The top 20 had been decided on the basis of the analysis made by the elders in the sect. As all the elders were legendary figures in the upper-ascendant realm, none of the candidates dared to voice dissatisfaction if they were not selected. But the rules of selection in the sect were extremely fair. The list developed by the elders was only the first draft. All the candidates were given one chance to challenge someone in the list and take their place. This gave the remaining candidates some hope. All the candidates named their opponents and the matches were arranged afterwards. Though, none of them challenged the five people who no one wanted to challenge - the three geniuses along with Michael and another celestial who was a mystery to all the candidates. Apparently, he had bypassed the initial exam due to his backing and had directly joined the final competition.

The battles were held and the final list of candidates was finalized leading to only a few changes. It was only after this point that Michael came out of seclusion. In the fifteen days that had gone by during the selection process, he had achieved small success in both his new techniques. His body forging technique had almost doubled his base physical strength. While this was not significant compared to his combat strength, it was a substantial improvement to his foundation. Most of the time, he had invested himself in cultivating the compression technique. As a result, the density of his celestial energy had also doubled in the past half month. This had given him discernable improvement in combat strength. Michael's speed in cultivating these skills was actually very fast compared to normal people due to his perfect persona blessing. Even the three great geniuses would not be able to match his speed in this aspect.

After the final list of candidates was processed and sent over to the Divine Sea Sect, the martial competition was started. There were a total of 20 contestants for the competition the first order of business was to find the top 10 who would be eligible for accelerated cultivation rooms. The 20 candidates were paired randomly and the winner among each pair was to be given the token to a cultivation chamber. Among the defeated ones, one could challenge up to three people to obtain a token. After this process, the final 10 would be given the final tokens for the cultivation rooms. There were many other prizes that were declared. The top 3 were to be given one of either an imprinted psychic ability, a bloodline or a life-treasure. Of course, the quality of their prize depended on their rank. For example, the rank-one candidate could perhaps get a pretty decent psychic skill but the second rank candidate would only be able to get a skill one-tier weaker.

Michael was paired with another demi-ascendant. In the top 20, almost all the candidates were demi-ascendants with few being in condensation realm. But all these candidates had the combat strength of demi-ascendants without fail. For comparison, the devil captains who had invaded Aterna all those years ago would not have been selected for the top 60.

A battle-stage had been prepared for the competition and many people were in the audience. This included the exam candidates as well as several disciples of the sect. A lot of elders were also looking at the battles. Among these audience members, the contestants were the centre of attention and were seated at another stage some distance away. The pairs were called out and the battles were held. The battles of other candidates did not create too much commotion but when Michael's name was called, people started to get excited. Even the elders started paying attention. Michael was the first celestial to be called over and many people wanted to see how powerful he actually was. Michael took the stage in front of the crowd.

Michael's opponent was quite pissed at his bad luck. As soon as their battle started, he attacked Michael with a few probing spells. Michael didn't even bother dodging as celestial energy erupted from his body and protected him from the spells. He charged towards his opponent who also retaliated. But he was outclassed in his martial arts attainment as well as raw power and was sent flying while spitting blood in a few moves. As he came to a stop, he was already healing. He took out a short-sword and charged towards Michael again.

A life-treasure!

Michael got serious as well and infused his dao-intent through his body and celestial energy. His indomitable intent merged smoothly with his dense celestial energy and his aura rapidly ascended to extreme levels. His opponent was the first person to feel the oppressive aura which threatened to swallow him whole. Followed by him, the whole crowd felt it. The expressions of all the candidates changed including the three geniuses. The disciples of the Dead Sea Sect also got more serious and the elders too showed appreciation. Techniques that could increase one's combat strength were actually very common but were extremely strenuous and generally had some side-effect as well. Even with that, the increment to power was not as pronounced as in Michael's case. No one seemed to guess the origin of such a technique except for a few elders. Michael's opponent's expression turned ugly.

Sure enough, he also has his trump cards!

He still charged at Michael and slashed with the shortsword. Michael was actually quite interested in the power of this weapon. Thus, he directly used his palm to counter the slash. With his bursting celestial energy and dao-intent, he was already showing off power level comparable to weaker rank-1 ascendants. As the sword and palm collided, Michael felt the sword breaking his skin and drawing blood. Blood splashed and his hand was injured! Michael swiftly caught the sword and exerted his power twisting the blade out of his opponent's hands. At the same time, he sent a swift kick to the chest of the other party. His opponent had not thought that Michael would actually catch his weapon which had shocked him and had made his reaction slow. Thus, he could not avoid the kick and was hit squarely in the chest. The kick felt like being hit by an entire mountain! His chest was shattered open with his insides spilling out. A single kick had injured him severely and it would not be easy for him to recover in a short time! In fact, if Michael had not held back, his entire upper-body might have ended completely decimated and even his soul would have suffered. But as this was a competition, there was no reason to be that heavy-handed.

Michael looked at the blade in his hand. It shone with green colour and seemed to be able to cleave through the toughest metals he knew. Even the best swords that he had ever seen in Aterna were no match for it, including the devil captain's weapons. As he was inspecting the sword, it turned into smoke and slipped out of his mind and back into the body of his opponent. Michael was getting ready to finish the battle when the other party erupted with incredible lifeforce. His injuries recovered swiftly and even his strength seemed to have increased by a whole level. The other party had ignited his bloodline. Still, he was not a match for Michael's power and he too knew it. He looked once at Michael before decisively surrendering the match. He too was a peerless genius and had made a name for himself but today, he had been defeated thoroughly.

Michael returned back to his seat but his aura was not unstable in the least. In fact, he was as stable as he had been before the match, which surprised many disciples of the sect as well as some of the elders. Many people in the crowd got interested in Michael's technique. After all, such a trump card technique was not found even in the archives of the Divine Sea Sect. While they did not believe that Michael's technique could be easily used due to the difference in their cultivation realms, they were still interested in it for the sake of researching such techniques. Who knew? Michael's technique might give them the inspiration to develop a suitable technique for themselves.

Quite some distance away, in a separate semi-plane, two people were sitting across each other. In the entire semi-plane, there were only 2 chairs at the centre of it. The entire semi-plane was actually the size of a primary plane but there was nothing in the entire semi-plane except the two chairs. In between them, different images appeared and disappeared in thin air. If one looked closely enough, it was the laws of light itself that were forming these images! The two people sitting across each other each had incredible cultivation, capable of suppressing the myriad laws and bending them to their will. It was as if the entire world was theirs to command and the world had to obey their command, lest it was rendered into dust. These were divinities! Both of them had two light dots circling around their head - both were two-star divinities. At this moment, both were looking at the light hologram which was showing Michael's battle repeatedly.

Interesting! We even have a dao cultivator applying this time. This guy is a hidden gem, indeed.

But the dao path and the psychic path are the hardest to make progress in. Even though this kid has some achievements in the dao path, if he can progress further is uncertain. But he has good talent, and perhaps before selection battles, he can reach the upper-ascendant realm. Let's mark his information. We will accept him even if he doesn't pass the final test.

The battles continued and soon, it was the prince of dead's battle. The crowd was again stirred. His opponent was also a demi-ascendant but this guy was a spell-caster. He also had a life treasure bracelet that amplified his spells. His bloodline allowed him to cast spells extremely fast, which was a perfect match with his life treasure. His attainment in spells was also very high. All in all, he was a bonafide mage. His laws were oriented with fire which gave a unique boost to all his flame-attribute attack spells. But Razor Mark was one of the three geniuses. As their battle began, the other person instantly cast three fireballs and sent them whistling towards Razor. While these fireballs looked ordinary, they were filled with a tremendous amount of energy and were capable of destroying any of the immortals in Aterna. Razor called forth the power of his laws and at that moment, Michael felt great shock.

The entire battle-stage turned dark and the aura of death spread out from the prince. The entire world went still and the fireballs were corroded swiftly and flicked out of existence midway. This was the use of laws of death that Michael had never seen. Celestial energy merged with the death laws and commanded it in such a way that the entire area around the prince had turned into a dead land of stagnation and demise. Michael's death laws had always been a support-class technique. In fact, even his life laws were support based and he did not know any other use except for healing himself. This was because he had been following the endless life scripture all along. This was like opening the doors to a new path for him. This was the reason most people had figured out that Michael never had any training under a suitable teacher. After all, as one progressed, laws became the fundamental strength of cultivators and it was the laws that made them high and mighty. When one talked about the talent of cultivation, it was mostly about how good someone was in deciphering laws. The prince of the dead was a true genius and thus, his command over death laws was far ahead of Michael's. Even though Michael was cultivating two laws, just competing with the power of laws, he would be thoroughly outclassed.

This gave Michael a very important lesson - It was not the number of laws that one commanded that was important but the depth in the laws. As long as one had sufficient depth of law-comprehension, one could hold their own against anyone. Michael had been too much invested in the psychic path and as a result, had neglected his law cultivation. He was under the impression that more cultivation would not improve his combat-strength by a lot but it was clearly not the case.

The battle continued. Razor's opponent kept showering him with fireballs before casting a great-master rank spell - firestorm. The spell was like a flaming hurricane that directly dissipated Razor's death domain. Following that, he cast another great-master rank spell - explosion beam. This was a spell that exploded everything in a certain region and gathered all the energy and sent it in one direction as a beam of destruction. As soon as the spell was cast, the air surrounding the man exploded and a huge amount of energy was sent hurling towards Razor intent on destroying him completely. Looking at the beam's intensity, Michael felt that even he would be injured badly if he directly faced it. Razor's expression changed. After all, it was two great-spells back to back. This caught him off-guard. Black smoke came off his body and turned into an armour covering his body. As soon as the armour appeared, Razor's powers increased by a large amount and he reached the same level as Michael. He called forth his laws which formed several layers of death energy around him as he clashed with the beam head-on! The beam shattered the layers of death-energy and hit Razor directly in the chest. He was sent flying and crashed into the barrier surrounding the battle-stage.

His opponent seemed to have lost all his power as he coughed blood. He then gave up the match. It was clear that he had used a huge amount of power and had faced backlash. Razor too was hurt badly but his injuries were not as bad. While he had suffered severe burns, it was nothing untreatable. He easily got back up and was the last person standing. But his armour had melted and evaporated in several places and had turned into smoke and entered his body. While he had won, there was no joy or satisfaction in his eyes but a sense of fear. The beam had been weakened by the many layers of death energy and his armour or else, he would perhaps have been injured severely or even have lost his life.

Michael too remembered the name of this young mage - Richard Segal.

The battle just after had another genius - Ross Tyson. Ross was a celestial and demi-ascendant as well. He also had quite a number of techniques that made his raw power at the top level among the different candidates. He also had his life-treasure - a staff. Interestingly, he did not use this staff for casting spells but for beating up his enemies with the blunt weapon. Initially, Michael found it weird that someone would use a blunt weapon. After all, a sharp weapon is the normal choice. But after looking at the handling of the weapon, he finally understood - it was the reach. The staff had a longer reach than a sword or any other blade and could be held at any point. With Ross' mastery, he could alter its reach extremely easily and this made his weapon even more deadly. Besides, when he handled his weapon, he seemed to create his own domain that even spells could not penetrate! This was the result of great-master level attainment in weapon-mastery. Besides, he cultivated the law of wind which made his use of weapon extremely agile and unpredictable like the wind. As a result, even Michael was at a loss on how to defeat this opponent. As long as he did not use his will manifestation, he would not be able to win! Ross' opponent was not very powerful and was defeated quite easily.

After this, the other battles continued. Eventually, it was Charles Rutherford who took the stage. From the beginning of this battle, it was a one-sided thrashing. His world-tree bloodline made it so that his brute strength was even higher than Michael at his peak. As a result, it was not surprising that he won easily. In fact, in terms of raw power, he was the strongest among all the candidates! This was the power of a single awakening of his bloodline!

Finally, the mysterious celestial also fought his battle. He won after fighting for a while and did not show anything extraordinary to the crowd. But Michael had become extremely serious once he saw the guy. That was because he too had a similar seed in his conscient as the devouring clan person had. Only Michael, being a psychic cultivator could see this. The other divinities would have also seen it had they personally looked at this person. But they were in a different space altogether and were only looking at the reconstructed images generated with the power of laws. Thus, they could not see the seed hidden in the conscient of this person.

Michael felt danger from this person - more specifically from the seed that he was carrying but he did not show any of this on his expression. His face was stoic as before. After the first round of battles ended, the defeated people started their challenges against the token holders but they wisely did not choose people they had no chance against. As the battles continued, the final top 10 was decided. The next step was to select the top 5 as each of them would be able to gain some techniques from the archives as their prize. For this, Michael and the three geniuses along with the mysterious celestial were again chosen to be in the top 5 (by the elders' assessment) and the challengers could challenge any of these for their position. Soon, another stage of challenges began.

Michael was extremely alert, not making any obvious expressions in front of this mysterious celestial. He focussed completely on his intuition carefully observing him.

At that moment, one could say that Michael's luck was quite good. After the preliminary top 5 were decided, almost the challenges were made to the mysterious cultivator. Almost everyone had figured out that he was the weakest link. Michael also received a challenge but he was able to win with some effort. Especially after he showcased his incredible healing ability, almost all the candidates present cursed in their hearts. Laws had various different applications and the depth of any law was so vast that budding cultivators like Michael could not hope to achieve results in all the aspects. Clearly, Michael's endless life inheritance was biased towards self-healing. This was one of Michael's core power through his entire second life.

After a few challenges, one could see that the mysterious celestial was gathering fatigue. Generally, the organisers would have stepped in and given him some time between the battles but his act of bypassing the tests and bending the rules with his backing had turned most of the elders against him. They did not want this guy to succeed! After a few challenges, Richard Segal challenged him. The battle again showed how brilliant of a mage he was. Overdrawing his bloodline ability, he successfully cast three great-master rank spells and defeated the mysterious celestial! Such situations were very rarely seen as celestials almost never lost in the same cultivation realm. But this celestial did not use any secret skills or trump-cards and had no other mind-blowing abilities aside from celestial energy. After all, he was just a backup placed hastily by the psychic cultivator scheming behind the scenes. After the battles were concluded, the top 5 was declared.

Razor Mark

Charles Rutherford

Ross Tyson

Michael Rageberg

Richard Segal

The final result was floated and the competition was closed for the day. Richard Segal had used too much bloodline essence and thus, he withdrew from further competition. The final job was to decide the ranking between the final top 4 contestants. The final battle was set to be held tomorrow.

Later, Michael went over to the elder in charge of arranging the competition and made a personal request

Elder, I request that further battles be conducted in seclusion as all the candidates left in the competition are extremely powerful and we would have to use our trump-cards to decide the victor. But revealing such information beforehand would be disadvantageous in the final test. Please consider my request.

The elder in charge agreed and after some discussion, Michael's request was approved. This caused the people who were recording battle videos to frown in displeasure but the rules were set by the Dead Sea Sect and no one could void them. The battles between the final 4 candidates were to be kept confidential and only the elders would be present as judges and referees.

Michael did not want to reveal his trump-cards before the mysterious celestial! He felt that if his psychic abilities were discovered by the psychic cultivator behind this celestial, it would put him in the possibility of being recognized. This was why he had made this request. As long as he was not in the presence of another psychic and did not use abilities like the independence of his soul and conscient, he was confident in masking his psychic energy. After this, he retreated to his quarters and began to prepare for the battles the next day.