Chapter 990: Crus.h.i.+ng the Written Exam
Translator: Lordbluefire
Li Ziqi finished the first segment and left the cla.s.sroom.
The spectating examiners also dispersed, leaving behind the last 100+ students. Right now, their hearts were filled with complex emotions and they had no way to calm down.
Honestly speaking, when they saw someone younger but more outstanding than them, it would be a lie if they said they weren’t depressed.
The examination continued and it was finally Huang Meibo’s turn. She was none other than the white-robed young man, Lu Feng’s, personal student.
Within 30 breaths of time, Huang Meibo perfectly cast three great teacher halos and pa.s.sed.
However, when she left and walked through the corridor, she had an ugly look on her face. She finally couldn’t control her emotions anymore and punched the wall.
F***!
She also knew four great teacher halos and was considered the cream of the crop among these examinees. But what use was there?
In terms of quant.i.ty, she was equal to Zhou Wenbin. But in terms of quality, she was inferior to Li Ziqi. Even if she show-cased them, no one would be astounded.
“There’s still the written exam!”
Huang Meibo vowed that she definitely had to get full marks to shock everyone.
…
Jiang Zizhong’s turn was nearer to the end. After he finished his turn, it was already in the afternoon.
“That Li Ziqi shouldn’t have screwed up and failed the first round, right?”
Jiang Zizhong murmured. After exiting the school, he found a little tavern on a neighboring street and walked in. “I wonder how Zhou Wenbin’s performance was? He is most likely just a shade stronger than me, right?”
“Waiter, bring four of your signature dishes up.”
After Jiang Zizhong shouted, he took a pair of chopsticks and spun them around his fingers in boredom while he sighed with emotions. It was a pity he wasn’t in the same exam venue as Li Ziqi. If not, he would immediately be able to crush her.
“Sigh, I really want to see her depressed expression!”
Jiang Zizhong sighed. He hesitated whether to order a flask of Nu`er Hong (wine) or not. In the end, he heard the people beside him discussing the morning examination.
“I heard that there’s a female examinee in her teens who comprehended Unrealized Dream. After she cast it, she directly caused the knot in the heart of a 5-star examiner to loosen and allow him to suddenly achieve a breakthrough.”
“So impressive?”
“Naturally. Even Secondary Saint Zhou’s beloved great grandson was suppressed.”
In the tavern, the majority of people were examinees, as well as their friends and family. They were chatting idly about the situation in the morning while they were eating.
When Jiang Zizhong heard this, he frowned. There was actually such an impressive genius this year?
“Her name seemed to be Li Ziqi? In any case, this name is pleasant-sounding and she is also beautiful!”
“How beautiful?”
“She’s a woman you won’t be able to get in your entire life!”
Men would be the same no matter what the era. Their topics would always revolve around a few things – women, cars, money…
Li Ziqi’s extreme beauty caused her popularity to surge greatly.
Jiang Zizhong eventually decided to order the wine. He drank a cup to celebrate, but the moment the wine entered his mouth, he heard the name ‘Li Ziqi’ being mentioned and this caused him to choke.
Cough cough!
“Who did you say was the name of the girl who defeated Young Master Zhou?”
Jiang Zizhong asked.
“Li Ziqi!”
After that person finished replying, another nice person even added, “She is Sun Mo’s eldest personal student. You know Sun Mo, right? G.o.d Hands, the three-time champion!”
Jiang Zizhong’s gaze turned sluggish. He really wanted to shout and ask if they made a mistake.
How could Li Ziqi manage to achieve this?
But it was not just a single person talking about this. The other patrons also started discussing this topic, and the names of ‘Sun Mo’ and ‘Li Ziqi’ rang out constantly in the tavern.
I…
Jiang Zizhong suddenly felt the wine in his hand was no longer fragrant.
Pak!
He slapped a silver ingot on the table before he stood up and left.
…
The first day’s exam ended.
Li Ziqi became famous because of a single halo, but she maintained her usual state of heart and continued reading books. As for revising?
No such things were needed.
Because all the things she needed to know were already in her brain.
It was a quiet night. Dawn then arrived.
On the second morning, Sun Mo arrived at the Golden Cherry Academy just before the gates opened. If it wasn’t for the fact that carriages were not allowed to proceed into the school for fear of injuring the other examinees, Sun Mo wouldn’t want to let the little sunny egg exit the carriage.
Right now, she was basically the main focus of all examinees.
So many surveying gazes might actually influence her heart state.
“It’s so good to have special treatment!”
Xianyu Wei sighed ruefully because Zhou Wenbin had ignored the rules and directly entered via a carriage.
“Times up, the school gate has opened!”
As the teaching head announced, the school gate swung open.
“Teacher, I’m going!”
Li Ziqi carried the small basket given to her for the exam and went to line up.
For this segment, a body inspection had to be carried out to avoid cheating.
Naturally, basically no one would cheat. Once they are caught, not only would they be banned from taking the exam forever, but anyone with a direct blood connection to that person would also be blacklisted for three generations. Even if they comprehended the self-taught halo, they wouldn’t be allowed to take the exam.
The price for cheating was so great and this caused the examinees to avoid all thoughts of it.
…
“Why are we not in the same venue again?”
Jiang Zizhong sat in his cla.s.sroom and rapidly scanned his surroundings. His mood instantly became down when he didn’t see Li Ziqi.
Although the subjects the examinees registered for were cla.s.sified, Jiang Zizhong knew that Li Ziqi would definitely choose the study of spirit runes even if he used his knees to think.
Sun Mo was a near-ancestor spirit runist, a person that brought new spring to withered trees, creating a miracle.
“Forget it, I will just calm myself down and do my best. Getting full marks is then the most important thing.”
Jiang Zizhong inhaled a few breaths of air and calmed his emotions.
Their Jiang Clan was well-known for being proficient in spirit runes too.
…
In the #302 cla.s.sroom, Zhou Wenbin glanced at Li Ziqi—who was seated in front, six rows away from him—with a gaze filled with enmity.
Actually, he was most proficient in alchemy. But for the sake of defeating Li Ziqi, he registered for the spirit runes written exam. Even so, he was still very confident.
Because the Zhou Clan was a clan of great teachers, they had over 20 great teachers, and some of them mainly focused on the study of spirit runes and had attained the t.i.tle of ‘grandmaster’.
Zhou Wenbin’s father was precisely one of them.
“This time around, I’m going to crush you!”
Just when Zhou Wenbin was lost in his antic.i.p.ation, Liu Fan and the other examiners entered. After the bell rang, they gave out the sets of exam papers.
“So many papers?”
The examinees were stunned and their minds began to waver. There were a total of 12 sets of exam papers, and they were so thick that they looked like a brick.
Three hours was definitely insufficient to answer all of them.
“Ze, it has been so many years, but the format is still the same!”
Because of Zhou Wenbin’s clan, he could come in contact with a lot of cla.s.sified information. He had done many sets of such papers before.
The objectives were the same every year. The Saint Gate wanted to test the examinee’s knowledge of spirit runes through doing a vast amount of questions.
Only those who were extremely familiar with spirit runes and had revised so much that the answers became instinctual to them, like how one would know 1+1 = 2 without thinking, would be able to get high marks.
On the second paper counting backward, there were a few questions that tested the creativity of the examinees.
And as for the final major question, the examinees were supposed to draw a Rain Request Spirit Rune.
This was to test their actual ability of memory and control.
“It’s stable now!”
Zhou Wenbin relaxed. Competing in memory? He had never lost since he was young.
Time continued flowing by.
It seemed that all the examinees were having a race against time. But as for Zhou Wenbin, he was very calm and even lowered his speed to ensure that his handwriting was nicer to look at.
“What I want is perfection.”
Zhou Wenbin wanted to turn his writings into a work of calligraphy. Several decades later, when he became a saint, this set of exam papers would surely be priceless.
Liu Fan patrolled to and fro in the examination ground.
When he stood beside Zhou Wenbin and looked at the tidy and beautiful handwriting, Liu Fan immediately revealed a smile and nodded involuntarily.
“Excellent!”
Liu Fan knew that Zhou Wenbin would surely pa.s.s. After that, he subconsciously glanced at Li Ziqi. What a pity, in order to avoid people trying to copy each other, the examinees were seated apart.
Liu Fan had to stretch his neck out before he could see Li Ziqi’s papers given her current location.
But doing so would spoil his image.
“What a pity.”
Liu Fan felt regretful.
After Zhou Wenbin finished the questions on the second last paper, even he couldn’t help but praise himself.
“Truly perfect. I didn’t expect I would be so outstanding in the study of spirit runes. I might as well switch my major to this.”
Zhou Wenbin was most proficient in alchemy, followed by herbology, and lastly the study of spirit runes.
“I wonder how many papers Li Ziqi has completed?”
Zhou Wenbin lifted his head and stared at Li Ziqi’s back. After that, he smiled complacently. “But she’s definitely not faster than me. Alright, I should hurry up and draw the last spirit rune. After that, I can hand my papers over in advance to ruthlessly smack her face.”
(I admit that your teacher is really impressive. However, you are not him. Hmph, I will show her who’s the best!)
“The Rain Request Spirit Rune. Che, what a remote spirit rune. Most probably, many examinees will stumble on this major question.”
Zhou Wenbin already guessed at the logic behind the question-setting group when he saw this question.
Great teachers shouldn’t simply be educators. They shouldn’t only be concerned about their own growth. Instead, they had to learn for the sake of practical application and must have the heart to think about common people.
The Rain Request Spirit Rune’s only effect was to gather the water vapor in the air and form rain.
Usually speaking, only arid areas needed to use it, hence, the range of usage was very small. For the majority of great teachers, let alone learning it extensively, it would already be very good if they spared a few glances at it and knew of its existence.
There was no solution to it. As long as one became a great teacher, although they might not become extremely wealthy, it was basically no problem for them to fill their stomachs. Hence, why would they, who wouldn’t suffer from hunger, go and spend time researching such a remote spirit rune?
Zhou Wenbin lifted his pen as he recalled the structure of the Rain Request Spirit Rune. At the same time, he was filled with grat.i.tude toward his father.
Because the first spirit rune he had learned was this!
“Spirit runes are a method to change the world, and their purpose of changing the world is to allow the common people to fill their bellies and clad themselves in warm clothes, leading a better life.”
His father who was a grandmaster-level spirit runist said this.
“Our Zhou Clan is so kind and we deserve to have a few more secondary saints. You are just a talentless ordinary person, yet you want to smack my great grandfather’s face? What a foolish fantasy.”
After Zhou Wenbin finished contemplating, just when he wanted to write, he was interrupted by a booming sound.
This was the sound of a spirit qi explosion.
It was a phenomenon caused after a high-quality spirit rune had been completed. The surrounding spirit qi would then gather explosively.
Who was it that didn’t follow the normal routine and had chosen to do the last major question first?
Zhou Wenbin was depressed and lifted his head to look around.
(Even a spirit qi tornado actually appeared? But no matter how high its level is, the remaining time won’t be sufficient for you to do the other questions. So, I will still win for sure.)
Ga!
Zhou Wenbin, who was filled with a sense of superiority, suddenly felt his heart thumping violently when he saw that Li Ziqi was the person underneath the spirit qi tornado.
It felt like someone just gave a kick to his chest.
(d.a.m.n!)
(Why is it her?)