Michael did not get the highest score in the combat assessment, he was not even in the top 10. But he was not disappointed by the fact, he was thrilled! Yes, thrilled at the prospect of battling divine children. The test of combat was a good way to estimate the combat strength of the candidates but it was only an estimate. Fighting life and death battles required experience. While Michael had not scored as high as the divine children, if it came to a one-on-one battle, he was still pretty confident in his chances to drag them down with him. Now that he had found so many competitors, he was naturally excited for the future. His ambition seemed to burn as he wanted to surpass these divine children.
Michael: These divine children indeed have incredible blessings. That little kid is only 13 years old but her divine blessing controls luck and fate making her incredibly lucky. She managed to win countless rounds with seemingly random events. The other divine children also have broken abilities, even though they are not as much of a cheat. These are all pretty interesting opponents. I will have to make some preparations if I want to beat them.
Michael then looked over at the jade that showed the current scores of the different participants. Michael's name was still on the top with 181 points. The points were distributed on a normalized basis. That meant that the best candidate would receive full points and the others would receive relative grading. Michael had won the first test by an extremely large margin. Due to this, even the second place person only obtained 65 points. The points were given based on automated spell circuits and did not represent true proportions. But it was still a solid lead that allowed Michael to be in the first place even after the combat test ended. But this made things tricky. The third test, which was the test of ability was going to be held in a secluded secondary plane. It would involve the passed candidates using their armies and winning territory. The armies could be loaned from the Divine Sea Sect or could be one's resources but only powerhouses at or below rank-2 ascendants were allowed to participate.
Michael: This final test is quite comprehensive. It needs me to gather an army and compete with others in conquering this plane. This is an actual real plane like Aterna with native ascendants. And we all have to conquer territories there. And this is a problem. Currently, I have the most points which will make me a public target. People will try to make sure that I am not able to do much. I need to form a solid plan of action.
It had been a few days since the day of combat assessment. After the test, the 150 candidates who had passed were all briefed about the test of ability. This test was set to start in three months during which people would be allowed to make plans and form their forces. All the resources and help from the sect were chargeable after a certain baseline, making it a bit unfair to independent cultivators like Michael. But, the charges increased exponentially the more one used the sect's resources and the pricing was set in such a way that even divine children could not completely suppress others with their wealth. The system was set in a way to give privilege to nobles but in a certain range. But the privileges were not too much so that commoners would not have any chance. The rule forbidding ascendants above rank-2 from participating made it even harder for nobles to gain benefits of their background. After all, this was a test for candidates' ability to lead a planar conquest. But a tertiary plane would end up being too easy for the candidates' calibre given that most of them could contend with ascendants. Thus, the Sect decided to send them to a secondary plane. Though there was some danger in this, the divinities had decided to give proper protection to the candidates.
The first thing that Michael did was to find Ambrose. After all, management was the guy's main forte. Ambrose soon found many reliable and trustworthy people to join in Michael's conquest. They were his oldest followers who had withstood the test of time. This gave Michael around 20 condensation realm experts for free. Following that, Michael went back to the Liberty Federation to get a few of his old acquaintances to join him. The trip had not been easy at all. Michael a few years back had signed a contract with the Federation college to serve for a hundred years with Denise Ramgrid. Michael had not thought about it before signing. He had planned to default on the contract. And with the background of a supreme genius, the black lotus sect would not have enforced the contract on him anyway. But now that Michael needed to form a team and he lacked capable people, his only option was to go back.
His arrival caused quite a buzz in the Federation collage. He was received very respectfully and the Federation College Headmaster himself went through his contract. The earlier contract was voided and a new contract was crafted in its place. This was nothing new in the cultivation world and happened all the time. The rules of the system had to be enforced with strength and so, the rules always favoured the strong. Earlier, Michael was only a conception realm warrior and Denise was a rank-2 ascendant, there was no comparison between them. Thus, the contract was heavily tilted in Denise's favour. But now, Michael was a celestial demi-ascendant who could go toe to toe with the Headmaster himself. He was the stronger one and had significant backing. As a result, the new contract favoured Michael. But it was not like Denise did not get anything out of it. Michael had used lots of resources over his years of stay which had come from Denise's pockets. Thus, in the new contract, Denise managed to get a significant chunk of all the earnings from the project. The new contract stipulated that Denise would help Michael in his conquest game but would get 30 per cent of the total earnings. For a secondary plane, the conquest generally represented millions of lower-ascendant gold every year, even by a conservative estimate. This was a huge amount of money but the money that needed to be invested was also huge. Conquering planes was almost like running a company where, in the initial phases, most of the earnings went into expansion.
After signing the contract and agreeing to the outrageous fees, Michael managed to employ Denise. Along with her, he also got all her retainers and people who were contracted to her. As a whole, received a whole lot condensation realm experts as well as a few rank-1 ascendants. This gave Michael a good enough team to start. The next thing he did was purchase all the information that was available about the plane. This cost him almost half of the total quota that had been allocated to him by the sect, but he went along with it anyway. Information was the key. After completing these tasks, he put together his team and started going through the information on the plane in thorough detail.
Hundreds of millions of miles away from Jupyter, a ball of light floated in the Law Ocean amidst a storm. This was the secondary plane - the lands of Kanjur. This plane had been hidden from the view of the law ocean for a long time because of the constant deadly vortices that surrounded it. The vortices were filled with incredible power, enough to shred any lower ascendant that was foolish enough to get close. Even upper-ascendants had a fairly good chance of dying. Generally, such vortices formed in dangerous areas of the law-ocean due to disturbances - natural or artificial. These vortices didn't usually have such power and were forbidden zones only for rank-3 ascendants or lower. Generally, rank-4 ascendants were able to scatter the entire vortex. But these vortices never had anything deeper to them. Thus, even when cultivators discovered this vortex, they simply ignored it. It was many eras ago that two peak ascendants made a bet - to explore this vortex and retreat successfully. It was only a bet made to gain some excitement before their life came to an end. But they ended up finding something incredible. The entire storm surrounded a calm region of the law ocean which had a plane situated there! This was an unprecedented discovery.
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These two ascendants made their way and explored the plane only to be disappointed as the plane was only a secondary plane. But this got the word out and many divinities had already probed the storms and the plane situated in between them. But none of them had managed to find the key to this situation. Seemingly, there was nothing special about this region. The divinities tried destroying the storm for good but surprisingly, the storm rebounded and it injured the divinities! This made the situation even more confusing. Many divinities speculated that this was an inheritance set up by some powerful expert untold years ago. To create such a construct and to maintain it for countless years meant that the expert who created this inheritance was definitely a divinity and possibly an extremely strong one. While there were many speculations, there was no concrete result. The divinities had explored the plane multiple times and caused great destruction in the process. But none of them managed to find anything. It was pretty clear from the arrangement that the plane named Kanjur which stood at the centre of the storm was the key to this inheritance. Thus, the divinities only probed the plane and did not destroy it.
Afterwards, many experts went around trying their luck, but no one managed to find anything substantial. As a result, this was taken in as a testing and training ground by the powerful Sects. This was all in hopes that someday, someone would manage to reveal the inheritance. And this was the background of this special place. While the divinities sent disciples to explore this place, they did not inform them of their speculations. It was pretty clear from history that only the fated one could reveal the secrets of this place and so, divinities did not see any point in telling their disciples about the strangeness of this plane. If one was fated, one would find it anyway. And if not, there was no point in trying to find it. Keep in mind that this as not only a philosophical belief but there were many magical techniques which were related to the mysteries and arcane paths of fate.
The plane, which was miraculous in its origin and experiences was surviving to this day. This plane had a few races that were in prominence. First was the human race. Keep in mind that the human race of this plane was only similar to the human race in Aterna and Jupyter and it was not the same. There were minute differences in the same race in different planes. For example, humans in Jupyter could reach peak emperor realm strength without cultivating and some could even fight the saints of Aterna. While this was partly due to the abundant natural energy, it was also related to the genetic makeup of these humans. Even if a human baby from Jupyter was taken to Aterna, he would still be able to reach the emperor realm on reaching adulthood. This was because, genetically, the humans in Jupyter were superior to the ones in Aterna. This was necessary because the plane overall was stronger. As a result, the bodies and souls of the life-forms that originated there were stronger.
Another race which was in prominence here was the Gremlins. They were humanoid creatures but had a few special racial abilities. The gremlins generally stayed in vegetation-rich environments, similar to the elves but they were much different in appearance and biological makeup. While the elves were extremely long-lived and had problems in reproduction, the gremlins lived a life even shorter than the humans. The average life of a gremlin was only around 40 years and without cultivation, they hardly lived for more than 50 years. The humans here, on the other hand, lived well up to 150 years. But, the gremlins had an advantage that they laid eggs. So, after a single pregnancy, it was not surprising for a mother to lay 4 to 6 eggs. The newborn gremlins were extremely weak and needed great care. But they matured extremely fast and at around six years of age, they were considered an adult. This was much different from humans, but not all that hard to come by. Many races lived in myriad planes and gremlins were not particularly outstanding or unique.
The political makeup of both races was different from what was seen in Jupyter or Aterna. Aterna preferred a monarchy, where capable people with the support of other capable people, formed kingdoms and empires. Jupyter, on the other hand, had a sect based system where Sects took most of the decisions. There was a major difference in these systems. And that was the point of admission. Anyone could get into sects and based on their talent, gain resources for cultivation. Then, if one reached a level of strength, they could gain power in the sect as well and could even become an ancestor and leader of the entire sect. But the same was not true in case of a monarchy. Non-royals, as long as they were not supremely powerful, were not allowed to sit on the throne. And one had to use family background and politics to gain cultivation resources. One's talent was not as valuable as one's family. This was why there were hardly any independent perfect realm warriors in Aterna. After one reached the level of martial saints, the families in power would keep a tight lid on cultivation resources and commoners would find no hope to cultivate further. In case someone was extremely talented and could keep on cultivating, they would generally be assassinated by the powerful families. This sort of thing did not commonly happen in the Sect based system.
But Kanjur had a completely different system and it was a theocratic system. All races in Kanjur worshipped their God, though he had never been seen. The Kanjurians believed that their plane and all life was created by their supreme master and God, who created the plane. According to history, this caused the other gods a lot of anger and they ravaged the lands of Kanjur. But their mighty god managed to win and convince the other gods to let Kanjur into existence. This was a widely popular story and almost everyone believed it, or some version of it. Though there was a lot of debate around the purpose of their existence, the existence of other races and the form of their God, it was widely accepted by all Kanjurians that their god had existed. Cultivation was quite common in Kanjur but the cultivation resources were managed tightly by the churches making it extremely hard for commoners to cultivate without having a solid faith. The hold of religion on the entire plane was iron-clad.
In Aterna, there had historically been no religion. But the advent of devils and legends of divinities had caused many cults to pop up before Michael had even left the plane. Jupyter had many divinities and many stories of cultivators reaching the divine realm. Thus, there was no religion. But Kanjur was different. First of all, even though their god had not been visible to anyone, they might not be imaginary. It was clear from other divinities' perspective that the plane had been artificially created. Thus, Kanjurian's religion was onto something. Another reason why it was so was that all Kanjurians had an intrinsic belief in their God, something that came from the core of their existence. It was not completely brainwashing or tricking people. But the greatest evidence to their existence would be the seal that was present in the souls of all natives of Kanjur. Any soul cultivator could perceive the seal - the mark of their god. All in all, Kanjur was quite a unique and special plane and it was also Michael's and other candidates' destination for the test. The test was going to have a timeline of 5 years wherein the candidates had to make a foothold in this secondary plane.
5 years was not enough for a planar expedition but the goal of the test was not to conquer the entire plane but to set up a foothold. If one worked efficiently, it was possible to do so in 5 years. And this was why this had been chosen as the test to measure the ability of different candidates.
Far away from Jupyter, in a different plane, in a mortal city, two beings met secretly.
> Person1 : My Lord, I have already planted my servants in the test of Divine Sea Sect. These servants carry my psychic seed. As I targeted mortals, the divinities did not take any interest in it. Therefore, none were caught and we are good to go. I currently have the required number of servants to channel my psychic energy and activate the formation. This will give me the ability to carry forward my plan. But opening the passageway and keeping the Divine Sea Sect engaged would be upto you.
>
> Person2 : Don't worry about it. I will attack at the right moment and keep the ones at the top busy. I will also arrange for you to enter Kanjur. But you already know the price. You are to help me with my expedition. Anyway, keep this stone. It is a high quality space stone. It will be useful when you put your plan into motion.
>
> Person1 : Thank you, Lord. I will make sure to repay this favour when I succeed.
As the conversation finished, the second being walked away. As he took a step, seven dots of light emerged around his head and he vanished instantly, leaving no traces. The other person seemed to stare in space for a while before he grinned. Formation lights lit up around him and he too vanished.