As Ning lifted the veil around his core that he had been doing ever since he returned, the people around the arena finally saw just what level his strength had reached.
"Am I sensing it right?" the prince couldn't help but ask himself. He looked around in confusion, but the others seemed just as confused as he was.
The princess turned around and looked at her brother. "You are sensing this too right?" she asked.
"He did it," the headmaster said softly. "That young man actually reached the Essence Soul realm in the middle of the competition. No, he did it while he was injured."
"How did he do it?" Tenn couldn't help but ask. "Wasn't he wounded with little Essence in his body just a few hours ago?"
"Forget that," Kaleb spoke. "This bastard was only at the Essence Sense realm when he joined the academy half a year ago. Are you telling me he went from that to this in just half a year?"
Even the teacher that had recruited Ning couldn't help but want to tear his own hair in confusion. He had recruited Ning in hopes that he reached Essence Manifestation before the competition. And yet… this was simply ridiculous.
The ones that didn't know Ning closely weren't as shocked as the members of the academy were, but that did not mean that they weren't shocked at all.
People started questioning how he managed to do any of it at all. However, no one could come up with any better explanation than 'it was time for him to break through'.
Even in the tower, the various nobles and rules were talking to themselves about how talented Ning was and how he had managed to break through after his fights.
None seemed to understand the reason for it, however.
Saburn was near to clawing his own eyes out for not listening to his son just yesterday. Had he done so, he could have taken the sword.
Now, not only had the sword's existence been known to the world, but even the owner of the sword itself had gotten too strong for him.
"Father, what do you think happened?" the crown prince asked the Emperor. "Do you think the young man reached this level by using the sword?"
The Emperor stared at the stage for a while before speaking.
"The sword did aid, but not as much as you are thinking it did," the Emperor said. "For anyone to grow and breakthrough, they simply need to refine their core as much as they can in preparation for it to hold more Essence."
"That is the fundamental truth behind breaking through. The reason most people take time is that they either do not have enough Essence to refine their core, or they do not have quality Essence to refine it."
"However, as long as you manage to refine it to a level, you will certainly be able to break through the realm rather easily," the Emperor said. "In this young man's condition, it could be that he has spent a lot of time refining his core with pure essence, and it reached the level of accepting an Essence Soul realm's worth of Essence just now, allowing him to break through."
"Is that so?" the Crown Prince asked. "That must be it."
He wasn't sure why he was expecting there to be some sort of mystery here. Perhaps seeing that a legendary sword in a young man's hand had caused him to fantasize about other possibilities he wasn't aware of.
The Crown Prince shook his head at himself for imagining that something more was going on.
"However, I do not believe that to be the case," the Emperor said. His eyes were on the Blackhawk Academy members.
"Wasn't the reason why the Essence Heart Academy was disqualified because most of the Blackhawk Academy students were poisoned by them?" he asked. "That means that this lot, aside from our youngsters were nothing but replacement. Which makes him a replacement as well."
"Which is to say… he was not strong enough or had studied long enough in the academy to be someone of any worth. As far as I can tell, he was brought here for one thing, and one thing alone."
"His Pure Essence."
The Crown Prince nodded. "That does seem possible," he said. "No, that is most likely the case. But what does that have to do with him breaking through?"
The Emperor closed his eyes for a second and answered. "Pure Essence is unique. Moonlight Essence, the Essence closest to Pure Essence is already very unique, but Pure Essence is even more so unique."
"As you can see, the kid can use any technique he wants as long as he knows it. That is because of the Pure Essence he has."
"Since it is so unique, it has another property that not many are aware of," the Emperor said. "It is capable of refining one's core at an exceedingly fast pace."
"Even if a person with Fire Essence core absorbs Fire Essence, it is still just the Pure Essence inside the Fire Essence that is refining the core."
"Imagine just absorbing Pure Essence itself, without your body needing to take out anything from it, not needing to convert it, straight dumping it all into your core."
"Not only that, since you keep Pure Essence in your core the entire time, even when you don't use it, it still refines your core."
"As he breaks through, he gets to collect more Pure Essence, and they refine it even faster for the next realm. In the end, as long as the kid gets a steady supply of Pure Essence, he will be unstoppable in this world."
"Woah!" the Crown Prince couldn't help but say. The information had come as quite a bit of shock to him.
"We can not let that happen," the Emperor said.
"Huh?" the prince looked at him. "But he could be our ultimate savior in times of need."
"Or our destroyer. Especially with that sword, we cannot take our chances," the Emperor said. "After the competition is over, we will have to take his sword, and then kill him."
