Chapter 72: Traps Everywhere (1)
Before anyone knew it, it was the 25th of June. The entrance examinations had arrived.
The war academy entrance examination would be held in the morning while the cultural research academy entrance examination would be held in the afternoon. On the next day, the internal affairs and scientific research examinations would be held. The latter two had comparatively lower requirements. Most students would only register for those two examinations if they had no other options.
...
The examinations were all held at the Nanyuan Secondary School.
The school was already packed with people early in the morning. The city guards, Windcatcher Department, and Martial Dragon Guards had all been deployed. Security was tight.
Thousands of students would be present today. These people were the future of Nanyuan, so the city took this matter very seriously. The Myriad Race Cult’s attack was very recent, so the city was still quite paranoid about safety.
Su Yu and Chen Hao arrived together. They saw that many parents were already waiting outside the school and the roads around the school were filled with vehicles. Su Yu could even see Chen Hao's father there, personally managing the traffic around the school. Several unknown staff members were stationed at the school gate. After verifying the identities of Su Yu and Chen Hao, they allowed the two to enter.
"Yu, will I fail the exam?"
Chen Hao was nervous. He had been asking the same question the entire morning.
Su Yu sighed and said, "If even a fifth-stage Source Opening cultivator like you can fail, then very few people in Nanyuan can get through the exam."
"But not even a fifth-stage Source Opening cultivator is guaranteed to pass."
"Stupid!" ?Su Yu scolded. Yes, fifth-stage Source Opening cultivators could still fail the examination, but this fellow should have more confidence in himself. There was nothing Su Yu could do if he didn't believe in himself.
The two started heading toward the venue of the examination. On the way, they encountered many other students. Most of the students were people they didn't know. After all, apart from Nanyuan Secondary School, the students of other local secondary schools were here as well. Additionally, there were also many guest students from the capital around.
It wasn't that hard to determine which of them were the guest students. The locals would mostly be dressed in their uniforms while the guest students would be dressed in casual clothing that looked much more fashionable than what the locals were wearing.
The guest students were wearing grave expressions on their faces. Most of them were keeping to themselves. None of them were in the mood to pay any attention to the local students. They completely ignored the hostile looks the locals were throwing their way. Those hostile glares were of no importance to them. They did not even view these local students as their competitors.
...
Outside the examination building.
Several students of both genders were gathered. They seemed to have just encountered each other. Most guest students did not know anyone else but that wasn't the case for them. Standing at the middle of the group was a slender, tall woman with a long ponytail. She had a cold expression on her face.
As for the people surrounding her, the young men were handsome while the young women were pretty. They stood out from the other students in the area. Not far away, some students seemed to have recognized who they were and were pointing at the group while talking among themselves.
However, the group ignored all the attention they were getting. Despite standing together, the mood was slightly awkward among them as nobody knew what to say.
After a while, a man with a bright smile said, "You're all here as well? What a coincidence."
"Yeah, what a coincidence. I thought all of you will take the exam at the capital."
"So you guys are not confident enough to take the exam at the capital as well? I thought I'm the only one here."
"..."
With someone taking the lead, they finally started conversing among themselves.
The woman in the middle frowned. After a while, she berated, "Stop pretending. None of us will fail the exam even if we take it in the capital. Stop acting like you don't know why we're here."
These youngsters were still not experienced enough with social interactions to deal with the sudden outburst, so the mood turned awkward again.
Shortly after, one of them slowly said, "I didn't even want to take the exam here. It's too embarrassing. But my second uncle forced me to come take a look at that fellow called Su Yu. Assistant Researcher Bai had suddenly decided to accept that fellow as a personal student..."
Instantly, their expressions changed. A few of them glanced at the woman with a ponytail. One of them asked, "Wu Lan, you're here for this as well? You have an evaluation of high-middle. Do you even need to do this?"
Wu Lan's face turned cold as she said, "I want to take a look for myself and see just how outstanding this Su Yu is. He is apparently so outstanding that Assistant Researcher Bai called me useless at the Enrollment Center."
She was Wu Qi's younger sister. Previously when Liu Hong recommended her to Bai Feng, Bai Feng had given a disdainful response. Wu Qi did not care, but when Wu Lan heard about the incident, she found it unacceptable.
More than that, she found it humiliating. It would be fine if Bai Feng silently rejected her. However, he just had to say that there was nothing special about her high-middle evaluation. Those words were too insulting for her.
Thus, she was here at Nanyuan for an entirely different reason. Most of these people were here to try their luck. If they were better than Su Yu, they might be able to attract Bai Feng's attention and be accepted as his personal student.
Wu Lan wasn't here for that. She only wanted to show Bai Feng how much of a trash that personal student of his was. She needed Bai Feng to realize that his chosen student was so terrible that this student wasn't even qualified to be compared with her.
Bai Feng wasn’t the one refusing to accept her. Instead, she was the one unwilling to be the personal student of an assistant researcher like Bai Feng. If it wasn't for Bai Feng's teacher, his status as a mere assistant researcher would be nothing special in the academy. Wu Lan’s elder sister was also an assistant researcher. And she was even closer to being a full researcher than Bai Feng was.
Since someone had spoken the truth, the group stopped pretending. One of them whispered, "He's taking both the cultural research and war exams. This war academy examination is probably just an interlude. His main focus will be the cultural research academy examination in the afternoon. Do you think he has a Divine Character already?"
"Him?" Someone burst out laughing. "It's not that I'm looking down on him, but he's merely a Nanyuan student. How many willpower texts have he even seen before? How high can his willpower be? Divine Character? Maybe he doesn't even know what a Divine Character is."
Wu Lan was starting to get annoyed. She said, "He's not our competitor!"
They might be here at Nanyuan, but they weren't actually here to compete against Su Yu. They were only here to teach Bai Feng a lesson. Their exact goals might differ, but all in all, Bai Feng was still the reason they were here. They needed to show Bai Feng that his personal student was garbage. They needed to humiliate him for accepting such a worthless student.
Without them, Su Yu might be able to place first in Nanyuan. That would give Bai Feng a better look for accepting such a student. But with them here, Su Yu wouldn't be able to place even in the top ten. That was very different from placing first. With that, those antagonistic toward Bai Feng and those trying to change Bai Feng's mind would achieve their goals.
While they were speaking, one of them looked at Chen Hao and Su Yu who had just arrived. That person asked doubtfully, "Is that him?"
The rest of the group looked over. They had all seen Su Yu's profile before so one of them immediately recognized him, "Yes, it's him!"
"Shall we go have a chat with him?"
"No thanks. It's pointless."
Some of them refused. They were completely uninterested in conversing with Su Yu. However, they would still pay close attention to him. Talking to him simply wouldn't change anything.
Su Yu wouldn't be able to do anything. He wasn't the one deciding whether Bai Feng would accept him as a personal student or not. These people weren't fools. Their main goal was to showcase how great they were compared to Su Yu and catch Bai Feng's attention. They were not here to be Su Yu's friend.
Someone else said, "He's a frog in a well. His worldview has been constrained by this small city. Why don't we show him how weak he is and make him give up on the exam himself?"
"Sure. Feel free to do it yourself."
They ignored the suggestion. If they followed the rules and performed so exceptionally in the examinations that Su Yu was ashamed to enter the academy, the fault would be on Su Yu, not them.
But if they actually went to directly create trouble for Su Yu, well, did they really think that Bai Feng was a pushover? Did they really think that Liu Wenyan would not lose his temper? They weren't here to crush Su Yu's confidence. That would not help them. They would only invite the ire of several cultural researchers for no benefit whatsoever.
After all, these were all students that had been trained to join an academy. The truly brainless ones would have been eliminated from the competition long before reaching this step. In fact, that person making the suggestion was probably harboring some bad intentions toward the others as well.
The same person incited, "Are we supposed to just stand here and look at him? According to our information, he's only a fifth-stage Source Opening cultivator. Why don't we give him a scare with our willpower. That will be enough to decrease his performance and make him fail even the war academy examination as well."
"Sure. Do it then." Wu Lan coldly said, "Go on. Do it. Why are you only talking instead of doing anything? If you're confident that Assistant Researcher Liu Hong can guarantee your safety, go ahead and do it. Keep trying to instigate me and trust me when I say that I'll sacrifice my chance to take the exam this year just to make sure you will no longer be able to take any exams your entire life."
The instigator's expression changed as he hurriedly denied, "Wu Lan, I don't know Assistant Researcher Liu Hong well. What nonsense are you saying?"
"Sure, sure. I was speaking nonsense." Wu Lan coldly said, "I was just testing you. Both Liu Hong and Bai Feng are competing fairly. That does not break any unwritten rules. But you're trying to break the unwritten rules. Trying to hide it only makes things worse. You will bring disaster to yourself. It doesn't matter whose people you are, but I'm now sure that you're not one of Liu Hong's. Stop thinking that everyone except you are fools."
A young man in the group grinned and said, "Maybe he's from the Myriad Race Cult! They love doing things like this. They really think that everyone is stupid. It's obvious this fellow is trying to escalate the conflict between Assistant Bai Feng and Assistant Liu Hong. Either he's from the Myriad Race Cult or he was sent by the other assistant researchers. Hey, you, just shut your mouth."
"Continue running your mouth and we'll get the Martial Dragon Guards to investigate you. Their investigation will reveal everything about you. We will remember this."
"..."
The instigator's expression changed yet again. After a while, he said, "I'm not from the Myriad Race Cult. If you don't believe me, I am willing to curse all the divine and devil races verbally. Don't even think of framing me. Even if you're trying to reduce your competition, you shouldn't play this dirty. You need to take responsibility for falsely accusing someone as well!"
None of them was bothered to say anything to him after that. It really didn't matter if he was from the cult. The cult members wouldn't dare to actually expose themselves. And if he was really a cult member, what could he do as a mere Source Opening cultivator?