Time passed and soon, the date for final tests was released. The candidates that would be participating were all gathered and transferred over to the main sect - the Divine Sea Sect. This was the final test, and it was kept quite private in the sect and no one from the outside was invited. This was not to say that there was any lesser crowd as the Divine Sea Sect and its seven subsidiaries and countless allied sects were a huge population in themselves. Most of the retainers and family members of the selected candidates were only allowed to watch from the transmission done over to different subsidiary sects. Besides, not all of the exams would be broadcasted. This was because a large number of divine children were participating in these tests and their information was kept private. The more information about them was out, the higher the risk they faced of being targeted.

Ambrose very much wanted to go over to the Divine Sea Sect to cheer for Michael but not everyone could go. He had to ultimately relent and be satisfied with watching the battle video transmission in his sect. He returned to the Endless Sea Sect after Michael's departure but this time no one dared to make things difficult for him anymore. In fact, several ascendant cultivators came up to him to deepen their ties with a supreme genius. There were many cultivators in the Sea Sect Alliance who were stuck at a bottleneck. This was related to everyone's potential and path. As one cultivated to higher realms, one would face harder obstacles and at one point one would not have enough potential or momentum to make a breakthrough. Generally, cultivators chose to accumulate their experience and it gradually built up pressure that helped them in breaking into higher realms. But not every bottleneck could be passed in the same way. Every cultivator reached a stage when even their lifetime of accumulation would fall short. Such cultivators were said to have completely burned their potential and could not advance unless they managed to obtain some heaven-defying fortune. But finding such fortune was easier said than done and the number of people who could go beyond their limits was extremely low.

Thus, most of the cultivators, once they burned up their potential, lost their drive to improve. This was very commonly seen among all cultivators. There were very few who actually dared to go to dangerous areas searching for fortune. They were mockingly called by the rest as the death-courting type. The rest went back to living their lives. They married and had descendants, set up sects or clans and left behind their legacies. They would also form social contacts and scheme and plan. These cultivators hardly went into battle as everyone knew of the other's capabilities and power level. As their strength stagnated, people became careful and would start using schemes and ploys rather than courage and power. And such cultivators carved social contacts much more than anything else. After all, in a situation where one's personal power was capped, influence depended on social networks. So, someone like Michael who was a supreme genius and without any backing was the perfect hook for them. Ambrose knew all this pretty well but he handled these attempts at socializations incredibly well. After all, this was his role.

Michael left with the group of 60 candidates from the Dead Sea Sect through a teleportation formation. The Divine Sea Sect was located in another semi-plane and finding it was impossible with normal means. Even if one scored the entire Divine Sea, one would not find it. Of course, this was assuming that one had the capabilities to search the Divine Sea. The first thing that Michael noticed, was again, the stability of the world. He had a feeling of deja vu. While he had grown much stronger in his seclusion, he felt that the amount of power he could display had actually reduced! After arriving, Michael was given his quarters along with the other candidates. As he had been marked by the divinities, he was given pretty good treatment. He was given an extremely luxurious accommodation and was allowed to go around the sect, something that not everyone got access to. Michael immediately went over to the library, incredibly interested in this world and the sect. He wanted to broaden his understanding of the sect and what better place to start than the library? The first book he picked was a brief introduction to the Divine Sea Sect. But what he read in this book left him stunned for a long time.

The semi-plane that housed Divine Sea Sect was called the Divine Sea World. This semi-plane was incredibly huge! While it was not the size of Jupyter, it was still larger than the human territory in the super-plane, about a third of its size. The Divine Sea Sect was located at the central mountain in this world. While the sect area was huge, a sect could only be so large. The rest of the space actually housed a separate world! This was a world that had life, a naturally occurring law-system. It was no different from a naturally occurring plane, except that this plane was created by the Divine Sea Divinity. While divinities could open their own spaces, housing the entire planer system in a created space required a ridiculous amount of power. Most of the divinities could not do so and only the ones which were six stars or above had a chance. Even for them, such a feat required incredible luck. Apparently, Divine Sea Divinity had obtained an ancient plane fragment which she used as a core to open up this semi-plane. This is why it could support the planar system. This was also the reason why Divine Sea Divinity was seen as an influential leader among the different dominions while there were quite a lot of cultivators stronger than her. This world was fundamentally so powerful that even the naturally born mortals were as strong as condensation realm experts. This meant that any random person in this world was a venerable immortal in Aterna. And the population of the entire world was hundreds of thousands of times that of Aterna. Such power made Michael shiver despite his experiences. What did this world represent? It represented the true power of the Divine Sea Sect. There were billions of people and beasts living in this world, all of them subservient to Divine Sea divinity. This was equivalent to a billion immortals or higher realm cultivators! Such an army could flatten the entire devil army many times over!

Michael barely understood the extent of powers of the Divine Sea Sect. This was the power of an overlord of the dominion! While the devil army was a mighty force, the Divine Sea World alone was much stronger. And this information was widely accessible. This meant that Divine Sea Divinity definitely had trump cards that perhaps surpassed this Divine Sea World! The thought made Michael shudder, his dao heart became extremely chaotic and his willpower wavered for the first time in years! Michael finally understood why people equated such cultivators with gods. Michael's condition was actually very dangerous. For dao cultivators, if their dao heart and convictions were damaged, the backlash would injure them severely. Divine Sea Divinity's power had managed to shake Michael's dao heart without her doing anything. But Michael was not any normal dao cultivator. He had forged his dao with incredible experiences. He reacted quickly and while his mental state was unstable, he quickly brought out his sword. Holding it in his hands, he closed his eyes and stilled his mind. He remembered his sword and so his ambitions.

Yes, Divine Sea Divinity was unfathomably powerful and perhaps she could be called a god. But Michael would not be cowered by this. Divine Sea Divinity was also a nobody many eras ago. She had climbed the treacherous slope of cultivation step by step to reach the point where she could overlook the entire dominion. Who said that Michael could not do the same? Who said he could not surpass this?

You may have reached the heavens but I shall tear apart the heavens and go beyond!

Michael entered a strange state as his ambition started fuelling his willpower. His already vast willpower, which had encountered a bottleneck started growing rapidly which seemed to cause a fundamental change in him. At this moment, Michael made a breakthrough in his psychic energy attainment as he stepped into the great-master realm. But more than that, he established complete command over his conscient! What Michael had just experienced was a fundamental change in his conscient. His willpower had solidified and covered his entire conscient completely. As a result, his conscient elevated and he could now command his conscious as well as subconscious. He could directly bring out the power of his dao tree as well as his psychic energy making these abilities very stable and several times more powerful. This was a phenomenon that was rarely seen, even among the low-ranking divinities! Only high ranking divinities were commonly known to have mastered their conscients. As a result, Michael's power increased by a huge amount.

Michael left the library and began to meditate immediately figuring out the changes that he had undergone. Meanwhile, the other geniuses also began to prepare for the upcoming stages.

In a different chamber, the prince of the dead - Razor Mark was cultivating with his teacher guiding him constantly.

> Razor's techer : Keep on focussing, don't be distracted! You are very close to success. Revolve the death energy according to the pattern I devised. Push all of the death energy into your heart.

Razor was constantly guiding a massive amount of death energy according to the instructions given by his master. The death energy was so concentrated that it had liquified! The yellowish liquid was constantly flowing through his meridians and flowing into his heart from where it was being pumped into his blood. The blood carried it to all his cells where the death energy was seemingly being absorbed along with celestial energy. The process was incredibly complicated on a molecular level. Any living body would find it hard to hold onto death energy as it would have long term damages. Of course, with a stronger body, one could hold on for a longer time. There were many techniques that used death energy to tamper the body. Death energy would go through cells of the person slowly killing them while the body's natural recovery would be triggered to keep them alive. Under this tension, the cells in the body would be tempered and forged to become more and more sturdy and powerful. This was used as a basis for many body cultivation techniques. But what was happening here was not something as simple. The death energy that was constantly flowing through was not killing the cells in Razor's body but was actually merging with them mysteriously. This seemed impossible if one looked at it logically but that was not so. There were a few records of such techniques being used in the past and many cultivators had delved into them before. If one actually managed to train their body to absorb death energy, they would obtain a seemingly undying body. Any damage to such people would be converted into death energy that would then heal them. Thus, such techniques were incredibly tempting. But it was not all good. When one pushed death energy into their body, their brains and correspondingly their souls would come into contact with it as well. As a result, one's soul would face degradation with time. This would affect the cultivator's thinking and decision-making. And if overdone, there was a good chance of going crazy and becoming an undead. Many such instances had happened in the cultivation world where people lost control to turn into zombies. The problem with such zombies was that they were difficult to kill and the only way to kill them was to blast them into bits and completely disintegrate them. Thus, for killing a zombie, one needed a significantly higher cultivation level than it.

As such instances happened again and again due to people overestimating themselves, zombification became a common problem. Thus, to curb this problem, the divinities banned training such undead techniques unless under special exemptions. Razor was currently training a banned technique, undead body. Razor was given a huge blow in the martial competition before. He was not arrogant or careless but the constant cheers from people of his sect had indeed made him complacent. He had thought that only Ross and Charles were his opponent. His status as the prince of Dead Sea Sect, a disciple of a powerful upper-ascendant cultivator had made him underestimate the heroes of the world. But his view was completely shattered along with his bones in the competition. Even before the finals, he had been scared by Richard's incredible spellcasting. But the final was completely out of his expectations. He had never thought that Charles was actually hiding his power to such extent! His defeat even after teaming with Ross had shattered his pride and ignorance. And when he came to know that he had been manipulated by Michael who ultimately won the tournament, he was left stunned. In fact, had his teacher not supported him at the time, this would have affected his dao heart. Such big was the impact of his loss.

But with counselling of his elders, he came around. And, he came around stronger. The loss had been his greatest life-changing event. He completely accepted his defeat and so, he was even more eager to beat Michael and Charles. He began to feel excitement at the prospect of battling them again. And he was also looking forward to battle the divine children. His dao heart and willpower became stronger and his personality also became more stable and firm. This change pleased all the higher-ups of the Dead Sea Sect including his teacher. After getting healed, Razor went into regular use of time accelerated cultivation rooms. In just a few months, he trained for about 15 years. And the results had indeed shown themselves. His bloodline awaked a second time increasing his raw battle power even higher. He had also comprehended many martial arts reaching the cusp of great-master attainment. But he knew that his improvement was not enough. After all, even after gaining a significant boost from his primal warrior bloodline's second awakening, he would still not be Charles' match. Therefore, he decided to go into a dangerous route - training undead techniques. While there was danger in training such techniques, Mark had the support from his master - Raval, who was very adept in the death laws along with the resources of the Dead Sea Sect. Thus, his risk was not that high. And currently, he was forming his undead body.

> Razor : Success!!

>

> Raval : Good, good! You have managed to cultivate the first level of undead body. This is a great feat! Not only will you be extremely hard to injure but you will also be able to survive many more dangerous situations. Even in special pockets of the law ocean where the power of laws is weakened, this attribute of your body will not change. This is an incredible survival technique. Also, this will enhance your foundation. You will be able to get at least 2 more law marks because of this breakthrough.

>

> Razor : Thank you, teacher. Without your help, it would not have been possible. You went into the foreign battlefields to collect death energy for my sake. You also helped me form the undead body. These favours, I shall never forget.

>

> If you find this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the infringement.

>

> Raval : Silly boy. I am already old and my powers are declining. I had been looking for a suitable successor and you caught my eye. It was not your innate talent or lineage that stood out but your hard work and your convictions. You were the most hard-working disciple in the entire sect, even when you were a mere child. While your halo of genius hides it from the eyes of others, how could I not see the amount of work that you put in. You remind me of my younger years. I was not blessed like others and so I could only work hard. Even after burning up my potential, I kept on trying. And eventually I reached where I am today. But my future path is extremely hard. Breaking through to the divine realm is not something that has ever been easy. After the upcoming selection battles, I will leave the Sect to find my own fortune. Either I will reach the divine realm or die trying. But I did not want to die without leaving my legacy. And with your character, which is so similar to myself, you are the most ideal candidate to accept it. I will teach you all that I know before the selection battles. I hope that you will not let me down.

>

> Razor : Don't worry teacher. I will work harder than anyone else and go farther than anyone else. This world shall see that our lineage doesn't have cowards or sloths but brave cultivators who will live and die on their path.

Razor's undead body was indeed his first step to accepting Raval's legacy. Raval was a rank-8 ascendant who had followed the path of the undead. He had cultivated his undead body to the fourth level. As a result, he was known to be unkillable below the divine realm. He had roamed across many battlefields and even been surrounded by multiple upper-ascendants many times. But every time, he had fought his way through hordes and armies of cultivators after his life. He had even exchanged a few moves with an enemy divinity and lived to tell the tale. As a result, he was quite famous in the Divine Sea Sect with even Divine Sea Divinity knowing him personally. He was a cultivator who was a true legend. And he had chosen his successor.

The undead body did not increase one's combat power by a large amount but in a battle, it was not only the raw power that mattered. For example, while Charles from before would still be stronger than Razor, in a battle to the death, it would be him who would be the first to die. That was because the undead body gave an unbelievable boost to endurance and recovery. As a result, Razor would easily tire Charles to death. Also, this was a passive ability, different from Michael who had to actively use laws of life to heal himself. This along with his battle armour would allow Razor to completely ignore defence and focus completely on offence in his fights. As a result, he would be able to put forth even more power. But while Razor was preparing, it was not like others were standing still.

In another room, Charles Rutherford was sitting leisurely with a wine cup in his hands. He was topless with his well-built body completely on display. Two beautiful ladies were currently applying oil on his body and massaging him. Charles held the hands of one of these ladies and pulled her towards him. The lady was actually a rank-1 ascendant, but she did not have any chance to resist. Before she could understand anything, Charles was already kissing her passionately with his hands roaming around her body, exploring her private parts with wanton disregard to her reactions. The lady tried to exert her strength but Charles was like an unmovable colossus. He barely even felt the lady's struggles as he kept on playing with her. The lady tried to resist for a while before her body betrayed her as she lost all strength. Her body soon heated up and her heartbeat increased. Her mind got clouded as she was thrown into the throes of passion. Before long, she was reciprocating keenly, moaning intermittently. The other lady also could not keep herself in control as she began taking off her clothes, her eyes clouded with lust. Both of these ladies were completely overtaken by their passion and soon, they were naked in Charles' arms. Charles then got out of his clothes and began fucking the ladies in turns.  He had fucked them both for a long time when his attendant entered the room.

Charles got off the bed leaving behind two naked beauties. The entire room smelled of sex. The ladies covered with his body fluids were still panting, seemingly unable to control themselves.

> Attendant : Master, I have made enquiries. Michael Rageberg is definitely not someone from this plane. He just appeared one day in the Liberty Federation and has no history from before. It is almost confirmed that he has no backing here. But two of the grand elders of the Divine Sea Sect have already marked him, making him someone we can't touch. There are upper-ascendants that are tailing him day and night, without his notice. The protection that he is under is actually no less than divine children. After all, he is a psychic as well as a dao cultivator. This makes him a rare breed among the mortals. Now, we don't have any way to deal with him, especially in the sect or during the exam. We can only act in secret, when he is away from the sect. What are your orders?

>

> Charles : There is no need to worry too much. Even if he is marked by divinities, he would still have to pay back in blood. The divinites would not intervene as long as he is not killed. I have enough status for that. Besides, they also don't want a greenhouse cultivator. So, it is not too difficult to extract revenge. In the exam, I will kill him, his body at least. After that, even if he reincarnates, he will never be able to pose a threat. As his value lies in his psychic and dao paths, the divinities would also not be angered. And during the selection battles, I will oblitrate him. Besides all that, the aphrodisiac is still weak. While it works on ascendants, divine children are not ordinary ascendants. While it worked on me, the effect was not sufficient. For divine children, who have innumerable blessings, it will not do much. Go into the lengths of planes that we have under our command to find the resources but find me a potent enough drug.

>

> Attendant : Master, this was only a baseline drug that we obtained from the regular market. It is effective even on rank-2 ascendants and even rank-3 in some cases. But the dealer has said that he will supply a much more potent drug, though he needs time for preparing. After he supplies the drug, we can test it on you for a reference. As you too have a divine bloodline that has awakened twice, you are the perfect test case for our plan. It will not be long before we succeed. Then, she will be yours to play with, master. After we succeed, she will be your obedient sex slave, a fitting reply to the humiliation from that time!

>

> Charles : Yeah, it is time that I claim that bitch in all her holes. I will humiliate her till my heart's content and then whore her out! I will have her fucked by everyone and break that pride of hers. Anyway, I am bored of these girls. You can have them. After the effect wears off, silence them with threats. Anyways, they are only ordinary disciples of the sect with no backing, there is hardly anything they can do.

>

> Attendant : Thank you very much master.

Simultaneously, in a different room, Ross Tyson was standing alone in a courtyard with his eyes closed. He was holding a long staff in his hands which were behind his back. This staff was not his life weapon but an ordinary bamboo staff. Though it was filled with spirit energy, even a condensation realm expert could snap it into half. Ross stood still in the centre of the courtyard but there was a seemingly invisible barrier around him that flowed around him. This was the flow of strength, a technique that was the trademark of great-master realm attainment. The flow was a manifestation of the grand momentum. What was the grand momentum? Everything in this world was formed by the interaction of laws but with the combination of laws, things which were beyond the laws were also created. For example - spirit energy, conscient and so on. Another such thing was the grand momentum. It was this momentum that decided the direction in which the world moved. Time had its own momentum as did space. Ross' technique was something that used the flow of strength - which was a small part of the grand momentum. During the martial competition, he could only maintain the technique for a short time and used it as a trump card. But this was no longer the case. Currently, he was manifesting the flow without even swinging his staff. This showed that his command over the technique was already incredible. Usually, it was the rank-3 or rank-4 ascendants who could use the flow so easily and effortlessly.

Ross suddenly felt something penetrating his flow field as he swung his staff. The entire flow fused with his staff as the staff hit a pebble that had been flicked by someone. A resounding explosion took place and even in the stable Divine Sea world, the walls creaked and cracks spread out from where Ross was standing. The power of this attack was greater than the might of an ordinary rank-2 ascendant! And surprisingly, his bamboo staff that should have been disintegrated by such an impact was still whole. This was what Ross had achieved in the 15 years of seclusion. In his previous fight, he had been played around by Michael and was defeated badly by Charles. Michael was a psychic expert and this was an oversight on his part. After all, psychics were so rare that generally, no one made any plans keeping them in consideration. Thus, he was caught off-guard. But now that he knew that Michael was a psychic cultivator, he was not that afraid. Ross had purchased three layers of psychic shields and imprinted them on his psyche after recovering from his injuries. He had used up all his savings for these three psychic guards. In fact, he and Razor had gotten the psychic defence together. Now that they knew about Michael's powers, they would be a fool to give him another chance. While he was aware that Michael might have other psychic methods, as long as he could not get into his mind, he was prepared to fight anything he had. This was his confidence in his capabilities. Ross had deeply reflected about his loss. While Michael's manipulation was indeed something, he had lost to Charles very badly which shouldn't have happened. Ross was very confident in his martial abilities and he had fought many people who were stronger than him. After all, what use would techniques be if he could only win against those weaker than him? Ross finally figured out the problem. He had become too dependent on his staff, his life weapon. It was the core of his combat techniques. This was generally the case with most of the cultivators who owned life treasures. After all, life treasures were ideal weapons. What Ross had never considered was that his staff would be broken too many times and that he would not be able to summon it in the middle of a battle. While he knew of this, he had ignored it. But after his defeat, he started to rectify his weakness. First of all, he developed a parallel combat technique that did not use his staff as the core. Then, he delved deep into the strength flow technique, learning to manipulate the flow of strength for offence and defence. As a result, his staff now would not be broken, even by a rank-3 ascendant. With these new abilities, he was confident in battling the other supreme geniuses.

Ross' father, Jack Tyson emerged from the side of the courtyard smiling.

> Jack : Very good, son! You have indeed mastered the flow of strength to minor completion. If you can master it to half-completion, you will be able to fight anyone below the upper-ascendants. And at major completion, you will find your path to the grand momentum. Flow of strength is a core technique of our sect but not everyone can learn it. Only those with great talent have mastered it over the years. While you have indeed reached minor completion, don't be too complacent. There is always a mountain beyond mountains, a sea wider than seas. The strength flow was given to our ancestor by a powerful divinity in the law ocean when he helped the other party when he was badly injured. From then on, it has always been the core technique of our sect. But no one has ever managed to train it to Grand Completion. According to legends, once one cultivates it to grand completion, one can control a significant portion of the grand momentum, making an upper-ascendant as strong as divnities. While such things are only heard of in legends, they have indeed happened before. Defeating lower-ascendants as mortals is a great feat, but it is not that uncommon in the 3000 worlds. I have heard that it is even more common in the heavenly realm. Defeating upper-ascendants as lower-ascendants is actually much, much rarer. Only the greatest of the geniuses have achieved such feats and most of them have become divinities with time. But defeating a divinity as an upper-ascendant has never happened in the 3000 worlds. Only in the heavenly realm has it happened. And even there, it is a legendary feat that goes down in history. I am telling you this so that you know what lies ahead of you. Your current opponents are indeed great geniuses who will achieve great things in life. But ultimately, they are only the supreme geniuses of a super-plane in one of the 3000 worlds. And what you have to face in the future is not only them but geniuses from the other 2999 worlds as well as geniuses of the heavenly realm. So, keep training. Only with training will you reach the pinnacle and attain divinity!

Saying so, Jack left. He had only come for a short time to look at his son's progress as he was busy setting up the alliance talks with the Divine Sea Sect. But Ross' eyes were shining brilliantly as he thought of the things his father said. Jack Tyson was a legendary figure, and his influence was much greater than Raval. This was because while Raval was known to be a formidable cultivator who had achieved everything with hard-work, Jack was a supreme genius! He had been one of the top geniuses of the entire dominion in his time. In fact, he had even won in the previous selection battle and been to the heavenly realm! He was extremely talented and hard-working and thus, he had achieved the same heights as Raval in a much shorter period of time. After reaching rank-8 ascendance, he had become very low key as he built up his foundation to challenge the door to divinity. Now, he was forming an alliance with the Divine Sea Sect because he was confident and was going to attempt a breakthrough soon!

Breaking into the divine realm was not as simple as branding one's body with laws. It involved a complicated process of forming one's divinity, which was generally visible as a small star circling one's head. This divinity was something that transcended one's cultivation and law marks. It was a manifestation of the entire path of the cultivator. Thus, the act of breaking through to the divine realm was a life-changing event, irrespective of the result. If one succeeded, one would be more than a mortal and join the league of divinities. And failure resulted in serious injuries and perhaps death. In both cases, Jack would need the support of a powerful sect. If he failed, he would need the Divine Sea Sect to protect his sect and people. If he succeeded, he would need to build his network among the divinities and what better place than the Divine Sea Sect?

As these geniuses prepared for the upcoming test, there were many others who were also preparing. Richard Segal had mastered multiple great-master rank spells and could now cast them rapidly. But apart from this group, there were many other geniuses that had come to stake their claim as the best:

Illusory Sun Prince and Stealthwalker from the Endless Sea

Daughter of the Chaos Sea

Bloodfiend princess and Asura prince from Blood Sea

Dense prince and Encompassing prince of Sludge Sea

Vermillion Princess of Yang Sea

Celestial sisters from the Paradise Sea

But these were not the only ones who were aiming for the top. There were 10 divine children who were participating as well. While the above-mentioned geniuses were widely acknowledged as leaders of their generation, they had yet to stake their claim among the divine children. These geniuses all came from different backgrounds, different sects and different cultivations but they were all separated from the divine children by two main points - divine bloodlines and divine blessings. Each divine child had divine bloodline and this went without saying. Even Charles Rutherford had a divine bloodline. Thus, while it was rare, divine bloodlines were not the defining features of divine children. It was the divine blessings. Each and every divinity was greater in power compared to a primary plane. All the souls born from different planes could obtain blessings from those planes. Michael had obtained "divine strength" and "perfect persona" as his blessings. Most of the people also obtained blessings but these generally grew obsolete with the increase of one's cultivation, like Michael's "divine strength". Very rarely a blessing would still be useful to cultivators in later stages. This was because the plane birthed so many children. But when divinities gave birth, they could channel all their powers to give a divine blessing to their child. And each of these blessings was a cheat ability that made divine children unbeatable in the same realm. The divine blessings were even useful when one reached the upper-ascendant realm and only after one reached the divine realm would the blessings lose their value. It remained to be seen which of these geniuses would come on top and if any of them would be able to topple the throne of divine children.