Kairos did not know, but while he was busy with the trade fair for the past two days, the other students had been in heated discussion over the crystal recordings of the exam.

Of all the things that happened during the exam, Kairos’ appearance is no doubt the most exciting and discussed conversation.

Because of his exceptional performance and impressive combat abilities, many of the academy’s students that have never met him before came up with their own theory behind his background.

Rumours soon spread, giving him an unfounded reputation as the main heir of one of the three greats and credited him as someone who is remarkably humble, dressing as like a commoner to hide his brilliance.

His character and every decision he made on the mock battlefield were picked apart by the public, and before he knew it, he had become the role model for many of them.

One by one the nobles in the school started copying the clothes he wore, dressing up like commoners. For some of them, it’s because it will make them seem humble. In their minds, since Kairos who is from one of the three great families could humbly dress as a commoner, why couldn’t them? And compared to the three great nobles, who are they?

For the more confident ones, like that boy Kairos met at the school gate, they felt that this was a good tactic indeed. To pretend to be simple commoners at first then shocking everyone with overwhelming abilities and earn praises!

And for the rest of the students, even those that met Kairos, they only dressed as commoners because the other nobles are doing so. The peer pressure in the academy was too powerful, and anyone who does not dress as one of the commoners is criticised for being out of fashion or snobbish. The irony of things was that even those following Calculus started to dress shabbily, looking more and more like how Kairos’ group look.

In a fit of anger, Calculus loudly ridiculed everyone in public for dressing like this, but he only earned immediate public resentment. After this incident, not only did the number of followers did not decrease but it spread like wildfire within the school, creating the visual effect that Kairos saw today.

The funny thing about humans is, when there is a spirit of competitiveness in the air, people will try exceedingly hard to outdo the others. When Kairos stepped into the canteen, he noticed with amazement that each student looked shabbier than the last. It is like a gathering of paupers.

Even the principal himself could not predict such a turn of events.

Following that, with his fame rapidly increasing to legendary status, the discussions have started moving into the topic on which great noble family is he from instead.

During the exam, Kairos had only performed single martial art, but after repeatedly scrutinising the secret art that he used, no one was able to recognise it.

However, this had only made the students fall into the deeper belief that Kairos is truly trying to hide his status by not using easily recognisable moves! It is certainly logical that someone with such a high-level secret art should have many other skills available for him to use, but from the beginning of the exam till the end, Kairos has only used a single technique during combat.

After a while of calling it ‘Kairos’ secret art,’ the students finally decided that they should give it a name for convenience sake: The World Breaking Slash (破世斩)

Later on, because many students had thought that this name simply wasn’t impressive enough, it eventually became: World Severing Slash (破天灭世斩).

However, this is a name that he will only hear much later.

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…..

At a hidden location, far away from the academy. Fifteen guys stood sharply in a file before a sinister looking man.

“Sir!” One of the men reports, “The old leather book that we threw into the fire had gone missing.”

“Missing you say? Not burned into dust?”

“No, sir!”

“Any signs of human tracks?”

“None sir. It is as if the tome disappeared by itself.”

“Nonsense. Don’t feed me with your incompetence. Find out how it disappeared and where it went,” he said with eyes suffused with anger, “Dismissed!”

“Yes, sir!”

As an afterthought, the man added, “Also look in the rooms of the boy’s friends. If you guys can’t find anything, then kidnap one of them back.”

…..

Back at the academy, the five of them have met up at the canteen while ignoring the attention from all around. If Kairos had known that this would happen, their meeting place would not be here, but since they already arrived, and there are only five more days till the trade fair, they cannot afford waste their preparation time.

There are still many things to do, like applying for a booth and submitting a sample of each product they intend to market. Not only so, but each booth also requires to register an item for the auction on the first day of the trade fair.

They quickly get the application done which included handing over a bundle of wrapped up copper, iron and steel swords.

The permit should be issued after a day, but for now, their task is done. As they headed back to the dorm, many students started coming up to them with pleasantries and to visit their clans or families during the six months long holiday that follows after the fair.

Looking at the people coming forward, Jim ran up to them and accepted all the invitations with glee.

“Hey, dumbie. How are we to find time attending each invitation? Everyone’s homes are spread out throughout the country, it’s impossible to reach all of them in time,” Alan said while rolling his eyes.

“Oh! Sorry I’ll give them back now!”

“No it’s already too late, isn’t it? We’d be rude to return invitations.”

“Can’t we just select a few to go?”

“That will make those that we forgo upset at us.”

One by one the brothers answered him.

“Oh no, what should we do?” Jim says, almost in tears already. How can poor commoners like them afford to offend any noble, minor or not?

“Hahaha... don’t tease Jim. We will simply not go to any of them,” Kairos laughed.

Although he has decided not to go to any of these invitations he just received, there are still a few in mind that will be beneficial, especially Alucard and the houses of his four teammates.

He has a feeling that should they visit there will be lots to gain.

When they returned to their rooms, Kairos started his cultivation process once again.

After his room had been messed up twice, he has an uncomfortable feeling in his heart and felt an urgency to improve his strength.

“Peak E rank. I’m still too far from strong enough.”

He took out the tome from a secret place and flipped through it again. After the tome has returned, Aisa has volunteered to help him hide the tome whenever he didn’t need it. The primordial dragon’s ability to completely hide her presence became an incredible help at this time.

Heh Heh! No one can find what Aisa hides!

Unexpectedly, the once cryptic pages had decoded itself significantly. In the past, Kairos could only understand the basic Origin Cultivation method, an internal Ki cultivation that is coupled with strengthening one’s Origin Energy.

Now, a new section became decipherable, an unbelievable physical training technique, the Origin External Art. Since there was an internal cultivation method, Kairos had expected this, but he still grinned broadly.

“It looks like I can step up on the speed of cultivation with this.”

With a set of complicated hand signs, he quickly activated different seals symbols and sent its energy imprint into the air with an intricate formation around his body.

Unlike the Devilheart family’s seals, the hand seals that he is using is gleaned from the countless stars in the universe and very similar to his formation arrays as well as his cultivation methods.

As per instructed by the tome, the seals that he had sent out surrounds every part of his own body, hovering a slight distance away from his skin. As he finished the last symbol, all the seals shot into his body simultaneously, causing black runic symbols to appear on the surface of his skin at the part they entered.

Each of those symbols glowed intensely white then slowly dimmed back down into the black colour it was.

The limited amount of seals that entered his body each multiplied by splitting into two. The new runes continued to split and double in number while spreading across his skin.

Each symbol that appeared is unique among the rest, and they soon covered every visible part of his body, overlapping with each other. Yet the runes did not stop there, and more and more symbols continued to appear.

An hour later the massive number of symbols have already completely covered his body, causing his skin to turn pitch black for a moment then glowing incandescently white as they activate all at once.

After a while of flickering, the symbols started to fade from sight, restoring to him the original colour of his skin. Disappearing like they had never existed before.

“Done!” he said with a pleased look on his face.

Those symbols hidden underneath his skin will temper his body and strengthen it over time. With luck and patience, it might even raise his physical rank.

While this may sound incredulous, the muscle tempering method is overly profound to easily master, and the degree of mastery is separated into four tiers.

From the weakest to the strongest tiers are Huang, Xuan, Earth and Heaven rank. And each tier is further separated into three levels, Entry, Mid and Peak grade. Currently, after all the practice he had done, he has only achieved Entry Huang level. With this grade, he is barely able to activate the lowest of the body tempering technique.

Although after activation, the runes will only grant to him the physical strength of a gorilla, after just a moment of practising he could feel that his body’s progress, Man rank, Heaven grade, is beginning to reach the next level.

Unfortunately, without any external stimulus to aid him, there is no way to break through for now. In the end, he is simply too poor.

“We must succeed in the trade fair no matter what!”