After Seclusion
Sam entered seclusion.
Five and a half months passed.
Sam broke through to the Level-2 of Nascent, his body was partially morphed and with the addition of the body tempering, the cultivation has become extremely painful.
But he still reached the second level.
In these five and a half months many things happened.
Although, he was completely immersed in manufacturing and cultivating, he still kept in contact with the outside worlds.
Five months ago, Arman broke through the Nascent stage and went to the thunder god temple. He even made up a story that Sam has chased him for three days and severely injured him, but he still escaped.
And he even blamed all this on Sam's arrogance for not using any tricks and wanting to kill him all by himself, so he was given a chance to escape.
He took all that while just to heal himself and recover. The story was quite plausible and the higher-ups didn't doubt him.