When Kairos step into the ranking barrier, his immediate vicinity changed into a smoky grey world, where he could see nothing except the white bubble which surrounds him.

Out of the ground, Lesser Elemental Spirits starts to form, appearing like colourful lights at a festive fair. They clothe themselves in their elements, becoming balls of fire, ice and other attributes, while quickly gaining in size until there are as big as a fist.

Though by these are beings that could be found everywhere in Saint Empire, he had never heard of an amount like this gathering, much less see it before his own eyes.

“There are a thousand before me…! So, this is how every student is ranked?”

With a grin, Kairos summoned his Swallow, holding it gently in his hand, ready for the battle that is soon to follow.

His opponents are the Lesser Elemental Spirits that have not only sentience but also an advanced hierarchal society. The ones that appeared now are merely from the Foot Soldier class, while the Greater Metal Spirit that Kairos fought before was a Knight class.

The nearest ones were the first to strike. Kairos with a wave of his weapon easily stopped their charge and sliced the living elements in two.

The Firelings fell to the ground, scorching the earth. Frostlings broke into two then shattered into pieces. Crystalings turn into sparkling gem dust, returning to the earth. Woodlings into broken twigs and the Waterlings directly evaporated.

“There are only spirits of the five elements of creation?”

After being destroyed, those Lesser Elemental Spirits hid underground to reform themselves. Spirits like them will take on physical form for battle, but their core is immaterial and will not be harmed even if their shells are broken.

The other Elemental spirits replaced those that fell and attacked without reserve. Bounded by the academy, the Elementals did not have a fear death, and Kairos quickly found himself overwhelmed as more and more nature spirits manifested.

Using his superior speed, he weaved through the battlefield, barely avoiding the explosions that intend to have him trapped.

When the spirits found him elusive, they began singing in unison. The hum caused hairs to stand on his arms, and without hesitating, Kairos immediately activated whatever defences he could prepare in a moment’s notice.

He looked in shock as the Elemental spirits started disappearing one after another, melding into the land and turning the arena into a violent field of rampaging wild elements.

The resulting force buffeted him from all sides as he looked in wonder as the world turned to ash around him. The elements formed five different sections of harsh terrains, and all of them inched towards him.

The metal elements turned into a whirlwind of silvery shards that shredded everything in their path. Be it the grass, the small insects or even the rocks, all are reduced to dust.

The earth elements become a dust storm that threatened to grind everything down like a blacksmith’s file.

The water element started enveloping everything it touches and aggressively seeped into every opening it found. They flowed towards Kairos, wishing to invade into his pores and kill him from within.

The wood element rejuvenated the destroyed plants in the area and caused new ones to be birthed. Wherever they are become overgrown by entangling twines and poisonous buckthorns as they devoured all they could use as nutrients.

The fire element burned the rest into cinders.

Such is the hell that Kairos saw.

Now the only spot that is still safe is where he stood. He tolerated the most extreme atmospheric conditions, knowing that such chaotic energy around him cannot last for long.

At first, their power wasn’t enough to break the defence of his Titan class physique, but the five elements started merging together around him, becoming more potent by the seconds as they assailed him.

The five elements are a kind of interdependent existence, but at the same time, inter-terminating.

Should water, fire, metal, wood, earth and water, appear in this sequence, they will overcome each other.

But when they activate in the correct sequence, they strengthen each other. From water comes wood, and wood brings forth flames. Fire creates the earth, and from the earth births metal. Then, from metal, runs water.

This sequence is happening right around Kairos, and becoming far more potent than the Lesser Elemental Spirits should be able to create.

“Truly the elements of creation, I can’t withstand this for long. It looks like I have to use it after all,” after a moment of considering, Kairos decided to proceed after all, despite the risk of revealing a trump card.

He had to be careful in keeping his more dangerous techniques sealed, knowing that his every action within the barrier is monitored. It wouldn’t do if the existence of mana, or worse yet, Origin Energy, is found in this place.

With a determined look on his face, Kairos pointed at the ground, middle of the barrier.

“True Immolation Finger!” He commanded with a fearsome voice.

A vortex of void appeared where he pointed, dragging in all the volatile elements in the area, compressing them into a small spot.

Yi De, Disciplinarian Head Instructor, who saw this gaped speechlessly at this scene.

His jaws fell to the ground, and he thought that his mouth might be dislocated by the shock he just received.

“He is also a transcendent element user? And a manipulator of Void at that!”

Yi De did not know, that Kairos actually has an affinity for all sixteen elements. Making use of the Void attribute in his martial arts is nothing alarming. It was just that he did not know the way to do so in the past.

However, his studies in the Runic library had provided him with more than just improving his crafts. It also greatly helped him in his martial arts.

Slowly, step-by-step, he is achieving his true potential in his own way. Thus, in his search of power, he found the perfect element to upgrade his previously incomplete Immolation Finger martial technique.

The devourer of elements, Void.

The chaotic ashen world immediately disappeared, dragged into the small space of void that Kairos made, and it formed into a tiny black ball that hung in the air defying gravity.

Then, from the ball, a great blast together with a shockwave shook the ground and dispersed all the collected energy.

It was an implosion of greater scale than anything Kairos had used before.

This is the upgraded version of his technique he had engineered to deal with powerful energies. Without a proper defence against Ki blasts, it was his countermeasure.

Although, because of the power of this technique, he ironically found himself unable to use it against Lux's Golem Body techniques during their duel previously. A single use of it, even with the regular version of the Immolation Finger would have killed his opponent.

Of all the rare transcendent elements, Void and Chaos have always been thought as the most useful. The former has the ability to absorb and nullify all types of energy, while the latter the capacity to assimilate everything. Because of how few people with an affinity to this pair of transcendent elements appear in history, there were no examples their true power until now.

Kairos hid a small smile on his face, knowing the shock that is running through Yi De’s mind.

Unfortunately, even if the Disciplinarian Head Instructor is the foster father of his brother, Jones, Yi De has a responsibility to uphold as a staff of the academy.

No doubt news of his ability to control the void will soon reach the ears of the upper echelons of the school; however, he did not regret using this technique, for it is the decoy he had thrown in front of the Academy.

Now that they know he is a Transcendent Element User, perhaps for those who were searching, it will become their answer to how his group were able to achieve the things they did in Silent Lambs Empire.

The air suddenly stilled, like the calm before the storm. The Lesser Elemental Spirits disappeared along with their untamed energies, but what replaced them is something far more savage.

Their manifestation drew Kairos out of his thoughts.

Sensing the boy was unflinching against the violent elemental atmospheres, the second stage of the combat test began as five Greater Elemental Spirits revealed themselves before him.

Each of them is limited to A ranked when they took on their Elemental form, turning into human size. Though they did not have legs and hovered around in Elemental bodies, they formed arms like a human.

They stood around him, giants of scorching flames, pervasive waters, hard timbers, solid rocks and gleaming steel. All of them golems of the spirits.

“Hmm, five A ranks… surely the Academy do not expect second years to endure this?”

The Greater Elementals attacked at once, darting forward with abandon, preferring to charge into melee range and directly striking him. Kairos quickly retreated till his back is by the barrier without letting them out of his sight.

"They appear restrained by the test... how dreary. I'm becoming interested to see their real power."

They struck without using direct elemental attacks, though the golem those greater spirits controlled were no doubt formidable. The steel golem possesses razor sharp aura, the rock golem a reflective property, and the water, fire and wood Elemental puppets will entangle whatever touches them. Knowing the futility of using his bare hands, Kairos immediately summoned his nigh Immortal ranked weapon, a metallic Swallow forged by Siegfried's greatest techniques.

Their attacks came at him all at once, but with his back against the wall, they could come from only his front.

He felt as though he is fighting with five people with Titan Ranked physiques. Fortunately, these puppets possessed few martial techniques and only relied on their brute force.

He adeptly deflects, and counter attacks from the five with powerful strikes and rapid sequence thrusts with his Swallow. The twin dragonlings residing within engulfed his weapon with their power, allowing him to fight them on par.

Unable to subdue Kairos, the Elementals became more aggressive than before. Their blows quickly turn vicious. These spirits of nature, from the outset, was chaotic and unrestrained.

His face did not change even when they sped up in their attacks, and his only response is to meet them with even swifter strikes. Kairos parried their attacks into each other, causing them to hinder each other and sending the spirits into confusion as they had to untangle themselves.

"Formless Style, borrowing the Heavens, returning a hell!"

With a flurry of blows, his Swallow retaliated even more brutally than the spirits. The twin dragonlings swirled around the edges of his dual blades, chomping and gorging on the elemental energies on the puppets.

His strikes aimed precisely counteracting every move they made redirecting their power with the bare minimum stoppage force needed to nullify their strength.

Soon, it was the five Greater Spirits that found themselves overwhelmed in the exchange of blows. It was ten arms against two, but Kairos had masterfully forced them backwards, alarming his foes.

Though they stood taller than him, at this moment, they felt tiny. Even if their cultivation were suppressed, they felt as if they are challenging something far beyond their levels.

Hesitation seems to paralyse the Elementals, and at a moment of opportune, Kairos readied his Swallow to cut them down, but the Greater Metal Spirit suddenly called out, “HOLD IT!”

The other Greater Spirits halted at once, and likewise, Kairos who is already mid-slash stopped his attack.

“Are You The Great One?”

“What are you talking about?”

“Are You The Great One?” It repeated.

A frown appeared on Kairos’ brows when he heard that, then he said, “I don’t know.”

“You Must Be! I Have Heard Of You From My Wife.”

“Wife? Was she the one in the combat testing room half a year ago?”

“YES.”

Kairos nodded. From his recollections, the only other Greater Metal Spirit he met was the one possessing a suit of armour, and it wasn’t hard to guess.

“Great One,” The Greater Metal Spirit suddenly bowed, and the other greater spirits followed likewise.

Kairos looked perplexedly at those greater spirits before him and asked them to raise. He is uncertain what they wanted that made them lower their proud figures.

As the others raised, the Greater Metal Spirit continued, “Great One, After My Wife Met You, She Had Informed The Spirit King, Who Wish An Audience With You.”

“Great One?” The Greater Metal Spirit asked insistently when Kairos did not answer immediately.

“Is it safe to meet their king?” he mentally asked Aisa instead.

Yep! They are mostly harmless, living in accordance with nature~

With her approval, Kairos gave the greater spirit a nod. It would be interesting to meet with their so-called king.

“Great One, Our King Is Trapped In The Spirit World Because The Mortal Realm Has Not Enough Heavenly Energy. Please Come With Me.”

While they talked, the ranking barrier started going out of control. To form a proper channel into the spirit world, chaotic energy summoned by the Greater Spirits threatened to tear apart the space they are.

“Be still,” Aisa commanded before the disturbance alarmed the Academy, and at once the unstable energy disappeared. In its place, a perfectly made portal appeared before them.

With the portal now stable, Kairos walked into it and entered a world unlike any he had seen before.