A wise man wouldn't head towards such a large explosion, especially after hearing the roars, but Ken was more than a wise man; he was a wise man with cheats.

He changed directions and reached the location in barely 5 minutes, and by then the explosion had died down and the area around was filled with destruction from the beasts' strikes.

On the ground there were two huge bloodied bodies, most certainly from the beasts.

A huge bear and a deer monster.

They've fallen to the ground, most possibly dead from injuries, and not a single one of them came out on top as a winner.

The deer was white in color, and its fur was dazzling, its horn long and made from crystal, while the bear was just massive in size, nothing different from what he knew.

Falling down, hints showed up in front of the corpses hinting at something of value being in their forehead, between their eyes, and Ken, without wasting any time, went for the loot.

His chain blade easily sliced through the just-deceased monsters one by one, and while he was pulling out a blue crystal gem from the deer's forehead, he heard some low growls.

Obviously he knew what was there from his hints.

From what was appearing, it seems that the bear attacked the deer because of hunger, and the latter reacted violently to protect its children, and in the end...

"Only one remains." Ken walked towards the growling little deer next to two of its smashed siblings, and with a look of pity, took it and held it within his arms as it growled and tried to bite him before he looked forward and launched himself towards the bandit group.

There was another burden on his chest, but he believed that it should be something necessary for future trials; if it wasn't... well, it was good to have some company every now and then.

But now, he had a new problem on his list; he had to deal with the bandits while also dealing with this little bundle of fur someway or another, and that is why he stopped a distance away from where he knew the bandits resided.

He looked at the deer and then put it down before looking towards it for a good few seconds.

It didn't look injured. Even though its siblings were smashed to the ground, it was fine and even had enough energy to slump down in depression. And that was very fortunate, as Ken didn't have his items to heal it with a pill or anything.

But he had to keep it from escaping anywhere, and that's why, after a light of resolution flashed through his eyes, he raised his hand and called, 'Restraining Order'.

Then, he looked around and summoned his strings to make a trap around the area; with these strings, anyone who approached would be sliced to bits and pieces.

Well, that's in case they could find it or approach.

After that was done, he started moving towards the bandits until he arrived at a location where he could clearly see their habitat.

They took a small hill close to a river as a stronghold and surrounded it with wood to make their base.

From his place, he had to hide so as to not be spotted by the guards stationed at the front of the stronghold nor those atop the watchtowers.

He kept moving alongside the edge of the forest until he came to a side where there was no one watching and crossed the river before he jumped over the wooden wall, and to his fortune, there was no one watching.

Not like he didn't use his hints to know, but that was that.

In one fell swoop, he recognized the bandit leader's house, went over there, smashed the door open, and found the bandit leader, who was eating without a worry in the world.

*Cough* *Cough*

"Wh- who are-?!" Before the bandit leader even spoke his mind, he found himself pinned to the wooden wall of his moderate house.

"From now on, I'm the leader here." Ken didn't waste time; he spoke these words and looked deep in the leader's eyes.

"WH- what do you mean? Do you think I will just say yes because you told me so?" Unfortunately, he said these words to someone he shouldn't have spoken in front of.

Before he could even try to resist, he had one of his ears sliced off.

"What were you talking about?"

"Our bandit group's greatest leader, I have dreamt about your arrival since the day my mother gave birth to me. Please allow this lowly one to serve you alongside his bunch of useless bastards." And just like that, the 2nd trial was done in the most perfect of ways.

Ken now only had to deal with the official running the same way he did, and that was done more smoothly than ever.

Due to the difference in setting, the 2nd trial, for whatever reason, was simpler for Ken, but the actual problems students face as well as the challenges this trial poses were straight out ignored and skipped by Ken's way of doing things.

The path down the cliff, the dangers of the forest, the chances of death when meeting the beasts fighting over the deer and the bear's corpses, and more than anything, nobody was powerful enough to take care of the bandit group this easily.

-------------

Time passed quickly, and news of Ken destroying the 2nd trial went viral, and everybody without any exception knew of it within the outer sect, and the news even reached the inner sect and deeper.

And while the news had yet to die down, the week went round, and everybody changed the topic to discuss what was more important.

Something that would decide whether they were going to have a chance to enter the secret realm, a place of great wonders nobody knew much about.

A place where a mortal had as much of a chance to die as that of a sect ancestor, and a place where there was no common sense and the laws of the world differed greatly.

Nobody knew how much time they'd spend there, but it all didn't matter, as even if you remained there for a million years, you'd come out with only a single month passing.

Or so the rumors said.

Nobody knew the validity of such claims, and only those who had managed to enter one such realm and come out knew, but such people had either become core disciples or left the sect, and most were already dead somewhere in these vast lands.

That was how often people ventured into these secret realms.

Yet, this was the first time the sect dared to test the waters by allowing new disciples to join, and that was because they had information about places that could only be entered by people with certain criteria.

And though mortals could also technically enter, no one knew if the sect would dare do so, or if it even did to begin with.

And thus, once again, or for the first time, the disciples found themselves in the outer sect's arena, one that was bigger than the VIP room's and found somewhere people didn't visit often yet, not the new disciples at least.

This was where the tournament would be held, and it was said that it wouldn't last long.

They'd be thrown in together, and the 20 disciples standing at the very end would qualify.

Such were the rules for this very important tournament that could very well make them go from birds to phoenixes and lizards to dragons.

Ken looked at all of this, and due to the frequency at which he got information regarding the secret realm, he was saddened by such a fact, but he could neither change it nor would he if he had the chance.

Almost 10 to 15 of those who would go with him from his batch could end up dying, and even though the treasures and opportunities inside such secret realms could literally spare one endless years of hard work...

The death rate only increased each second you spent there.

Unless... you managed to kill the abomination inside.

That was all for later, but in any case, he had to first deal with this tournament to get it over with.

He was still on the spectator's seat currently, and around him were the top 10, who were the only ones to dare approach him due to his standing in the eyes and hearts of most new disciples.

And he was overlooking the large arena in the very center of this colosseum-like structure, which was very traditional in form.

The arena started getting filled with disciples from all three batches, and somewhere up there a round table of outer sect elders who would supervise the huge fights was set.

And in no less than half an hour, everything was ready.

And the first group to step forward was Adam's batch...

-----End-----