mistakes were intentional, it didn’t lead to Lute getting injured. But, even if he was bitten, it wouldn’t lead to such a severe injury; his physique was too tough for a rank two, early stage Vicious Beast.

The hourglass clock ticked down, more than two minutes had already passed, and there was only half of the time remaining. Lute cautiously moved, making sure to keep himself suppressed, subdued and seemingly struggling.

As he was flitting about the cage, only using the Qi Burst Steps when he absolutely had to, Lute didn’t notice he was being watched. Toros and Alda were hidden at the side of the cage, not a single person noticing them.

“This is impressive; he has lasted so long against a rank two beast while only in the Foundational Qi Realm.” “Toros said in surprise. It was already impressive that this kid had a Martial Heart that was so strong, but apparently he wasn’t lacking in comprehension either. While he was making mistakes, they were extremely minute and could easily be rectified.

Alda was looking at Lute with a slightly confused expression. Unlike Toros, she had directly clashed with Lute, and he should be able to fight up to the Nascent Qi Realm fourth level. To seemingly struggle versus an opponent below that, she couldn’t understand why.

“This shouldn’t be his limit. I have seen him release strength at a much higher level than this; there is no way that he should be struggling so much.” Alda said, while watching Lute’s every movement.

Even without a movement technique she was confident that Lute should easily be able to evade instead of narrowly avoiding the claws of the Twin Tail Thunder Leopard.

“Oh, interesting, then shall I weaken the suppressive formation on the Twin Tail Thunder Leopard? It’s renowned for being able to wield lightning before becoming rank three, shall we make this interesting?” Toros replied with a playful expression. Even if Lute failed, he would pass him since he was directly interfering with the trial.

“No one can stop you except the Sect Master, so by all means do what you want.” Alda replied blandly.

Removing a banner from his spatial ring; Toros imbued it with Qi, sending it directly to the control matrix of the suppression formation surrounding the iron cage. When the banner inserted itself, the atmosphere in the cage changed.

Lute instantly realized that something was wrong, the Twin Tail Thunder Leopard stopped assaulting him, with nearly a minute left on the hourglass. It began to look at its paws, and to the shock of Lute, he witnessed it make consecutive breakthroughs to the fifth level of the Nascent Qi Realm.

‘This, this might be a problem, if it’s at the fifth level, then its equivalent to a human sixth level.’

Lute instantly took a stance, with techniques, he was confident in going up against a fifth level Nascent Qi Cultivator, fighting them to a draw at the least. But this was different; it was a Nascent Beast at the fifth level, which was outside the range where he felt comfortable.

The Twin Tail Thunder Leopard eyed Lute viciously, now that it felt its true strength levels returning, it was confident that killing Lute wouldn’t be too far out of reach.

With renewed vigor, it charged once again, its speed had increased by nearly ten times because at the fifth level of the Nascent Qi realm, it was in the intermediate stage, the difference in strength between a cultivator at the third level and the fourth level was a difference of three to five times depending on talent, foundation, and luck.

But the Twin Tail Thunder Leopard had jumped in cultivation an entire four levels, and it was a Vicious Beast exhibiting strength of a sixth level Nascent Qi cultivator, Lute couldn’t hold back much anymore.

When the Twin Tail Thunder Leopard once again sprinted at full strength towards Lute, he felt a sense of foreboding even though his mind was calm, and crystal clear. It was moving quickly, but just barely at the level where he could still evade in time.

Unable to suppress himself anymore, Lute used the Qi Burst Steps, instantaneously moving in a straight line. With each evasion, he was now truly evading by a hairs width. Every strike of the Twin Tail Thunder Leopard was far stronger than previously, every strike with the clear intent to kill.

Toros was delighted; he hadn’t had so much fun for a long time. This child was giving him more surprises by the second. He went from being unable to use his movement technique proficiently to almost the level of mastery in a mere second.

“You truly did bring an interesting person, never have I seen someone try to hide their strength during the admittance trials of the Fallen Tide Hall. It really was right to agree to “Their” request to interfere and make his trials more difficult.”

“Who do you mean, when you say “Their Request”, it’s not like you to listen to anyone except for the Sect Master but he’s been missing for years?” Alda asked her tone slightly pensive.

“Heh, if you need to know that answer, then you will know, but right now you don’t need to know, so you won’t get an answer. But let us watch the show, the little beasty will soon begin to use its famed lightning.” Toros said while seemingly in a dazed state, he was almost ignoring Alda all together and was absorbed into watching Lute’s every movement.

Lute had showed him what true talent was, he had the same level of talent as someone who could join a Primordial Sect, and yet, here he was, attending their sect. He was a diamond that had to be polished, then maybe in a couple decades, the New Dawn Kingdom would have its first ever Overlord.

Just as Toros predicted, the atmosphere changed in the caged area once again. There was thirty seconds left, and the Twin Tail Thunder Leopard was thoroughly enraged.

Purple lights gathered around its body, congregating upon the paws. With a thunderous roar, purple lightning then erupted from the Twin Tail Thunder Leopards body.

Burning smells and cackling sensations overrode Lute’s senses. The sense of danger he felt rose to an enormous degree. This was probably the next most life threatening circumstance he was in since having to open the First Path of New Beginnings.

The Twin Tail Thunder Leopard instantaneously moved; Lute couldn’t even see its movements anymore because of the speed.

‘Its speed rose beyond the sixth level! Is this the power of lightning from the third rank?’

Only when the Spirit Opening Realm was reached could someone start sensing the world around them from a spiritual view. At this time, light, darkness, the elements, even time and space; any attribute that could be sensed, could be manipulated. Among them was lightning. This element was the fastest moving and although there was a misconceived notion that fire held the most destructive capabilities, which was only true if it was an area of affect attack; Lightning actually held the most destructive power.

Lightning, the element that was known as Heaven’s Wrath because it was tribulation lightning that struck cultivators if they broke a vow sworn upon the Heavens. It was the strongest single target attack element, most suitable for a one versus one scenario. The power of lightning lied in its extremely destructive and unstable strength as well as its ability to pierce through defenses because of this unstableness.

Lightning was the hardest element to control of all, it was extremely unpredictable and the slightest mistake would cause a cultivator to become severely injured, or in the worst case scenario, crippled.

It was precisely this reason that Lute was now at an extreme disadvantage. Not only was he lower in cultivation, but he couldn’t use any attributes as he hadn’t achieved the Spirit Opening Realm. Even more so, he was against a lightning user, which excelled in one versus one, or in some cases, small group battles of at the most.

There were three disadvantages of a Lightning manipulator; first it was extremely difficult to control and more often than not, led to severe injuries due to a backlash of power, because of this, the number of people that used lightning on the Crimson Tide Continent was by far the fewest at a ratio of one for every ten thousand.

They also had weaker defenses as they were typically all-in offensive fighters, aggressive and disregarding anything except raw attack power and speed.

The other disadvantage was they didn’t excel in group combat. In any situation where they were fighting more than three people at once, they would struggle as lightning didn’t excel in area of effect attacks like fire. Often times, this was how a lightning user died, they would find themselves in a one versus five scenarios and die because of this weakness.

From another point of view, it could be seen as them being overly powerful because more than three people would be needed to assuredly kill a lightning user, preventing them from escaping, as even in a one versus three, they could usually fight to a draw or escape if the cultivation levels were the same.

'What Lute was dealing with now, a lightning beast, who was not only above him in cultivation, but it was also a one on one fight, and he couldn’t use attributes yet.

However, Lute continuously dodged, expending all of his Qi and focusing completely upon dodging. Each time he did so, it was because he began moving before the Twin Tail Thunder Leopard actually attacked, from living in the mountains for so long, and slaughtering so many Vicious Beasts, he could accurately predict where it would attack, and move beforehand.

Only in this way did Lute survive. If even one attack hit him, even with the Primordial First Physique, he would suffer serious injuries. This was the limit of his abilities at the moment, he couldn’t even put up a fight, the moment he had any other thought than trying to predict the attacks of the Twin Tail Thunder Leopard, he could be considered dead unless an Elder intervened.

The time slowly ticked down, only ten seconds left, and Lute was running off of fumes. His Qi was practically dried up, with but a few drops of Qi left. In order to survive, he hadn’t stopped using the Qi Burst Steps even once; he was in a deadly dance where one misstep would be his death.

The Twin Tail Thunder Leopard hadn’t grown weaker in its attacks, but at the least it didn’t grow any stronger, or it would’ve seriously been able to kill Lute with only one attack.

Over the course of the combat that ensued, its entire body instead of just its paws had become covered in lightning. The purple flashing color was extremely dangerous, yet eye catching. As time finally hit zero, Lute used up the last of his Qi and dodged once again, but this time, a strand of lightning barely touched the skin of his right cheek.

An immediate burning sensation came from that spot, and then numbness struck. This tiny amount of lightning made Lute lose all the feeling from the right side of his face down to the right shoulder. Truly a terrifying concept, as the lighting only flickered past his right cheek.

It was truly an eye opening experience, an enlightenment that would aid for the future. The power of lightning, Lute was entranced by it; the destructive beauty of it was mesmerizing. Perhaps this was the first Negative Origin Body he would try to create. With it, he wouldn’t need to fear the backlash of lightning running rampant through his body unstably.

This wild and unrestrained power, Lute wanted it. If there was any choice, lighting would be the first thing he was going to comprehend once he entered the Spirit Opening Realm.