Ben concluded his interview and thanked Felix by bowing nonstop. He asked for permission to upload the interviews in the next weekly news, to which Felix agreed without hesitation.

Ben even offered to give him the soft copy, so Felix could suggest what was to be left out or revise.

Felix nodded. Before they parted ways, Ben asked if Felix was interested in creating a page for himself since Felix has been frequently in a news not only in the Azure Cleave Dojo’s page but also from the media.

It wasn’t difficult to conclude that Felix has been becoming famous in the Chambers City and perhaps in another city.

It only has just been a week.

However, Felix simply shook his head and was firmed about his decision.

Ben nodded and didn’t pursue it anymore, finally leaving after bowing once again.

Felix and Krisha were left.

Krisha asked, "Are you sure? If you become a content creator, you’ll earn a lot, you know."

Felix fell silent.

Krisha giggled. Look at this guy. Whenever money’s bring up, he’d a change of mind.

However, Felix still shook his head.

"I can still earn money beside exposing myself too much in the public."

Krisha was surprised.

"Look at you, you aren’t being swayed by money anymore."

Felix grumbled. "I just hate being in the spotlight."

"What? You were just interviewed. What do you call that, then?"

Felix finally realized and chuckled. "I mean, I don’t want to expose myself actively. Isn’t it more intriguing that the information surrounding me came from others’ perception? Also, being interviewed doesn’t mean I’m actively exposing myself like those content creators."

Krisha shrugged. "Whatever works for you."

...

After they chatted until dusk, Felix and Krisha proceeded to eat dinner.

It wasn’t a peaceful dinner because an inner disciple, Top 15 as he introduced himself, challenged Felix in a beast sync arena tomorrow, but Felix rejected.

He explained he and his beast pet wasn’t still ready for that and Felix offered the ramble format, instead.

The inner disciple agreed.

Felix also stated that he would use his sword, Rain, as Master Shen permitted it. He asked if the inner disciple should also use real weapon for their battle to be allowed and the inner disciple hesitated, instead.

To utilize cold weapons in a battle made him uncomfortable. One wrong mistake could lead to a grave injury, or worst—death. 𝕗𝚛𝚎𝚎𝐰𝗲𝗯𝗻𝚘𝚟𝚎𝗹.𝕔𝐨𝕞

He asked first why Master Shen allowed him and Felix explained that it was out of major rank disparity.

To the inner disciple’s surprise, Felix exploded into a hoot of laughter and said he would fight him tomorrow without Rain anymore.

The inner disciple was enraged. Felix was playing with him. At the same time, he was undermining him.

Why would an Awakener Rank 7 challenged a Commander Rank in a sword fight?

Just based on the disparity between their energy quality alone made the odd of winning the fight for the inner disciple to settle at ninety percent.

He snorted and told Felix if he ever backed down, he’d embarrassed him.

Felix simply shrugged as they finally continued eating with Krisha.

Krisha was a bit worried for Felix, but since the latter was careless, she felt assured, instead.

After they finished eating, they bid farewell before proceeding to their room.

Felix chatted with Rain for an hour. Afterwards, he brought Rain to Moon’s beast quarters since he was needed for his breakthrough later in the Awakener Rank 8.

As they proceeded in the beast quarters hallway, he met a lot of outer disciples. He instantly garnered their attention since he was bringing Rain with him.

The exquisite scabbard drew envious gazes, which satisfied Felix. Even he would admire Rain deeply, even when he was sheathed, so why a disciple who trained sword techniques wouldn’t?

Even the inner disciples were envious of him.

Eventually, Felix arrived in Moon’s beast quarters, entered, and activated the conceal feature.

Moon was eating at the moment and he greeted her by caressing her head fondly.

When Moon was finished, Felix asked her to meditate with him as he finally was about to breakthrough.

Moon was already at the Common 4th Tier and it might take a week or more for her to have a breakthrough.

For the next few hours, Felix seriously meditated. Although he might not need to close his eyes to meditate, he needed to meditate with extreme focus to increase the chances of him successfully breaking through.

After all, if he failed, he would suffer extreme repercussions, which might require immediate hospital attention.

Finally, after six hours, he finally broke through to Awakener Rank 8. His energy increased half of his original capacity.

It was a significant change.

He further assessed the changes around his body, especially his energy.

He was a bit disappointed. It’s still far from the state where I can reach the sword qi state.

The main reason Felix hadn’t dreamed of the grey silhouette because he reached the maximum progression in his sword technique.

To finally cultivate the stage 2 required an energy input that could successfully materialize outside of his body.

In other words, sword qi—or sword energy as what others in his world called.

The Guide speculated it might really needed him to reach Awakener Rank 9 or better Commander Rank 1.

It might take a few days for him to reach Awakener Rank 9, but he would be fighting against an inner disciple tomorrow.

The inner disciple might have already completed what was lacking in the Azure Cleave Dojo’s sword techniques—the sword energy.

The chances of winning against them was lower—if he was only fighting against one inner disciple.

If he would be fighting five inner disciples at once, he might as well backed down and admit defeat before he’d given them a chance to injure him gravely.

He asked the Guide.

"Can I beat the inner disciple tomorrow? If we assumed that he has finally formed the sword energy?"

[To be honest with you, Host, the chances of winning are slim.]

"Only slim? Not none?"

[Correct. You might still win. Tomorrow’s battle will test your current strength.]

=====

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