Chapter 118: Cross-Region (2)
Bang!
After knocking over an exam participant and taking away his points, Bei Fulin directly shattered his opponents’ jade tablet, ruining any remaining chances that that contender had remaining before returning to his hiding spot behind the tree.
It wasn’t that he was particularly vicious. In fact, it was just because the location that he had discovered was too good.
His hiding spot was located along quite a long passageway, and the path was lined with thorny purple brambles, making it so that people could only travel through via this road. The large tree Bei Fujian was hiding behind was close to the mountain, and its foilage was lush. There was even a small crack between it and the mountain wall, making it extremely useful for concealing a person.
By borrowing the covertness of that spot, Bei Fulin had already ambushed three different people. Every time he ambushed them, he would shatter their jade tablet, then continue to watch attentively.
Bei Fulin felt secretly very happy.
Doing battle required intelligence. How to effectively use the terrain to one’s advantage was one way to demonstrate that intelligence.
Even though he did not possess strength, Bei Fulin still believed that he could create his own heaven in the exam grounds. If his luck was good enough, he might even be able to enter the top one hundred.
As he thought, another person began to draw near to him.
Bei Fulin carefully hid in the crack behind the tree, waiting for the opportunity. As long as the other party took a few more steps, he would enter his optimal attack range. At that time, he could explode out, and the opponent would most likely panic. They would back up out of instinct, but Bei Fulin had prepared a follow-up move much earlier. His real killing blow lay in cutting off the opponent’s path of retreat and then releasing a fatal blow.
Three steps before entering his optimal attack range, the other party suddenly stopped.
He seemed to have thought of something, then lowered his head and began to ponder something.
Dammit, walk faster. Bei Fulin cursed impatiently in his heart, but he could only wait. The current distance was still a little bit too far away, and he wasn’t completely confident in his success if he were to force a move at this moment.
Just as Bei Fulin was growing anxious, the other person suddenly raised his head and glanced in Bei Fulin’s direction, a strange smile apparent in his eyes.
He then flipped his hand, and a large fireball appeared.
When faced with the fireball, Bei Fulin only felt a chill run down his spine. He knew that things were about to take a turn for the worse.
He wanted to jump up and run, but he discovered that he actually had no place to run. This place was a good location to ambush someone, but it also contained a large drawback, which was that there was no path of retreat.
The other exam candidate’s fireball had already slammed towards the tree.
Bang!
Following the giant explosion, Bei Fulin was thrown into the air as he yelled loudly. He landed directly on the purple brambles.
The sharp thorns pierced into his body. Close to a hundred small holes suddenly appeared on Bei Fulin’s body.
Su Chen slowly walked over, retrieved his jade tablet and plundered points from it.
He actually gained two points.
Su Chen was slightly dazed. He laughed, “Not too shabby. You actually earned three points in such a short time. But remember next time, don’t stay in one spot for too long.”
“You…… how did you discover me?” Bei Fulin squeezed out with great difficulty.
“There were purple brambles that were knocked over and the ground was covered in footprints resulting from forceful steps, implying that a battle had happened here before. That tree was the only place suitable for hiding a person….. I didn’t need to know if you were there, I just needed to test it out with a fireball. However, most importantly…… I have already encountered these kinds of ambushes many times already,” Su Chen carelessly replied.
Bei Fulin was dazed when he heard this.
Su Chen tossed Bei Fulin away, then continued to press forwards.
His mood was quite terrible because he had truly already encountered too many situations like what had just happened during his journey.
Su Chen already understood what was going on.
To many exam candidates, even if they had no way of obtaining the precious Hidden Dragon Institute enrollment spots during this exam, if they could get a good ranking, they could also obtain better resources when entering other institutes – a large number of institutes were all waiting to snatch up talented individuals that had been eliminated by the Hidden Dragon Institute.
Under these kinds of circumstances, most of the exam candidates would act prudently. They did not randomly move around after entering the exam grounds. Instead, they would use any knowledge that they already had to conceal themselves and search for opportunities.
They were very clear about one thing. If their strength was insufficient, overly unrestrained actions would only result in them exiting the competition quickly.
And Su Chen’s actions belonged to the type that were wild and unrestrained – confidently walking alone on a path, if we don’t ambush you who will we ambush?
But goddammit, I’m really not trying to battle you, I just want to get to the Spirit Burying Terrace faster and take away the things that are inside.
Unfortunately, he could not say this to others, and it would be useless even if he did say it.
Thus, the entire way here, Su Chen had encountered ambush after ambush.
Gazing off into the mountainous distance, ten thousand exam candidates had been scattered just like a handful of sand, not even creating any splashes. Nothing could be seen. However, as long as you walked on the paths in the mountains, you would be ambushed from patches of grass, from behind boulders, from trees, or even from rivers and creeks by all kinds of people.
To obtain good results, all of the exam candidates had become like killers and resorted to tactics like sneak attacks, as if they were from assassin clans. Some had brilliant tactics, but there were also many with not-so-brilliant ones, and there definitely those who exercised their imagination and ability to fantasize quite often.
Of course, not everyone would do this.
There was a portion of exam candidates who stuck to their guns, bravely walking along those paths and facing any and all challenges.
This kind of person usually had two fates. Either they were eliminated early on, or those with greater strength would obtain large quantities of points.
However, because they were not allowed to use Origin Stones during the exam, even those who possessed great strength would also be defeated because of a lack of energy if they continued acting so aggressively.
Unfortunately, while others could rest, Su Chen had no other choice.
Tomorrow was the day that the Spirit Burying Terrace would open. If he couldn’t make it there by that time, then there was no point to it all.
Thus, he could only continue pushing onwards aggressively.
Another thing to pay attention to was his jade tablet.
As he obtained more and more points, Su Chen’s jade tablet began to glow, and a shapeless pulsation began to occur, allowing anyone who was nearby to sense it.
Su Chen realized that this was the special effect of the jade tablet. It used this kind of method to remind others that the owner was a target with many points.
Once a target possessed a large number of points, it often implied one thing: that person was strong.
This could scare a few into retreating, but it would also arouse the greed of opponents who were stronger. As long as they could defeat one person, they would gain a large number of points.
But one thing was for sure. Anyone who could reach the top one hundred in the rankings was definitely someone who had relied on swallowing pushovers.
Only by defeating real experts would one have the right to stand at the very top.
Of course, the pulses of the jade tablet could be concealed, but that required spending Origin Energy. This meant that the exam candidates needed to observe the situation to determine when it was necessary to conceal it and when it wasn’t.
On the afternoon of the same day that he had entered the exam grounds, Su Chen walked out of the thirteenth region and into the twelfth.
What he didn’t know was that not long after arriving in the twelfth region, a youth wearing a long sword had also arrived at the border of the thirteenth region.
He gazed at the boundary before letting out a cold harrumph. “Before, it was always exam candidates from higher regions who would come to lower-level regions to hunt for points. This time, I, Li Qingyun, will turn the tables on them and hunt down some exam candidates from larger cities.”
As he spoke, he stepped into the twelfth region.
Not too far behind him, another youth walked over dressed in coarse, hemp clothes.
The youth’s appearance was unremarkable. He had a pair of eyes that looked like they would never be fully awake no matter how much he slept.
Compared to Su Chen’s hastiness or Li Qingyun’s high spirits, this youth clearly was much more at ease.
After arriving at the boundary, the youth raised his head to look at the sky. He stared at it for a while, unmoving, before saying to himself, “Then it’s decided.”
He pointed at a nearby boulder and, using his finger as a pen, wrote down a row of words:
“I’m going to go play in some other regions. Bai Li.”
