After his last-ditch attack failed, Loki decided to give up. So Simon was able to escape without further interruptions.
Simon’s heart was in turmoil as he escaped. He couldn’t believe what had happened.
What he just experienced made him scream inwardly, "There has to be a conspiracy here. They knew I was coming, and they chose to use Loki as bait for me."
He doesn’t believe that the person he just fought was Loki. The power that Loki displayed was just too powerful for him to be a new rank 2 cultivator without a status. So Simon was sure that someone else had taken Loki’s place and had been lying in wait for him to come.
Not only that, but Simon was also sure that he had been attacked by two people. This was because he had felt the mental attack.
Since the person wielding the sword was a physical warrior, the person who attacked him with the mental attack had to be another Mind Hunter who was hiding somewhere nearby.
So by his estimate, there were at least two enemies besieging him, of which none of them was Loki. The worst part of this ambush was that the snake hadn’t noticed the presence of the second person, so there might as well be a third and a fourth person hiding nearby, ready to jump out at him at any time.
With all of these on his mind, he didn’t dare to delay at all. He urged the rank 3 wolf beneath him to run with all of its might while he glanced around warily for an ambush.
Simon’s heart was filled with fear, while Loki’s heart was full of regret. Both of them had something that they were concerned about and used different ways to resolve their concerns.
The Rein family was concerned about a conspiracy and a plan by their enemies to eliminate them. Because of this, Slav left the initiation program and went home.
On the other side, Loki had been concerned about the attack of the Rein Family, which was why he didn’t earn as much money as possible and buy all the Cloudy Dates that he needed. But now that the Rein Family had attacked him, he had no more reasons to be careful.
He was sure that the Rein Family would retaliate in the future. Since there was nothing he could do to change that, he decided not to bother being careful.
So he let loose. He went to the various gambling houses and earned as much money as he could. He also splurged and bought the extra 9 rank 2 Cloudy Date Metac that he needed. He didn’t care what his enemies would think at all.
He was being flashy, so the Rein Family was able to notice everything that he was doing. But this only confirmed what they thought was going on.
They thought that Loki had hidden allies. After all, why would he buy Cloudy Date Metac enough to help three rank 2 cultivators advance from the early stage of rank 2 to the peak stage of rank 2 after he bought three rank 2 Cloudy Date Metacs for himself just yesterday?
The nine rank 2 Cloudy Date Metacs that he bought today might not even be for only three rank 2 cultivators. They can also be for nine different rank 2 cultivators, with each taking one.
So Loki might have three and up to nine rank 2 unknown helpers. Rank 2 cultivators are nothing for the Rein Family to deal with. But the fact that they don’t know these helpers is something that they have to take seriously and with utmost caution.
Their concerns made them hold back from doing anything to Loki in the meantime. They wanted to watch and see who it was that was helping Loki.
This concern meant that Loki wasn’t disturbed for the rest of the initiation program. Muni also didn’t disturb him when he didn’t pay attention in class and when he didn’t come to class at all.
After all, he had reached rank 2. This was proof that he didn’t need to attend class like everyone else.
There are four requirements to advance to rank 2. The first is a Dao Heart of level 2. The second is cultivating one’s energy well to the peak of rank 1. The third is possessing a skilled energy manipulation of 100%. The last requirement is to advance the Core Metac to rank 2.
Of these four requirements, advancing the Core Metac to rank 2 can be the easiest as long as the recipe for advancing the Core Metac is known and the materials for advancing it are available. If these two conditions aren’t met, then advancing the Core Metac can be the most difficult requirement to fulfill.
However, possessing a skilled energy manipulation of 100%, which is 100% energy saturation of a Metac in 1 second, is very difficult to achieve. This is something with no shortcuts. Only grueling hard work and talent can achieve this.
Even the talented Slav hasn’t been able to achieve a skill level of 100%. So the fact that Loki could achieve this meant that Muni had no right to criticize Loki for being lazy.
When the last week of the initiation program arrived, Muni called everyone over and told them about the upcoming competition. He also waxed eloquently about the importance of societies.
During his speech, he only mentioned great things about societies. Not once did he mention the possibility of members of societies being used as raw materials by the leaders of the societies.
Loki didn’t call out Muni’s hypocrisy because he had nothing to gain from it. Besides, Muni hadn’t lied. Joining a society is still the best way for normal cultivators to quickly pay off their awakening debt and become true disciples of the sect.
After the speech, everyone dispersed and went their separate ways. As usual, they began talking about who could win the competition. But this time, everyone agreed that Loki would win it.