The situation was exactly like it was when he first took the test. Even the glare of the crimson eyes of the golem was exactly the same thing.
He breathed in and prepared himself for battle.
—-
Outside the test arena, many people had been paying attention to the ranking board. Brian was one of the dedicated ones.
His eyes were fixated on the board, and he was staring at it with unrivaled focus, waiting for Arthur's name to appear on it even though he wasn't supposed to care about Arthur's result.
There are only a hundred names on the board. These hundred are the best performers in the fighting excellence test out of the thousands of disciples who took the test.
Of all these one hundred names, only nine of them actually passed the first level. The rest were on the list because they survived the longest in the first level.
The fighting excellence test is not about cultivation. At least, it is not supposed to be. The reason why many people failed at it was because they had just become second mortal coil cultivators and weren't used to their power yet.
Only a few special people and genius fighters managed to beat the golem this early. The rest still need time to master their techniques and hone their fighting skills.
Brian is one of the rest who failed. It is because he failed that he knew how difficult it was to pass. It is also because he failed that he was hoping that Arthur would fail.
But his hopes were dashed when, after 44 seconds, Arthur's name appeared on the ranking, and it showed that he completed the first level.
He wasn't surprised by this outcome. But he was still disappointed when he saw it.
However, he refused to give up. He thought to himself, "I don't want to believe that he is better than me."
He can't give up on it because the fighting excellence test is the most important criterion in determining if a disciple is worthy of a promotion and the most influential factor that determines one's ranking on the newbie ranking list.
Usually, it is S-grade students that perform the best in the fighting excellence test. So if an A grade student like him can perform well in it and show that he is extraordinary too, then the student would have proven that he is worthy of being promoted to the S grade.
This is the level of importance that is attached to the fighting excellence test and why he decided to give it another try. He is just not convinced that he isn't worthy of the S-grade.
So he stepped onto the teleportation platform and was whisked away. A few seconds later, he returned in failure.
He checked the ranking list and saw that there was no change for a while. This gave him a glimmer of hope.
He thought to himself, "It seems Arthur is still in there, and he might be trying and failing to beat the second level. I hope he fails."
He knew that he was setting himself up for disappointment. But he doesn't have a choice in the matter, as the alternative is to admit now that the difference between him and Arthur is so wide that Arthur will beat the second level while he is struggling with the first.
While he was seething in jealousy, he heard the crowd talk about an update to the overall newbie ranking list. They were saying that something about the first position on the list had changed.
He became excited when he heard that because Arthur was first on the ranking list. If the first position changed, it meant that Arthur's position had fallen on the list and someone had replaced him.
He was so excited that he hurriedly took out his identity card and checked the newbie ranking list. Unfortunately, his excitement plummeted when he saw that Arthur Red Mane was still first on the list.
The crowd wasn't lying about there being a change. It was just that the only change was that Arthur had achieved the second mortal coil.
He said to himself, "This isn't good for my health. I should go and cultivate instead."
He realized now that he cared too much about Arthur's performance and that it wasn't good for his mental health. So he decided to ignore Arthur completely and do something more productive and healthy.
Unfortunately for him, the ranking board of the fighting excellence test changed before he could leave. He saw that Arthur's completion time had changed to 33 seconds.
This was the fastest clear time for level 1. Arthur was still at the tenth position because he hadn't challenged level 2 of the test yet.
His fragile heart took a great blow when he saw this. His face twitched, and he struggled not to roar in frustration.
After calming himself down, he left in a hurry. He didn't want to be around when a new change happened.
After seeing Arthur's completion in level 1, he was sure that Arthur would perform better than some of the nine people above him in level 2. He didn't want to be around when that happened.
——
Within the test arena, Arthur was fighting the golem for the third time. This time, he didn't stand still and wait for the golem to reach him. Instead, he took off running towards the golem as soon as the match started.
He took out his bow and arrow from his pouch as he ran. Then he notched the arrow and shot it.
As a second mortal coil cultivator, he doesn't need physical arrows to use the bow. He can just inject his internal energy into it and use that to form arrows.
But using physical arrows allows him to skip the process of condensing an arrow with his energy so he can shoot faster.
Using physical arrows also saves him energy that he can use in the fight. These are lessons that he learned in his second fight with the golem.