1st Trial!

Chapter 27: 1st Trial!

If Darek was able to guess that Ken had high comprehension and possessed above-average strength and gave him S-rank danger due to being played by him, Ken pretty much figured out Darek's entire mechanism.

"Play a sucker to catch a sucker, was it?" Ken felt his entry token, the card in his hands, vibrate wildly as he walked towards the gate.

"A very lovely method, if I do say so myself." Ken grinned as he thought back to Darek's expression at the very end.

Out of the many things he focused on for his first set of plans, knowing the patterns and how spirit path treaders at the beginning of their journey tended to be.

And due to their relatively short duration at the sect, Ken was also able to know what mortals of this world were like.

Having interacted with many fellow disciples while working as a librarian, Ken considered himself to only be lacking a puzzle piece to entirely get over this section of his plans.

No matter how complex, humans were humans and in their core barely differed from one another.

And that was even more the case when it came to relatively young individuals, be they commoners or elites.

But, nonetheless, there were some differences, like the intensity.

Take Darek, for example, Ken's last puzzle piece.

Such a premium material was everything he needed to understand the differences between a regular Jack and an elite young man.

Such descendants of supposedly renowned families always had this typical arrogance, and no matter how well hidden it may get, in the end it was still there.

The pride of being an elite.

They typically had the widest range of hobbies, but it all fell under a category... asserting dominance.

Be it through being playful, approachable, playing with rats like a cat, or even pretending to be a sheep to eat the tiger.

Darek was the type to want to take control, somewhat similar to Ken.

But the way he did it was by having an advantage, just slightly over the edge to not make you feel that you're being played.

This played a big role in today's confrontation.

The difference between someone who made you feel that you were played and someone who you thought was just talking with you was vast.

For example, when it came to Ken and Darek's confrontation.

Both of them knew that the latter was crushed.

Because when fighting a silent battle, a slight edge gives you an overwhelming advantage.

Still, Ken had taken it a little too far.

Darek was still a fledgling; even with whatever training he had as an heir and the experience that came with it, he admitted he got a bit excited, as he could have made Darek feel like he was the one with an advantage to the end but decided not to at the very end.

It was fun. For Ken, these little things sometimes made him feel that it was worth the effort.

Though that could count as a valid reason for him to do what he was doing, Ken had a larger vision as to why he was so stuck up on knowledge and analyzing the people around him.

For Ken, just getting stronger and trying to defeat everything in his path was literally the equivalent of a monkey's way of thinking.

He was human; his main strength was his intellect. 

He will see it to the end that he uses it to his advantage.

First of all, the reason. Ken's plan had goals far beyond the scale they seemed to be at currently.

He wasn't passive; he was just playing the long game.

And an example could be given by the very same thing.

Disciples.

New disciples were the very template the seniors, inner and core sect disciples, official disciples of some elders, and even the elders themselves started from.

Thus, by studying their initial point, Ken would be able to make some very precise profiles once he confronted them that he otherwise wouldn't be able to.

It was equivalent to building a cultivation foundation; the more thorough and perfected it was, the more of an advantage you had later on.

But that wasn't all. He wasn't dumb enough to spend his whole time focusing on disciples; they were merely a part of it all.

Spending more than a month in here had allowed him to know about the world and its history, allowing him to study patterns that came from this world being mystical.

And truthfully speaking, every world had its patterns, things that happened regularly each specific period of time.

For example, events that happened every dozen years, auctions, and realms that opened every hundred years.

Typically, a cultivator just starting his journey would mostly ever come across them when they reached a certain realm of strength or the event itself was very close.

Conversely, by knowing them very early, Ken could prepare accordingly, not falling into the same newbie mistakes others did.

And then came the hot stuff. The conflicts of this battleground, known as the Eastern Lands.

The battles between the cultivators and those of the demonic path, the devils, and the demon race.

The strategic battles that had little to do with physical power.

Ken believed that at some point the spirit path's weakness should definitely overcome the massive difference between them and the physical path, but he had no way of knowing currently.

*Fwip*

Just as Ken entered, the card in his hand disappeared.

The tower's biggest challenger had finally entered its door.

With that last sound, Ken found himself in a dark space.

He could feel only his consciousness currently, and before he could try to guess what was going on...

"Welcome, Challenger Ken." A monotonous voice resounded.

[Oh lala, a fellow man. Say hello to the tower's spirit. Treat her well; she might just give you some benefits.]

Not knowing what hints they were on about, Ken threw them to the back of his mind, keeping the advice for when the chance showed itself, and he focused on the next words.

------End------