"Are you absolutely certain you can contain it, Your Majesty?" Linger whispered, her voice barely carrying over the deafening chatter of the Outer Court Square.
Mo Yuan stood near the back of the massive crowd, his arms crossed casually. The stone plaza was large enough to hold ten thousand people, paved with seamless white jade that reflected the midday sun.
"Contain what, exactly, Linger?" Mo Yuan asked softly, not looking at her. "My power, or my patience?"
"Both, Sovereign," she replied, glancing nervously at the heavily armed sect guards patrolling the perimeter. "The physical endurance test on the stairs was simple enough to fake. But the Pillar of Heavenly Resonance... it does not just measure raw Qi. It searches the soul for the purity of the spiritual root. If it senses even a
