6 Reasonable

"Two...-Twenty-two steps in the Heavenly Path!" The delegate was muttering, astounded.

Raden looked around and found stunned gazes by the elders.

'Are they shocked because I did terribly bad or...shockingly good?'

He couldn't help but feel his confidence rise.

Then he looked at the crown only to see contempt and disdain.

"Y-You passed the trial, becoming first in the entire duchy!"

"???" The crowd fell into a mess. "What does this mean?" "He has clearly lost" "Has he bribed the delegate?" "I've actually heard of something like bribes in the near barony!" "Do they take us as stupids?!?!"

The delegate looked at the crowd and explained: "Actually the true objective of this test was to take 11 steps forward in the Path and he was able to double them! The reason why this was hidden is to give not only physical but even psychological pressure!"

'This makes little sense, doesn't it?' Raden couldn't help but think like that.

"I still don't trust this! This is unfair, he was able to get here only with the resources of his father! Even now he's buying the permission to enter the academy!" Screamed a muscular, 15 years old, black-haired boy. He was Su Li, a lowborn that rose in the clan because of his great talent: he reached peak Qi Gathering realm and had the recognition of the Prime Elder.

"Shut up you-!" It was Xue Liang.

"Oh? You still don't trust me? Beautiful, why don't you fight me so that everyone can see if I'm wrong" The delegate said mockingly. "If I win you're wrong if you win you're right. Deal?"

Su Li was dumbfounded...so shameless! Born in a rural town he didn't know that that was ordinary, if not the standard in the cultivation world.

The rule of the strong!

"Yeah, that's true! Let's see if you can beat him, Su Li!" Xue Liang echoed.

Raden rolled his eyes for that act.

'What? Does he want to shut him up with force? That will create an unnecessary grudge between me and that boy...it's stupidly arbitrary and unfair. Why...'

Then he noted the glance of delegate to him.

'Oh, he's trying to ingratiate me!'

"Why don't we settle this peacefully? Let him take the test so he can understand how difficult it really is"

The delegate looked at Raden perplexed but still accepted.

"Here, let me see how will you do."

Su Li touched the pearl and was immediately immersed by white light. After some seconds he disappeared.

The tension was high.

'Ehhh, I don't understand this tension...if I were really cheating why wouldn't I falsify the trial?'

His train of thoughts was interrupted by Jin Liang "Hey, elder why did you sleep there?"

"It's because I was training the Soul Arts!"

"Ahh, it makes sense"

'Hmm...It perfectly does. That's because of my innate dialectic.'

Minutes passed and as the light went, it returned and with it Su Li. (Sorry...I'm sorry for this line)

"T-Twenty steps!" The delegate was double dumbfounded. Why did that little, petty clan have so many talents? Given some years it could even become the new viscounty!

When Su Li returned there could be clearly seen exhaustion in his face. "Well, it seems I was wrong a...about that, sorry." he said panting.

Raden responded with a smile "Nevermind"

"Uhh...Now is everyone convinced?"

The crowd stayed quiet.

"Ok! Now you must pass the second test: cultivation potential! It's not only based on your cultivation talent but even with the speed of mastering an art and your resistance to pressure. So to test those I need you to practice this martial art and then hit this rock using it"

He showed a black square rock, 1 meter high.

'Oh, he took it out from that bag...interesting.' 'A spatial something.'

Then he passed him a martial art book.

<<High-Grade Mortal Book>>

It was called 'True Punch' and was divided into 4 realms, like every book Raden ever read (Few, but still enough to make an assumption). The first realm was 'Initiation' it would grant you a punch of 1000 kg(double of a normal Qi Gathering punch), the second 'Comprehension' would grant you 1500 kg, the third 'Mastering' would grand you 2222kg and the fourth 'Perfection' would grant you 3333kg.

He immersed himself into studying the move: since it was the first martial art book he ever read he couldn't see any mistake in that technique, which made him go faster but unable to understand when the author didn't explain certain parts of the technique.

Time flowed at an astounding speed and before he even realized...

"Time is over"

"I'm excited to see what talent do you have." Said the delegate.

Raden went to the stone and gathered his courage.

Qi was flowing in his arms following the technique, he felt energy gathering slowly in his palm, in his fingers and so he punched!

SWOOOSH

It hit the rock. It was a stupendous sensation: cracks spread through the entire rock and a layer was destroyed. Underneath there was a purple one.

'Ahh...I understand'

He punched again and the next layer was blue.

He punched again and then there was cyan.

He punched again and there were only cracks in that cyan surface.

"Cyan talent! Your talent could enter in the top 1000 of the viscounty" The delegate said while feeling a little disappointed.

Raden knew that he was able to achieve 'Comprehension' of that martial art, despite being it the first one he learned, meaning that he had overall good comprehensive capacity. So what limited him could only be his lack of cultivation talent.

But he had an answer.

'Temper the Body, Devour the Qi!'