Chapter 366: Obtaining Points
They’d already finished an invisible exchange of blows in the instant their eyes met.
The face-off between rivals!
Their hearts were full of understanding in this moment.
Long Juxue was convinced that this secular candidate was Jiang Chen.
Likewise, Jiang Chen was certain that Long Juxue had already identified him.
Long Juxue’s killing intent surged, whereas Jiang Chen remained coolly composed.
The clash between rivals was over in a flash, but a victor wasn’t clear. Tidal waves of emotions grew in their hearts.
Long Juxue was surprised, “Just what kind of lucky occurrences did this dumb animal run into? My eyes had encompa.s.sed the formless aura of the azure phoenix, but it wasn’t enough to shake his dao heart at all. This dumb animal has such strong strength of heart?”
Jiang Chen was also reflecting, “This scorpion hearted woman seems to be quite treasured in the Purple Sun Sect. It’s only been a three short years, but she’s already at the peak of the earth spirit realm. This rate of improvement is faster than mine!”
Although Jiang Chen was surprised, he knew this was to be expected. The only advantage he had against Long Juxue was the experiences of his past life.
Long Juxue’s advantages were likewise obvious. An innate const.i.tution gave her an enormous head start. Such a const.i.tution would be considered a decent talent no matter what plane she was in.
Her second advantage was resources. Judging from her posture, she was likely the most valued out of the younger generation in the entirety of the Purple Sun Sect. All sorts of resources and items would be earmarked for her. It was likely that all the entire senior executives would come together and tailor a cultivation plan for her.
With such treatment, it would be difficult for Long Juxue’s strength to not suddenly improve in leaps and bounds.
“I wouldn’t have known had I not taken a look. I’d thought that this woman’s cultivation would be at a similar level to mine. Who would’ve thought that the Purple Sun Sect would be willing to go to such depths and spend so many resources on her? This was absolutely an advantage born of a pile of resources. Her six months in the sky quadrant are also an advantage that I cannot measure up to either. It looks like I need to hasten my footsteps to catch up to her.”
Jiang Chen felt an even stronger sense of urgency now that he’d b.u.mped into Long Juxue again and seen her true level of cultivation.
He cleared his mind and stood within the crowd, listening to the examiner’s speech.
“The foundation exams are divided into four areas. They are: martial dao, strength of heart, pills, and a combination of them all. Each area has five subjects, and each subject is worth five points. Pa.s.sing one subject earns you five points, failing doesn’t lose you any.”
“Alright, the exams begin now.”
The main focus of the selection was placed in the sky quadrant. Therefore, there were more examiners than candidates.
There were one hundred candidates in this quadrant, but three to four hundred examiners dancing attendance on them.
Along with the more particular nature of the sky quadrant exams, there was no need for candidates to take turns. Everyone could undergo the foundation exams at the same time.
“It looks like the candidates of the sky quadrant are truly valued. Each candidate can undergo the exams as soon as they arrive and don’t need to waste time in pointless waiting.”
Jiang Chen felt kindly disposed towards the exams of the sky quadrant.
Martial dao, strength of heart, pills, and a combination of them all.
Jiang Chen gained a thorough understanding of the cultivation direction of the four sects after looking at the exams.
They were absolutely raising strong seeds for the origin realm, and it seemed, with a strong sense of urgency.
Strength of heart—ordinary cultivation wouldn’t emphasize this.
However, if one’s goals were set on the origin realm, then strength of heart was particularly important.
There wasn"t much apparent use for it in the spirit realm because it was both difficult to train, and lacked training methods. Thus, most cultivators weren’t willing to spend an inordinate amount of time on training their strength of heart. They would rather spent it forging their spirit ocean or honing their techniques.
A venerated origin realm cultivator must have a strong strength of heart, a mastery of martial dao, and holistic development in all directions.
Otherwise, a misstep in any of these areas could become a limitation.
There was an all-inclusive range of topics within the four subject areas, including refining weapons, the way of glyphs, taming beasts, formations, mechanisms…
Martial dao seemed simple, but the knowledge held within was as deep as the fathomless sea, without border or boundary.
However, this kind of setting was absolutely good news to Jiang Chen.
His cultivation level in the sky quadrant ranked amongst the last, but in terms of knowledge, there was truly no one who was his superior in this quadrant.
It wasn’t his fault that his cultivation level was low, his start was simply far behind. All of these sect geniuses had been born with golden spoons in their mouths and had received all kinds of training from their sects since birth.
A difference in cultivation level could be narrowed through hard work in the future. Now that he’d reached the sky quadrant, Jiang Chen was as if a dragon returning to the seas and soaring through the heavens.
Jiang Chen decided to partic.i.p.ate in the foundation exams first. He wanted to understand first just how difficult the exams in the area of martial dao were.
They were indeed difficult.
However, even though they were challenging, they were aimed at fifth level spirit realm cultivators. With Jiang Chen’s cultivation, it wasn’t too hard for him to complete these exams.
He quickly completed two of them. They were actually quite similar to the ones in the first selection. One of them was against a golem, and the other against a fifth level spirit rank beast.
That didn’t pose too much of a problem for Jiang Chen.
The third and fourth exams had to do with martial dao theory. It was even harder to stump Jiang Chen in this regard.
However, he didn’t display an extraordinary performance, but strode steadily forward and completed them one by one.
This made the examiners of the sky quadrant quickly revise their opinion of him.
This secular candidate was indeed uncommon, no wonder he’d been able to pull Master Shuiyue down.
The last exam was of even greater difficulty, as it involved an examiner personally testing him.
Of course, the examiner would only exert the strength of the sixth level spirit realm.
The candidate would pa.s.s if he held out for fifteen minutes.
Sixth level spirit realm was already a very decent level of existence in the sky quadrant. There were a hundred within the quadrant, and only a fifth of those had reached this level.
Therefore, many candidates were unable to pa.s.s this exam when they attempted it.
The examiner smiled faintly in the ring, “Are you ready?”
Jiang Chen stood coolly in the ring and nodded, “Please grant your instruction.”
When the examiner saw that Jiang Chen’s demeanor was steady without the slightest bit of fear, his opinion of this young man immediately soared.
“Watch yourself!”
The examiner didn’t deploy any fancy moves, simply unleas.h.i.+ng a punch as he strode forward. However, this punch embodied within the martial dao logic of distilling the complex down to the simple.
This punch seemed simple, but was much more frightening than the flourishes or fancy footwork of other techniques.
Jiang Chen felt this punch instantly seal off the area, giving him the feeling “I’d be unable to shake off this punch no matter where I went.”
“Flowers bloom and fade, spring is ever reborn!”
Jiang Chen didn’t dodge as he punched out with both fists, deploying the mysteries of the Divine Aeons Fist to the maximum.
The blow that encompa.s.sed the mysteries of the yin and the yang formed a boxing intent like taiji, giving rise to its own world and moving against the current as it met the boxing aura coming from the other side.
Bam!
The two auras crashed into each other, making the dust fly through the sky as spirit aura rippled outward.
“Again!”
The impact awoke Jiang Chen’s battle intent, and boundless martial dao inspiration sprang out, akin to a carp leaping over a river crossing.
There were nine cycles of blooming and wilting in the “Divine Aeons Fist”. With the fusion of the “Obscure Seal of Life and Death” into the boxing technique as well, Jiang Chen had an unexpected level of combat ability.
Even though he was faced with the sixth level spirit realm in a test, Jiang Chen was utterly fearless, completely engrossed in his mindset of seeking the martial dao.
Bam, bam, bam!
Fists relentlessly crashed into each other. Jiang Chen was two levels lower, but his spirit power surged and raged, putting him on the same level as the peak of the fifth level spirit realm.
He wasn’t that far off from the sixth level either. Along with his astonis.h.i.+ng level of competency in his boxing technique, even the sixth level spirit realm examiner felt thoroughly suppressed.
The mysteries of the Divine Aeons Fist varied greatly, and the rhythm of heaven and earth were encompa.s.sed in those changes. The cycle of the four seasons, night chasing day as day chased night, flower blooming and wilting, seas changing into mulberry fields and fields changing to seas again…
The examiner felt that although the “Obscure Seal of Life and Death” seemed quite familiar, he seemed to have greatly underestimated its power when he met it with his fist.
The “Obscure Seal of Life and Death” had obviously been greatly improved after being combined with the “Divine Aeons Fist”.
The examiner’s cultivation level was indeed higher than Jiang Chen’s, but his comprehension of martial dao and technique was far below Jiang Chen.
As fifteen minutes pa.s.sed, the examiner couldn’t see how he’d win at all. He didn’t even dare say that he had the upper hand in the ring.
According to the rules, if the examiner wasn’t defeated in fifteen minutes, then the candidate was deemed as having pa.s.sed.
The examiner was rather gracious, “Well done young man. Your boxing technique looks simple, but its concepts are deep and profound. What is particularly rare is that your comprehension of the technique has exceeded the level of great perfection and reached the legendary realm. The Obscure Seal of Life and Death is no longer at its previous level in your hands. I feel quite gratified in being able to pa.s.s such a genius as you.”
Jiang Chen also smiled faintly, “I only won through your graciousness.”
“Hahaha, that I didn’t. Good luck young man. Although it’s your first time in the sky quadrant, I feel quite certain that you’ll be able to stay.”
The examiner truly had a gracious bearing as he left the ring with a hearty laugh.
This kind of demeanor also put Jiang Chen in a good mood. Whether it was Master Fang in the mystic quadrant or this examiner, they were all cultivators with thoughtful poise.
It looks like the four sects weren’t filled with the narrow minded. There were also benevolent elders as well as those with uncommon bearing.
Thus pa.s.sed the five exams of the martial dao area.
By this time, half the day had pa.s.sed. Jiang Chen was rather satisfied with this efficiency. He’d at least obtained 25 points already.
He walked down from the ring and headed over to the examination area to report in, discovering he was indeed not the first to complete the foundation exams.
About a dozen others had already completed their exams and left with 25 points.
But Jiang Chen’s appearance still caused an uproar in the examination area.
A secular cultivator had completed five foundation exams so quickly?
Jiang Chen checked in, added his points to his token, and ignored all the looks as he walked over to the next examination area.