'That is most definitely an enticing situation.' Claude thought. Unfortunately, his understanding about the limits of cultivation was still far too little.

And most importantly, he was still nowhere powerful enough to actually attain such a vast understanding. After all, in cultivation, strength and understanding goes hand in hand. Which meant that if he wishes to travel through different realms and worlds as well as return to earth, then he had to get stronger.

'This world just gets more and more interesting the more time I spend in it,' Claude let out a chuckle as he walked forward, and Senior Beldon followed close behind, and they both soon reached Senior Beldon's residence.

He guided Claude to the guest room, and said, "Alright then! Here's your room, junior brother. You can stay here until you are assigned a new residence."

"How long do you think it'll take for me to get a new residence?" Claude asked, and Senior Beldon shrugged his shoulders. "Depends on how important the person is."

He then glanced at Claude for a brief second and said, "Which means you'll probably get a new residence in almost no time."

"Oh? So I'm an important person all of a sudden?" Claude said with a snort as he opened the door to the guest room, revealing an average size room, with a fireplace, a table and two chairs, as well as a bed. It wasn't anything special, but it would do. And besides, it was just a temporary residence.

"Well, of course! Do you think someone would go out of their way to burn down a normal person's home?" Senior Beldon waved his hands in the air, acting as though he was disappointed, and Claude merely shook his head.

"Oh, yeah. And I would also need to find another batch of servants as well," Claude said as he walked inside of the room, and Senior Beldon scratched his chin while nodding his head. "Now that could take a bit more time. After all, it's not that easy to find people who are willing to be servants. And it would be even more difficult to find the capable ones."

Senior Beldon saw Claude looking at him with expectations in his eyes, and he simply smiled in response. "But don't worry. It'll probably take three or four days. A week maximum. You'll definitely get your new batch of servants."

He paused for a second and continued, "And besides, you should be focusing more on the sparring contest that you have tomorrow. Don't tell me you forgot about it?"

Claude chuckled in response, "Forgot? Me? Of course not! Don't worry about it, senior brother. Now that I've successfully completed my closed seclusion training, I'm even more confident that I'll be able to secure first place in the contest."

"Well, that's good then. Now, why don't you take a bath? I didn't want to say this before, but..." Senior Beldon paused for a second, held his nose tightly and continued, "... You stink!"

"Ha ha ha ha! Sorry about that. It's the result of the impurities that had exited my body after breaking through." Claude let out a bitter smile as he explained the situation, and Senior Beldon turned around and exited the room. "I get it, I get it. But you still need to take a bath!"

Claude waited until his senior had left, and then closed the door. After that, he sat cross legged on the floor and began inspecting his body using his spiritual energy.

"I can't believe that the closed seclusion training would help me improve this much after just a few days!" A wide grin appeared on Claude's face as he inspected his meridians, which were extremely refined and fine tuned as of right now.

Before he entered the closed seclusion chamber, he was at the fifth rank of the sky realm, but after he had successfully completed the closed seclusion training, he had broken through two ranks and was now a cultivator in the fifth rank of the sky realm!

This meant that he was now only two ranks below that of Javier Banderas, whom Claude considered to be his biggest threat in the sparring contest.

Although he had basically just skipped over two ranks as if it was nothing, he was still far behind Javier, as the sixth and seventh ranks of the sky realm are considered to be some of the hardest ever ranks to break through. Most cultivators usually reach a bottleneck during these two ranks, and if not taken seriously, one may end up stuck at the same rank for months, even years in some cases.

Even though he was able to skip over two ranks by cultivating within the closed seclusion chamber, Claude wasn't confident that he would be able to replicate the same results right now, when he was in the fifth rank.

"It's going to be an interesting fight tomorrow! I can't wait!" Claude couldn't help but smirk widely as he thought about the sparring contest the next day.

But first…

Claude sniffed his own body for a few seconds, before flashing a bitter smile, "I thought he was exaggerating… but god, do I smell like sh*t!"

...He had to take a bath.

*********************

The next day.

The Grand Astral Faction members had all gathered around early in the morning in the training arena inside the training ground sector, as they waited for their master to arrive.

Everyone seemed to be excited about the contest, but more people were less interested about winning the contest and more concerned about showing off their talents and skills to the Headmaster and to make him notice them. Only a very few disciples were actually excited about reaching the top of the faction, to clench the first place!

A few metres away from the arena stood a young man with a muscular body, leaning onto the wall with his arms crossed and his eyes narrowed. He was Javier Banderas, the disciple whom most considered to be the strongest amongst the faction members.

Javier was watching the rest of the disciples talk and chat with each other, scanning each and every one of the faction members as though he was studying their entire body.

"Ohoho! Well, well, well… if it isn't Javier Banderas, the staring pervert himself!" Javier immediately shifted his gaze in the direction of the voice, and found Russell Davies walking towards him with a huge smile on his face. "You know this is why the girls don't want to talk to you, right?"

"Shut up," Javier said and he turned his head back, continuing to scan the crowd that had gathered, and Russell let out a sigh and shook his head. "I was joking. You really should learn to laugh, Javier. I'm sure you'll be able to make more friends if you start smiling."

"I don't need friends," Javier didn't even bother looking at Russell when he spoke. "What I do need is strength!"

"There you go again, trying to hide your hurt feelings about your inability to make any friends," Russell said as he moved closer to Javier and leaned on the wall next to him. "I can tell by watching you, you know?"

"I can see that you're having fun, Russell.." Javier said as his eyes moved from one student to another. "But don't include me in your imaginations. It makes me sick."

All of a sudden, his gaze shifted to a young man who entered the arena, and his expression changed from indifferent to surprised in an instant.

Russell, who caught the change in expression of Javier, turned to see where he was looking, and once he did, a wide grin appeared on his face. "Ah! That's our new junior. Claude Rayforth. I met him before. Pretty interesting kid, right?"

Javier didn't answer, but he did nod his head in response, which was enough for Russell to start talking again. "I had gone with my junior Ian to scare him a bit, but I have to say, I was fascinated by the kid's aura. From the looks of it, the kid seems to be exceptional in cultivation! Just a few days ago, he was at the third rank of the sky realm, but now, he's at fifth!"

Russell snickered and his gaze shifted towards Javier in an attempt to find his reaction. Javier was staring at Claude with the same expression that he had while he was studying everyone else, but once in a while, his mouth would twitch, which meant that he was, in fact, interested in this person.

"Just so you know, he was my opponent first!" Russell said loud enough for Javier to hear, which he did. He turned his head to look at Russell and said, "Doesn't matter. He'll have to face me once he defeats you."

"We'll see!" Russell snickered, and Javier shook his head disapprovingly and went back to stare at the disciples again.

"Well, well, well.. kid. I'm impressed!" Russell said with a smirk on his face as he looked at Claude, who was standing next to Senior Beldon and talking to him. "You've got yourself a pretty powerful rival!"