The final test of the Divine Sea Sect began on the assigned time. The more than 400 geniuses from the Seven Seas all gathered in an arena along with the divine children and other geniuses who had skipped the first phase. Overall, there were roughly 500 candidates who were present for the test. In the centre of the arena, a middle-aged man stood explaining the format of the upcoming tests. The scene was being broadcast to different subsidiary forces of the Divine Sea Sect. This was one in 50 years entrance test for the Divine Sea Sect and it was the centre of attention of the entire super-plane. While the other powers did not get the live stream of the test, the results would be announced to the entire plane. The rewards for this competition were outrageous, corresponding to the genius of the participants. All the candidates were listening to the words from the elder explaining the procedures.
The person who was explaining things was a legend in his own right. This was the current Head Disciple of the Divine Sea Sect - Perseus Pendragon. He was a rank-8 upper-ascendant. Perseus was extremely famous, not only in Jupyter but across the entire Oceania dominion. His genius was believed to only fall short of the greatest geniuses of the heavenly realm. This was because of his frightening battle strength. He was a rank-8 ascendant but he had survived exchanging blows with many one-star divinities. This was something that even Divine Sea Divinity had not been able to do in her era. While he had not won against them, matching the power of divinities already had him recognized as the greatest genius of the entire dominion in present times. His path to the divine realm was almost assured and no one believed that he would fail. He was currently consolidating his foundation, similar to Jack Tyson. In fact, both Perseus and Jack were of the same generation and had both been part of the previous selection battles. In fact, his performance in the past selection battles was so incredible that he had some fame even in the heavenly realm. But while his achievements were nothing short of legendary, there was another thing about him that made others notice him - his lineage. He was the son of Divine Sea Divinity! He was the divine child who was also widely acknowledged to be the successor of Divine Sea Divinity.
As a result, he was unrivalled in his fame or strength among those of the same realm. In fact, as divinities tend to live extremely long, most of the divinities were forgotten with time and became obscure experts. Only significant ones were known to the general people. Thus, Perseus Pendragon was ahead of many divine ones in terms of fame.
The rules of the competition were being enunciated in great detail. The final test was the last barrier between these geniuses and their status as Divine Sea Sect's disciple. The test was organized in three steps. The first stage was the test of will. Following that was the test of combat. And the final part of the test was the test of ability. The three tests were point-based as well as binary. That is, either one passed or failed. But all those who passed were given some points based on their performance. As long as one passed all the tests, one would be a member of the Divine Sea Sect. But to qualify for the ludicrous rewards, one had to collect the maximum number of points. The test of will was actually a test of willpower. It was known through many actual stories that without sufficient willpower, even the greatest of geniuses had fallen on the path of cultivation. As long as one lost their will, nothing else mattered - neither talent nor background. Once a cultivator lost their will, they would not be able to progress in their mindset and path. Such cultivators would never be able to achieve their potential, let alone surpass their limits. The way this test was going to be conducted was through an illusion realm. As long as one passed through the illusion realm without being lost, they would pass. The second test was the test of combat, which tested the candidates' combat strength. Strength was the foundation of cultivator civilization and it was only normal for it to be tested. The final test - the test of ability was actually a test for the overall ability of the cultivators. While the purpose of cultivation was obtaining strength, not everything could be resolved with strength alone as long as one's strength was limited. For example, when conquering planes, how strong one was definitely impacted the results but one needed strategies and planning to truly succeed. Only being the strongest in a certain plane did not mean that one would be able to establish their dominance. The final test looked at these qualities of a cultivator.
The Divine Sea Sect was an elite sect and they only took in elites. These elites not only needed to be blessed with talent but also needed a formidable will and intelligence. The test was geared towards these people. As the rules were announced, many people watched and betted on the different candidates. In the Endless Sea Sect, Ambrose betted all his savings through the past 8 years on Michael getting the highest points in the test of will. The return on Michael's name was actually not high - only 4 times the original amount. This meant that the organizers already suspected Michael to have formidable willpower. After all, someone who reached these heights on their own strength was bound to have a strong will. But only Michael's close friends knew that many years ago when Michael did not have much strength, he was still unrivalled in his will.
The first test began and Michael along with other candidates entered the illusion realm.
Michael: Interesting! This illusion realm is not a psychic realm but an actual separate space. This space has been overlayed with an intricate formation of illusion laws that generated extremely realistic illusions. Even one's physical senses will be distorted here and these illusions are not mere mirages but actual material manifestations. This is indeed the pinnacle of illusion laws - confusing true and false! At its extreme, it is already reaching the realm of reality materialization. From what I have read, there is a Grand Elder divinity in the Endless Sea Sect who has cultivated illusion laws. It seems that this array has been prepared by him. I wish Ambrose was here. Some meditation in this space would have helped him tremendously.
Michael was easily able to see through the illusion realm. The most important reason for this was his psychic ability - intuition. During his seclusion, he managed to completely master the skill of intuition to the third level - the flow of the world. What was the flow of the world? It referred to the grand momentum. Grand momentum was the culmination of momentums of different entities and laws. Strength, time, space, reality, order, chaos all had their own natural flow. And these flows would combine together to form an ambient momentum of the world - the grand momentum. After one mastered the grand momentum, they were said to have completed the foundational training of cultivation. After mastering the grand momentum, one would start to focus on the intricacies of their respective laws that were not visible directly. This would cause people to travel on vastly different paths even if they cultivated the same law. For example, if two lower ascendants cultivated the law of fire, they would mostly be cultivating the same law. While there would be differences in their comprehension, application and techniques, the source which they cultivated from - the law ocean remained the same. As a result, many cultivators of the same law ended up following similar paths. But the upper-ascendant realm was different. As one reached the upper-ascendant realm, one would start to delve into the structure of the laws. The concept they followed would depend on their comprehension of the grand momentum. That is to say, only cultivators who mastered the grand momentum were able to travel further. This was the reason most of the cultivators ended their cultivation journey at rank-3 or rank-4.
Ross Tyson had practised and mastered the flow of strength to a certain level. This allowed him to find the flow of ambient strength and direct it, allowing him to bring more strength from his own laws. Normally, cultivators would cultivate multiple flows to great proficiency before forming a picture of the grand momentum. Then using their conception of the grand momentum, they would delve into the substructural realm of laws. But Wisdom Emperor had managed to bypass this entirely through his attainment in the psychic path. The psychic skill - intuition directly allowed Michael to feel the grand momentum. This would allow him to grasp the flow of things very easily. The path taken by Michael would be the opposite of the norm. There were many benefits to it. First of all, the main bottleneck for people reaching upper-ascendant realm - the understanding of grand momentum was no longer a problem for Michael. Since he could feel the flow of the world, he would be able to delve into the substructural laws very easily. This was like a wide-open broadway when others had a mountain placed in front of them. But this was only useful in the distant future for Michael. In the near term, this ability would allow him to learn the high tier martial techniques much faster. Using flows was something that one usually started in the great-master realm of attainment and the grand momentum was grasped after one became a grandmaster. In terms of immediate benefits, he gained the ability to deduce complicated moves quite easily. Anything he laid his eyes on, he could understand better by feeling its flow. This was a bonafide investigative method, one that could be employed even in the upper-ascendant realm.
Michael: After the all-seeing eyes lost their value to me, I had always been looking for a suitable investigative ability. Thankfully, I managed to cultivate intuition completely during my seclusion and solved this problem. Now, I can easily distinguish the truth of these complicated arrays. While I don't know how to solve this array and get out, I can still distinguish reality and illusion here. This will be very helpful in this test.
After his seclusion, Michael was a completely different person from before. He now had many methods in his arsenal and this allowed him to be confident in multiple scenarios. But these gains had not come easily. The effort that he had put in was something that would make even experienced cultivators shiver. Any normal cultivator could hardly manage to cultivate two different things at the same time. But Michael had cultivated five different things simultaneously. This was normally impossible and Michael could do so only after his control over psychic energy had reached the master attainment realm. As his use of acceleration had improved, he could barely manage five different things at once. This was true parallel processing, something that many upper-ascendants had not mastered. The psychic legacy of Wisdom Emperor was incredible and the benefits that Michael had received from it were much higher than the Endless Life Scripture inheritance. And the more Michael understood how incredible this legacy was, the more interested he became in Wisdom Emperor.
Michael: Wisdom Emperor is definitely not a normal cultivator. I fear that he is a very strong divinity. Anything below that is not possible. The only other time I have been awed this much was when I comprehended the Divine Sea Divinity's reserve power. The Wisdom Emperor is perhaps similarly an unfathomable being. But why was his legacy eating dust in the common library of the Liberty Federation? It doesn't make sense! Such an incredible legacy should be comparable to the core techniques of super forces. And considering that this is a psychic legacy, the value of this inheritance probably exceeds all the techniques that even Divine Sea Sect has in its repository. This matter is very strange. I guess that the answers will be revealed when I cultivate the entire legacy completely. Currently, I have mastered Illusion, Acceleration and Intuition. Only Will Manifestation is lacking but I have a feeling that it is going to be much harder to master. But once I completely master this legacy, hopefully, I will find the main legacy. If the ordinary legacy is this incredible, I can only imagine the main legacy's worth.
As these thoughts flashed through Michael's mind, he proceeded to easily pass the hurdles of the illusion realm. Michael's willpower was so incredible that he had reached the realm of self-command, something that only high-rank divinities managed. Thus, this test was already useless against Michael. After all, even the Grand Elder stationed in Endless Sea Sect could not match Michael's willpower, so how could his array formation keep up. But now, Michael could see through the illusions as well. This pretty much defeated the entire purpose of the test. Thus, it was not long before Michael emerged from the other side of the illusion realm, causing widespread shock among everyone!
In the Divine Sea Sect, in an enclosed space, many divinities were sitting and chatting together. Hypnotic music played and law shadows danced. Each and every cultivator possed divine beauty and charm. If a mortal was to see them, they would be lost in a trance and perhaps never be able to come out. In the centre of the courtroom, a majestic woman sat. Ashley and the other women in Michael's life could not hold a candle to her. She was so beautiful that her creation could be said to be perfect and flawless. Her skin was fair and smooth as if sculpted. Her eyes seemed to contain a depth that would suck in souls of anyone who dared to look into them. Her figure was perfect, with well-endowed assets that made her even more irresistible. Six stars, small dots of light, revolved around her head forming a crown that made her seem like the ruler of heaven and earth. She was the Divine Sea Divinity - Historia Pendragon.
This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.
Around the courtroom, other divinities had taken their places. Each and every one of them was the manifestation of perfection. Some were fair while others were dark, but all of them contained a divine grace that made them seem like gods above mortals. Physical appearance was something that could be altered to a great extent even in the Ascendant realm. But once one crossed into the divine realm, one's body became a kind of vessel that could be shaped as per one's wish. After reaching divinity, one could morph their appearance as and when one wanted. But generally, people did not bother with it that much unless they had to disguise and visit the mortal realms. All these divinities were looking through the images in a law screen that was showing the test in real-time. While the reason they were sitting together was not related to the test, they had decided to look through the test as well. This was the thousand-year meeting of the Divine Sea Sect's Grand Elders. All these people were divinities and their cultivation seclusion would easily go on for centuries. In fact, holding a meeting every thousand years was already too frequent for divinities. There were many who went into seclusions much longer than that. The missions that divinities did took tens to hundreds of thousands of years. Thus, this was not a mandatory meeting but an informal one. As the dates had coincided with the test this time, all the available divinities had come together to see the test as well.
As the divinities were talking among themselves, suddenly, one of them said:
> Random1 : Huh!? This kid passed the first test already?
> Random2 : What!? How is this possible? He passed already? Is he cheating or did the illusory realm malfunction? Oi, Dizmond, is your old toy malfunctioning?
> Dizmond : Don't say such things casually! I always keep my arrays in best shape. The illusion realm is working exactly as it should. Let's see the video of this kid.
The divinities proceeded to watch the video of Michael inside the illusion realm. Michael did not stop at any hurdles, as if the illusions had no effect on him. He passed through the temptations of wealth, power, lust without batting an eyelid. Even the test of time prison and memory prison and pain prison did not do anything to him. This caused all divinities to raise an eyebrow. It was as if the illusions had no impact on Michael which did not make sense to these divinities. The illusions in the illusion array were not all phantoms but materialized illusions. Besides that, the disorientation effect of the laws of illusion would start making even the staunchest of cultivators to slip into insanity. In fact, this illusion array could trap an upper-ascendant completely. But Michael had gone through everything with firm steps.
Divine Sea Divinity directly connected to the spirit network of the sect and brought out the profile of Michael.
> Random3 : Hmm. This guy is both a psychic and a dao cultivator, very interesting. Apart from that he is not remarkable. Though, his attainments in psychic and dao path are not low. In fact, he can be said to be an unprecedented genius of these paths in our sect. If these paths were not so esoteric, I would have bet that he had the potential of reaching divinity. But as things stand, even I don't know how his future would be.
> Random1 : See this. The two fellows over at the Dead Sea Sect have marked him twice. There is also the battle video of his finals. Let's see.
As the battle video of finals played, the divinities all looked at it with attention. And Michael's performance shocked them. This kid did not even have a life treasure or bloodline but still managed to completely destroy others. Even the kid from the Rutherford clan was thrashed.
> Random2 : Did you guys recognize the techniques he used? I have not seen such techniques ever and I have seen quite a few psychics.
> Random1 : Psychics usually keep their teachings and schools separate. It is not impossible for him to have obtained an eccentric's legacy. His skills are good but there are only two of them. One that lets him set up mental control and one that increases his physical power. Most likely, he obtained some incomplete legacy. But none of them are useful against the illusion array. What is going on?
> Dizmond : Could it be that there is a passive skill involved? Psychics also have passive skills which are hard to observe. Even if the kid was standing here, we would not be able to see his passive psychic skills. But passive psychic skills are very rare even among psychics. Could this kid truly have such a legacy?
> Historia : Don't worry. I will create a passage to observe the boy. We can take a look for ourselves. If we can't see anything, it would most likely be due to passive skills. If that is indeed the case, we can always read his memories forcefully or buy the legacy by enticing him. There are many methods to proceed.
Saying so, Historia waved her hand. The six stars on her head flashed once and a passageway opened connecting this separate realm directly to the battle arena. The passage was broad and contained enough field of view to suffice for everyone. But this was a one-way passage and the people in arena did not even notice, including Historia's son Perseus. While creating this portal was not hard and any divinity could have done it, they did not do so because of the protocol of respect. This was Historia's home and these divinities would not open portals here and here as a sign of respect towards her. As soon as the portal formed, all the divinities concentrated their gazes on Michael, and what they saw left all of them in shock. The shock was so great that none of them spoke for a good while, their eyes wide with incredulity. In fact, all their expressions were frozen and their mouths hung open.
Simultaneously, Michael felt a strange sense of danger that surpassed all the deadly situations he had faced in his entire life. His intuition seemed to be giving him the warning to run as soon as possible. The sense of terror was so intense that he felt his dao tree shake and shudder. Had it been before Michael had achieved self-command, he would have frozen with terror and his dao tree would have collapsed as well. But it was not the case. His self-command immediately kicked in, his dao tree stabilized, and his entire conscient became calm. This followed to calm his soul and his body. While his intuition was still screaming danger, Michael was no longer terrified. He had mastered fear, though he was definitely susceptible to danger. He focussed his senses to find the source of disturbance around him but there was no change to his surroundings. He focussed his intuition on his surroundings, his entire concentration stretched to find the changes in grand momentum. But there was nothing! No sign at all. Michael had a few guesses as he kept his guard up but did not make any movements.
This performance of his caused the divinities eyes to widen even further.
This kid could feel their presence!
While he could obviously not find them, to still feel the divinities' gaze, this was incredible. And this was most likely a passive skill. But that hardly mattered in the current situation. Historia's current husband, Vin Leviathan recovered his composure first, saying
> Vin : Well, I 'll be damned. This kid is insane!
> Random4 : Oi Dizmond! This is not an illusion right. You are not playing a prank, are you?
> Dizmond : You bastard, I myself have not reached self-command, you think that I can emulate it?
> Historia : Interesting! Interesting! Haha. I have to say, among all the participants that I have seen ever participating in these entrance tests, this one is the most interesting. To think that someone in the mortal stage could have self-command. The law ocean vast and anything is possible. While it does seem like his psychic legacy had some passive skills, we now don't have any method to get them out forcefully. For him to have self-command, he is a monster that won't break even if we were to kill him. There is no way to invade his conscient and read his memories. There is no way to put him under illusion or brainwash him either. We can try enticing him with benefits but nothing else can be done.
> Vin : Historia, the psychic skill does not even matter now. We anyway don't have many psychic cultivators who could benefit from his techniques and they will be useless to us. But you do understand what this means, right? If this kid does not die, he will be a divinity in the future, perhaps an extremely strong one. He will either die on his path or will shake the world. There is no reason to even test him any further. We should make him a core disciple directly!
> Dizmond : I agree. In our entire sect, no one apart from Lady Historia has achieved self-command. For this kid to have such will, I am still in disbelief.
> Random1 : To think that there came to be a day that I am envying a mortal! Heavens are not fair at all.
> Historia : What are you even saying? Everyone is born with the same amount of will, regardless of race, talents or background. This is the invoilable truth of the world. For him to have self-command, he has definitely cultivated his willpower through hell and heaven. But for someone of his age to have such willpower doesnot make sense. I suspect that he is a reincarnator.
Historia's comment caused the divinities' faces to display a multitude of emotions - ranging from shock to fear.
> Dizmond : Lady Historia, this could be a serious matter. The Samsara Sect is not something we can touch. They are a mighty force of heavenly realm, and have links to Heaven Emperor. They are the only ones capable of controlling the cycle of reincarnation. Could it be that this kid is actually some senior from the heavenly realm?
> Historia : I don't know. How do we even find the answer? Its just that even in this case, this kid does not fit. If he was someone from the Heavenly realm, there is no way that the Samsara Sect would leave him here in a lesser world. If he has self-command, he would have been someone influential even in the Heavenly realm. Why is no one finding him? Besides, such reincarnators can usually cultivate back in just a few years. After all, their comprehension of laws still remains. But this kid does not fit the mold. We need to keep an eye on him. I don't think that he is trying to infiltrate because this is simply exposing himself. We should monitor him for the test, and then ask him directly.
> Vin : This makes sense. Let's see his performance. Meanwhile, begin investigations. Make divinations if you need to. I want all the information that we can scry about this guy.
At Vin's command, many divinities started scrying Michael. Historia closed the portal afterwards.
All the conversation from the beginning till the end only happened in about a second!
This was the speed at which divinities operated. And if they wanted, they could operate even faster, such as in battles.
Therefore, Michael had only felt danger for a fraction of a second before his intuition deactivated.
Weird! Could my intuition be giving false alarms or is it malfunctioning? No! Intuition works by spreading an intricate psychic field through the surrounding grand momentum. There must have been something that appeared here for an instant! What actually happened?
Michael could not find heads or tails of the situation. Looking around, the surrounding crowd was still in the middle of their shock. They had not even felt the immense pressure that came and left. Even upper-ascendants did not seem to have noticed. Seeing this, Michael felt that the old adage of Aterna made a lot of sense: Ignorance is bliss!
Michael patiently waited for the score to come up. He received a full 100 points. The three tests carried 100, 100 and 200 points respectively. Michael had started with a perfect score! This stunned not only the crowd around the arena but the entire audience in all the sea sects. Even Ambrose was shaking thinking: Monster! Monster!
After scoring the points, Michael went ahead to relax at the participant stand. He wished to see how the other participants were doing in the illusion realm but it was not being shown. Michael could also guess the reason for that.
Well, the scenes generated were definitely not safe for public broadcast!
There were many illusions that revolved around lust and memories. The sect showed proper concern about this matter and did not broadcast it to the crowd. After all, if a sex video of divine children was broadcasted, it would be a huge scandal. As Michael closed his eyes preparing his mental state, the different participants were going through the various challenges in the illusion array.
In one illusion, Ross Tyson was constantly trying to learn a technique while it kept eluding him, leading to extreme frustration on his part. In another illusion, a very young Razor Mark was being beaten by some disciples of his own sect. This was his memory that he was getting trapped in. In another illusion, a lady was fleeing in the chaos sea, fighting hordes of monsters that were trying to bite her to death. In a different illusion, Charles was kneeling with blood flowing from the corner of his lips as a lady had her foot on his head. The illusions generated from the array were random. For some, it was based on their obsession, for some their memories and for some, it was generic. But all geniuses had, excluding Michael, stopped to face their heart demons. The test of will continued for a while after which candidates slowly emerged from the illusion array. The first ones to emerge were not the divine children but the geniuses from different subsidiary sects. The test of will was the only test where one's talents and blessings did not matter. As a result, the divine children only performed average in this test. The emerging candidates all received their scores but none of them got a perfect score.
The illusion array was set to disappear in a certain time frame and if one did not manage to cross before the stipulated time, they would end up failing the test. To Michael's surprise, only about half of the candidates managed to pass the test! Michael had not thought that the first test would directly eliminate so many candidates. All the candidates appearing at this stage were geniuses in their own right. Each one of them was renowned in their hometowns. But the testing criterion of the Divine Sea Sect was brutal. Once the opportunity was lost, one could only retry in the next stage, which meant 450 years later, or 4950 years for an even later stage. This would be devastating, especially for people who lacked background. The resources needed for cultivation from the mortal to peak-lower ascendant stage were all incredibly generic. A single cultivation room could sustain these experts' cultivation. It was the later stages of cultivation that one would need specialized resources to progress. In such cases, the earlier one got into the sect, the more benefits they would be able to obtain. Joining later would not be as beneficial. After the testing concluded, the next test began - the test of combat.