Volume One: A First Glimmer of Greatness Chapter Ninety: The Examination, Part Two

Wang Jue knew that with his present strength, dealing with these star beasts was hardly any trouble at all.

With a sharp hiss, he swung his sword three times in quick succession, just as before.

Only this time, the sword light did not come in one streak, but in three.

In an instant, the three arcs of brilliance turned into three bands of light, crossing several meters in a flash and striking with precision at the vital points of the three leading star beasts.

In a single exchange, Wang Jue killed three star beasts on the spot.

The remaining beasts, seeing their three companions fall, showed no fear whatsoever. Instead, they became even more ferocious.

Spiritual power surged around them, and their sharp claws glinted with a cold, keen radiance. They stirred violent gusts through the air as they pounced on Wang Jue like tigers.

“Hmph. Seeking death!”

Facing the beasts charging at him, Wang Jue gave a cold snort.

He lightly tapped the ground and his body rose into the air in an instant, like a flood dragon leaping skyward.

At the same time, the light along his long sword flowed as he locked his gaze on the strongest among them, a second-tier star beast.

In a flash, he thrust his sword straight for its throat.

The blade flashed, and the second-tier star beast fell dead at once.

With Wang Jue’s current strength, dealing with a pack of star beasts whose highest rank was only second tier was utterly effortless.

Rather than saying he had fallen into a beast encirclement, it would be more apt to say a wolf had entered a flock of sheep.

In the blink of an eye, Wang Jue had easily slain three or four more star beasts.

“Hm?”

Just as Wang Jue was preparing to press the advantage and wipe out the rest of them in one fierce assault, he sensed danger coming from behind. Turning in surprise, he saw that not far behind him, twenty-two more star beasts had suddenly appeared out of thin air.

Twenty of them were first-tier star beasts, while the other two were of the same level as the second-tier beasts he had already destroyed.

There was no doubt about it.

Judging by rank, these two star beasts were a full major tier above Wang Jue.

At the sight of this, a sharp light flashed in Wang Jue’s eyes. So the two waves of star beasts before had only been an appetizer; this was the main course.

Suppressing the thought in his mind, Wang Jue again tapped the ground and immediately charged toward the two second-tier star beasts.

Compared with the two dozen first-tier beasts, those two second-tier ones posed far greater danger to him.

So Wang Jue intended to eliminate the strongest first, and then harvest the remaining first-tier beasts afterward.

In this situation, most people would choose to kill the easy targets first and then deal with the difficult ones.

But was Wang Jue an ordinary person?

No.

That was precisely why he would do something so mad in the eyes of most.

Others always chose the softest persimmon to squeeze; he did the opposite and went straight for the hardest one.

And his greatest confidence—no, his greatest reliance—was his own formidable strength.

With a heavy clang, Wang Jue brought his sword down, and the second-tier star beast raised a claw to block it. At the same time, its tail, no less hard than steel, whipped fiercely toward Wang Jue like a long lash.

Each strike carried wild, surging star power.

Clang—

Wang Jue’s long sword did not have time to strike again. In haste, he could only lay it across his chest to resist the blow, then use the force to retreat.

But even as he withdrew, his sword did not rest. Another streak of sword light swept toward the second-tier beast’s tail.

The beast’s response was swift as well. Its body contracted, narrowly avoiding Wang Jue’s strike.

At the same time, instead of retreating, the second-tier star beast lunged forward. Roaring, it unleashed several claw marks from its right paw, shooting toward Wang Jue.

Seeing this, Wang Jue stepped back once more, opening the distance between them.

Star power gathered along his sword, light flowed over its edge, and he slashed out several sword gleams in succession.

Boom, boom, boom—

The sharp claw marks and the fierce sword light exploded in midair, dispersing into layers of ripples that spread outward.

“Damn it all...”

After probing with several moves and finding that he could not gain the upper hand, Wang Jue no longer held back.

“Even though they’re both second-tier star beasts, why the hell is this one so much stronger than the one before? It’s way too hard to deal with.”

To avoid any mishap, Wang Jue immediately circulated the star power within his body and slowly gathered it into the long sword in his hand, causing it to blaze with light.

It shone brilliantly like a roaring flame, whipping up gusts of fierce wind as it surged toward the beast.

The star beast seemed to sense the power in Wang Jue’s blade. With a roar, it gathered all its strength into its right claw and swung up to defend.

The result was immediate.

The moment its claw touched Wang Jue’s sword, a gash split open at once.

The main reason was that the star power within Wang Jue’s sword directly amplified its might.

Like a high-speed cutting machine, it instantly severed the beast’s claw in two.

Bright red blood fell like rain.

Strike while the enemy is wounded; take its life.

Seeing such a perfect opening, Wang Jue naturally would not let it slip by.

He leapt high, and the long sword in his hand once again turned into a string of afterimages, striking at the vital points all over the second-tier star beast’s body.

With its right claw disabled, the beast could only hurry to dodge, but Wang Jue’s sword followed like a shadow. His eyes tracked every evasive movement, one sword after another.

At last, after repeated attacks had failed to break through, Wang Jue’s eyes lit up. He fixed on the beast’s body and stabbed into the air. This sword seemed to deviate from the star beast’s body by several inches.

Yet unexpectedly, as Wang Jue drove the blade forward, it plunged cleanly into the beast’s heart...

...

“So it seems the first batch contains quite a few promising seedlings.”

“That’s right. It’s already been half an hour, and there are still thirty people who haven’t finished the assessment.”

“I get the feeling this year’s overall level is better than last year’s.”

“Don’t say it—I feel the same way.”

The great figures seated at the side seemed, for lack of anything better to do, to have started talking among themselves.

One of them glanced at the time, then swept his eyes over the remaining students in the hall who were still taking the test. Counting them in his mind, he could not help but smile faintly.

“Heh, yes. Quite a bit better.”

Another person, hearing this, echoed him with a laugh. “This year, the number of admissions spots for the hundred elite schools is much larger than last year’s, so naturally more people applied. The only question is how many of these students can last half an hour.”

As the leaders on the viewing platform exchanged words with one another, a green light from one of the helmets in the hall suddenly vanished, drawing the attention of many.

“Oh? It’s Zhong Jinghua from Class Sixteen!”

Among a group of teenagers who had already finished their exams, one youth in a white martial uniform stood beside Liu Mao and said in a low voice.

This boy was named Zhou Xiaowei, from the same class as Wang Jue. He glanced over the hall and counted mentally.

With Zhong Jinghua’s completion, there were now twenty-nine people left on the field.

And from their class, only four students still had not finished.

“I never thought that guy would still be going.”

He looked at the four remaining students from his class, and his gaze finally settled on Wang Jue. “By rights, if even Zhong Jinghua has finished the assessment, there’s no reason for Wang Jue, a guy at the third level of body tempering, to have lasted this long.”

As far as he knew, Zhong Jinghua was one of the top ten students in their school, with cultivation at the seventh level of body tempering, and both his basic saber technique and basic footwork had already reached mastery.

As for Wang Jue’s cultivation, that was basically no secret in their class: third level of body tempering.

By rights, since his own cultivation was two levels higher than Wang Jue’s, if Zhong Jinghua was already done, then Wang Jue should have been finished long ago as well.

Yet nearly ten minutes had passed since the exam ended for him, and Wang Jue still had not finished. This filled him with puzzlement.

Especially when he saw that even Zhong Jinghua, who ranked among the school’s top ten, had already completed the exam, while Wang Jue still had not.

Thinking of this, he could not help but fall into thought...

At this time, on the other side, Liu Mao was likewise paying attention to the students who remained on the field.

When he saw that Zhong Jinghua’s assessment had ended while Wang Jue was still in the exam, he too began to ponder.

He had a fairly deep impression of Wang Jue from his class. What made Wang Jue memorable was not that he was especially talented, but that he was diligent and hardworking beyond measure. Though his innate gifts were not high, he had spent nearly nine years rising from an ordinary person to a martial artist.

And it was only a month before the upcoming exam that he learned Wang Jue had already reached the third level of body tempering.

If they were still in middle school, then a third-level body tempering cultivator like Wang Jue would indeed be considered a genius.

Unfortunately, they were already in their final year of high school.

Every martial student in the final year was at least at the fourth level, and Wang Jue was undoubtedly at the very tail end of the pack.

Originally, Liu Mao had planned to find time to have a good talk with Wang Jue and, if necessary, suggest giving up on martial academy entrance and choosing an ordinary university instead.

Yet before he could seek Wang Jue out, he was told that Wang Jue could decide for himself whether or not to come to class, and that this had been personally approved by the principal.

“Could there be something I don’t know?”

As Liu Mao pondered this, several more students finished their exams.

“Hey, Old Liu...”

A teacher standing beside him glanced at the remaining dozen or so students in the field, then finally fixed his eyes on Wang Jue.

“That student—is he from your class?”

Among the classes taking part from Peaceful Tenth High School, there had only been seven classes in the first batch. The dozen or so students from each class had been mixed together. In some cases, nearly an entire class had been placed in the first batch, while others had only a few scattered there, with the rest assigned to later groups.

At present, fewer than twenty people remained on the field, and they were basically all the top students ranked near the front of each school and class.

This teacher was a colleague of Liu Mao’s, and he could be said to know quite a bit about the top students in each class at their school.

And yet, regarding this student, he had no impression whatsoever.

If he had not seen the boy sitting with the other students from Liu Mao’s class earlier, and if Liu Mao had not been looking directly at him just now, he might not have even bothered asking.

“Yes, that little fellow is indeed from our class.” Liu Mao smiled and nodded.

“I’m rather curious—what’s his name?”

The teacher laughed. “By rights, I should have some impression of the top five students in each of our school’s classes, but I have no memory of this one at all. No, to be precise, he feels completely unfamiliar. I didn’t expect your class to produce a dark horse...”

“His name is Wang Jue.”

Hearing this, Liu Mao recalled Wang Jue’s situation. A complicated look flashed through his eyes, and he gave a bitter smile. “Heh, based on the situation right now, he does indeed count as a dark horse. It’s just a pity his cultivation is a little low. Whether he can pass into one of the hundred elite martial schools is hard to say...”