Sect Master Yuan stood at the center of the elevated observation platform, his hands clasped behind his back as dozens of viewing screens floated in the air around him. Each screen showed a different inner world, a different battle, a different test of character unfolding in real time.

The arena below buzzed with the excited chatter of thousands of spectators, but up here in the elder's section, the atmosphere was more subdued. More analytical. These weren't just entertainment; they were evaluations of the sect's future.

"Look at Wu Kangming's placement," Elder Meng muttered, gesturing toward one of the larger screens. "The Shattered Glass Realm? That's practically designed to counter sword techniques."

Yuan's gaze followed the elder's gesture. The screen showed a world where everything—ground, sky, structures—was made of different types of glass. Some panes were transparent, others reflective, and many were razor-sharp. Wu Kangming moved carefully across the treacherous landscape, his sword strikes creating cascading fractures that spread unpredictably through the environment.

"Former Sect Master Jing's inner world," Yuan said quietly. "She was a master of the Dao of Reflection. Every surface in that realm can redirect or multiply attacks back at the user."

Wu Kangming's opponent, a girl named Feng Yue who specialized in sound-based techniques, was having a much easier time. Her sonic attacks worked perfectly with the glass environment, creating resonant frequencies that could shatter specific sections while leaving others intact. She could move freely while Wu Kangming had to constantly worry about his own reflected strikes.

"The boy's adapting well enough," Elder Liu observed. "See how he's using minimal qi techniques? He's not giving the glass much to reflect."

Elder Zhao, who had been uncharacteristically quiet since his humiliation earlier, finally spoke up. "He should have ended this already. All this caution is wasted effort."

Yuan glanced at the elder but said nothing. Elder Zhao's tone lacked its usual arrogance, replaced by something more bitter. The lesson had been learned, but perhaps not in the way Yuan had hoped.

Another screen caught Elder Wan's attention. "Luo Yichen in the Perpetual Storm Realm. That's going to be interesting."

This inner world belonged to a former enemy of the sect, a rogue cultivator who had mastered the Dao of Eternal Conflict. The entire realm was locked in a never-ending hurricane, with floating islands of stone connected by bridges of hardened wind. Lightning struck constantly, and the air itself seemed to fight against anyone trying to move through it.

Luo Yichen's opponent was a wind cultivator, naturally suited to the environment. He surfed the air currents with ease while Luo Yichen struggled to maintain his footing on the unstable platforms.

"Poor matchup," Elder Feng commented, stroking his beard. "The Mirrorwater Sword Style relies on fluid, controlled movements. This chaos works against everything the technique stands for."

"Look closer," Yuan said softly.

The elders leaned forward, studying the screen more carefully. Luo Yichen wasn't fighting the storm, he was using it. Each time lightning struck near him, his blade would catch the energy and redirect it through the Mirrorwater technique. The chaotic wind patterns were being absorbed and reflected back at his opponent in concentrated bursts.

"Remarkable adaptation," Elder Liu murmured. "He's treating the entire environment as an opponent to be mirrored."

"The boy has good instincts," Elder Wan agreed. "Though I suspect Wu Kangming's guidance has helped refine his approach."

Yuan nodded slowly. Character revealed itself not just in how cultivators handled advantage, but in how they responded to disadvantage. Both Wu Kangming and Luo Yichen were showing admirable flexibility.

But it was a third screen that truly captured the elders' attention.

"By the heavens," Elder Meng breathed, staring at Ke Yin's battle. "What is he doing?"

The Realm of Living Lyrics was perhaps the most exotic inner world in their collection. Everything operated on musical principles, the very air pulsed with rhythm, and spiritual energy flowed in melodic patterns rather than traditional cultivation channels. For a plant-based cultivator like Ke Yin, it should have been an impossible environment.

Instead, they were watching him experiment.

"He's programming the music," Elder Wan said in disbelief. "Look at those blue energy patterns. He's somehow turning musical notation into living constructs."

On screen, Ke Yin was creating what appeared to be magical scrolls from pure blue energy, each one containing a complex musical technique. When activated, the scrolls would come to life and sing to manipulate the plant life around him.

"Impossible," Elder Liu whispered. "Qi Condensation cultivators don't have the spiritual control to work with foreign energy systems like this. The cultivation base isn't developed enough to handle that kind of adaptation."

"And yet here we are," Elder Feng said, his voice tight with excitement. "The boy is essentially reverse-engineering an entire cultivation system in real time."

Yuan watched silently as Ke Yin deployed one of his musical constructs, causing nearby trees to grow into defensive formations with perfect harmonic timing. The precision was astounding; not just the technique itself, but the understanding of cause and effect required to make it work.

"We need to study this," Elder Meng said urgently. "If we could understand how he's interfacing with foreign energy types…"

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"No," Yuan's voice cut through the elder's excitement like a blade.

The platform fell silent. Elder Meng's face went pale as he remembered Elder Zhao's fate.

"The boy's abilities are his own," Yuan continued. "They are not resources for us to harvest."

"But Sect Master," Elder Feng ventured carefully, "surely understanding such techniques could benefit the entire sect? We're not talking about taking anything from him, just... learning."

Yuan's gaze shifted to Elder Feng, studying him for a moment before returning to the screens. "Learning and experimenting are different things, Elder Feng. Be careful which one you're actually suggesting."

On screen, the battle was reaching its climax.

Guo Xinyi had manifested an impressive domain of sound, but Ke Yin's red energy was systematically destroying the harmonic foundation that held it together. The sight of an energy type that could simply negate other cultivation systems was extremely rare.

"Red energy that dominates other qi types," Elder Zhao muttered. "And blue energy that can program foreign systems. The boy has access to power sources none of us understand."

"Which is precisely why he'll continue to have access to them," Yuan said pointedly.

The battle ended with shocking brutality.

Guo Xinyi, faced with certain defeat, had chosen to attempt a suicidal technique that would have burned her vessel's life force. Ke Yin's intervention saved Liu Wenqing's life, but the spiritual backlash caused the girl's cultivation base to devour Guo Xinyi's manifestation entirely.

"Foolish girl," Elder Liu said with disgust. "She should have surrendered when the outcome became clear. Instead, she tried to take them all down with her."

"The manifestation being consumed serves her right," Elder Meng added coldly. "Hopefully she learns some humility from the experience."

"And the innocent girl?" Elder Wan asked quietly.

"The vessel will be fine," Elder Liu waved dismissively. "Might even benefit from absorbing a stronger cultivator's spiritual foundation. These created beings are resilient enough."

"Created beings," Elder Wan repeated, his voice carrying a note of distaste.

"You have something to say, Elder Wan?" Elder Feng asked.

"I find it interesting how quickly we dismiss the value of life when it's not from our world," Elder Wan replied. "Liu Wenqing is a person with her own thoughts, dreams, and fears. The fact that she was born in an inner world rather than the cultivation world doesn't make her suffering less real."

"Come now," Elder Liu scoffed. "They're constructs. Sophisticated ones, certainly, but still just manifestations of someone else's dao comprehension. It's not the same as true life."

"Is it not?" Elder Chen Yong spoke up, taking a sip from his wine bottle. "I've met plenty of 'true' cultivators who seemed less alive than some inner world inhabitants I've encountered."

The philosophical debate that followed was one Yuan had heard countless times before, it took place every time they used inner worlds for tournaments, and it always revealed more about the elders' characters than they probably intended.

Life Realm cultivators, despite their realm's name, often struggled to truly understand the nature of life itself. They saw their own inner worlds as extensions of themselves, caring for the beings they created while remaining blind to the equal value of life created by others.

It was a blindness that the cultivation world's economic systems actively encouraged.

The Celestial Trade Nexus was filled with merchants buying and selling created beings like livestock. Civilisation Realm cultivators traded unique life forms the way others might trade spiritual herbs, and Life Realm cultivators, when unable to buy these 'resources' from the official channels, often resorted to kidnapping interesting specimens to study their cultivation systems.

Yuan understood the practical motivations. Experimenting on foreign cultivation methods could provide insights impossible to gain otherwise. But the karmic cost was enormous, even if most cultivators couldn't see it.

Through his Dao of Karma, Yuan could perceive what others missed. The karma generated by created beings was identical to that produced by naturally born life. The cosmic order made no distinction between a person born in the cultivation world and one born in an inner realm.

Pain was pain. Growth was growth. Love was love.

Ke Yin seemed to understand this instinctively. Watching him interact with Mo Yuhang and the other inhabitants of the Realm of Living Lyrics, Yuan had seen genuine care and respect. The boy treated them as equals, not as resources or curiosities.

More interesting was how Ke Yin seemed to actively create positive karmic connections. His speech to the realm's citizens, his gifts of cultivation insights, even his small kindnesses to children—all of it wove threads of good karma that would eventually return to benefit him.

For someone following the Dao of Karma, such behavior was expected.

But most cultivators of other dao paths remained ignorant of these exchanges until much higher realms. They accumulated karmic debt through thoughtless actions and wondered why tribulations grew increasingly severe.

But Ke Yin's dao path remained unclear, making his natural inclination toward karmic balance all the more remarkable.

"Interesting boy," Yuan murmured to himself as Ke Yin emerged from the portal and back into the arena to thunderous applause.

The crowd had clearly been watching his performance, and many spectators had won significant amounts of spirit stones betting on his success.

But Yuan's focus was no longer on the arena.

Throughout the individual rounds, he had sensed subtle manipulations in the matchmaking process. The formation that supposedly randomized opponents had been influenced by someone with deep understanding of probability arrays. Every single favorited competitor had been matched against opponents whose techniques were specifically advantageous in their assigned realms.

The pattern was too consistent to be coincidence.

Someone was deliberately trying to eliminate the tournament's strongest contenders, or at least force them to reveal their full capabilities under maximum pressure.

Closing his eyes, Yuan activated his karmic sight fully for the first time during the tournament. The world around him transformed as spiritual threads became visible, showing the complex web of cause and effect that connected every person present.

Most of the elders showed normal patterns: the bright golden threads of positive karma mixed with darker strands representing less virtuous actions, all flowing in the natural patterns he'd expect from centuries-old cultivators.

Elder Chen Yong's threads showed the bright flashes of someone who had recently performed significant acts of kindness, interwoven with darker guilt over past failures.

Elder Wan displayed the steady silver threads of a teacher who had devoted his life to nurturing others.

Even Elder Zhao's pattern, while stained with greed and poor judgment, followed recognizable configurations.

But Elder Feng's threads were... wrong.

The karmic pattern writhed with unnatural distortions, as if something foreign was wrapped around his spiritual essence like parasitic vines. The threads that should have connected to his past actions instead led to... emptiness. Gaps in the karmic web that shouldn't exist.

Sect Master Yuan's eyes snapped open, immediately focusing on Elder Feng.

The man must have sensed the scrutiny because he turned to meet Yuan's gaze directly, the elder's mouth curved into a smile that didn't match his usual reserved demeanor. The expression was wrong somehow, carrying a smugness that belonged to someone else entirely.

Then Elder Feng collapsed.

His unconscious body hit the stone floor with a sickening thud, spiritual energy dissipating like smoke as whatever had been controlling him withdrew.

The other elders rushed to examine him, but Yuan remained seated, his expression grim.

He recognized that puppet technique. The specific way the spiritual threads had been severed, the subtle dao signature that lingered in the air like incense after a ritual.

Only one person in the sect's long history had mastered such dark spiritual manipulation, someone who represented everything Yuan found repugnant about cultivation.