"By the way, have you seen that outsider recently?" a False Immortal in the big hall asked.
"Which one?" another guy asked.
"The one who wanted to sell his Formation Arrays. Do you still remember him?"
"Oh, right! He probably failed," the other guy answered.
"Not sure. At least one of us would have noticed him leaving," another guy added.
"Did anyone see that outsider?" the first guy asked a couple of other groups.
All of them said that they hadn't seen the outsider.
"When was the last time he left his Workshop?"
"Like 5,000 years ago."
"Yeah, it should've been something like 5,000 years."
"Do you really think he's still here? That would mean that he's at the seventh task, at least."
"Doubtful. The sixth task is a major watershed. Over half of the people fail it."
"Nah, the sixth task is a major watershed for us but not for him. Remember, he can create materials since he knows the local Laws."
"Oh, right!"
As the people continued talking, their opinions of Kyle slightly shifted. If he was actually still here, he was actually a pretty talented Beginner Formation Array Master. Fewer than 10% of applicants got to the seventh task.
"We must have missed him. I refuse to believe that he's still here. The third task might be easy for us, but it should be brutal for him."
"Right, our Formation Arrays are completed by the Cosmos, making them perfect. We don't have to be careful about our Energy Waves."
"Yep, the third task is there to weed out all of the outsiders."
"But none of us have seen him. Someone must have noticed him if he failed."
"I'm going to take a look," one of them said as he left the hall. It was forbidden to enter a fellow participant's Workshop, but no rule said one couldn't knock on the door.
The guy from the hall approached Kyle's Workshop and knocked a couple of times.
While no one had followed the guy, they were all paying attention with their Divine Consciousnesses.
BANG!
"What do you want?!"
The door opened explosively as Kyle shouted with aggression. His aura was jittery and unstable, showing that he was under immense stress.
The False Immortal in front of Kyle's door just looked at him with a raised brow. Knocking on someone's Workshop was bad manners. Most people would get annoyed. He wasn't surprised about Kyle's reaction.
"I just wanted to know if you were still here," the guy transmitted calmly.
"Yes, I'm here!" Kyle shouted. "I'm busy!"
BANG!
Kyle slammed the door.
"That answers that question," the guy transmitted to the people in the hall.
"Still here, but probably not for much longer," another guy commented. "Did you see how stressed he was?"
"How difficult is the seventh task?" one of the False Immortals asked. According to her Communicator, she was at the fifth task.
"About as hard as the sixth task, but since the bad ones get filtered out by the sixth task, not many people fail it," another False Immortal answered. He was at the ninth task. "The eighth one is another difficult one, but the last two are the actual challenge."
"You think he's gonna fail?"
"On the seventh one? Probably not, but the eighth one might get him."
"Man, I almost feel bad losing him. I've grown attached to him."
"How? You've seen him like twice."
"So? I'll still miss him a bit. We have so few outsiders. That makes them special and interesting."
"Hey, I've just had a funny thought," another guy said with a chuckle. "Imagine he wins... Could you imagine being his Stone Slave?"
"Ugh," another person groaned. "I don't wanna think about it. There would be nothing to learn. It's work without pay."



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