Kevin stood up from his chair and walked toward his room on the second floor. The two girls exchanged confused glances.Inside his room, Kevin opened his storage ring and took out an item he had not used for a very long time. A mask.The mask was made of a material that no one in the modern world could identify. Its surface was smooth as silk yet hard as steel. Its color shifted depending on the light that fell upon it—sometimes appearing white, sometimes silvery, sometimes transparent. Microscopic carvings adorned every part of its surface, ancient scripts from civilizations that had gone extinct thousands of years ago.Kevin had made it himself two thousand years ago, when he needed a disguise to enter a kingdom that forbade foreigners from entering. This mask did not merely cover the face. This mask changed everything. Face, voice, cultivation aura, even body odor. Whoever wore it would become a completely different person, and no cultivator in any real

Kevin straightened his slightly rumpled clothes and continued his journey to campus. He entered the campus gate right on time for his morning lecture.The day proceeded as usual on campus. Kevin attended his lectures with full concentration, sitting in the front row as always. After regular classes were finished, he joined Ardo, Wita, and Jono in the team practice room for final preparation before the inter-university Olympiad contest to be held tomorrow.Clarissa was already waiting for them with review materials she had prepared. Her face showed a mixture of enthusiasm and anxiety, natural before a major competition."Alright, team," Clarissa said while opening her presentation. "Tomorrow is our big day. We'll be facing universities far more prestigious than our campus. But I believe, with the preparation we've done, we have a real chance."Clarissa turned to Kevin. "Kevin, you will be the team's main pillar. Your knowledge and analytical abilit

Kevin stepped into the meeting room with calm strides. His eyes swept across the entire room, reading every detail, every position, every potential threat.The chairman of the Assassin Pavilion was the first to react. He raised his hand and pressed a hidden button under the table. A silent alarm spread throughout the building, and within seconds, doors along the hallway burst open. Over a dozen people dressed in black rushed toward the meeting room from all directions.Kevin didn't even turn his head. He stood with his back to the door as the high-level security officers stormed in. They were all cultivators, their levels varying from the spirit condensation realm to the newborn soul realm.One movement of Kevin's hand.Just one.A wave of energy spread from his body in all directions. Every person standing in the hallway and at the doorway was immediately hurled backward. Their bodies slammed into walls and floors with successive thuddin

An aura exploded from his body that was completely different from before. If the level twelve awakening realm aura earlier had felt like a storm, then the golden core realm aura felt like an expanding universe. Its pressure no longer pressed physically, but pressed essentially—pressing the soul, pressing consciousness, pressing existence itself.The floor beneath the Old Man's feet cracked and sank. The walls of the room, already fractured, now collapsed completely. The ceiling split apart. The entire third floor of the building began to crumble downward.Kevin felt that pressure. And for the first time since he had emerged from his cave, he felt something approaching a challenge.Golden core realm, level one, Kevin thought. This is indeed far stronger than the awakening realm. The quality of its energy is fundamentally different.The Old Man wasted no time. As soon as his aura was fully released, he attacked with the full power of level one of th

"Better if he just focuses on the third-level contest with the Wicaksana family. Though even there, I doubt he can win."Kevin swallowed a piece of meat and drank it down with plain water. His face did not change at all upon hearing all of that.It was at that moment that the door of the VIP room opened, and Winona entered with her father, Wahyu Wicaksana. They had just arrived after receiving an invitation from Mentira to join the farewell banquet before departure.Winona immediately swept her gaze around searching for Kevin and found him sitting alone at the end of the table with a nearly empty plate. The expression on Winona's face instantly changed as she heard the remnants of conversation still echoing in the room—conversation that was clearly belittling Kevin.Winona turned to her father and whispered. "Father, they keep underestimating Kevin. We have to tell them about Kevin's true abilities."Wahyu, who also felt uncomfortable, no