First Phase Begins

Shiro went to the small hall were they stayed the previous day, he had been practicing his Eight steps rotating blank evasion skill throughout the night so he was a little tired, he had also been diligently cultivating which allowed him to obtain a breakthrough that pushed his sword cultivation to the 1st stage sword apprentice realm, his body cultivation was also close to a breakthrough he just needed a little push.

Shiro used his martial awareness to scan the cultivations of other people around him, he noticed that some people also experienced breakthroughs in the one night they stayed here, which just went to show how dense the spiritual energy in the environment was.

While Shiro was busy checking the density of spiritual energy in the surroundings the old man from the day before appeared in front of the participants and began giving a speech before telling them the events of the first phase.

The first phase was a battle simulation, each of the 3000 remaining participants in one arena battling till five hundred are left, each participant was giving a crystal to crush if one needed to escape death, crushing it once teleports the user at least 5km away from their current location, crushing the crystal twice meant quitting and the participant will be automatically transported away from the arena.

Shiro understood the first phase of the exam, if he wanted to pass alongside Shin and Eris, he needed to get to them first so that he could protect them.

"If you are ready to begin the test, please step into the portal"

The old man said as a massive portal opened right in front of the crowd, many of the participants were unsure of whether to enter or not, each of them hesitated in front of the portal when four shadows jumped into the portal.

Those four shadows were Shiro, Eris, Shin and someone else who was probably tired of waiting for the crowd to move. The four of them passed through the portal which spurred the rest of them to move. Once inside the portal, Shiro looked around only to find out he was alone, the four people he had entered with were gone.

Shiro walked a little further before seeing someone appear out of thin air, once the person appeared completely Shiro charged at him.

The attack was so abrupt leaving the man unable to react, before he could even register Shiro's presence his head was sent flying. If the goal was to leave only five hundred participants, he couldn't care less about who he killed. After killing the first person, Shiro sprinted forward and began killing every person he came across, he just had to pray that Shin and Eris could hold out till he came back.

Shiro's speed and willingness to kill left the old man speechless, he began wondering if it was a good idea to add this as a test, it wasn't his concern who died during the test since every participant was well aware of the risks when they joined, it was just that high death rate during recruitment can lower the number of applicants later on in the future.

The old man just closed his eyes and prayed that someone could stop Shiro before it was too late.

*

Shiro continued his massacre, he wasn't just blindly killing people he came across he was also using the time to look around for his teammates. Shiro's kill count in the three minutes he had spent inside the arena had reached fifty, news about a killer began spreading as some were lucky enough to crush their crystals before getting killed.

Lots of participants even began teaming up together to stop Shiro, if such a person was allowed to roam free things could turn ugly quickly.

Shiro didn't mind them teaming up together, with his evasive technique and his speedy sword arts killing them was child's play some groups were lackluster and had no cooperation making them easy pickings for Shiro.

Shiro's speed didn't reduce until he ran into a group of higher leveled cultivators, they had higher cultivations than him and they seemed to be a well-rounded team.

Shiro didn't mind nor did he actually care, he just charged in as usual. The team consisted of ten people, three practiced energy cultivation, four practiced body cultivation while the remaining three practiced swords.

Shiro dived into the center of the ten people only to find out that they were using formations. Teams with a better level of cooperation was always harder to handle than normal once, Shiro didn't care though, his goal was finding his teammates and killing people was just to fulfill the test needs.

Once Shiro entered the center of their formation the three energy cultivators jumped back to get away from him before casting their spells, the sword users protected them while the body cultivators engaged him in melee combat. Shiro's training with Shin had boosted his ability to fight body cultivators allowing him to cope with the attacks.

Shiro was also a body cultivator but he preferred to hide it, he only used the hardening ability it provided as extra protection just in case he got hit. The ten people watched with amazement as Shiro turned into a blur, his figure danced around making them unable to land any attacks while giving Shiro time to focus on a target.

Shiro swerved towards the person who he judged to have the weakest attack power, he unleashed a fury of sword attack leaving the person no other choice than to crush his crystal, unluckily that was his second chance so he instantly got disqualified.

Shiro didn't just stop there, he immediately jumped towards the next person, he wanted to deal with the ranged attackers first but the protection from the sword users wasn't something he could bypass while dodging attacks.

Two out of the four body cultivators couldn't crush their crystals fast enough and ended up dying during the fight. Seeing how easily the four fell the rest immediately realized that Shiro's fighting style was more suited when fighting against many opponents.

Shiro knew that the concept of fairness was nonexistent in the cultivation world, people will always gang up to fight against stronger opponents which led Shiro into practicing this style of fighting.

Shiro dealt with the three sword users faster than he did with the body cultivators mainly due to the fact that he was more accustomed to sword fighting than he was with body cultivation. During his godly reign, Shiro used swords to fight even when practicing energy cultivation, he did this to erase the limits placed on ranged fighters who were useless in close combats.

Dealing with the ranged attackers was even easier as all of them crushed their crystals as soon as the sword users were done with. Shiro didn't waste any time before continuing his search.

Two hours after the test began, Shiro's kill count had reached hundred and thirty while the number of people he had forced to use their crystals was entering the sixties, the old man was now seriously considering pulling Shiro out of the test, this guy was just too ruthless.