After the new disciples finished the tour around the sect, they were led to the courtyard, where a big arena stood in the middle.

  On the far half of the arena, there were 48 inner sect disciples sitting around. All of them stared daggers at the newcomers.

  The obvious hostility surprised the newcomers as they didn’t know yet what was happening.

  There was an elevated throne behind the 48 inner sect disciples where the elder sat.

  Once the newcomers were on the opposite side of the arena from the inner sect disciples, the elder spoke, “Welcome once again. I hope you enjoyed your tour and are excited to be part of the sect. This next part is optional; you don’t have to take part in it if you don’t want to. It’s customary that when we get new disciples, who undergo a trial like all of you did—which I must admit is rare, but it happens. It is our custom, and we will uphold it. When this happens, we allow the new disciples to challenge the inner sect disciples if they wish to take their place.”

  Gabalawi spoke with a powerful voice that reached the elder. “What advantages do we get if we become inner sect disciples?”

  The elder smiled and said, “All inner sect disciples will be assigned their own cultivation tomb. These tombs are places of power, saturated with yin energy; your cultivation will be easier in them even as you sleep. They aren’t what comes to your mind when you hear the word tomb either; they are spacious lodgings built on top of the tombs of our ancestors, who were strong yin cultivators. They are much nicer than the outer sect shacks where the rest of the outer sect disciples stay.”

  Gabalawi thought he couldn’t let this chance pass him by. He wasn’t interested in spacious lodging or easy living, but any chance he could use to become stronger he couldn’t ignore. He knew he had to become stronger at all costs.

  He didn’t think for long as he stepped forward to the middle of the arena. The elder smiled and said, “I like your enthusiasm; you didn’t even let me finish though. As I was going to say, you must challenge one of the inner sect disciples by pointing at them, and they can’t deny you; they will have to take the challenge no matter what.”

  Gabalawi looked at the sitting disciples before saying, “I challenge anyone to take this fight against me.”

  Murmurs started spreading between the new disciples and the inner sect disciples alike. Gabalawi didn’t even choose someone he thought was weak. As he issued the challenge to anyone at all, which was very dangerous, since there were surely inner sect disciples stronger than him.

  But that’s how strong his faith in himself and his quest was. He had complete faith in himself to win, no matter what.

  Luckily for him, a knucklehead took his challenge, as a big guy -who is bigger than Gabalawi at first glance- stood up from among the inner sect disciples saying, “You fancy yourself the powerful guy, eh? I can’t have someone like you taking my reputation away from me now. This is a contest of strength, and when it comes to pure strength, there is no one who is stronger than me. My name is Qiang Wu. Witness my strength and know your limit, yield to my power as all will eventually do.”

  The guy didn’t carry any weapons; he had enormous fists that were as big as Gabalawi’s gloves of titan, which was crazy, since the gloves made Gabalawi’s fists appear twice their size.

  His upper body was naked, and his muscular upper body was bigger than Gabalawi’s upper body.

  He beat Gabalawi in size if Gabalawi wasn’t wearing titan gear on that body part, since Gabalawi was still missing the cuirass piece of his armor, as well as the greaves.

  “This isn’t a test of strength; this is a test of faith. I have faith that I will be an inner sect disciple no matter who would’ve stood up to face me. Is your faith stronger than mine?” Gabalawi said calmly.

  Qiang Wu bellowed with a laugh that everyone heard. “This isn’t the temple of Karma, little man. This is the Yin disciple’s sect, and I am the strongest disciple here. My strength will smash you and your faith, and you will have to live the next month in the outer sect toiling with the trash you belong to. Come at me; let me show you how it’s done.”

  With that, Qiang Wu started running towards Gabalawi, who didn’t move at all from his current position, but after determining that his opponent was close enough, he jumped and smashed the ground with his Titan boots clad feet.

  A localized fissure spread from where he stomped, and it headed towards his opponent; it uprooted the fancy stone floor of the arena.

  Qiang Wu was alarmed upon seeing this, but in his stubbornness refused to stop; he continued running towards Gabalawi.

  Once the fissure was close enough to him, he jumped up, which would’ve helped to dodge Gabalawi’s attack in the past, if it was timed right, and it was timed just right, but Gabalawi had gained a new addition to the skill after acquiring the helm of titan.

  An earth spike rose from the ground and pierced the foot of Qiang Wu; even though he had jumped high, it still reached him.

  He fell from his height onto his side and clutched his foot and was in pain in a fetal position.

  Gabalawi’s expression didn’t change; he didn’t enjoy his opponent’s pain, but this was something he had to do.

  Qiang Wu didn’t roll around in pain for more than a minute though, as he took out a healing pill and swallowed it. His foot immediately healed, and he stood up facing Gabalawi again, fuming at the mouth.

  “You will pay for this,” Qiang Wu said with a guttural voice.

  He took out multiple magic swords from his spatial sack and unleashed them on Gabalawi. He thought to distract him long enough to get closer as he didn’t have any long-range attacks of his own.

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  Gabalawi couldn’t help but smirk; since this wasn’t the first time someone had used these swords against him. He walked slowly towards his opponent as the swords were flying his way.

  Once they were close enough, he punched each of them, breaking them into many pieces. After throwing the last punch, he stomped the ground again, and a fissure headed for Qiang Wu, who was way too close to dodge or even jump.

  The localized earthquake made Qiang Wu fall, and an earth spike pierced the underside of his thigh.

  He screamed in agony, but Gabalawi didn’t let him scream for long, as he was on top of him like sudden death, as he punched him straight in the chin, knocking him out.

  Gabalawi didn’t do any follow-up strikes as he deemed them unnecessary.

  “I hereby declare Gabalawi the winner. Welcome to the inner sect, new disciple. You proved your strength and deserve your place within the elite of the Yin Disciples Sect.” The elder declared, but then he said under his breath so that no one could hear, “Did you really have to destroy the arena though? Oh, well, I guess the outer sect disciples just got a powerful member that can help them rebuild it, which is putting salt in Qiang Wu’s injury, but such are our rules. May his grudge guide him to taller heights in his cultivation.”

  Gabalawi bowed down deeply to his opponent, and then to the elder and his fellow inner sect disciples, and then he walked back towards his group, but the elder stopped him saying, “Where are you going? Come, take your rightful place among the inner sect disciples.”

  Gabalawi headed towards the inner-sect disciples. One disciple caught his attention, who was wearing a traditional white mask of a cat. He thought that was interesting, but at second glance he saw that the inner sect disciple was wearing a different white mask this time. This one was of a white demon with two golden horns.

  Gabalawi was extremely surprised by how fast this disciple changed his mask, he tried to not let his eyes fall off of the disciple, but once he blinked, he saw the disciple wearing a red demon mask with two black horns and smoke was coming out of the mask’s mouth.

  This is crazy; he must be a professional. Gabalawi thought as he finally reached his place among the inner sect disciples.

  There were murmurs among both groups of disciples. The inner sect disciples were talking about how strong and unique the newcomers seemed to be, judging by Gabalawi’s showcase.

  While the newcomers thought that maybe they too could become inner sect disciples, since he didn’t even get hit in this fight.

  “Will anyone else challenge our inner-sect disciples? Please step forward if you dare.”

  Surprisingly to all the inner sect disciples, Divinity was the one to step forward into the middle of the arena; she skipped her way there nonchalantly without a care in the world.

  Murmurs rose between the inner sect disciples; all of them were in favor of underestimating Divinity, as she didn’t even carry a weapon.

  The collective agreement in belittling Divinity made one of the inner sect disciples dare to voice his ridicule of Divinity as he said, “We are allowing little children into the sect now? This is a fucking joke. Just because they have one strong up and comer doesn’t mean that they are all strong.”

  The murmurs increased among the inner sect disciples until the elder said, “Enough. Rules are rules, and we will honor them. Introduce yourself, young one.”

  Divinity smirked and said, “My name is Divinity. I challenge the rude one with the big mouth. I think he needs to be taught a lesson not to underestimate anyone in the cultivation world; however they look, whatever their age.”

  The inner sect disciple who talked was dumbfounded. He wasn’t the weakest by any stretch of the imagination, but for her to dare and challenge him annoyed him greatly.

  He wanted to teach her a lesson and shut her little mouth.

  He walked towards the arena, and once he was facing her from the other side, he said, “Please, try to stay alive, because I can’t wait to make you my toy. I promise you we will have a lot of fun,” he smirked as he said that and winked at her.

  Divinity couldn’t believe her ears; she became furious after he uttered his perverted threat. Everything that happened after that was a blur for her, and a blur for everyone present as she took out her hammer and activated her whirlwind skill.

  She started swinging the hammer in a circle around herself. Her body rotated with the hammer’s heaviness.

  Her opponent took out two paper fans and used them to unleash a double slash of strong and sharp wind towards her, his attack collided with her whirlwind, and it looked strong as the clash made a bang that could be heard by everyone and unleashed sparks that could be seen by all.

  Her whirlwind didn’t stop though, and her opponent didn’t give up either, as he held the two fans together with both hands, and unleashed a whirlwind of his own.

  All of this was happening too fast as her attack was even faster than when Seph faced her in the trials, and her opponent’s attacks were up to her speed.

  His whirlwind approached hers, and instead of slowing her down or stopping her. The whirlwind clashed with hers, and they somehow became one bigger whirlwind; she absorbed his wind-based attack and turned it against him by becoming stronger because of it.

  The inner sect disciple couldn’t believe his eyes. He touched his spatial ring and unleashed 25 magic swords at Divinity; they flew in a blur towards her, but the unexpected happened again.

  Her whirlwind absorbed the swords, and they were now circling around Divinity as well.

  She was way too close to him now, and he was out of tricks, so he did the smartest thing you could do in the cultivation world; he tried to escape.

  Divinity did something to her whirlwind that unleashed a great suction that made her opponent unable to escape.

  The elder saw this and was alarmed. He didn’t want to lose a strong disciple, so he stood up and shouted, “ENOUGH!”

  It was too late though, Divinity wasn’t even in her right mind to cancel her skill, as the inner sect disciple got sucked into her whirlwind, and torn to pieces by his own magic swords, then grounded to a bulb by her hammer constantly smashing him.

  As she slowed down, everyone saw that only pieces of meat and bloody pieces of clothes were left of the inner sect disciple.

  As for Divinity, she was covered in blood from top to bottom, a maniacal grin on her face as she looked at her dead opponent.

  “That’s what you get for making a sexual remark about me,” Divinity said in a whispering voice that nobody could hear, her eyes wide open, the maniacal ruthless grin still covering her face.

  “What the actual fuck is wrong with her?!” The elder said in an audible voice, even though his disciples rarely heard him curse, he tried to keep his composure as the leader of the sect, but Divinity caught everyone off-guard even him.

  The inner sect disciples weren’t any less surprised; some of them were even horrified by what she had done.

  Her own legacy trial peers were surprised as well, as they had never seen her this unhinged and out of control.

  Divinity said nothing after the sentence she whispered, and she moved straight to the side of the inner sect disciples without even being invited by the elder.

  Deaths in these matches weren’t unheard of, but the elder tried to keep them to a minimum.

  Divinity didn’t even seem like she noticed any of the inner sect disciples she was walking towards, and as she got to the empty place that was reserved for her dead opponent, the inner sect disciples beside her all gave her a wide berth as they hurried to keep their distance from her.

  She dropped her hammer heavily in front of her and sat behind its handle, still not focused on anything or anyone.

  Gabalawi was in the other half of the crescent made by the sitting inner sect disciples, and he thought, I must really find out what she wants with me. Something feels off about her. That cultivator shouldn’t have made such a comment, and he had it coming, but I am worried about her. These sects aren’t known for being safe. A group of them might conspire to take her out if they think she is unsafe to be around.

  Gabalawi’s resolve was made. He was going to talk to Divinity right after the inner sect matches were over.