Chapter 921 Waste

Everyone's eyes were trained on Dyon, as though in an attempt to see through all of his secrets. Of them, none were more focused than Donari's elder brother.

During his own round, he had remained lowkey, not revealing too much of his hand because he had long begun to take this bet seriously. Even the red robed elder was sweating incessantly, unable to control his emotions. If Dyon really won, he would have to be a servant for 100 years! Even worse, half of that time would be in the service of a child, and the other half would be in service of his worst enemy! That was a fate worse than death!

Even without his soul, Dyon could tell that his nine opponents must be communicating with their essence energy right now. Unfortunately, he had no means of intercepting their messages. However, he had a good guess of what they wanted to do.

From the very beginning, the rule was set that any winner of a group had to be responsible for the defeat of at least three others. So, what do you think happened if a winner didn't meet those requirements?

In past years, this would mean that all members of the group would receive something known as a "fated chance". This would allow the losers of the group to have the opportunity of challenging one of the top 100 disciples with the qualifications to enter the sect. In that case, as long as that challenger displayed battle prowess similar to that of the top 100 disciple, they would then be admitted into the sect as well.

That's right, it wasn't even necessary to win!

These rules were set in place because Soul Rending Peak understood that although group battle royales were quick, they weren't necessarily fair. Often time, stronger opponents would be ganged up on. If one didn't have absolute power to suppress everyone else in their group, even if you were objectively the strongest, you wouldn't have a good fate awaiting you.

To mitigate this, Evangeline implemented this "fated chance" rule, and it was also a major reason why everyone loved her despite her only recently coming to prominence.

Evangeline's kind heartedness had come to the fore of the minds of many. After all, she was so soft hearted that even though she was the supervisor of these assessments, she refused to appear until after the first two rounds were concluded so that she wouldn't have to witness anyone's dreams being crushed before they could even try.

Truth be told, the only reason Dyon hadn't moved yet was because he was still mostly lost in his own thoughts. He was very interested in Donari's kill intent still and couldn't be bothered to worry about the schemes of people he felt he could beat whenever he wanted. Although he wouldn't belittle them, that didn't mean he would go all out. If he did something like that, they'd end up dead.

Although it was called killing intent, as far as Dyon was aware, it wasn't a type of will. Or rather, it wasn't a type of will that was often used.

Wills usually came in the form of emitting type that could directly be used to attack. These were wills like fire or water that could directly be incorporated into attacks.

However, there were also wills like Demonic will that had more subtle effects than the usual. It could be used to strengthen the body, and could also be used as a psychological attack.

Then there was killing intent. Interesting enough, there was no killing will or killing dao, this was what had Dyon lost in thought. He felt like he was back in school where experts would unnecessarily name things similarly as though they were purposefully trying to confuse those who came after them.

Killing intent was more like a martial art than anything else. And like other martial arts, it was reliant on the mind and the body, nothing more.

Presence was cultivated by tempering the mind. Perception was also cultivated by tempering the mind. As for Killing intent, it was no different. It was just that the approaches to each was vastly different.

Dyon's first comprehension of Perception came within the first trial maze. It forced his mind to work and think faster than it ever had before to solve an almost impossible problem.

Dyon fostered Perception before he even stepped into the martial world. It was a mind state he received from imitating his father and hero, while also constantly withstanding his father's Presence.

Killing intent, however, wasn't something Dyon had in a dense enough form to label it as true Killing intent. He simply didn't have the proper mind state to achieve it.

Dyon considered himself to be a person who paid debts where they were due, but he didn't kill indiscriminately. For example, he had no intention of killing the nine opponents that were priming to fight right now. In that way, he fell short of Donari who killed for the slightest slights…

But, was that really the way to groom killing intent? Why was it that Dyon had massacred millions of beasts during the third trial, yet hadn't grown a killing intent of his own? Did he really need to have the will to kill any and everything before he could? Did he even need killing intent since he had his Presence? Didn't they function similarly?

That was when Dyon thought of something else. Killing intent seemed like a regular martial art on the surface, but if he remembered correctly, normal martial arts solely required the body, yet killing intent was heavily linked to the soul as well… What if he didn't foster any killing intent after slaughtering all of those beasts because his soul was sealed then?

Just as Dyon felt he was reaching enlightenment, he suddenly felt gusts of wind rush toward him.

Dyon immediately snapped his attention back to reality. He already assumed what his opponents would have to do for them to have a chance, and under normal circumstances, he would be inclined to allow them a path to success, however, the "fated chance" opportunity wasn't as benevolent as it seemed on the surface.

While it was a blessing for the losers of the round, to the winners, it was a punishment for failing. If a winner of a round failed to be responsible for three losses, they would lose the opportunity to become an inner or core disciple and would also be unable to leave the ranks of outer disciple for ten years.

This wasn't Evangeline's doing, but rather a concession she was forced to make in order to implement her wish to allow more opportunities for commoners.

Although she was loved by the general public, the core elders of Soul Rending Peak, she was an eye sore. She had only been in the public light for about 20 or so years, yet she had become Vice Master, wasn't that just spitting in the face of all the work those elders had put into the sect for their millenniums of life?

Even worse, she had slighted many of them in refusing their advances, while the female elders were simply jealous of her looks, assuming that the Soul Rending Peak Master only promoted her because she was beautiful.

In the end, this resulted in many baseless rumors spreading around Soul Rending Peak and was also the very same reason why a woman with status as high as Vice Master was forced to oversee a mere disciple assessment. Anyone with intelligence could see that Evangeline's life wasn't so easy.

To the public, she was a goddess. To the Soul Rending Peak disciples, she was both their goal and their ideal woman. But, to those of near or equivalent status to her, she was hated… Not for anything she had done personally, but rather out of jealousy and spite. It wasn't rare for rumors of her "immoral relations" with the Peak Master to spread amongst the elders, even trickling into the ears of the highest-ranking disciples as well.

All of this said, while Dyon didn't care about the status a mere Soul Rending Peak could give him, he couldn't afford to muddle around in the outer disciple ranks. That would simply waste too much time. The best combination of status and freedom he could have was to become a core disciple of the Peak.