The Sect leader thus made the decision to wait and bring the matter up to that Mahayama realm cultivator himself on the day of the tournament.
——
Half a month later, the sect has mostly returned to normal. The damage caused by the Heavenly Tribulation has been repaired and the disciples have returned to their usual routines. While the events of 2 weeks prior still came up in conversation from time to time, the sect disciples have begun to shift their attention back to the younger generation tournament set to begin a month and a half later.
Foundation Establishment cultivators throughout the sect were commonly seen training in various sect training grounds. While several participant spots were taken away by the Peak masters, some still had yet to be assigned. The Elders of the Main peak put out a statement saying that a competition will take place a month before the tournament to determine which disciples will participate.
Since the tournament will be combat focused, the competition will be centered around testing similar skills. However, the Elders also told their disciples to gain as much experience in their secondary professions as they can before the tournament begins just in case. For all they knew, that Mahayama Supreme Elder may decide to take one of their disciples in after being impressed by their knowledge of a particular secondary profession.
James was no exception, he'd already secured a participation spot in the tournament and so he has been solely focused on gaining as much combat experience as he could. James was still only 10 years old while the youngest Foundation Establishment cultivator within the sect was 17 years old. This disparity proved James' talent but it also showed his greatest weakness, time. The cultivators he will be going up against in the tournament will have been cultivating for several more years compared to him and so will have much more experience with combat.
James gained the elementary form of Sword Intent and perfected his basic sword forms while sparring with Liz a little while ago. While his basic sword forms may be enough for the early rounds of the tournament, they almost definetly won't be enough for the later rounds. James also had his excessively high physical stats, though he has only had limited training in Hand to Hand combat and so outside of getting in lucky hits, it will most likely not be all that useful. Especially considering that as soon as a cultivator enters the Foundation Establishment realm, they gain the ability to utilize their mana.
James would have loved to learn a spell or 2 to use in the tournament but according to his master, learning a single spell within 6 months would already be an impossible god-like thing to do. James would have taken the gamble if he'd been able to use the Mentorship function but to this day it remained locked with Faldon as the Mentor, himself as the Trainee and the session topic set as cultivation. He was deeply regretting not trying to set a more specific topic as he assumed that was the issue preventing it from completing but there was nothing he could do about it. James would just have to hope it ended on it's own soon.
With Spells being out of the question, James asked Liz to help him train in Hand to Hand and Sword combat up until the tournament. She agreed and his master even provided a technique for each that he could attempt to learn within the time he had remaining. The techniques his master provided were the Tempest Strike technique and the Swift Fist technique. Neither technique was very high ranked but that was perfect for James as he didn't have the luxury of taking his time to learn an intricate high rank technique.
James spent day after day alternating between Body Cultivation and combat training with Liz. His previous Body Cultivation technique had merged into his Ascent of the Heavenly Cloud technique during his breakthrough. The combination had allowed him to establish a foundation using his entire body, which was incredibly beneficial to him as evident in his outrageous stats. The down side was that the Breeze Body cultivation technique was removed from his system and while he could continue to follow the technique from memory, it appeared that his progress speed had slowed 100 times compared to before.
James wasn't completely sure if it was because he officially lost the technique from his system or because progress was harder to make now that he'd achieved Minor Success. Another possibility was that Body Cultivation was harder to progress once one enters the Foundation Establishment realm since it involves reinforcing body parts using mana. He'd tried to relearn the technique by asking his master for another copy of it but the system refused to add it to his list of techniques. Whatever the reason was, the fact that James could still make some progress was good enough for him for now. In the future, he would need to look for a higher level Body Cultivation technique to see if that will make any difference.
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"Over the last 2 months, you've improved a lot. While you still need some time to master your new techniques, your current skill level should give you a fighting chance in the tournament. Make sure to get a good placement, and don't disgrace our Enlightenment Peak."
Liz was giving James some final advice as today was the day he along with the other sect members were to head out to the tournament location. The tournament was set to take place in a mountain range that was a 4 day journey South-West of their sect. It was a neutral territory, relatively close to all 6 scets, making it an ideal location for such a tournament. Traditionally, this tournament would be hosted at one of the 6 sects, however it was agreed that due to the presence of the Mahayama Supreme Elder from the Immortal Sword sect, that a neutral location would be best.