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"Anyone who reaches the 25th floor would be rated as having a battle power of five stars," Sophia did feel that Sun Wukong would be able to achieve such a rank.

"But getting a battle power of five stars is not what just any genius can do. Even in our sect, there is only one such person with a battle power of five stars," David felt the same way too.

"Let's not assume just yet. There might be pleasant surprises…" Sophia looked at Arthur's screen as she said this.

David follows her eyes, "Hmm, you may be right."

Having a battle power rating of five stars meant that one can be said to be invincible in the same realm, and can even fight those in a greater realm than they are.

There is a total of ten stars for the battle power rating, with one star being the lowest and ten stars being the highest one could reach. But in the Mortal Emperor Realm, a battle power rating of seven stars is the highest in history.

Anything beyond seven stars is nothing more than a legend to the inhabitants of this world.

Meanwhile, Arthur had already reached the sixth floor of the Sword Tower. He could have gone faster, but he was using this as an opportunity to train his battle experience.

Although he had already trained in the forests and fought multiple spirit beasts, they were in the end still just beasts with their intelligence being lower than that of humans.

But the Sword Puppets fight like real cultivators and if Arthur didn't know that they were puppets he would have thought that there was a person underneath that amour.

*Swish!*

Arthur dodged another attack from a Sword Puppet and sent an attack of his forward. The puppet twisted its sword and blocked Arthur's attack while taking a few steps back.

Arthur followed up with a punch sent at its lower abdomen, but the puppet swung its sword downwards and Arthur had to withdraw his attack and sent a kick at its head which successfully landed on the puppet and sent it flying.

Soon, Arthur cleared this floor and moved on to the next one.

"If I had learned some more martial arts techniques, then I would be able to finish this faster," Arthur felt that his speed was slow even though he was defeating the puppets easily without a sweat.

Only he had no idea that his speed was already very fast.

"Whoa, someone just advanced to the seventh floor!"

"Yeah, I see it too. Damn, that's crazily fast, I wonder who it is?"

"It appears that we may have underestimated this bunch of new disciples."

"I don't know, I think it is still too early to judge. Who knows, maybe the person is just using all his trump cards right from the get-go to attain the speed that he has," an outer-disciple speculated.

"Hmm, that could be true. Otherwise, our sect might be having another five-star genius."

"Isn't that a good thing? With two five-star geniuses, our sect might finally take the number one spot from the Hartfield Royal Academy."

**********

The cultivation of the sword puppets that one would face in the sword tower would increase with each subsequent floor. The sword puppet that Arthur faced on the seventh floor had a cultivation rank in the second level of the Gold Core Realm.

Just like that, the opponents Arthur faced became stronger and faster as he progressed. And not only that, their battle techniques became perfect and their attacking strategies were no different from an actual sword cultivator sometimes Arthur felt that there was an experienced cultivator underneath that amour.

While Arthur was climbing the Sword Tower, the others who were climbing with him had begun to fail and were sent out of the tower through another entrance, making it so that they could not see the footage of others like David and Sophia were doing.

This was to maintain confidentiality, as it would not be good if everyone saw the trump cards of the others.

"Man, I did not expect this test to be so hard that I did not manage to reach the fifth floor!"

"Yeah, I stooped at the third floor, so I can't imagine how those other guys managed to do it."

"Hey look, someone has reached the 12th floor!"

A shout drew everyone's attention to the number being displayed on the wall of the Sword Tower.

"The 12th floor already? Isn't that too fast?"

"Yeah, I was there back then when that guy ascended the Sword Tower, and he wasn't this fast."

While they discussed that, the number being displayed changed again and became '13'.

At a building not far from the Sword Tower, a group of disciples stood on a balcony watching the Sword Tower from far. Their garment was different from that of the outer-sect and inner-sect disciples.

Upon seeing the speed at which the floors of the tower were being cleared, one of them spoke with a stern tone.

"Send word quickly, there is a high chance of someone setting a new record on the Sword Tower!"

One of them nodded and left promptly.

"This year's bunch are good eh?"

"So it appears..."

----------

"Hmm, they are getting stronger and more skilled..."

*Clank!*

Zaith blocked the attack sent at him with a weapon that looked like the combination of a spear and an axe.

Zaith was currently on the 10th floor, just three floors below Arthur, but no one except David and Sophia noticed.

He battled the sword puppet while contemplating if he should use his intent yet.

"Not yet, you need to conserve your strength. Besides, this is also good training for you."

A voice that only Zaith could hear spoke to him. The voice came as though it was within his soul.

"I understand," Zaith responded and continued his battle.

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A/N: Thanks to all who are supporting this story.

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