"What happened? Are you two, okay?" Damon asked the girls.
Then the girl with a ponytail turned to him.
"Yeah, we’re alright. He was talking nonsense anyway, Elder Selene won’t—"
"Sister!" the shy one, who had been hiding behind her, cut her off.
"Anyway... my na is Mio, and this is my twin sister, Mia." The ponytail girl gestured toward the girl who mirrored her features, save for her straight hair. "Thank you for helping us."
"I’m Damon." He smiled at them.
Mia froze, as her eyes looked into Damon’s smile. Seeing her sibling’s reaction, Mio react with an amused expression of her face.
"We should head to the sect gate — the selection is about to begin. See you later." As she grabbed her dazed sister and pulled her away.
After they were gone, Ariel suddenly appeared on his side.
"Who were they? New sisters?" she asked.
"Wha— what are you talking about?" He looked at her and caught off guard with her sudden question.
"Did you really expect to believe that I will be your only woman?" Her expression was composed, graceful, entirely serious.
"It is perfectly normal, Damon. Powerful n will draw won to them and it has always been so. Truthfully, I would welco more of us."
"What do you an?"
"Do you know how difficult it is to keep you satisfied. Even yesterday, I had to beg you to stop." She smiled softly. "We need more of us if we want to handle you properly."
"Ariel." He shook his head slowly. "You are truly a kind woman. I am glad you were my first."
She warm smiled spreading across her face.
****
"Attention!" A loud voice echoed, and all the participants in the selection fell silent.
Damon’s eyes imdiately focused on the Sect’s gates. They were made of azure marble and bordered with threads of pure gold, rising almost twenty ters high.
At the top of it, an elderly man floated with deep azure robes with gold trim. While one hand stroking at his long white beard that cascaded down to his chest.
"I am Elder Alder, I will be today’s overseer." His voice was deep and carried the weight of authority.
His aura so strong that even those at the True Spirit Realm could not probe it.
’Heavenly Spirit Realm. Damon was certain of it. Since his reincarnation, he had never encountered anyone of such cultivation.’
He couldn’t sense the old man’s aura directly, but the fact that he floated there told him everything. Only those who had reached the Heavenly Spirit Realm could fly in the air without tools or talismans.
"Five hundred of you stand here today — those who endured the pressure of the inner disciples and proved yourselves fit for what cos next." He paused, drawing a breath.
"Of those five hundred, only fifty will be accepted. You will undergo an age and cultivation examination, followed by a spiritual roots test, and finally a combat test. Only the finest among you will advance."
He descended from the gate at a slow pace. His speed was slow but srizing as he landed without making a sound, his feet gently touching the ground.
Yet, in the next mont, the air around him was swept up in an explosion.
Elder Alder’s commanding voice drew their attention once more.
"Form lines behind the inner disciples. The age and cultivation examination will begin shortly."
A contingent of inner disciples moved to stand before the gathered candidates, who began separating themselves into twelve rows of fifty.
Once the order had been established, Elder Alder stepped forward onto the open ground. The earth shuddered beneath him before splitting apart, two enormous pillars erupting upward, each stretching well over ten ters into the air.
"These are the age and cultivation test pillars. The one on the right asures age — it will illuminate according to how many years you have lived. The one on the left asures cultivation — nine levels in total, each corresponding to a stage, the colors reflecting your realm."
"You should already be familiar with the requirents. Those aged 15 to 17 must have reached at least the Third Level of the Elentary Spirit Realm. 18 to 20, the Fifth Level. 21 to 23, the Seventh Level. Only those who et this requirent will advance to the next phase."
Damon absorbed the words without concern. He already knew that both he and Ariel will pass without difficulty. Their cultivations were well beyond what was being asked of most here.
"The examination begins," the elder announced, as the inner disciples set their groups in motion. The first candidate stepped forward with visible hesitation.
He appeared to be in his early twenties, though his aura betrayed little worth noting for soone his age.
"Press both hands against the pillars simultaneously." Elder Alder’s asured voice drew the man from his uncertainty. He complied, pressing his palms flat against each pillar at once. Both light up to life imdiately, light climbing their surfaces in rapid succession.
"Oh..." The man’s eyes lit up, hope flickering across his face — but the world of cultivation rarely indulged such hope.
"24 years old. Elentary Spirit Realm, Seventh Level. Failed." The elder’s words extinguished every trace of relief from the man’s expression. He dropped to his knees, his voice breaking.
"N-no, that can’t be right! I was twenty-three this year, there’s no way—" His voice died as Elder Alder’s aura pressed down over him like a collapsing ceiling. His legs were driven into the earth.
"Question all you wish," Elder Alder’s gaze moved across the assembled candidates, his tone firm but carrying neither anger nor contempt.
"But ensure your questions are worth the breath spent on them. The pillars don’t make mistakes. If you fail, hold your tongue and leave."
Not a single voice rose in response.
Elder Alder raised one hand with a faint smile, and the man was wrenched from the ground, launched through the air across dozens of ters before coming to rest well outside the testing area.
Whether he lived or not, no one could say — and with Elder Alder standing where he was, no one dared find out.
"Next!" Elder Alder’s voice rang out across the silence that had settled over them all.
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