Chapter 4308 — The Trial Begins
The Blossom Guardian · Page 1 of 2
That was all the booklet contained. Strictly speaking, it was simply an exposition of the three selection rules; to call it a sure-pass guide to the assessment was flattery, but it did at least have substance, enough that no one felt cheated.
For people like Wei Zhao and Huang Xiaotao, who understood nothing at all, the contents were in fact very useful—worth every bit of the hundred spirit jades, and then some.
"Not bad. With this booklet spreading a bit of common knowledge, at least we can watch the excitement and know what we're looking at now—we won't be completely in the dark." Wei Zhao gave Huang Xiaotao a chuckle, then turned his gaze to the front of the raised platform, where the selection was proceeding in orderly fashion, one contestant after another.
Academy staff guarded the passage. Each time a candidate cleared the preceding test, they called out a number, and those next in line for selection queued up in succession.
You only had to release a thread of aura and a Golden Core cultivation was plain at a glance. In other words, the first condition required no test at all—when your number was called, you simply went up and got in line.
But by the second stage, more than eighty percent of the candidates were eliminated on the spot. After all, the condition of possessing two spirit-root attributes was itself a luxury for the vast majority. Talent was what it was—what could you do? You had only yourself to blame for failing to catch the heavens' favor.
Wei Zhao looked over just as a man with a head full of little braids, thoroughly individual in style, was being tested for his spirit-root attributes.
The process was not complicated. You placed your hand on a prepared testing stele, circulated the mnemonics of your heart method, and channeled a little true qi into it. The result came out on the spot.
Braid-hair stepped up before the stele and stood still, rubbing his hands together in a mixture of hesitation and nerves, and only then—prompted by the academy staff—laid his palm on the stone and slowly fed true qi into it.
Moments later, a crimson firelight flared upon the stele, and within it there seemed vaguely to be a trace of some other color, though so dim that at this distance it was hard to make out.
"Dual fire-wood spirit-root attributes—passed! Proceed to the third test!" the academy staff member announced at once in a ringing voice.
At his words, the eyes of everyone around fixed on Braid-hair with unconcealed envy. On average, only one or two in ten had any chance of entering the third stage—which meant he was now one step closer to Morning Star Academy. The rest could envy him all they liked and still not manage it.
"What? I'm a fire-wood dual spirit-root?" Braid-hair's first reaction was not joy but a stunned blankness. He muttered in disbelief, "I could have sworn I was a fire single-spirit-root..."
He had not held much hope in the first place: someone had tested him before, and back then only a single fire spirit-root had shown up, with no wood spirit-root at all. Yet now the old hen had turned into a duck—all at once he was a fire-wood dual spirit-root, and the man himself was left gaping. This was a joy he could never have dreamed of!
On reflection, the difference must lie in the testing methods. Back then they had used only the crudest attribute-detecting artifact, whereas this was the most professional of testing steles. The two were not even on the same level of precision.
"The stele test cannot be wrong. Next." The academy staff member offered no explanation and simply turned to the next candidate.