Refining the Heavens (炼天)

Chapter 94: Unprepared

As he walked out, crumps of stone and dust broke off from the ceiling and fell to the ground. This room that is made for combat has nearly shattered after the boy activated his secret arts.

"World Severing Slash? What a fearsome move."

The principal thought as he heard the numerous conversations running amok around the room.

"Kairos as of today, you are officially Entry D rank. Your combat ability is also judged to be at the level of Peak C rank. Having such a gap between your true fighting ability and your cultivation level is a rarity, and you should be proud.

With this, you will be able to take up any Peak C rank quests at the guild."

With that said, the principal hands Kairos a modifier for his badge.

This modifier will update the latest information about him. The moment Kairos took it into his hand, the item dispersed into a cloud of dust. The dust flew towards the badge on his arm and changed the letter on it to 'D'.

Around the letter 'D', five stars encircles it. Each star represents having a combat level above the cultivation grade.

If a student has a weaker combat level than his or her cultivation grade, then the badge will merely reflect a lower ranked alphabet. Such people have long since been regarded as weaklings that do not deserve their actual rank, but in fact, it is a common thing, and there are truckloads after truckloads of such people in the Empire. This is because not everyone has the advantage over others of their ranks by having better martial arts, training resources or equipment.

Now that Kairos has a D rank badge with five stars, he is able to take quests from the guild up to five grades above him. This is also one of the reasons why he had fought with such intensity to achieve a higher combat level.

The adventurer guilds hands out different missions according to a practitioner's strength, by completing them the adventurer could earn money while slowly accumulating points that could be used to redeem treasures.

The other reason is that Kairos felt no need to hide his level of strength.

Thanks to the latent test, many of his abilities were already exposed. The situation is no longer about keeping low key but moved onto a stage where he needs to shine brilliantly to garner allies while deterring potential enemies.

Of course, by doing so, he will be taking a risk as well, and not to mention giving up information on some of his abilities like the Formless Style.

Fortunately, the combat technique is still at a teething stage and have huge room for growth. Exposing the moves now means little in the long run.

Taking a gamble now are of little consequence to him. It's not because Kairos is foolhardy or inexperienced, but simply because his goal is too far away for him to proceed slowly. Plus his current performance is still not so outstanding as to threaten those in high places.

However, when the young heir to the Devilheart family, Calculus, saw how the students are once again congratulating Kairos for his change in rank. His eyebrows furrowed into a deep wrinkle. The thing that irate him the most is others stealing his limelight, and this boy had done it time and again humiliating him.

"Hmph, you can celebrate your fame for now. But you have no idea how pathetic you look in my eyes."

Even after losing to him in the training grounds and during the trade fair he has not given up.

The Devilheart family's hidden strength is much more than they reveal to the public. If one thinks deeply about it, an heir like Calculus could already bring with him four personal slave guards that are so extremely talented that each of them could match the combat level of almost any heir from the Hundred Nobles. The training resources required to nurture such individuals can only be described as tremendous.

Over the years, their family had been seeking far and wide for young talented children to be trained as their heir's personal guards. Yet this is only a front they have provided to the public. The number of children they bought from poorer families, the orphans they picked up and the slaves they purchased from the slave markets are definitely a sizable amount.

Among those children, they picked only the best to heavily invest in, providing them with the powerful training resources that the Devilheart family have. After they are trained to a certain degree where they are able to earn money for the family, most of them are sent out as A ranked adventurers for completing the guild quests and making money for them.

Of course, those adventurers will all claim to be free men without any backers when they are taking up such a role. And if they did well, those that reach S rank will return back to the Devilheart family by 'pretending' they are joining a faction.

Such a thing happening is as common as flies within Saint Empire, and it is exactly this commonness that Calculus' family made use of.

Who knows how many S rankers that the Devilheart family have already accumulated from over the years?

Yet this is only the surface of their strength, the tip of the iceberg. Not many people, not even their superior Lord Yue knows that the true power of the Devilheart family.

Other than training the talented individuals to become their heir's personal guards or to become adventurers, the true fearsomeness of their plans is to insert multiple individuals into Saint Empire's upper echelon.

During the incident when Calculus took illegal actions during the mock battlefield exams, it is those people that seemingly were neutral parties that started siding with the young noble.

With such powerful hidden networks, at times of need, the Devilheart family can definitely fight with a family from the three Great Nobles without fear.

When Calculus looked down on Kairos, it was not without reasons, even when the latter had started getting too far ahead for him to catch up. It is the young noble's thoughts that maybe Kairos have inherited great training talents, but he has inherited a powerful status that is incomparable.

The truth of this world is that some people inherit a stronger body, some people a great wealth, and some a powerful status. Calculus has all three. Even if one of those advantages he has paled in comparison to Kairos, he is still superior, overall.

"How did you guys measure?" Kairos asked as his friends welcomed him.

The latent test is done by the crystal merely takes a quarter of an hour or less to finish, and Kairos have been in the combat room for over three hours since. Yet his friends updated him that merely six people completed the latent test, and this is including Kairos himself.

"What? By now there should be at least twelve people who could finish the test, why is it only half are done?"

"C..captain... If we trace the reason back to its roots, then the fault is all yours."

Kairos' jaws dropped, "What do you mean by that?"

"Well... the six people who have tested their latent talents are you, Jones, Edward, Tommy Jim and I."

Kairos' eyes went wide with shock. The implications of what Alan had said is huge indeed. If the only six people that have been tested are the six of them, and they took up over two-fold the time needed to do the test then most likely....

"You guys have all been tested to be of the Heavenly Path?"

He almost screamed when he realised. There was only one thing in common among the six of them: They are all Origin Energy users. The Heavenly Path martial way is something that the brothers have unknowingly stumbled into after cultivating the source of energy closest to heavenly Dao. Because of this, they had no way of preparing themselves beforehand.

A huge uproar was in the testing room when Kairos was busy practising his Formless Style with the greater metal spirit.

One after another, thegroup that Kairos is in have all been tested to be of the heavenly path. Notonly that, they are all at Peak Mortal's way, and Jones is even already in PeakHeart's way.