Another month passed and everything is going well in the training. But one day, Sam called off the training.
"Today is your rest day."
When they heard this, the group of students was stunned. They are actually enjoying the training. The feeling of getting strong and increasing strength is something they couldn't get enough of.
They are all a bit disappointed and didn't know what to do. They wanted to ask Sam if they could continue, but they couldn't dare to bring themselves to.
In the past few months, even though Sam is smiling and friendly towards them, they also learned some stories about him. These stories only circulate throughout the executives and administrators along with some high-level combat teams.
Even though some of the stories are old, they are great nonetheless and fearful too. Now that they were Sam's students they came across these stories many times and often they couldn't relate the smiling young man in front of them to those stories, but they knew better than just striking them off and became more cautious with the way they talked with Sam.
So, they didn't dare take his kindness for granted. But they are also not willing to go on for a day without training.
Sam looked at them with a smile. He clearly understood what they are thinking. They are having trouble because they are breaking through at an incredible rate. It has only been a few months and they are already on their way to the late stages of Acolyte.
And Sam is sure that they would break through the Novice stage in no time and then proceed at the same pace to the Great realm and Grand realm cultivation stages.
But this rapid rate is what made him take them a break.
"You will be taking a break from your cultivation. Because tomorrow, you will be going through some practical examination.
You will be fighting against all the students of the schools who are at the same level."
The students who are contemplating on how to convince Sam to let them train for a while were all stunned and looked at him in surprise.
"Not just the students from this school, we have many schools and most of them are connected through space gates to the feathered planet. One by one each school will send people here from today onwards.
By tomorrow morning, everyone will arrive and all of you will be sent to the central continent where a special arena was built.
You will be injected with a special device I made. If your body receives a certain level of damage, you will be taken out of the Arena and sent outside.
The competition will only be over when only ten people are left out of more than a thousand people. I want it to be your ten."
When they heard Sam's explanation they are all excited. Even though they are going through combat training every day with Sam, they did lack practical combat experience. They are unable to utilize it properly.
But now that they have a chance they are really excited.
"Don't get too excited yet. I am not done.
You will not be allowed to take off the restriction bracelets. They will be kept on. In fact, I decided that they will be on you until you reach Astral Plane of cultivation, you are only allowed to remove them when you are in a life or death situation."
The students were stunned and Kasi asked.
"Teacher, wouldn't it be unfair to us to fight against that large group of people without using our full strength."
"Your bracelets don't limit your strength, it only limits your energy usage. It makes it harder for you to circulate the energy. That is it. This way you will learn to conserve your energy.
As for being unfair. How unfair do you think it is for my students to fight against the students who only studied basic curriculum."
Kasi didn't say anything and became silent. But Rangit raised his hand and asked.
"Teacher, then why wouldn't let us practice now? I think we are on verge of breaking through to the Late stage of Acolyte, so we would have a better chance at winning."
"Well, you need to learn how to beat stronger opponents. This is a way for you to do so. Anyway, you guys prepared enough, so it is always better to rest well before a big test. So, today we will just talk. Ask whatever you want to know. Not about the cultivation of course. You can ask me about everything else.
I am pretty sure that you heard a lot of nonsensical things about me around the city, so you can ask me about them if you want to know."
"Teacher, is it true that you made a throne out of the arm bones of the people that targeted you and your friends. I also heard that there are two arms of a prince in the chair."
It is Vron who asked this with an exciting look.
Sam shook his head and said with a wry smile.
"Yes, I did."
Everyone looked at him in awe.
"Teacher, how can you be so sure that you wouldn't be killed by the emperor of such disrespect?"
"Information, Kids. Information can let you do many things. I was a part of the competition and I cut off their arms within the competition rules. The competition is conducted by Thundergod temple. You must have heard about it too. The Palace of inheritance is done every three years. Many people from our organization go there too.
Thunder god temple is selecting candidates, so the emperor cannot interfere.
Since I knew of that, I used that to my advantage and cut their arms off. But escaping after that mostly depended on my luck and some things that I obtained in the Palace of Inheritance."
Students went on and asked a lot of questions about Sam, they wanted him to tell stories about his feats on his journey across realms, stories about the opponents, who is the toughest, who is the most cunning, most frustrating battle he has ever been in and so on.
Sam patiently explained everything with a smile.
He really liked this. The peaceful and cheerful smiles of children and their innocent curiosity about what he has gone through and their excited expressions because they imagined themselves in his shoes, really felt great.
This unknown feeling is something he couldn't get enough of.
After some time, Kasi raised his hand and asked once again.
"Teacher, how did you become so formidable?"
Sam smiled as he looked at the anticipation in the kids' eyes for that question. He didn't answer immediately and instead asked.
"What do you guys think would make a person formidable?"
The kids fell into deep thought immediately. They are all speculating different things.
One of them raised their hand and said.
"To not be afraid of death. If one person is not even afraid of death, they would become formidable."
Sam chuckled at the answer and when he saw that the rest of the students all seemed to agree with it, he couldn't help but think how innocent these kids are to believe that.
"Before we talk about death, let us talk about life first. Do you guys think life has any value?"
"Yes, every life is valuable." Kids almost answered in unison.
Sam shook his head and said.
"A life's value is what you wanted it to be. A life's worth is what you believe it is worth."
When he looked at their confused expressions, Sam smiled and said.
"You ate some fowls yesterday night. What do you think the worth of a fowl's life is? For you, it is worth a night's dinner for the fowl itself, that is all it had.
Your enemies' lives are always worthless in your eyes and your life along with the lives of your family are always worth more than the others. Denying it is pure idiocy.
And death makes all the lives worth less than they actually are. For it, every life is equal and worthless. If you start being afraid of it, then that means, you are proving that your life is worthless.
You should be accepting of death, you should be ready to embrace it, but you should always carry a level of healthy respect and fear towards death.
Fear of death will help you grow strong, force you to do things to improve yourselves that are not exactly the things you wouldn't do normally.
That fear will drive you to become something that you would never become.
That doesn't mean you should cower at any possibility of your death. You shouldn't, you should dance with the death like it was your friend and you would see the improvement you have never seen. You would feel more alive than you ever were."
"Does that mean, we should always fear death?"
"No, there will be times where you shouldn't fear death at all.
When you are fighting for something more important and valuable than your life."
