With his newfound resolve, Lute had released lightning, destroying every last trace of the heart demon that had almost caused him to succumb to self-doubt. As its ashes dispersed, his world was once again silent. A void of nothingness except the light of stars, this was his ideal inner world. Everyone’s inner world was different, uniquely representing the essence of who that person was.

Lute’s was a void of nothingness, but it was filled with infinite stars. To him, each star represented a different possibility, a different choice, and a different fate. To him, this meant his path was endless and he would never be pigeonholed into something he didn’t want to do.

Finally Lute calmed down, but he didn’t suppress his Slaughter Aura. The violent thoughts, and the aura itself, had suppressed itself of its own accord; Lute didn’t have to forcibly do it himself. This was the benefit of accepting everything about himself, both the good and the bad.

When he had achieved this new resolve and strength, in the material plane, not only had Lutes Slaughter Aura strengthened in his inner world, it also was released of its own accord, shocking Toros. Had he not formed a dense black shell around Lute, the aura Lute was emitting would’ve disturbed everyone else taking the trial.

‘This, this is inconceivable.’

Toros was astounded, to think that Lute went from wavering and almost succumbing to in less than a second he was releasing such a baleful aura that it was hard to believe it came from someone who wasn’t even considered and adult in society yet.

Toros laughed under his breath, “Looks like it was worth it to come here, we might just have someone who is a rare talent.”

Finally, the baleful aura he felt from Lute began to recede, and disappear, but if it were anyone below the Earthen Practitioner Realm, they would still feel suffocated by simply approaching Lute.

Toros removed the banners and the released the black shell that kept Lute’s aura from leaking out to the other contestants. Then, the youth before him woke up, taking first place; he was the first to conquer his inner demons before anyone else.

Lute was confused at first but then he began to despise himself, ‘Fucking hell, so much for being low key, not only am I the first done, there was even an Elder presiding over me and everyone in the arena is staring at me.’

“Nice to meet you lad, the names Toros, I am sorry about earlier, but in order for you to successfully have the chance to pass the first trial, I had to put a separate formation around you and with increased strength because you weren’t experiencing inner demons, and in order to pass you must meet and conquer them.”

Lute narrowed his eyes, he almost died and it was all because of this… He wouldn’t pass unless he experienced inner demons, but he was given his own personal formation with stronger demons than the others.

“There was no need to use that much strength, as far as I know it isn’t the goal of you all to kill your trial participants…” Lute said icily, he was less than pleased, despite passing; it was a close call, had Isla not saved him he would’ve died.

“But you didn’t die, clearly you passed, and achieved first place at that, but because you had to complete this at a much higher difficulty than the other contestants, if you successfully join the sect, you will be given a bonus reward.”

“I see”

With those two simple words, Lute began to walk out of the formation, but not before Toros called out to him once more. “Wait, I am curious though, how did you pass the trial, you were wavering and on the brink of failing, then you suddenly passed.”

Toros left out the Slaughter Aura Lute had emitted, as he didn’t know how Lute was capable of such balefulness and even if he asked, Lute wouldn’t tell anyways.

Lute stopped, turned around and stared Toros in the eye, “Isn’t it obvious, I killed it. The heart demon I met now ceases to ever exist.”

All the Elders present were dumbstruck upon Lute’s words, the disciples didn’t understand, but they did.

Alda quickly ran over, “Did you just say it, as in one demon? You had a trial that dangerous and you only faced one demon?”

When you faced the heart, typically many small demons would try to corrupt the cultivators with enticements of their dreams, offering power. But if it was one singular heart demon, which was more dangerous as it was much more intelligent, this kind tried to corrupt based on self-doubt. But even more astounding was Lute said he killed it, not suppress or banish it, but killed it.

Alda’s mouth was still slightly agape from shock, “You killed it… how?”

Lute was beginning to get annoyed, he didn’t feel the need to explain, it was self-explanatory, and he killed it, what more needed to be said. He couldn’t reveal Isla to them, so the less he said, the better.

“It was a black mass that tried to breed self-doubt in me. When it tried to devour me, I killed it, it now ceases to exist within me, what else do you need?” Lute said in an annoyed tone.

“Nothing, it’s just that in this trial, there were supposed to be many small demons that tried to corrupt your Martial Heart by enticing you with empty promises. And typically you can’t kill inner demons, you suppress or banish them, to say that you killed it is…. unheard of.”

“Well then it is a matter of perspective, it’s your own inner world, you have absolute influence and power there, nothing should be able to interfere unless you let it interfere. Anything that tries to, just kill it. Why suppress it within yourself or try to banish it when killing it is easier.”

The Elders went slightly numb, a matter of perspective, just kill it since it only had control if you gave it control? It wasn’t that simple, a heart demon was bred from your own power, so it wasn’t easily killed when it originated from within yourself. Perhaps Lute was just a freak.

As contestants finally began to wake up and pass the test, Toros laughed heartily, “Alda you really brought back a talented kid, to think that he would pass in such a way.”

Lute ignored the comment, and walked off into another corner, deciding to wait until the second trial. He failed to remain low key here, but that was unchangeable, there was no way for him to alter the outcome, but here, in the next two trials he would be able to.

Sitting down in a corner, Lute noticed that Elders and disciples in the stands alike were staring at him occasionally. However, he ignored them, as long as he didn’t display his other abilities, he should be able to return to going through the trials unnoticed.

He sat there quietly and watched all the participants, two nobles failed and two of the five commoners he noticed failed. They couldn’t deal with the increased strength of the formation. As for the remaining total of one thousand and two hundred participants, after this trial ended, there were only six hundred remaining, many had failed the trial of their Martial Hearts.

After roughly a twenty minute rest period, for all of the trial participants that passed, the time for the second trial quickly approached. It was a trial about comprehension. There were ten random Arts of Fallen Tide Hall that were open to the public as they were mostly for cultivators below the Spirit Opening Realm, and weren’t nearly as valuable. Each one had three techniques within.

An elder would assign a random art to a participant, and in a five hour time limit, they had to learn the art and display one of the techniques that they managed to learn from it. This was very difficult, at the very least, it would typically take almost a whole day to understand the basis of an art, let alone cultivate one of its techniques.

The purpose of this trial was to see how well an individual could perform under pressure. With a time limit of five hours, this pressure would allow the Elders to see where a person’s breaking point was. Some students couldn’t even understand the basis of an art that was given, while other would manage to learn more than one technique, even if they couldn’t display those techniques at a level of mastery and were very crude.

After the announcer discussed the basis for the second trial, it began; every Elder began to casually hand out one of the ten Arts randomly. As Lute waited, Alda approached him; apparently she was going to give him his Art to cultivate.

“Oops, I just casually picked out a random Art, but this one really seems to suit the way you fight. What good luck you have Lute.” Alda said with a grin, she then handed the scroll to Lute before quickly moving along to other disciples.

‘Crazy woman, she didn’t pick that out randomly, she purposely picked out the Arts most suited to my combat style.’

Lute grinned slightly after reading the contents of the scroll; it really did suit his brutish style of fighting head on with his opponent. The name of the art was Qi Explosion Tactics; there were three techniques that could be derived from it, an offensive, a defensive and a movement technique.

It was an all-rounder art that made up for Lute’s current weaknesses. He didn’t have any arts centralized on combat. So although, for example, this movement technique wouldn’t be as powerful as one from an art focused solely on movement, it gave Lute one technique for offense, defense, and movement.

With the sound of a bell, the time limit started, light surrounded every remaining contestant. Another formation had been placed, under the power of the two hundred Elders; an illusionary formation was made that allowed each participant to enter their own individual illusionary training room. Each room was based on where a cultivator felt most at home. So for Lute, he was once again at the lake in the Crimson Tide Mountain Range where he had lived for numerous months. The only difference, there were no Vicious Beasts.

Lute immediately started meditating, from the moment he read the scroll, with his already monstrous comprehension ability, as well as the boost in understanding he gained from the Laws of Severance released from the First Path of New Beginnings, he already understood the basis behind the Qi Explosion Tactics.

Revolving his Qi through his body the way he needed to, Lute immediately felt the difference. His Qi grew more violent and compressed itself wherever he specified it to within his body. At such points, such as his fist, when he punched, the Qi would explode outward releasing a force two to three times stronger than it would be if he simply covered his fist in Qi.

After experimenting for a while, Lute already saw through the techniques. He successfully learned the Art and it automatically severed itself from Heaven’s Way the moment he completely understood and learned it.

Lute couldn’t put it into an actual thought, but instead he could “Feel” the Art becoming original to him, as if he was the one who invented it when it severed from Heavens Way, he just knew instinctively that when he felt such a sensation the Art was severed and became his.

It felt as if there were infinite ways he could change the Art and modify it to better suit him. This was why the Laws of Severance were so unique, because now that Lute severed this Art and made it original to him. Anyone else that used the same art wouldn’t be capable of what Lute was going to do next or display it on the same level of mastery because as with any Art, only the creator of it could truly use it to the limits of its capabilities.

And the first thing he was going to do, he was going to merge the Qi Explosion Tactics into his Thousand Ways Scripture. The effect Lute was hoping for was that less Qi would need to be used for the techniques and it would always release maximum power, while costing less Qi.

Lute was going to create a combat art unique to himself, by combining and merging the Mortal Realm Arts that he felt would be useful into the Thousand Ways Scripture, until eventually, a new Art was born, with new Techniques that only Lute could use. This was the essence of the Laws of Severance, to break down and fuse.

He would break down any Art, completely understanding it, and then completely modifying it however he wanted, as well as fuse it with other Arts and Techniques without consequence. The only thing that Lute needed was time, if he had enough, he could create anything within his imagination using the Arts he learned as a foundation to build upon. Others could spend their entire lives trying to create and merge Arts together and still be unsuccessful, but given enough time, no matter how long it took, Lute would eventually succeed in whatever he was trying to create.

His goal, to create a continually evolving Art that had many techniques usable for any situation. Lute wanted to birth an Art that could infinitely evolve and adapt.