Volume One: First Glimmers of Brilliance Chapter Eighty-Nine: The Examination, Part One

There were five days left before the examination.

Wang Jue poured almost all his energy into review, so much so that he did not even spare time to consolidate his cultivation.

As the review progressed, and as he tested himself again and again with the mock papers he had put together, his confidence in the coming examination steadily swelled.

“This time, success is almost certain.”

...

August 6th.

The first day of the examination.

On Azure Star, the exams ran from August 6th to the 9th, over three days.

Heping First High School.

According to the testing arrangements, Wang Jue of Heping Tenth High School had been assigned to take his exam there.

This examination was different from all previous ones.

In the past, each school conducted its own exams, but this time all students from every school had been mixed together and assigned to separate venues.

Wang Jue’s luck was not especially good. He had been assigned to First High rather than his own home ground at Heping Tenth.

“Son, do your best.”

“Don’t worry, Dad.”

“Sweetheart, don’t put too much pressure on yourself.”

“Mom, don’t worry. I know.”

...

Outside the gates of Heping First High, a dense sea of examinees and parents had gathered.

Just beyond the school entrance stood a line of public security officers, each carrying loaded firearms.

“Little Jue, keep your mind relaxed during the exam. Even if you don’t get into one of the top hundred martial schools, an ordinary high school is fine too. Take it easy,” Wang Jianbin said with a genial smile as he looked at his son.

Wang Jue smiled and nodded. “Mm, I know.”

Beep.

With a bright, ringing horn, a silver-white hover car of the newest model, noble in bearing and gleaming all over, slowly approached the gates of Heping First High under the escort of several police hover bikes. The surrounding parents and examinees immediately moved aside, every gaze turning toward that vehicle.

The newest hover car could accelerate to three hundred kilometers per hour in just two seconds, with a maximum speed of six hundred.

Of course, those specifications were nothing remarkable in themselves; as a brand-new model, what truly drew the eye was its appearance.

Three people stepped out of the car and walked toward the school gate as they chatted and laughed together.

“The one on the left is Director Lin from our Heping District Public Security Bureau.”

“The one on the right—isn’t that Director Huang from the Education Bureau?”

“And the one in the middle... isn’t that Lord Ning Chuan, the head of the Martial Association?”

Outside the testing grounds, countless parents and students broke into murmurs. The vast majority had fixed their eyes on the man in the center, their expressions full of excitement, admiration, and curiosity.

The war between humanity and star beasts had never ceased.

Ordinary people were forbidden to leave the city limits, while martial artists were beings capable of fighting star beasts one-on-one in bloody combat.

For that reason, human society was deeply grateful to martial artists for the immense sacrifices they made. Naturally, ordinary people admired them greatly.

Martial artists belonged to a class of people whose status stood far above the rest.

“So that is Lord Ning Chuan!”

His father, Wang Jianbin, was staring at the man as well. “I never thought someone I’d only ever seen on television would appear in front of us in the flesh.”

“It really is him. Fist Tyrant, Lord Ning Chuan!”

Wang Jue looked over and found that Ning Chuan radiated, at every moment, a presence that made one’s heart tremble. His eyes were like the cold, sinister eyes of a venomous serpent, and all along the way he remained unsmiling.

In front of Director Lin from the Public Security Bureau and Director Huang from the Education Bureau, Ning Chuan did no more than nod indifferently from time to time, too aloof to bother with them otherwise.

“In the not-too-distant future, I’ll become one of the strong as well,” Wang Jue said silently to himself.

Creak...

The gates of Heping First High slowly opened.

“Come on, we’re going in.”

Voices immediately rose one after another.

“Little Jue, it’s time. Get inside,” Wang Jianbin urged at once.

Beside him, his mother Liu Wenjing added quickly, “Go on now. I’ll head back in a bit to cook for you. Your father and your sister will wait here until you finish.”

“All right.”

Wang Jue smiled and nodded.

“Brother.”

Standing between their parents, his younger sister Wang Xiaoyu raised her tiny fist at him, her face full of nervousness and concern. “You have to do your best!”

“Do your best.” Wang Jue raised his fist as well.

Then he turned and joined the stream of examinees. After passing through a series of inspections, he entered through the school gates.

...

At that moment, inside the examination room—

The admission slip and identification card were placed at the top right corner of the desk for inspection by the proctor, and the test papers were being distributed.

“Hm? I didn’t expect the first session to be liberal studies?”

Wang Jue swept his gaze over the paper before him, then looked at the final few major questions. They seemed unfamiliar to him. “The questions this time are pretty difficult. I’ll just have to answer carefully and seriously—make sure I don’t lose points on what I do know. As for what I don’t know, there’s nothing to be done...”

He immediately bent his head and began writing.

At once, the classroom filled with the rustling sound of pens moving across paper.

...

The examination consisted of three sessions in total.

For ordinary students, they were liberal studies, science, and mathematics.

For martial students, they were liberal studies, science, and finally the martial arts examination.

Each subject was worth three hundred points, for a total of nine hundred.

That was the distinction between ordinary students and martial students.

As the war between humanity and the star beasts dragged on without end, mankind had been driven to devote itself to research in both science and martial cultivation.

Compared with the former, the latter made everyone feel more clearly the importance of the martial path.

Anyone who wished to rise above the crowd, or achieve something great, needed a solid foundation in martial strength.

That was also why the Safe Zone was willing to spend such enormous resources to support martial artists this time.

...

August 6th: liberal studies.
August 7th: science.

In the blink of an eye, it was already August 9th.

...

In the previous two sessions, martial students and ordinary examinees had all been mixed together.

For the third session, however, they were separated.

That morning, Liu Mao and teachers from other schools brought the martial students from their respective classes to the hall of the Martial Association’s Virtual Combat Chamber.

This mock assessment would take place inside the Virtual Combat Chamber.

What it measured this time was not talent, but the overall personal strength of each martial student.

Because the Safe Zone attached such extraordinary importance to the matter, the leaders of every school had all arrived in advance.

They had already taken their places before the students even came.

After all the examinees had arrived under the guidance of their class teachers, the person in charge of the Virtual Combat Chamber announced that, due to the limited number of helmets, the examination could only be conducted in batches.

The Martial Association therefore had one hundred students begin first, while the remaining students watched from the side.

Once the first batch had all put on their helmets, Ning Chuan—standing at the center, surrounded by principals and department heads—cast a glance at the person in charge, signaling for the assessment to begin.

As for Wang Jue, he did not know whether his luck should be called good or bad; at that moment, he happened to be sitting on the floor with a helmet already on.

Taking advantage of the few moments before the start, he swept his eyes over the others taking the exam with him.

To his surprise, he discovered several familiar faces among those in his batch.

As far as he knew, in Heping Town, the number of students admitted into the top hundred academies each year could be counted on one hand.

The thought left Wang Jue inwardly sighing.

It seemed that no matter what world it was, people were all the same.

Even when these students knew perfectly well that their school only sent a tiny handful into the top hundred each year, many still wanted to sign up and try.

It was just like the civil service exams on Earth in his previous life.

Even though many knew they would never pass, the number of applicants every year was still overwhelming.

Wang Jue did not know exactly how many people were competing this time for the top hundred martial academies.

He only knew that in his own school alone, the third-year junior class had one hundred classes. Some classes had more martial students, some fewer, but on average each class had about ten or so.

That meant more than a thousand martial student applicants from his school alone.

And that was only one school.

The entire Jiangnan Safe Zone contained one hundred counties, and beneath them lay more than ten thousand small towns like theirs.

On average, one county governed around a thousand towns—some a few hundred, others over a thousand.

Each town had a hundred middle schools, and each middle school had over a thousand students, some even several thousand.

Add it all together, and there were tens of millions, perhaps even hundreds of millions, of martial examinees.

And he had looked up the admission standards of the top hundred martial academies online: together, they enrolled only one hundred thousand students each year.

One could well imagine how terrifying the competition was.

Wang Jue found it hard even to comprehend.

Still, a few days ago he had also read online that, because of the Safe Zone’s support for martial artists, one hundred military academies had been added this time.

And the martial academies’ intake standard had been expanded to one million.

That at least gave those who failed to enter the top hundred martial academies another path to choose.

Even with an extra hundred military academies, however, a great many examinees would still be eliminated in the end and have no choice but to attend ordinary institutions.

While Wang Jue was thinking over all this, one hundred Martial Association staff members came to the examinees’ sides and pressed the buttons on the helmets.

The next second, Wang Jue’s vision blurred, and his consciousness entered an independent space.

Only then did he notice that the place he now found himself in was different from the Virtual Combat Chamber where he had previously honed his practical fighting experience.

This space looked far more real.

There were flowers, grass, and trees all around, and he could even feel gusts of breeze blowing from the distance.

Looking around, Wang Jue’s thoughts stirred, and a longsword instantly appeared in his hand.

“Thank goodness. Aside from the environment, nothing else has changed.”

But before he could breathe a sigh of relief, he saw a first-rank star beast suddenly appear out of thin air in front of him.

Wang Jue’s gaze sharpened.

After more than half a month of training, his practical combat ability had improved severalfold over what it had been before.

Forget one first-rank star beast—even ten would pose no difficulty to him.

At once, sword in hand, Wang Jue launched his attack at the beast before him.

Whoosh—

He struck with a single blade of sword light.

That slash instantly became a streak of brilliance, crossing several meters in the blink of an eye and striking the charging star beast directly at a vital point.

Splurt!

The sword-light swept past, and the star beast died on the spot.

In only a single exchange, Wang Jue had killed that first-rank star beast where it stood.

With Wang Jue’s current strength, dealing with a first-rank star beast placed no pressure on him whatsoever.

But just after slaying it, he suddenly saw several more star beasts appear out of nowhere behind him, not far away.

What surprised him was that this time it was not one beast, but eleven.

Ten of them were first-rank star beasts, and the last one was actually a second-rank star beast.

If measured by the ranks of martial artists, then a second-rank star beast was the equivalent of the Spirit Containment Realm.