By the time the mock arena dissolved fully into chaos, Marrionette had already lost interest in standing at its center.
She walked away.
Not hurriedly. Not with ceremony.
She simply turned her back on the hundred clashing bodies and stepped toward the edge of the library, boots clicking softly against stone that trembled faintly with the impact of the children fighting . The instructors were busy now. Appearing and vanishing in blurs, redirecting blows, stopping limbs mid-strike, and taking those downed outside of the arena after they proved inferior to their betters.
The whole thing was efficient, predictable, boring.
Marrionette stopped beside the elders' informal gathering and folded her arms, posture loose, weight resting on one hip. The elevated arena remained well within her peripheral vision, but she no longer needed to stare directly at it.
She could feel it.
Spiritual energy flaring. Intent sharpening, wavering, breaking. Fear. Excitement. Aggression poorly disguised as confidence.
All very loud, spiritually speaking.
Elder Grigs stood a short distance away, hands tucked into his sleeves, chin lifted slightly as he stared resolutely at anything that was not her.
Marrionette noticed.
She also didn't care.
If anything, she smirked inwardly.
Still sulking, she thought. You'd think I'd slapped you in front of the entire clan instead of just ignoring your sense of propriety.
She didn't bother provoking him. Grigs did an excellent job of stewing on his own.
Instead, a different presence drew her attention.
"Elder Marrionette."
Marrionette turned her head slightly.
An older woman stood nearby, hands clasped behind her back, gaze fixed thoughtfully on the arena below. Her hair was streaked heavily with silver, though her posture remained straight, her presence dense and stable in a way only those deep into the Dantian Foundation Realm ever truly achieved.
Elder Xiu Hans.
One of the clan's quiet pillars.
She had never sought positions of influence, never involved herself deeply in politics, yet her words carried undeniable weight when she chose to speak. Cultivation-wise, she was Marrionette's senior by nearly two decades.
Curiosity flickered in her eyes now.
"This… method," Xiu Han said, gesturing lightly toward the ongoing brawl, "is rather messy."
Marrionette hummed. "That's one way to put it."
"I would have expected structured pairings," the elder continued. "Progressive difficulty. Time-limited bouts. Clear assessment metrics."
She turned her head and looked directly at Marrionette. "Why do it this way?"
Several of the other elders shifted subtly, listening without appearing to. Even Grigs' rigid posture tightened just a fraction.
Marrionette shrugged.
The motion was casual, almost lazy.
"I hate clean lessons," she said plainly.
That earned her a sideways glance.
"Hate?" Xiu Han echoed mildly.
"Yes." Marrionette's lips curved faintly. "Organized. Polished. Predictable. Whatever you want to call it. They teach children how to perform well in a class."
Her eyes flicked back to the arena, where two girls collided head-on, both overcommitting, both sloppy, both learning something painful in the process.
"They don't teach them how to survive."
Xiu Han's gaze followed hers.
"Real combat," Marrionette continued, voice flat but firm, "is never neat. It's chaotic, unfair, loud, and full of mistakes. People freeze. They hesitate. They panic. They get jumped by three opponents when they expected one."
She tilted her head.
"So why pretend otherwise?"
Silence stretched for a moment.
Elder Xiu Han considered her words, eyes narrowing slightly.
"This," the elder said slowly, "is a battle royal."
"Yes."
"You are not truly testing their techniques," Xiu Han observed.
"No."
A faint crease formed between the elder's brows. "Then what are you testing?"
Marrionette smiled.
"Talent," she said simply. "Martial instinct. Awareness. Adaptability."
She gestured broadly.
"At equal cultivation levels, raw power evens out quickly. What's left is how they move. When they choose to strike. Who they target. Who they avoid. Who they help."
Her gaze sharpened.
"I'm not here to see who memorized their combat technique the fastest. I'm here to pick the gems out of the garbage."
That drew a soft exhale from Xiu Han.
"Harsh," the elder murmured.
"Accurate," Marrionette replied without apology.
She leaned back slightly, resting her weight against a stone pillar.
"Even this method isn't perfect," she added after a beat. "Luck still plays a role. Numbers matter. Some children will get dogpiled through no fault of their own."
Her eyes narrowed faintly.
"But that, too, is reality."
Xiu Han studied her quietly for several seconds, then nodded once.
"I see."
The older elder turned her gaze back to the arena, interest clearly renewed.
Marrionette followed suit. And this time, she let her perception deepen.
She extended her spiritual sense subtly, a skill only given to those who had attained the realm of Qi Manipulation, weaving it through the chaos without interfering. Each child's cultivation level revealed itself clearly to her now, like faintly glowing marks in the dark.
She counted automatically.
One… two…
Her lips twitched almost imperceptibly.
Four.
Four out of a hundred had already stepped into the second level of the Body Forging Realm in just three days.
That's… higher than expected, she admitted privately.
Her attention naturally drifted to one of them first.
Malichi.
Her nephew stood out like a lit brazier. His movements were controlled, efficient, lacking the wild excess most children displayed when first tasting strength.
And he was close.
Very close.
Marrionette's eyes gleamed faintly.
Third level, she assessed. Not there yet, but practically knocking on the door.
And he'd done it with one low-grade spirit fruit.
She snorted softly.
As expected.
Freidak's son. Her brothers child. If he'd failed to shine, that would have been embarrassing.
For the briefest moment, something like pride flickered through her otherwise bored demeanour.
She quickly crushed it.
The other three second-level cultivators drew her attention next.
She examined them dispassionately.
Barely there, she noted. All of them.
Their bodies lacked depth, boosted artificially, foundations still settling. Children of elders, without question. She recognized the subtle signs immediately.
Spirit fruit. Plural. Probably stuffed with them till the point they had no choice but to advance to the second level.
Her interest in them faded almost as quickly as it had appeared.
Then—
Something tugged sharply at her perception.
Marrionette's attention snapped toward a different section of the arena.
Her posture straightened.
So did Xiu Han's.
And, notably even Elder Grigs turned his head.
What they saw was… unusual.
Two boys stood back-to-back, fending off five attackers.
One wore plain, bland robes, undyed, unadorned, clearly servant caste. His movements were sharp. He ducked and weaved, redirecting strikes, using positioning rather than force. For those he couldn't dodge he parried with odd defensive stances.
Good battlefield sense, Marrionette noted immediately. Very good.
His combat technique was sloppy, understandable given he'd started learning it five minutes ago, but his timing was impressive. He knew when to commit and when to retreat, when to let an attack pass and when to block.
That one will survive, she thought. Even if he never becomes exceptional.
But he wasn't the one who made the air feel strange.
That honour belonged to the boy fighting beside him.
Marrionette's eyes narrowed.
The second boy wore main-line robes, clean and well-fitted, unremarkable. His face was plain. Not ugly, not handsome. Easily forgettable in a crowd.
Yet his presence was anything but.
Second level, she realized instantly.
Not just second level.
Peak second level.
She could sense it. His muscles were compressed, heavy, coiled tightly within his body like a spring wound to its limit. There was no waste, no flaring excess, just density. A contained power pressing against invisible constraints.
Murmurs rose among the elders.
"Another at Second level?" someone muttered.
One elder frowned openly. "Whose child is that?"
Marrionette didn't answer. Though she had an idea.
Her gaze sharpened, a rare glint of seriousness piercing through her habitual indifference.
It was subtle. Easy to miss unless one knew what to look for. But she did.
Her eyes widened just a fraction.
He's overloading the technique.
Not sloppily. Not ignorantly.
Deliberately.
The boy's fingers struck, driving one opponent back hard enough that an instructor had to step in mid-flight to prevent injury.
A hush rippled through the elders.
Even Grigs' eyes were now fully fixed on the scene, his earlier irritation forgotten.
"That spiritual energy density…" Xiu Han murmured. "That's not standard."
"No," Marrionette said quietly.
She traced the boy's aura again, deeper this time, brushing against the core of his cultivation.
There it was.
No external enhancement.
No lingering spirit fruit residue.
No elder's guiding imprint.
His foundation was raw... was earned.
Marrionette exhaled slowly.
Of course.
Her jaw tightened, just slightly.
As he continued to fight she became more sure of herself. That boy was his grandson.
Parents dead. No backing. No resources beyond what the clan grudgingly provided. No one to hand him fruits, no one to secretly stabilize his breakthroughs.
And yet—
Second level. Peak.
In three days.
An elder beside her spoke again, confusion evident. "Which elder's child did you say that was?"
Marrionette didn't look away from the arena as she answered.
"He isn't," she said flatly.
A pause.
Then, more quietly, "He's that mans grandson."
For a moment no one spoke, it seemed for a second the other elders beside from Grigs were in fact confused.
But then understanding dawned slowly, uncomfortably, across several faces.
Xiu Han's eyes widened with fear.
Marrionette watched as the boy, Zareck she recalled was his name, shifted his stance, eyes burning with focus, body moving as if pain were merely another signal to be processed.
A slow, dangerous smile crept into her mind.
This generation, Marrionette realized, might actually be interesting.