Chapter 993: Wonderful, Very Wonderful, Extremely Wonderful!
They couldn’t continue waiting like this as well. Hence, Qian Hao boldly asked.
“Teacher Tong, what do you think?”
The expression of Tong Xugao whose thoughts were disrupted immediately sank. He angrily shot back. “What do you mean what I think? Don’t you guys know how to think critically?”
The expressions of everyone turned awkward. (If we could understand, why would we still need to ask you?)
But seeing that Tong Xugao seemed to fail to grasp the main points as well, everyone’s depressed feelings became better. (So, even you don’t understand!)
It was like an entire cla.s.s failing a subject together. The sense of individual shame naturally wouldn’t be so great.
After all, everyone was mortal!
“Pa.s.s the paper to me!”
Tong Xugao stretched his hand out.
Great Teacher Zhou actually still wanted to look at it a little more, but he didn’t dare to defy the words of this major character. Hence, he unwillingly pa.s.sed it over and resembled an honest guy whose wife was s.n.a.t.c.hed by a bandit.
“Quickly!”
Tong Xugao shouted. He couldn’t wait anymore. He impatiently got to his feet and directly grabbed it. After that, he no longer sat. He simply stood there and read the answers to the major questions.
For a time, the entire grading chamber fell silent.
The graders exchanged mutual glances. They also wanted to look, but no one dared to get near Tong Xugao. There was no solution to it as his aura was simply too strong.
Tong Xugao took four hours to finish reading the set of papers.
Actually, he was in deep contemplation for the majority of the time.
This Great Teacher Tong mainly focused on spirit runes, and his secondary subject was medical studies. It was so mismatched because he came from a clan of doctors who had practiced medical arts for generations.
If it hadn’t been for Tong Xugao using his life to force his family, his grandpa would have beaten him to death when he had said he didn’t want to inherit the clan’s mantle.
However, as he saw his grandpa sighing even when drawing his last breath, lamenting why his grandson wanted to waste his talent in the field of spirit runes, Tong Xugao suddenly had a wild thought. He wanted to combine both spirit runes and medical studies.
After that, through several years of research, he finally found a direction. He wanted to create some artificial limbs that could allow a disabled person to be whole again through the usage of some spirit runes.
In the Nine Provinces, let alone some great teachers who were fighting with weapons every day, there were also soldiers and adventurers. In fact, in order to seize water sources, the different villages would fight each other every once in a while.
Hence, there were countless cripples in the Nine Provinces missing a limb or two.
If he could create a perfect prosthetic, it would be a grand plan that benefited the entire Nine Provinces, a saint-level achievement.
It was just that after so many years, Tong Xugao couldn’t find a way to do this. But right now, he actually gained inspiration from this set of exam papers.
“Wonderful!”
“Very wonderful!”
“Extremely wonderful!”
A path opened up in Tong Xugao’s mind, and he couldn’t help but sigh in admiration.
What magical thoughts!
Sadly, this examinee didn’t expound on it in a more in-depth manner.
What a pity!
What a pity!
Naturally, there was a time limit to an exam, so the examinee couldn’t fully explain everything. After all, a topic like this was sufficient to be the teaching material of an entire lecture.
Swish~
All the graders glanced over with shock in their gazes.
(It can’t be right? Such a high evaluation?)
This was a 7-star grandmaster spirit runist. Since he acted like this, this examinee must be extremely outstanding for sure.
“Teacher Tong, how are things?”
w.a.n.g Song asked.
Tong Xugao cast a glance at w.a.n.g Song but didn’t speak. He continued flipping through the papers and wanted to look at the last major question.
w.a.n.g Song immediately grew embarra.s.sed because the unspoken meaning of Tong Xugao’s action was clear. (You won’t understand even if I say it.)
After embarra.s.sment, he felt resentment.
(Tong Xugao’s aged eyes must be blind. He actually feels that I’m not comparable to an intern teacher? How preposterous!)
“Perfect!”
Tong Xugao praised it greatly.
“…”
The graders who had been waiting for Tong Xugao’s evaluation, no longer cared about their pride when they heard these words. All of them directly rushed over.
One must know that for the previous high-level spirit rune, Tong Xugao didn’t say the word ‘perfect’.
Everyone cast a glance at the rune and was directly dumbstruck.
T…this…
They had no way to use any words to describe the shock in their hearts.
There was no light emanating from this spirit rune.
Usually speaking, spirit runes that glow would surely be high-leveled. 99% of the spirit runes that didn’t glow were low-level ones. But there was also a type of exception. When the standard of the spirit runist was so high that they had reached a realm where no spirit qi would leak, the entirety of spirit qi would be compressed and sealed in the runic lines of the spirit rune.
Naturally, if one wanted to achieve this, the grade of their ink had to be good enough.
Everyone here was a veteran spirit runist with loads of experience, and they could immediately judge that this spirit rune belonged to the latter category. This was why they were shocked.
Usually speaking, those who could do this were either near-ancestor spirit runists or grandmaster spirit runists with over 20 years of experience.
Even Tong Xugao wouldn’t dare to guarantee that he would be able to draw such a perfect spirit rune every single time. Also, one must know that this was done during an exam. This made the act of doing so even more impressive.
“Even people who don’t know anything about spirit runes can see how good this type of spirit rune is!”
“Yeah, this has reached a certain standard in aesthetics.”
“It’s too beautiful to the extent where it will make people feel reluctant to use it.”
The graders all sighed in admiration.
“Although I’m cultured, right now I only want to use two words to describe my current emotions. F*cking impressive!”
Qian Hao silently sighed. (The exam paper I graded earlier can only be ranked third now.)
Ai!
It was really a tragedy to be in the same era as such a genius.
At this moment, Li Ziqi’s ident.i.ty as a princess had to be credited. Since she was young, she had received education from royal tutors, and this caused her to have an extremely high level of culture. She was also proficient in music, chess, literature, and painting.
Naturally, if that was all, it would still be impossible for Li Ziqi to have drawn such a beautiful spirit rune. However, Sun Mo was her personal teacher.
After Li Ziqi had learned the fundamentals of spirit runes, she also gained the ability to adjust some details of the runes under the premise that the core structure remained unchanged. An example was the different thickness of the runic lines at different parts.
It was like doing cosmetic surgeries. Everyone had eyes, nose, and mouth. Some would ‘adjust’ their nose bridge to be higher or go under the knife for double-eyelids, and they would look better than before.
“This set of papers will definitely be the #1 this year.”
Tong Xugao sighed ruefully.
“Yeah, if there’s another examinee who has better answers, I will eat all the exam papers here.”
Great Teacher Zhou nodded with joy in his heart.
He was the one who graded this set of papers.
No one raised an objection.
This examinee got full marks for the earlier question and used a unique calligraphy style. The open-ended questions were also answered with a far-sightedness, and lastly for the drawing of the spirit rune, the examinee even raised the aesthetics of it.
“For someone like this examinee, there’s probably only one every century,” Great Teacher Zhou mumbled.
“Have you forgotten Sun Mo?”
Qian Hao teased.
“Speaking of which, this examinee might not be any inferior to Sun Mo.”
Great Teacher Zhou laughed.
“Say, do you guys think this set of papers belonged to Li Ziqi?”
w.a.n.g Song suddenly raised a question.
“It can’t be, right?”
“It shouldn’t be possible.”
“If it really was the case, I would feel so jealous that I want to die.”
As everyone spoke, they turned their gazes to Tong Xugao. Their meaning was clear without words. (Can we tear the sticker to see who the examinee is?)
“Hurry up and grade the other papers!”
Tong Xugao urged.
The rules were the rules; they must not be broken.
Everyone also understood this. Hence, they returned to their seats and began the grading process again.
After Qian Hao took up his brush, he pondered for a few minutes before heading back to the basket and picking up the exam papers of the examinee who answered that ‘spirit runes have life’.
(I shouldn’t ‘kill’ the miraculous thinking of this examinee!)
Qian Hao reflected on himself.
This examinee was lucky because Li Ziqi’s answers in her open-ended questions obtained a pa.s.s from Tong Xugao.
The workload, which was supposed to last for three days, was fully completed by everyone within two days. They all wanted to quickly know the name of that examinee who stunned all of them.
The evening arrived, everyone had huge eyebags as they gathered again.
“Let’s start from the third place?”
Qian Hao suggested.
The sticker covering the name was torn and very soon, the name ‘Jiang Zizhong’ appeared.
“Oh, it’s someone from Teacher Jiang’s clan!”
w.a.n.g Song shook his head and sighed. In the past, he had learned from Jiang Wei before. This was why he knew Jiang Zizhong was very capable. “He shouldn’t have taken this examination.”
“Yeah, everyone knows that the Jiang Clan specialized in the study of spirit runes. A third rank isn’t sufficient for them.”
Everyone agreed.
Tong Xugao didn’t bother with a minor character like this. He directly peeled the sticker on the second paper. After that, the sound of him inhaling a breath of cold air rang out.
Zhou Wenbin!
This name was very familiar to everyone.
“Could the first place really be Sun Mo’s eldest disciple?”
Qian Hao was speechless and felt somewhat jealous. (You are already so strong. If your disciple was also so impressive, others would have no need to live anymore.)
“What a pity!”
Everyone felt regret for Zhou Wenbin. After that, Tong Xugao continued.
There was no suspense. The name ‘Li Ziqi’, which was written in the thin gold body script, appeared in everyone’s vision.
For a time, the room was completely silent. It was so quiet that you could hear a pin drop.
No one was shocked because everyone had antic.i.p.ated this result.
“I heard that Sun Mo is known to be skilled in both writing and painting. This calligraphy script must be something created by him!”
Great Teacher Zhou sighed and felt an impulse to pay Sun Mo a visit.
Such a beautiful script made him really want to learn it.
“Teacher Tong, why don’t I hold this set of papers in safekeeping?”
w.a.n.g Song spoke.
He finally understood why Liu Fan wanted him to help secure Li Ziqi’s exam papers. This was because even if this girl couldn’t become a saint, this set of exam papers would still have a very great collection value.
“Let me do it!”
“Give it to me!”
Everyone started to argue.
A benefit of being a grader was that they could have first priority to safekeep any set of exam papers. If one wanted a set of papers, there would usually be no objections.
But things were different this time around. It was a set of exam papers that would only appear once in a hundred years.
“Cough, cough. I have to research the answers on this set of papers a little more!’
Tong Xugao rejected and directly kept the papers.
Everyone immediately felt like cursing his mother.
(You are a 7-star major character, what are you doing, s.n.a.t.c.hing things from us from the junior generations? If you really want this, can’t you just get Li Ziqi to write you another set? Wait a minute, given Sun Mo’s fame, even a 7-star great teacher might not have enough prestige to ask him to do something.)
…
Boom! Boom! Boom!
Early in the morning, Lu Zhiruo was already knocking on Li Ziqi’s room door with impatience.
“Eldest Martial Sister, you should sleep some more. I will help you to look at your results!”
The papaya girl knew that she didn’t have such capabilities. So, she simply treated her eldest martial sister’s results as her own. There was no problem with this. When the time came, she would simply shout that her eldest martial sister was the top scorer, and she would also be able to enjoy the envious gazes of others.
(Right, I better shout the words ‘eldest martial sister’ a little softer later.)
“You are knocking so loudly, how can I sleep?”
Li Ziqi was speechless.
“Let’s go and take a look at the results!”
Qin Yaoguang was long since prepared and ready to head out.
“Will Eldest Martial Sister screw up?”
Xianyu Wei was worried. After all, that Zhou Wenbin had also chosen to partic.i.p.ate in the written segment for the study of spirit runes.