Three months later

As weeks and then three months went by Damian, Jack, and Jurgen continued to cultivate daily at some time of day in the Flame Tower. Rodrick and Caleb were more inconsistent some days they came, and some days, they did not. Damian had expected as much, however, after a thorough bickering session hosted by Jack and himself, they began to show up daily. Of course, some other clans clan members had begun to show up at the Flame tower, and some days they could not enter, except of course Damian and Jack, as an Elder of the Family clansmen gave him face and gave their spot to Jack. Other Elders of the clan also came frequently to cultivate. Even people from the three other great clans came frequently, but usually because of the pain, many of them did not come daily. So more often than not the five brothers were able to cultivate inside the Flame Tower.

Jack had not shared with other clan members the recipe of his Flame Tower Yin kit as he had baptized the duo of incense stick and balm. They had not asked about either. The people inside the tower usually were more occupied with containing the chaotic Qi inside their bodies to be paying much attention to their surroundings. He did plan to make the kits available to clan mates for a price, of course. But he did not have an ample supply of the materials needed, he had begun a small garden in a plot of land he had for planting and harvesting spiritual plants, but it would be a while before they were ready to be processed, right now, he only had enough to supply himself and his brothers for two more months.

Jack had already broken through to the seven-layer in only two months and he was incredibly close to breaking through to the eight-layer, he would break through in a matter of weeks. He could now cultivate on the fourth floor of the Flame Tower. He had pushed through his limits when he arrived on the fourth floor and received his baptism by fire. His core as well as his body had undergone a qualitative change, a white flame floated above his golden core, but instead of the chaotic nature of the flame that enveloped Damian's core, Jack's was more tamed but it was easier to control. Half the golden core of Jack was pure white, while the other half was golden, almost as if resembling the duality of Yin-Yang.

Jurgen had broken through to the third layer. Rodrick and Caleb had broken through to the third layer. Rodrick was more invested in practicing his spiritual cook skills, he truly enjoyed cooking. he had even become an expert and according to him, he was halfway through reaching artisan. Of course that was only speaking about knowledge and skills, but he knew he could only achieve such a realm when he reached Nascent Soul, he felt no pressure as he knew he would reach it eventually. Caleb on the other hand was more about motivating his children to cultivate more than doing so himself, he did not care if he was not strong but he wished his children would surpass him. This was perhaps a shackle he had set on himself, both Damian and Jack had talked him into putting more effort into cultivation in case he needed to protect his offspring, which somewhat had convinced him but not too much.

Damian was thoroughly convinced that the flame would help his family and his clan to survive through the adversities this new world would eventually face with.

Damian also tried his best at the library helping young classmates here and there with choosing their techniques or even reading. He had fallen into a routine without realizing it. In the morning before the sun came out, he would practice his martial arts. Then he would go to the library to read and tend to the library matters. Fortunately for Damian, being the Elder in charge of the library was quite a straightforward role, and didn't demand him that much attention. and there were ten people in charge of assisting and managing most affairs of the library, so there wasn't much for him to do, other than to be a deterrent for anyone having bad thoughts about stealing or not returning a book in time to the library.

When the sun hung high in the sky he would go to the Flame Tower to cultivate, when the sunset came, he would go to his house and practice his craft of inscriptionism, he was steadily improving he would soon reach the expert level.

He would only eat or sleep when he felt the need for it. Some days to break off the routine, he took a small portion of time from practicing his craft to visit Cedric and have a cup of tea with him, they got to know each other a lot more and truly enjoyed each other company. During his visits, Cedric would prepare him some spirit tea, so even then, he continued to cultivate and advance the comprehension of his martial arts. And it's with this renewed semi-enlightenment state that he would return home to further hone his skills.

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Today the stadium had been finished. The tournament would finally be held the following week. The stadium could house up to the tournament had been advertised two months prior, including the multiple possible rewards, the great clans had taken the opportunity of the tournament to also increase the general strength of the city.

Therefore, some special pills, weapons, armor, talismans, technique manuals, and spirit stones would be awarded according to the performance in the tournament. They could even directly be offered to form part of the Azure Guard which was the city Guard, composed of four battalions the Blue Lotus, Golden Lion, Ashen Phoenix, and Silver Moon. Each one of those battalions was mainly composed of members of the Violet Sky, Li, Markov, and Lambert clans respectively. Together that was the first line of defense of the city, of course, people from other families and clans could join, after all, the salaries were quite good.

They were in charge of protecting the city and also exploring the surrounding wilderness to kill strong demon beasts too close to the city, the farms, or the quarries.

They even advertised an opening match between elders of the great clans to garnish more attention from the general public, three such battles would be held. The participation fee would be three white spirit stones, while the spectator fee would be ten white spirit stones.

Damian had been informed he would be one participant of the exhibition duels, he would go last, and his opponent would be Cedric, as he was the only Elder from the other clans closer to his cultivation. The other fights would be Tania Markov vs Li Ma and James vs Jack.