Elder Veylan Lie waited for the crowd's noise to settle. It took considerably longer than the previous three announcents had required. When it had returned to a level that permitted his voice to carry without effort, he looked at the docunt's final line.
Osborn Clan — Robert Osborn, Spirit Root Realm Level 6 Mid-Stage. Sai Osborn, Spirit Root Realm Level 6 Midstage.
The crowd's reaction was not what Robert had expected it to be. It was genuine confusion first—the particular sound of several hundred people hearing numbers that did not match what they had been expecting after the Walker Clan's announcent.
It was not the sa kind of shock that Harvey Walker's Level 7 Mid-Stage had caused. This was sothing quieter, more uncertain. The people in the platforms buzzed with a low, uneven murmur—people were whispering to one another, heads turning as they tried to find a reference point for what they had just heard, but they could not quite pin it down.
An Osborn clan. Two Level 6 Mid-Stage entries. In a competition where every other pair was at Level 6 Low and Level 5 Low except the Walker Clan, who had at Level 7 Mid and Level 6 Mid, respectively.
On paper, the Osborn Clan strength was above the Brown, Clark, and Brooks pairs by a clear margin. On paper, the gap between the Osborn clan and the Walker clan was one full stage in Robert's case and the sa in Sai's.
The crowd found themselves in a state of shock and confusion after listening to the information. The Osborn clan na was not supposed to deliver results like that. Level 6 Mid-Stage.
Standing in the Osborn Clan's designated area, Robert heard the crowd react to his declared cultivation level. Strangely, he felt no different about it; it was exactly what he had expected to feel since the day started.
The number Elder Veylan Lie had just read aloud was not incorrect—it had been the cultivation level on the registration docunt Robert had submitted through the official Grey Shadow Hall process. It was the cultivation level he had chosen to submit so that no one would suspect it.
What the registration docunt said and what his cultivation actually was were two different things. That difference was his.
He looked at the path leading into the forest. On the viewer platform to Elder Veylan Lie's right, Aria Valen's expression did not change when the Osborn Clan's cultivation level was announced.
But sothing behind her eyes moved. She had read the Grey Shadow Hall reports on the Osborn Clan across several months. She knew what Robert Osborn's cultivation level had been before the competition preparation period. Spirit Root Realm Level 6 Mid-Stage was not where he had started.
It was quite a jump from what the latest reports had indicated, especially considering that the resource assessnt of the Osborn Clan should not have been able to support such a rapid increase in that tifra.
The number was believable. It was not comfortable. Either the resource assessnt was wrong — which ant Grey Shadow Hall's information on the Osborn Clan had a gap in it sowhere — or the cultivation increase was being produced by sothing the reports had not identified.
Neither option was uninteresting.
She looked at Robert standing in his clan's marked position at the end of the northern line. He was not looking at the platforms. He was not looking at the other clans. He was looking at the forest entry path with the sa quality of attention he had brought into the Grey Shadow Hall eting room—forward, present, entirely unbothered by what was happening around him.
As Level 6 Mid-Stage unfolded, ti slipped by. She filed it away in her mind, realising she had been gathering Osborn Clan details since the eting, but decided to remain silent.
In the northern stand, the other clan groups had received the Osborn announcent cultivation level with reactions that were distinct from each other.
You could really see the Brown Clan's response in Conner Brown. His wide, calm face shifted toward the Osborn group for a second, showing that keen eye, assessing look of soone who had just re-evaluated a key piece of information about the Osborn clan about the three days in the forest.
Two Level 6 Mid-Stage entries from a clan he had received no briefing on. He looked at Robert for approximately three seconds—the kind of looking that was reading rather than observing—and then returned his attention to the entry path without visible conclusion.
Dustin Brown, beside him, had reacted faster and more visibly—a brief, sharp look toward the Osborn group, then a controlled return to neutral that was slightly slower than it should have been for soone at his level of experience.
They had not expected the numbers.
The Clark Clan's response was quieter. Rachel Clark did not turn toward the Osborn group at all. She absorbed the announcent through her peripheral awareness, and her posture adjusted by an almost invisible degree—almost.
The particular adjustnt of soone who had just revised their risk assessnt of a variable they had previously classified as low priority.
Evan Clark looked at Robert directly and briefly and then looked at Rachel Clark, which was a more telling response than looking at the forest would have been.
Zara Brooks was the first to respond for the Brooks Clan, her focus zeroing in on the Osborn group with a keen intensity that reflected her unique way of processing new information.
Max Brooks reacted to the announcent with the sa controlled deanour he used for everything else, yet his eyes turned to Robert with a focus that was noticeably more intense than the glance he had given the Brown and Clark pairs.
The Walker Clan did not show any visible reactions, but in Harvey Walker's mind, he was plotting revenge against the Flour Clan. After seeing Robert's cultivation level, he felt a surge of confidence; if he could not take him out, he would definitely seek him out. Harvey's weight distribution remained unchanged, and Aaden Walker's awareness stayed sharp. anwhile, Drake Walker, at the back of the group, regarded the Osborn group with the sa level of focus he applied to everything else—he noted them, filed them away, and continued.
But Elder Tom's voice—which Robert had never heard and never would—had said sothing that the Walker Clan did not need to hear again to rember.
The forest was a place where things happened that were difficult to account for afterward.
Two Level 6 Mid Stage cultivators from the Osborn clan changed the completion view of what the next three days required. Not dramatically. Just enough.
In the crowd, the reaction to the Osborn announcent was still moving through its second wave.
The first wave had been confusion—the unknown na, the unexpected numbers. The second wave was the particular energy that moved through a crowd when they began doing the arithtic themselves and arrived at conclusions that the first wave had not reached yet.
Level 6 Mid-Stage. Both entries. An Osborn clan from Magical City, which ant a clan that had developed its strength locally in the sa city where the crowd was standing, without the resources of Celestial Brook City or the established cultivation infrastructure of the larger clans. The numbers sitting above three of the four competing pairs are from significantly better-resourced backgrounds.
How. That question moved through the viewer platforms in different forms but arrived at the sa place.
Independent cultivators on the platforms, who were tracking their cultivation progress out of professional curiosity, were comparing their results to what local Magical City clans usually produced in their junior ranks. They were noticing the difference between that standard and the recent announcents.
The gap was not small.
Voices of the people on the platforms. Speculation was moving between people who had not known each other before this morning and were now comparing information with the particular urgency of a crowd that had been surprised by sothing and wanted to understand it before the next thing happened.
In a rivalry where pairs could engage and claim collected cores, it was less advantageous to co in as a recognised competitor at an unexpected level than to show up as a mystery at a level that caught others off guard without causing panic.
John Osborn stood in the space behind the designated clan areas where accompanying clan mbers had gathered to watch.
His son had kept his true cultivation hidden from others to make the target smaller before stepping into the forest.
John gazed at the path leading into the forest. anwhile, Robert stood at the forefront of the Osborn group, also taking in the sa view.
He had raised a son who thought several steps ahead of the current mont as a matter of ordinary practice. That quality had co from sowhere. John was reasonably certain it had not co entirely from him.
Without saying anything to his son, he focused on his reaction. The completion was about to begin.
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