......
"So, this is what a spiritual beast in the 40% Tempering Marrow Stage is like, huh?"
A boy's apathetic voice echoed out as he stood atop a large, 20-meter-long gorilla-like beast with a sword lodged into its head.
WAAA!
Blue energy tendrils were being constantly released from his blade as the inside of the gorilla's head was turned into a bloody and messy brain smoothie.
"It honestly wasn't as impressive as I thought it would be, considering that it possessed such a large frame."
Azmodeus sighed a little before cutting off the ears of the beast and throwing them into his storage ring.
BING!
The ears immediately vanished from view as they reappeared inside a dark space with a wide assortment of items inside it.
This storage ring cost me nearly half of my three thousand silver coins, but in the end, the benefits of having such a large space to put my loot in is far better than carrying it all inside a big backpack.
After selling all of his previous 'acquired items' to a few shops and obtaining a good sum of silver taels, he decided to buy himself some stuff for convenience.
Of which included a storage ring, a few pairs of daggers and swords, and a few other things.
Following this spending spree, Azmodeus was poor again, so he brought his 'confirmation of kills' to the Sect Registry Grounds, causing quite the commotion. After which, he obtained a large sum of Sect Contribution Points.
However, instead of buying things like the Storage Ring with 1,000 Square Meters of internal space, he decided to use his Contribution Points to purchase a number of Pills and cultivation materials.
And after nearly an entire day of killing and cultivating, Azmodeus was able to increase his cultivation to the Peak Stages of the 40% Tempering Marrow Realm.
He wanted to improve his cultivation even further; however, anything past this stage would require higher-level resources if he wanted to keep a flawless foundation.
And in the Yang Sect and even the Spirit River City, you had to be in a certain social position to reach the 60% Tempering Marrow Realm and above.
So in the end, Azmodeus had to halt his cultivation and let it stagnate until he could acquire the appropriate amount of resources to advance further without affecting his foundation.
Nonetheless, his combat power was constantly improving, so he didn't have many qualms about waiting out his cultivation for now.
But because of this pause in cultivation advancement, he also had to stop spending his Evolution Essence on leveling up and instead focus it on leveling his various Traits.
Of which, he got his Stealth Trait to Level 5 and the rest of his skills to Level 4, using up hundreds of thousands of Evolution Essence without a moment's hesitation.
On a side note, he also obtained another two Traits during this last day.
Namely, they were the 'Speedster' and 'Fortress' Traits.
The first one increased his speed by a huge amount, while the second one did the same thing but for his defense. He got both of these Traits to Level 4 just like the rest of the I-Rank Traits.
"My overall combat power is slowly but surely increasing. At this rate, it might even reach the 80% Tempering Marrow Stage by the time the Core Disciple Competition begins."
Azmodeus's mildly pleased voice sounded out in the Yang Forest as he was making his way back toward the Yang Sect, or more specifically, back toward the Yang Arena.
After all, he still had an Inner Sect Competition to compete in and win.
And then two days later, he would do the same for the Core Disciple Competition.
This was his only plan for now, as he was aiming to take the entire Yang Sect by storm without holding anything back!
A few minutes later, outside the towering stepped walls of the Yang Arena.
"Well... Time to go and win this Inner Sect Competition," Azmodeus muttered before his figure flashed into the sign-up area of the arena.
He found himself inside the same wide room, with various animal carcass decorations and lavishly adorned tassels hanging from the walls.
Not long after making it into the arena, he signed up with the help of the same lady who had signed him up previously.
She was jittery during the entire sign-up process, but it didn't bother Azmodeus much, as he figured she would be quite anxious over the next few days.
After all, she had essentially sent out a kill order on a twelve-year-old boy. However, he wasn't one to hold grudges over a woman just for doing what she was commanded to do.
...
A few minutes passed by as Azmodeus, with his new Top 100 Outer Sect Disciple identity, made his way into the stadium section of the arena. Upon entering, he saw the other 99 Outer Disciples who would be taking the Inner Sect Admittance Test along with him.
"..." "..." "..."
Every single one of the other participants shot their heads in the direction of the last participant. They were about to berate him for being so late, but when they saw who it was, they froze in their tracks...
"Azmodeus... Is that really you?" A young boy from among the Outer Sect Disciples inquired with a shaky tone.
This young boy was no older than twelve years old and was someone whom Azmodeus had welcomed into the sect with open arms all those years ago.
At one point in time, they could've been considered friends; however, like everything in Azmodeus's life, that friendship was no more...
"..."
Azmodeus turned his apathetic gaze in the direction of a boy with medium-length brown hair, wearing an outfit that would make one assume he was of upper-class nobility.
It looks like Yang Xiao is taking the Inner Sect Test as well... I guess it does make sense, considering that it has been nearly two years since he kicked me to the side after figuring out his cultivation talent was so high.
Err, wait, I forgot about the time gap, so in reality, it has only been less than two weeks since he decided that I wasn't 'worth the investment'.
He scoffed a little at the mere notion of being looked down upon by someone in the Viscera Training Large Success Stage, as his Super Strength Trait seemed to give him quite the level of pride.
Nevertheless, he quickly turned his head away from the anxious boy as his gaze scanned through all of the other nervous Outer Sect Disciples.
......