Tribulation of Myriad Races

From the proctor’s seat, Researcher Huang observed the students. He said, “With this test alone, Wu Lan will gain a lead of at least 100 marks over Su Yu. Zhou Tianqi and the others might have done something stupid earlier, but they each also know no less than 15 languages. They will probably not score lower than Su Yu as well.”

Bureau Head Sun nodded in agreement. Instead of giving his opinion, he changed the topic, “What do you think this year’s highest score in the capital would be?”

“Overall score?”

“Yes.”

“Above 1,000 marks.”

Researcher Huang said unhesitatingly, “There are a few freaks taking the exam this year. They have reached the Mental Tempering Stage and completed their Divine Characters. They also know a lot of languages. All that added with the merit point score will push them above 1,000 marks.”

Even Bureau Head Sun couldn’t help but to be impressed. “Those are truly freaks. Back then, I only entered the academy with 420 marks. Even so, I was ranked pretty highly among my batch. The gap between us and them is too big.”

Researcher Huang merely smiled while holding his tongue. He wanted to remind this senior brother of his that he had joined the academy with 500 marks, but he was afraid that he would only anger his senior brother and create more trouble for himself.

Although both of them weren’t high-tier students, they were among the best of the mid-tier students. After all, high-tier students were incredibly rare. If it wasn’t for the rarity of high-tier students, both of them would not have their current positions as mere middle-tier students. They had been able to enter the Skysoar Realm before they were too old, and that signified their potential and talent.

Beside them, the old man from the Nine Heavens Cultural Research Academy unhurriedly said, “Your academy is accepting some young foreigners this year. Will they be tested?”

Researcher Huang answered, “Of course they will. Our academy is not a place just anyone can join. The principal personally went to the Allheaven Battlefield to meet and test them on the spot. But these students they sent after paying such a large price were definitely no weaklings.”

It would be a waste to pay such a high price just to send a fool into the Human Realm. No matter how stupid they were, they wouldn’t do something like that. Those they sent were definitely outstanding individuals. Even if these individuals weren’t the best of the best in their respective races, they would still be among the more talented ones.

The old man sighed, “I really don’t know what to say about Principal Wan’s plan. The appearance of those freaks at the capital this year is most likely related to those foreign students as well. Those little fellows had been cultivating within their families prior to this. In truth, they were already old enough to take the exam two years ago.”

Researcher Huang nodded, “That’s true. The kids from the Xia, Hu, and Wan Families have all appeared.”

The Xia Family referred to Xia Longwu’s family. The Wan Family referred to Wan Tiansheng’s family.

As for the Hu Family…that was the family of the true administrator of Great Xia, the same Old Hu that Marquis Xia had treated like trash before. Over the years, Xia Longwu had been focused on military affairs while Old Hu was the one in charge of the economy and administrative affairs. Old Hu was basically the second most influential person in Great Xia after the prefect.

Suddenly, Researcher Huang laughed and added, “Not only that. The little fellow from the Zheng Family is out as well.”

“Huh?” The old man was stunned, “Are you referring to Principal Zheng’s…”

“Yes.” Researcher Huang smiled, “That’s a rumor I heard. I don’t know if it’s true. A junior from that fellow’s family is joining our academy as well. I don’t know his plan. I’m only afraid that this fellow will talk with his fists and start fights all over the academy. That will be troublesome.”

They all had odd expressions. Why was the junior of the war academy’s principal joining the cultural research academy? The two academies were major rivals. Wan Tiansheng must have gone crazy. He truly had the guts to accept anyone into his academy.

But Principal Zheng was equally crazy for daring to send his junior into his rival’s academy. Was he not afraid that his junior would get beaten to death in the academy?

It had been a tradition for hundreds of years for the war academy to challenge the cultural research academy for a friendly exchange each year. And each year, the war academy would have plenty of fun beating up those future cultural researchers.

And now, a junior of those people was there. Was he not afraid that those old fellows in the cultural research academy would take this chance to take their anger out on the junior? After all, there were tens of thousands of people in the cultural research academy. It wouldn’t be difficult to find an ex victim of the war academy.

Even Wu Wenhai couldn’t resist saying, “Is that junior…not Principal Zheng’s biological son?”

“…”

The others looked at him in astonishment. Yes, yes, they were all thinking the same thing. But Wu Wenhai…Was he not afraid of death for actually saying that out loud? It was understandable why they would suspect that. That was the only explanation for Principal Zheng’s action.

Although they were busy gossiping, they were still able to keep an eye on the students taking the test. They were all Skysoar cultivators. It wasn’t difficult for them to multitask. Suddenly, the Devil Subduing Army commander flickered and appeared before one of the students. He lifted the student with one hand before tossing the student out.

“He is caught cheating. Toss him out and record his name. He will be barred for life from all academies,” ordered the commander coldly.

Each year, many students would be caught cheating. People like them were basically brainless. They were even more stupid than some people in the Devil Subduing Arm—cough, cough.

They were basically trying to cheat right under the nose of several Skysoar cultivators. Were these kids aware of how strong Skysoar cultivators were? That was especially true for cultural researchers where nothing could hide from their willpower.

The other proctors were unbothered by the little incident. The student caught cheating started begging for leniency while crying, but everyone ignored him. Since he dared to cheat, he would need to have the courage to accept the consequences as well.

The various academies, especially the military academies, looked down on cheaters. Cheaters would not only be barred from all academies, but even the military would not accept them. With their records stained, these cheaters could only live their lives as commoners.

Meanwhile, Su Yu and some of the students were shocked. Unlike the student in the morning, this student was not a paid actor. He had truly been caught cheating.

…

An hour passed.

An hour and half passed…

While all the students were still nervously answering their questions, Wu Lan suddenly raised her hand. When a proctor gave her the permission to speak, she said, “Teacher, I’m done. I have answered all questions for 33 languages.”

“…”

The faces of some students changed. She did 33 languages? Some of them were only doing seven or eight languages yet still didn’t have the confidence to submit their papers. This young woman was probably submitting her papers before checking her answers. That showed how confident she was.

To submit the paper now, Wu Lan would need to complete about 20 languages per hour. That was a terrifying speed as it signified that some of the questions were so easy to her that she could answer them without thinking. Even Su Yu was surprised. He had only finished 18 out of the 20 languages he knew.

Researcher Huang said, “Since you’re done, you can take the next text. Do you want to go now?”

“No. I’ll wait.”

Wu Lan stood up and submitted her papers before turning to look at Su Yu smugly. Her arrogant face was practicalling saying that she was waiting for them all. She submitted her papers early to demonstrate her confidence. And she waited for them because she wanted them to be around to see what a true genius looked like.

Su Yu was only distracted for a split moment before he returned to his papers, ignoring Wu Lan. One after another, the students started submitting their papers. Some of them did not know too many languages and had finished long ago. They had merely been checking their answers earlier. Now that someone had submitted their papers, these students started doing so as well.

After about 10 minutes, Su Yu finished answering his questions as well. He started checking his papers. Up in the proctors’ area, Wu Lan frowned when she saw that Su Yu was wasting time checking his answers.

Bureau Head Sun and the others were naturally paying attention to Su Yu as well. When they saw him checking his papers in an unhurried manner, they smiled. This kid was quite a calm one.

Someone at his age should have gotten impatient after seeing Wu Lan submit the papers before him. Instead, he was able to nonchalantly check his papers after finishing. He had quite a stable mental state.

Even people like Zhou Tianqi and company were affected by Wu Lan. All of them had submitted their papers. As for Su Yu, he gave the impression of someone who couldn’t answer his questions and was dragging it out.

Suddenly, Bureau Head Sun smiled and suggested, “Since we have some free time, let’s start marking the papers.”

The proctors from the two academies had no objections. As Skysoar cultivators, they wouldn’t take long marking these papers. They could easily finish marking one set per minute.

Only the bureau head and the two researchers were in charge of grading the papers. The Devil Subduing Army commander and Wu Wenhai would not get involved. The three would also exchange the papers with each other until each set was marked by all three of them. Before long, they were done with Wu Lan’s papers.

“Out of 330 questions, 328 were answered correctly.”

Bureau Head Sun nodded and smiled. She would get 330 marks from that. This little girl from the Wu Family was indeed quite talented.

Bureau Head Sun moved on to the next set of papers. After marking it, he smiled and praised, “Not bad. Liu Yue, a local from Nanyuan. Out of 240 questions, she got 235 right. 240 marks for her.”

Joy covered Liu Yue’s face. The moment Wu Lan appeared, Liu Yue had been completely overshadowed. Although she was still not as good as Wu Lan, she doubted any local could get a higher score than her.

“Zhou Tianqi…out of 200 questions, he got 192 right. He got three questions wrong in one of the languages…”

Bureau Head Sun looked at Zhou Tianqi. When he saw that Zhou Tianqi was avoiding his gaze, he frowned, “Not bad, but you lost 10 marks for no reason. This isn’t a mistake you should make. A little incident was enough to affect your performance? Your mental state needs some improvement.”

Zhou Tianqi felt aggrieved, but he didn’t dare to say anything. Was that a little incident? Come on! That was a big incident! He considered his mental fortitude great for even being able to take the exam without getting too many of his questions wrong.

“Kong Cheng, out of 148 out of 170 questions. Two languages have more than three wrong questions. A total of 150 marks…”

That was one of the students in Zhou Tianqi’s group. Bureau Head Sun did not provide any remark to that student. Since they couldn’t even get the full marks for the languages they knew, they could only blame themselves. He could no longer be bothered to offer them more advice.

Of course, 150 marks were by no means low. Before long, the papers of other students were done being marked as well. There were students with 100 marks, 90 marks, or even lower.

Some students only knew six languages yet only managed to get 40 marks. However, that was the lowest score for now. Perhaps there were students with 20 or 30 marks in the other rooms since the students in this room were mostly the better ones.

There were less than 50 students in this particular room. But very few of them would be able to get more than 100 marks. By the time the proctors went through over 50 sets of papers, Su Yu finally submitted his papers.

Bureau Head Sun checked the papers and looked at Su Yu before announcing, “200 questions answered, 200 correct answers. 200 marks. But…what the hell did you write for the other languages?”

Su Yu nonchalantly said, “I didn’t know those languages, but I decided to try my luck and wrote some random things down. Maybe I can get lucky.”

“…”

The proctors were speechless. Su Yu had actually answered a lot more questions, but his writings were unreadable. He had basically invented some random languages for those questions. These weren’t multiple-choice questions. How could he try to guess his way out of it? Even if he was lucky enough to get a question or two right, he still wouldn’t receive any marks.

To the side, Wu Lan laughed with disdain. What a fool. Did he think that would work?

Su Yu looked at her and whispered, “I got all the questions I know right.”

“…”

Wu Lan ignored him. What was the big deal about that? She was much faster and had a much higher score. To the side, Liu Yue softly congratulated him. Both of them had scored above 200 marks. And the three of them were the only students present with more than 200 marks. With these marks, they were basically already guaranteed to pass the entire examination even if they skipped all the other tests.

The proctors exchanged glances. There were some students who were still not finished. Bureau Head Sun said, “We’ll take them to the next test. You’ll stay here.”

The one chosen to stay was the Devil Subduing Army commander. He was a brute anyway. He might not even understand the contents of the next tests. It was pointless to take him along. The commander’s face fell, but he did not say anything and continued sitting with his back straight.

When Researcher Huang passed by Su Yu, he transmitted his voice over, “Get first place and you’ll get back the 20 merit points you lost as reward. Don’t say that we’re not giving you any chances. Unfortunately, Wu Lan will probably be the one to place first instead.”

“…”

Su Yu’s expression changed. Was this real? In that case, he had to get first place! Otherwise, he would not be able to get back his merit points!

“First place…but I’m 130 marks behind her…”

His expression changed again. The gap between them was quite big. He didn’t know what the next tests were. He also didn’t know if he could surpass Wu Lan through those tests. But it felt like it wouldn’t be an easy feat.

Numerous ideas surfaced in his mind. For example, he could try provoking her to affect her mental state. She was probably stupid enough to directly give up on the examination from his provocation.

“Forget it. It’s not good to bully idiots.”

He eventually decided to give up on the plan. Otherwise, with Wu Lan’s temper, she would probably really quit the examination after being provoked. For example…he could say something like only useless students would run from the capital and take the examination here.

Even if she could get a high-tier evaluation here, those geniuses at the capital would still look down on her. She might blow up from anger after hearing those words and leave the examination.

“Sigh. I’m still too kind.”

Su Yu muttered to himself that a kind person would always suffer losses. Oh well, he would just have to crush her with his ability. He was capable enough to do that. He refused to believe that Wu Lan had completed two Divine Characters as well.