Observing all of this, Mathew Gris rose from his place among the seven family heads and made his way to where Grand Elder Waller stood, leaning close and conveying his instructions in a quiet voice that did not carry beyond the two of them.
Whatever passed between them was brief and sufficient.
Mathew then straightened, turned to face the assembled gathering, and raised his voice so that it reached every corner of the trial site. "The trial will continue from here onwards," he announced, and then returned to his seat.
At those words, the atmosphere among the gathered disciples underwent an imdiate and visible transformation. The whispers and sideways glances that had proliferated since the arrival of the star shuttle and its three passengers ceased as the disciples drew themselves into the focused and serious bearing that the occasion demanded, their attention pulling back toward the Combat Legion Tower and the trial that awaited them within it.
Grand Elder Waller's voice followed shortly after, "There are no rules in the Combat Legion Tower," he began, "There are one hundred floors in total, and at each floor a battle awaits every disciple who enters. The highest floor any disciple of our clan has ever managed to ascend to was the ninety-first, and even that disciple could not overco the opponent waiting at that floor. That record has stood as the greatest height any mber of the Black Dragon Clan has ever reached within this tower."
Joe received this information with a short sound of dismissal and a slow shake of his head. "Hmm? Only the ninety-first floor?" The disdain in his voice was unhurried and complete. "I recall that the highest any genius of our Violet Star Palace reached was the ninety-eighth floor. Only the final two floors have remained untouched."
The seven family heads absorbed this with expressions that could not entirely conceal the surprise working through them. Ninety-eight floors was a figure that refrad everything they thought they understood about the upper limits of what was achievable within a tower of this kind.
The matter of ascending to the tower's highest floors was not simply a question of talent or determination but one governed by the hard boundaries of cultivation itself. For those who had progressed beyond the Rebirth Realm, reaching the one hundredth floor was a challenge of a different character entirely, one that was demanding but not beyond the realm of recorded achievent.
At the Rebirth Realm itself, however, the situation was categorically different, and the historical record of both the Black Dragon Clan and the Violet Star Palace alike bore witness to just how different it was, because neither force had ever produced a disciple at that level of cultivation who had managed to climb all the way to the tower's summit - 100th floor.
Against that backdrop, the knowledge that the disciples of the Violet Star Palace had pushed as far as the ninety-eighth floor was a fact significant enough to warrant the surprise that had settled quietly and without ceremony across the faces of the seven family heads.
They now truly understood the gap between their force and Violet Star Palace, one of the strongest 3rd rate forces in the Divine Realm.
"Now I shall announce that the third trial begins!" Grand Elder Waller's voice rang out across the trial site with the resonant authority of a man who had presided over these proceedings many tis before.
The declaration landed among the gathered disciples like a stone dropped into water, and the response was imdiate and instinctive as many of them began to roll their shoulders and loosen their limbs, shaking off the stillness of waiting and drawing their focus inward in preparation for what the Combat Legion Tower had in store for them.
Grand Elder Waller followed the announcent with an addendum that required no deliberation on his part. "Since Max Morgan has achieved the highest point in the Path to Eternal Flas, he will be the first to ascend the Combat Legion Tower."
The reasoning was clear and the order of precedence it established was without ambiguity, and at those words Max stepped forward from among the gathered disciples with the calm and unhurried bearing of soone who had already made his peace with what was being asked of him.
It was at this mont that Lady Virelia spoke. "Don't push yourself too hard," she said, and the words were simple but the care behind them was not. "You can be injured inside the Combat Legion Tower, and so if you reach a point where you feel that you cannot go on, speak the words 'I admit defeat' and you will be teleported out safely."
"I will keep that in mind," Max said, nodding to Lady Virelia with a steadiness that matched the sincerity of her concern.
The words were genuine and he ant them as he said them, but beneath that acknowledgnt ran a quieter and more private current of resolve, the kind that does not announce itself or invite conversation, the settled certainty of soone who has already decided that they will give everything they have regardless of where that leads them.
Joe had been watching all of this from his chair of divine essence with the detached and appraising attention of a man at leisure, but the mont his eyes settled properly on Max and registered what his cultivation senses were telling him, that detachnt gave way to sothing louder.
"Hahaha..."
A laugh escaped him that was not entirely unkind but was entirely unguarded in its incredulity, the spontaneous reaction of soone who had not expected to be surprised in quite this particular way.
"Are you kidding ?" he said, the laughter still threading through his words as he looked at Max with an expression caught sowhere between amusent and disbelief. "This kid only has the strength of the third level of the Rebirth Realm and he is attempting to challenge the combat tower?"
The question was addressed to the air as much as to anyone specific, carrying the tone of soone who could not quite decide whether what they were witnessing was bold or simply absurd.
He turned his gaze toward the seven family heads with the expectant ease of soone who assud that his observation would draw a response worth engaging with, so defense or explanation that would give him sothing to push back against.
What he received instead was a collection of wry smiles.
Only the Black Dragon Clan knew the true shape of what Max was, the particular and almost unreasonable nature of the talent and tenacity that lived inside that young man whose cultivation level looked so unimpressive to anyone encountering him for the first ti.
But hidden deep within him lies the the true monster of a genius.
It was Victor Veron who chose to offer sothing more than a smile. "Elder Joe, Max is a genius in his own right," he said, his tone carrying the asured lightness of soone who was not making a boast so much as stating a fact they considered settled. "I believe he will do well enough in the combat tower."
Joe received this with a narrowing of his eyes that signaled the return of his full attention to the young man standing at the threshold of the tower.
"I wouldn't think otherwise," he said after a mont, and the words ca out slower and more deliberate than what had preceded them. "I could not bring myself to imagine the sword of the Sword Sovereign being claid by a disciple who amounted to nothing."
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