Translator: Exodus Tales Editor: Exodus Tales
Edited by Aelryinth
“Huu, I managed to get through it somehow,” Zhang Che let out a long breath. His back was soaked with sweat.
Just as he thought there was no choice but to reveal his strength as a Tier Four beastmaster, the rainbow crystal in his spiritual sea seemed to sense his thoughts and suddenly emitted blinding rainbow rays, illuminating his entire spiritual sea.
After that, as the device started measuring his spiritual strength, Zhang Che felt his spiritual strength being suppressed to the level of a Tier Three beastmaster. The final test results shown on the device was that he was a Tier Three beastmaster.
-Tsk, it seems like the rainbow crystal can tamper with anything related to spiritual strength!-
When he encountered Wu Yunfeng in the beast world, and he used the peculiar bugle horn to launch a spiritual attack on him, it was also the rainbow crystal that responded and shielded him from the attack, keeping Zhang Che safe.
Now, during the spiritual strength measurement, it was actually able to suppress Zhang Che’s spiritual strength to the realm of Tier Three beastmaster. Its mystical abilities were truly unimaginable.
After he calmed down and waited for close to half an hour, the organizer was finally done with reconfirming the present examinees’ tiers.
-Going forward, it should be the official examination, right?- Zhang Che thought curiously. He wondered whether it would be testing their proficiency at commanding their subdued beasts, or if it would be a simple and crude examining of their subdued beasts’ strength.
If not, would they be like the fantasy novels and hold a tournament?
The examinees would be split into a number of smaller groups and compete against each other to the end. The ones with the best results would directly enter the best universities, the ones with second-grade results would enroll into second tier universities, and those with the worst results would enroll into ordinary universities, or even fail?
If that were truly the case, Zhang Che wasn’t worried about it.
At the most, he would expose a three-star dark gold-quality subdued beast at the crucial moment. He wouldn’t dare to guarantee that he’d get first, but it wouldn’t be a problem for him to obtain a spot in the upper ranks.
Zhang Che wasn’t the only one anticipating this. Every examinee present, including the accompanying teachers, was guessing what the examination method would be.
It was obvious that everyone was too naive.
When the organizer announced the rules of the examination, the first thought in everyone’s mind was… ridiculous!
It wasn’t just ordinary ridiculousness. It was extremely ridiculous!
————–
The contents of the final test were as follows:
All examinees were split into three ranks according to their beastmaster tiers.
Tier Four beastmasters were the first rank. Although they were rare among the ten thousand-plus examinees, they still existed.
Tier Three beastmasters made up the second rank. The remaining Tier Two beastmasters naturally made up the third rank.
After that, every examinee was required to register the subdued beasts they were going to use in the examination. The number of beast cards everyone could register was limited to their beastmaster tier’s capacity plus one.
In other words, a Tier Four beastmaster could bring six beast cards, a Tier Three beastmaster five cards, and Tier Two beastmasters could only bring four beast cards.
The organizers were considered very nice, allowing one extra beast card for the examinees.
Naturally, when they registered their beast cards, only their level, quality, and type were noted down. Their comprehensive attributes weren’t required to be noted.
After confirming the registration of beast cards the examinees were going to bring, if anyone was found to have cheated during the examination, their entire team would be disqualified. No universities would accept them, and their qualification to take part in university entrance exams would be retracted, as well!
The severity of the punishments couldn’t be said to be light. Although there would still be people who would choose to take the risk, at least they wouldn’t do it too unrestrainedly.
After registering the information on the examinees’ subdued beasts, the organizers would split all of the examinees into groups of five by mixing them in a balanced manner, and send them into the beast worlds for the final test.
As for the tiny fraction who couldn’t form a group of five, the organizer would randomly pick out those who were relatively stronger and form them into a group whose strength was close to the other groups of five.
Such a examination method was simply unheard of.
-Were they going to have a group competition to decide the final placings?-
-If that was the case, why do we still have to enter the beast world?-
Once you thought in this direction, everyone could basically guess the final model of the examination.
It was probably to send everyone into a designated area and have a exotic beast hunting competition, and their ranking would be determined by how much they hunted.
“It seems like I will have to expose a dark gold-quality beast card. That way, even if I get teamed up with four noobs, I won’t have to worry about faring poorly in the test. Of course, it’d be best if I could go solo. There’d be nothing to worry about then,” Zhang Che came to such a decision after thinking for a while.
In any case, there shouldn’t be many examinees with dark gold-quality beast cards, but there wouldn’t be too little of them either.
All of the talented students in the entire Hua Xia region were gathered here, with no lack of people who were slightly luckier, or born into good households. Having a few dark gold-quality beast cards appearing among them truly couldn’t be any more normal.
After some considerations, Zhang Che decided on the five beast cards to use. They were the two-star gold-quality Fiery Scorpion, two-star gold-quality Mutated Puffersword, three-star gold-quality Swamp Crocodile King armor, three-star gold-quality Gale Wolf King, and the three-star dark gold-quality Dark-Scaled Lizard Commander. It was decided on after considering the balance of the composition.
The Mutated Puffersword’s Sonic Wave skill could deliver unexpected results when dealing with low-tier exotic beasts. It was no weaker than a three-star gold-quality Original Combat Body-type beast card.
Also, Zhang Che had achieved minor accomplishment in swordsmanship. After equipping the Swamp Crocodile King armor, he could also exhibit combat strength no weaker than a three-star gold-quality subdued beast.
Now that he possessed herculean strength, Zhang Che didn’t have to act so cautiously when facing larger exotic beasts. He could just face them head on!
-But, the beast cards I’m bringing out seems to be a little too freaking intimidating?- Zhang Che suddenly realized there didn’t seem to be a difference whether he concealed his strength as a Tier Four beastmaster or not.
Four gold-quality and one dark gold-quality beast cards. Perhaps only those from large influential households could match that…
“It’s okay, it’s okay. My future father-in-law is behind me. There probably wouldn’t be much suspicion on me. At the most, others would think that these beast cards were specially prepared for me by the Huang family for the examination.”
When the staffer who was in charge of registering the examinees’ beast cards was processing Zhang Che, who knew whether he was doing it intentionally or not, but he kept gasping softly as he registered the beast cards and muttered out all of Zhang Che’s beast cards’ level and quality.
With that, the news of a Tier Three examinee owning five beast cards with at least gold-quality quickly spread out to the entire plaza silently.
The gazes of the examinees from Qian Wei City became different when they looked at Zhang Che.
-This guy’s bowl of soft rice was actually so freaking huge!-
-If I knew this earlier, I should have tried to court Huang Tielan myself! With that chubby chick’s shape and height, she’d surely wouldn’t say no. Although I would be sacrificing a little of my innocence, the advantages in exchange are far, far too much…-
After registering all the required information, the organizer finally announced the specifics of the content for the examination.
As everyone had expected, they truly were going to split everyone into small groups and send them into the beast world. In there, the organizers would define a designated area, and all the groups would take part in a exotic beast hunting competition within the area. Their final ranking would be calculated based on the scores attained there.
As for the argument some of the examinees brought up regarding unfairness of the weaker examinees being able to rely on their stronger teammates to enroll into better universities, the organizer’s answer for this was very simple.
Every time the exotic beast swarm attacked Mercury, the danger they faced wasn’t resolved by any single heroic figure.
Only by nurturing everyone into small cooperative teams, and from there expanding into larger squads, could they exhibit greater strength when facing the endless waves of attacks.
As such, only those who knew how to cooperate in a team were given the opportunity to enter into better universities to better themselves.
Regarding the argument where the weaker examinees being truly able to rely on luck and follow an expert and grow stronger, there was no problem with that. Luck itself was part of your strength.
In their fight against exotic beasts for the last thirty-some years, those with greater chances of survival usually weren’t those who were stronger, but those who were luckier.
Everyone was speechless against such an argument.
-Since you already put it this way, what else can we do?-
—————-
After that, the organizers announced the rules regarding the exotic beast hunting competition.
First, benign competition was allowed. You could snatch prey from the hands of other teams, but it was strictly forbidden to snatch obtained beast cards from others. Those who were reported and found out would be severely punished!
At the same time, considering that there would certainly be conflicts arising among teams, the organizers had stated that the examinees mustn’t cause any injuries to others, or they would be disqualified. Not only that, they would also be responsible for their actions.
If you inflicted death on others, then congratulations to you. Your life would similarly be over.
Of course, if anyone dared to falsely accuse others and was found out, the consequences would be even worse than killing others.
Second, although the more threatening exotic beasts within the designated areas had been slain or driven off by the experts sent in by the organizers previously, no one could guarantee there wouldn’t be any accidents.
Therefore, in the case of examinees encountering exotic beasts which they couldn’t defeat, they could send out a signal for help. The invigilators patrolling around in the examination hall were also acting as rescue teams at the same time, and would rush to the location as soon as possible.
However, once you sent out the rescue signal, the entire team would be disqualified, and your prior results would be disregarded and awarded zero marks.
Third, if you discovered other teams in trouble and assisted them, you could obtain a certain amount of extra points, depending on the severity of the situation.
Other than these three main rules, there were also some minor details which they would be informed of when they entered the beast world.
Going forward, their team distribution would be randomly assigned in the plaza.
After completing the grouping, the rest of the day would be left to the examinees to get acquainted with their new teammates and preparations. They would set off for the beast world tomorrow morning.
-Mmm, it’d be best if I were placed into a team by myself.- Zhang Che wasn’t interested in babysitting others. He immediately started praying in his heart…
