On a moonlit night, a carriage could be seen speeding along a muddy track. The kingdom of Atrexia was one of the poorer countries existing in the world. Most of their roads were muddy tracks built without much investment. These roads were generally built by the local populace living in nearby villages to facilitate their movement to nearby towns or trade areas. The carriage was built with extremely high-quality wood and gave the impression of being very sturdy and stable. This was presenting quite the contrast with the road it was travelling on. Carriages were generally only used by important people. After all, most village folks would either use horses or other beasts to travel or use roughly made carts pulled by these animals. Thus, the carriage would repel most village folks and entice bandits and scrouges looking to make quick money. Inside the carriage, Mubal and Michael were discussing the upcoming exam.

Mubal : Kid, you should be careful and not be too cocky during the exams. The tower is a gathering of experts from the entire light empire. The elite devisions are all known to be heavenly geniuses. While the other races do not have vrown prince or princesses in this generation, it is not to say you will not face competitors. First of all, humans are innately weaker than most races making the disparity apparant in our experts and geniuses as well. Also, most of the kids there would be around 4 to 5 years older than you, if not even older. Thus, you should give your all if you want to get in the elite division.

Michael : Teacher, is it really necessary to enter the elite division? I mean, the benefits of elite division is only in terms of status. There is no tangible benefit. But there are many drawbacks as it would draw too much attention to me and that would be detrimental. The more threatened others feel from me, the sooner they will act.

Mubal : Kid, you still do not understand all things. It is true that if you get into the elite division, it will attract the attention of dark empire and many would be out for your life. It would also make the allied races uncomfortable and they too may make moves in the dark. But, a true expert develops from the blood and bones of many enemies! If you take a step back, you are already showing an opening in your heart! While I know that you have a powerful will to become an expert, it will require more than just effort and luck. One of the things you need is the style of an expert. Experts may acknowledge other's strength but they never shirk away from a fight! If you can not break through all obstacles to reach the immortal realm, how will you bear the fate of entire race on your shoulders? Even in immortal realm, you would be pushed around by others.

Michael was enlightened by his teacher's views. While he wanted to become more powerful, he still thought that avoiding needless troubles was the way to go. After all, the situations outside the race were truly dangerous for a genius who showed too much potential. But his teacher's words made him realize another thing, if he took the easy way every time, he truly would grow to be a pussy. What use would be power if no one knew about it. He needed others to know of him so that he could unify the plane. If he avoided others when he was weak, no one would follow him once he became strong! It was not like he could beat all into submission. He needed to command the respect of his friends as well as his enemies.

As they were talking, their expressions changed. As both had cultivated All Seeing Eyes, they could find any bandits along the way much before they got close. Michael got out of the carriage and disappeared with a boom! A few minutes later, he returned with his clothes covered in dust and some bruises visible on his face. He had subdued the entire bandit troop of 150 members all by himself. Their leader was even early emperor realm! And all the bandits had been incapacitated but not killed. This was a test Mubal had set for him. The test for entering the elite division of the academy was to fight academy's testers but killing them was not allowed. The process was supposed to get Michael accustomed to the test. After Michael returned, the carriage started running again. This was the reason Mubal had asked Collins to not provide any guards outside of the driver for the journey. An unprotected carriage acted like a bandit magnet in the night. In the past 10 days, Michael had been getting his practice every night.

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Michael reached Atrexia city after 15 days of travel. He was truly tired of travelling by the carriage. Usually, experts at saint realm or above would travel through aerial beasts. The Aterna plane was too big to be covered through normal animals. Aerial beasts allowed people to travel in straight lines unlike roads and their speed was also many times faster than carriages. Even the lowest quality aerial ride would have covered the distance between Redster and Atrexia in less than a day. But while there were many desirable benefits of faster travel, one needed to be a saint to withstand the wind pressure and temperature for long times. Currently, if Michael tried to ride an aerial beast from Redster to Atrexia, he would freeze midway! After reaching the capital, Michael and Mubal stayed in a palace near the royal palace. In fact, their treatment was definitely no less than the royal family as they both held important positions in the kingdom. It had been decided that a caravan would head from the capital to tower taking all the candidates. While the academy took in dew students, it took in many kids to do daily jobs like working in dormitories, maintaining the tower, and other miscellaneous things. These kids were also given the opportunity to learn combat and cultivation at the academy, though the level of their studies was lesser than the students. These were generally commoner kids who would later have a chance to enter the army. If they showed great talent, they may even be promoted to be a student. Thus, every recruitment session, many kids from different races went to the tower. But the humans were definitely the top in terms of quantity.

After waiting a few days, Michael also joined the caravan. Naturally, as Michael's status was the greatest among all the kids, he was given the biggest carriage separately. The kingdom had asked a perfect realm expert to lead the caravan this time. Usually, this job would be done by a saint expert. But as this time, the crown prince was going. Thus, humans had to show an appropriate stance in the matter. The perfect realm expert was one of the other two active experts outside the Atrexia family - a young man (though he was more than two centuries old). The expert would also share Michael's carriage. It could be said that humans had sent the best protection they could muster in the given circumstances for Michael.

As Michael settled in for another carriage ride, this one lasting entire 2 months, many commoners, nobles and other candidates joined as the caravan set off for their destination - the light tower.