On the sports field.
Most of the students were already in place, waiting only for the monthly exam to begin.
But Yang Xiaobing was still running back and forth, drawing secret glances from nearly all the boys.
The blue-and-white school uniform did not look bulky on her at all. Instead, it set off a lively, youthful air.
The fabric fluttered lightly with her steps, revealing the faded red cord around her slender, snow-white wrist.
That had been many years ago.
Some penniless fellow had given her a red cord as a birthday present.
Yang Xiaobing quickly ran back and said in a rush,
“She’s getting a little angry. Hurry up and tell me—what will it take for you to agree to fight her?”
“As long as she joins our team, after the exam I’ll fight her properly. I absolutely won’t run,” Xu Yuan said.
“You’re so cunning. I’ll go tell her right now!”
Yang Xiaobing ran off again.
Xu Yuan watched from afar as Yang Xiaobing pulled Jiang Xueyao aside to talk, his eyes narrowing.
What a joke!
That new sword of Jiang Xueyao’s had just made the sound of flames exploding when she swung it.
It had to be exclusive gear for a pay-to-win player!
I’d have to be insane to fight you!
Besides.
This exam directly affected the nightmare-level competition.
In a certain sense, it might even decide whether he lived or died.
How would I have time to play one-on-one with you?
Right now, the optimal strategy is to unite every force that can be united and obtain the exam reward!
—I have to get the highest score!
Yang Xiaobing could be seen whispering to Jiang Xueyao for a while.
Jiang Xueyao said nothing.
Yang Xiaobing, however, did not care about that. She simply took her by the hand and walked over.
“J-Jiang, Goddess Jiang is coming—Xu Yuan, are we dreaming together?”
Zhao Afei said, trembling.
“We need her to contribute her strength,” Xu Yuan said.
As they spoke, the two girls had already come over.
“Ten times.”
Jiang Xueyao said calmly.
“Deal,” Xu Yuan said without hesitation.
—After the monthly exam, he would fight her ten times!
“Fine. I’ll join,” Jiang Xueyao said.
“Team formation successful!” Yang Xiaobing cheered, immediately picked up a talisman, signed the four of their names on it, and struck it with spiritual power.
The talisman instantly flew up to the platform and landed on the invigilating teacher’s desk.
—There was already a thick stack of talismans on the desk.
They were all teams that had already been formed.
Very soon, the moment for the exam to begin arrived.
All the third-year students held their breath and waited.
The school principal walked onto the stage, coughed lightly, circulated his spiritual power, and released a voice that shook the entire sports field:
“Next.”
“I’ll say just a few words.”
Everyone stood there woodenly, letting the words go in one ear and out the other, drowsily listening to more than ten minutes of incomprehensible lecture.
At last.
The principal’s speaking speed increased, and his tone grew excited:
“That is all I have to say. Students, I hope you remain calm and careful, and take the exam seriously. Next—”
All the third-year students raised their heads and held their breath.
—Was the exam finally about to officially begin?
“Let us welcome the director of the Education Bureau, Mr. Zhang Guangshu!” the principal said loudly.
Amid sparse applause.
A plump middle-aged man walked onto the stage. With an amiable smile on his face, he began,
“Hello, students.”
“In this golden October, we welcome an extremely important examination.”
“Next, I’ll say just a few words.”
Everyone stood there woodenly, letting the words go in one ear and out the other, drowsily listening to more than twenty minutes of incomprehensible lecture.
No matter what.
He finally got to the substance.
“Students!”
Zhang Guangshu emphasized his tone.
The vast majority of the students did not buy it in the slightest. They continued lowering their heads, closing their eyes to rest, circulating their techniques and regulating their breathing as they waited for the exam to begin.
Xu Yuan, however, detected a clue in that solemn tone.
He raised his head and looked toward the platform.
“Along with the excavation of various ruins, we have finally achieved a new breakthrough in artifact refining.”
“—At present, you will be sent by a divine artifact that has just been completed into an event from a past era.”
“Of course.”
“This is not truly a past era, but a place constructed through the divine artifact.”
“Everything is real, yet everything is false. You will not lose your lives. Please remember this firmly.”
“Our teachers will maintain control over everything throughout the entire process.”
“Finally, I must say this.”
“At present, the divine artifact is still unstable, and our technology is not yet mature enough. We can only have Foundation Establishment teachers provide protection, while you Qi Refining students may fight freely inside.”
“If you discover any valuable intelligence, or secrets unknown to others, please report them immediately.”
“There will be generous rewards!”
“Very well. Everyone, please prepare yourselves!”
Xu Yuan fell into thought.
A method capable of simulating a past era meant that the civilization system he currently found himself in should be ahead of Earth.
He had already learned that this world’s technological civilization was not inferior to Earth’s.
If, in cultivation, they could also accomplish something like “simulating an entire past era,” then he would have to readjust his understanding.
On the sports field.
Sparse applause rang out.
All the third-year students grew excited.
The monthly exam was about to begin!
Under the supervision of the Education Bureau officials, thirty-six teachers formed art seals together and activated the grand formation on the sports field.
Amid wave after wave of magnificent spiritual-power hums.
Before the reporters’ cameras.
Education Bureau Director Zhang Guangshu loudly announced:
“The Jiangnan Province Eight-School Joint Examination officially begins!”
As soon as his words fell.
A pillar of spiritual light erupted from the sports field, soaring into the sky, enveloping all the third-year students and causing them to vanish in an instant.
Education Bureau Director Zhang Guangshu and the principal stood on the stage and waited for a while.
“The formation is operating normally!”
“The large-scale soul art has stabilized and is deploying!”
“All students have entered the Zhoutian Instrument!”
One report after another came in.
Zhang Guangshu let out a long breath, clasped his hands behind his back, and stood in place, scrutinizing the formation’s operation.
“Director Zhang, why not sit for a while?”
The principal spoke.
“I don’t dare sit. This exam… I’ll rest once it concludes smoothly,” Zhang Guangshu said.
“That’s far too exhausting,” the principal said.
“It isn’t only us who are exhausted. I’m afraid many people like me are all anxiously presiding over the situation.”
Zhang Guangshu gave a bitter smile.
“That person voluntarily took out the Zhoutian Instrument for use and deployed this ultra-large-scale soul art… yet would be displeased because of it?” the principal probed.
“Don’t discuss it! Don’t cause trouble!”
Zhang Guangshu’s face turned pale, and he hurriedly pointed at his ear.
The principal immediately shut his mouth.
Could a conversation inside a school be listened to as well?
That was rather frightening.
For the sake of one’s own future and life, some things truly should not be discussed any further.
Indeed.
In the present era, those who controlled state affairs were the top cultivators of the great factions.
But—
The human nations had a master after all.
…
Thick smoke drifted over with the wind.
Xu Yuan choked several times before finally opening his eyes.
“How do we divide the work?”
Jiang Xueyao’s cool voice sounded.
She looked at Yang Xiaobing.
Yang Xiaobing, however, looked at Xu Yuan.
Xu Yuan did not rush to speak. Instead, he first narrowed his eyes and examined their surroundings.
Noisy, broken sounds came from every direction, accompanied by shrill screams and cries.
Under the night sky.
One mutilated shadow after another darted swiftly across the high-rises.
Police sirens sometimes sounded, sometimes fell silent.
Boom—
A violent explosion came from the distance.
The ground and glass trembled endlessly together.
The frost covering the walls was also shaken loose by the explosion’s shockwave, drifting through the air like another sudden flurry of snow.
Zhao Afei kicked a shattered wolf head to the roadside and said in a tone he could not suppress,
“How could it be this event!”
Before his words had even faded.
A twisted sheet of human skin slid down the wall to the ground. Using both hands and feet, it crawled swiftly toward the four of them.
Zhao Afei formed the hand seal for the Alchemical Fire Art and directly released a blast of flame.
Boom—
The human skin burned with a crackling sound and was reduced to ash in an instant.
“It’s the demon massacre of the northern border city from ten years ago!”
Yang Xiaobing immediately said.
“Yes,” Xu Yuan also remembered. “Wasn’t this incident covered up? They don’t even allow discussion of it online.”
Human skin, wolf heads, a city of ice and snow, along with the restless spiritual energy in the air.
—These were the hallmarks of that incident!
Ten years ago.
The yao race and monsters joined forces and slaughtered a human border city.
This incident shook the entire human world.
It also completely destroyed the market for those isolationists who advocated peace and noninterference in affairs between the yao and monsters.
The enormous war machine of the human world began to operate at high speed.
The war among the three races grew more intense each time.
“With exam content like this, and an eight-school joint exam at that, I dare say it’ll cause a sensation as soon as it’s over.”
Zhao Afei sighed.
“Even with new artifact-refining technology, they must have mobilized quite a few soul cultivators to construct this exam,” Yang Xiaobing also said.
To construct a “real” scene, besides soul artifacts, they also needed the soul arts of soul cultivators to arrange it.
A city massacre on such a vast scale.
Who knew how many soul cultivators had been mobilized, and how much wealth had been spent, to prepare everything properly.
“There will only be more and more exams like this in the future.”
Jiang Xueyao said lightly.
She held her sword and stood amid the night and windblown snow. Reflected by the flames soaring into the sky in the distance, she seemed like a heavenly maiden isolated from the world.
City-destruction incident…
Xu Yuan thought silently, then suddenly felt that something was wrong.
The smell of plant ash permeated the air.
A boiling, invisible stench full of rot surged up from underground, like a swamp, making him feel as if he were sinking.
Fire.
Fire without temperature had been born somewhere.
He could sense it.
…There was no mistake.
This was the aura that poured from “that world” into the human realm when the Nether-Communion Art was performed, as well as the manifestation emitted by the entire ritual.
How could he sense such a thing during a monthly exam?
Taking it a step further—
What exactly was this?
A feeling stirred in Xu Yuan’s heart, and he suddenly raised his head almost subconsciously.
In that instant.
Time seemed to be pressed into a mire.
Everything in the world turned into a silent backdrop of flowing water.
He saw, on a skyscraper beside them, a woman with seven or eight long black legs standing on the vertical wall.
The woman wore a long black dress, her hair like a flowing waterfall, scattered across the wall and covering the entire face of the building.
In the deathly silence.
Xu Yuan could almost hear his own heartbeat.
No.
This was not a normal creature.
Nor was it a demonic beast that had been taught about in textbooks.
The feeling it gave him was extremely ominous, even stranger than the bronze figure scattered in that “other world.”
And it was alive!
As if sensing Xu Yuan’s gaze—
The woman abruptly turned her head and looked at him, silently mouthing something.
“Deliver me.”
Her voice sounded by Xu Yuan’s ear.
Every hair on Xu Yuan’s body stood on end. He could not help drawing his longsword and shouting,
“Everyone, be careful…”
This was entirely an instinctive reaction.
Xu Yuan even felt that his hand was trembling.
Afraid?
I’m afraid?
This is only an exam. Why would such an existence appear?
Suddenly—
“What’s wrong with you!”
Zhao Afei slapped him heavily and looked upward along his line of sight.
“There’s nothing there.”
Xu Yuan said, “How could there be nothing—”
His voice came to an abrupt stop.
That woman was gone.
Had it really just been his eyes playing tricks on him?
He turned back to look at Jiang Xueyao and Yang Xiaobing.
Both of them also had baffled expressions.
“…Did you hear anything just now?” Xu Yuan asked.
“No. Did you discover something?” Yang Xiaobing asked in return.
In an instant.
Xu Yuan suddenly laughed and shook his head.
“No. I just heard what seemed to be movement in the distance.”
—The entire city was in the midst of collapse. Of course there would be movement in the distance.
All sorts of sounds came with the wind, making people inexplicably tense.
When everyone heard this, they paid it no mind.
Xu Yuan also let out a breath in relief.
Yang Xiaobing was at the third level of Qi Refining. As for Jiang Xueyao, he did not know, but she could only be higher.
Neither of them had discovered it.
Why was I able to discover that woman?
If—
If only he could see that monster, then what an astonishing thing that would be.
The prompt before the competition had clearly stated, “The observer delegations from all parties of the current world are already in position.”
Someone was observing the monthly exam!
He absolutely could not expose this unknown ability.