Chapter 75: A Different Examination (2)
In the second room.
About thirty students had entered the room.
These were all students above the third-stage Source Opening Realm. Of course, there were more students above the third-stage as well, but some were still busy studying the liquid provided to them.
"During the fourth and fifth stages, the ear acupoints will be opened, improving your hearing."
Old Xie was beaming as he walked to the front of the room. "You're only at the Source Opening Realm and have never been to the battlefield before. The prefecture won't make any excessive requests of students like you. However, you still need to be able to do what someone with your cultivation level should be capable of."
"Listen carefully..."
With that reminder, all the students focused. There seemed to be someone whispering in the room, but they couldn't hear the whispers clearly.
"Someone is reciting a cultivation method. He will recite it ten times. Each round will take five minutes. The students that arrive late will fail even if they're at the seventh or eighth-stage. They won't get any of the 60 marks they were supposed to get from this test.
"People who are not good at managing their time and priorities will only bring you down on the battlefield."
The students strained their ears and sure enough, someone seemed to be reciting something.
Su Yu tried listening, but he wasn't able to hear it too clearly. In the crowd, a girl with her hair done in pigtails raised her hand. When Old Xie nodded, she asked with a frown, "Teacher, what if someone here already knows the cultivation method? They won't even need to listen. Will that be considered cheating?"
"Don't worry. None of you know it." Old Xie nonchalantly said, "This is a cultivation method newly obtained from a minor race. It has never appeared in Great Xia before. If someone here really knows that cultivation method, then that person must have learned it from the minor race."
A sneer appeared on Old Xie's face as he said, "Also, different copies of the same cultivation method might not necessarily be the same. If the copy you've learned from happened to be different from our copy and is instead the same as the Myriad Race Cult’s copy...hehehe. I'll have you know that we have been able to capture a decent number of spies through this test each year. I hope none of you will be one of them."
Seemingly knowing the doubt these students were feeling, Old Xie continued, "Are you wondering why I told you all that? Why am I not waiting for the spies to expose themselves? The answer is simple. This minor race has already been exterminated. The cult members serving that race should start considering turning over a new leaf."
Su Yu couldn't be bothered to listen to Old Xie's words. He was fully focused on the cultivation method being recited. The voice was very indistinct. It was as though he could hear it. But at the same time, it felt like he wasn't hearing anything.
Even a single lapse of concentration would result in one missing the voice completely. Thus, one had to fully concentrate to get the entire cultivation method. Su Yu listened while writing and completely ignored everyone else in the room.
Five minutes later, the first round was over. Su Yu checked his paper and saw that he had written down one third of the cultivation method. If he continued at the same pace, he would take around three to five rounds to complete it.
This wasn't a long cultivation method. It only had about a thousand characters in total. In fact, Su Yu's performance was quite good. Many of them had only written several characters on their papers.
They weren't fast enough as they had to listen and write at the same time. As time passed, more and more students entered the second room. Since they were late, it was unlikely that they would be able to write the whole cultivation method down.
"I can finish it after around three to five rounds. But how is Hao doing? He better not fall asleep listening to the cultivation method."
...
At the same time.
Chen Hao was also taking the hearing test. For some reason, he was pulling his hair in anxiety. He had written a decent number of characters on his paper, but when a random proctor walked by, the proctor found most of the characters unreadable.
At a glance, Chen Hao's paper looked impressive with the number of characters on it. But what the hell had he written? Naturally, there were students with even worse performance. They were only able to write several characters on their papers and were sitting on their seats with gloomy expressions. For these people, they wouldn't be able to get too many marks from this test even if they were at the fourth or fifth-stage.
Those with only the relevant cultivation level but not the ability to utilize their strength are not worth accepting.
That was the proctor's honest thought. Opening the ear acupoints but completely incapable of utilizing them. If one couldn't even hear the cultivation method being recited, how were they supposed to listen for their enemies on the battlefield? Cultivators like these were useless.
After spending five years in secondary school, these students were already taught what they should know. Despite the lack of combat experience, these students could actually be considered soldiers after all the training they had gone through. A soldier found lacking in such a basic ability would have no hope of being accepted into a war academy.
While the proctor was deep in thought, Chen Hao suddenly raised his hand and complained, "Teacher, can you stop pacing in front of me? Can you walk somewhere else?"
"..."
The proctor was stunned. However, he soon laughed and said, "This is also a form of a test. On a battlefield, you can encounter all sorts of unexpected situations..."
Chen Hao rolled his eyes, "If this is really the battlefield, I would have hacked you to death with my saber. Teacher, if you continue pacing in front of me, I'll really have to swing my blade at you."
"..."
The proctor laughed in amusement. Not far away, the head proctor nodded slightly, signaling the proctor that he could leave Chen Hao now. It was naturally not normal for a proctor to keep pacing in front of a student. However, Chen Hao had been pulling his hair so hard that the proctor decided to pay some attention to him.
After the proctor returned to the head proctor, he softly said, "As a whole, those from the capital are performing much better than the local students. None of the capital students are weaker than the fourth-stage while there aren't even that many fourth-stage students among the locals."
There were only around 400 guest students while there were around 3,000 local students taking the examination. However, there were fewer local fourth-stage cultivators than the guests.
The head proctor wasn't surprised. He softly said, "Nanyuan's source qi density is too low. However, this is also good. Nanyuan students might be slower in growth, but as a result, they have been able to spend more time building their foundation. Just look at them. Many of the local students are able to write at least several characters down while a lot of the guest students haven't been able to write anything."
The head proctor shook his head. Clearly, he found the guest students' performance embarrassing.
Sure, they had higher cultivation levels. However, their growth was so fast they hadn't been able to stay at the lower stages for long. They only pursued cultivation level instead of the proper usage of their opened acupoints. Because of that, some of the fifth and sixth-stage guest students couldn't even do as well as the fourth and fifth stage local students in this test.
...
Meanwhile, Su Yu was on his fifth round and had finally finished writing the cultivation method down. There were a few other students who had completed as well. There were less than 10 of them in total.
Out of the 660 students on the fifth floor, less than 10 of them had reached this far. The proctors were somewhat disappointed, but they weren't really surprised. Their only surprise was that some of the fifth and sixth stage guest students were still unable to complete the test.
Old Xie did not seem to care about the students that were still listening as he spoke, "Those who are done and are interested in joining the test for those above the fifth-stage can come with me."
Su Yu and a few others stood up.
At the sight of that, some of the surrounding students started getting anxious. Some of them had just entered the room. They had barely started while some students were already moving on to the next part of the examination.
Should they continue listening or should they move on to the next part? What if the next part was the same where time management was important?
"Proper time, strength, and energy management..."
Some of them recalled the reminder given by the young proctor earlier. A few of them clenched their teeth and stood up to join the next test. The hearing test would give a maximum of 60 marks.
Should they waste more time listening or should they move on to get more marks elsewhere? For some of the students above the fifth-stage, this was a difficult choice. In fact, after listening to the voice for a while, some were starting to feel dizzy. If this continued, they might not be able to even take the other tests. That would be terrible.
After all, for the next test, they were supposed to be able to get 50 marks per cultivation stage provided they pass the test. That would be more than enough to make up for the marks they were giving up here.
Old Xie, who was leading the student to the next venue, had a smile on his face. Choosing was not an easy thing to do. The entrance examination would not test only one's strength and talent.
The judgment and decision making ability of these students would also be tested. If they were going to only test the students' strength, what was the point of the examination? They might as well accept the students based on their cultivation levels alone.
Those with higher cultivation might enjoy an unfair advantage in this examination, but it was entirely possible for a third-stage student to score perfect marks in the early tests and be accepted into an academy as well.
Nanyuan is still too weak. If they have more fourth and fifth stage students, the overall result of the locals might even be better than the guest students.
While deep in thought, Old Xie did not forget to keep his eyes on the students who had caught his attention previously.
Su Yu had performed well in the tests. He had been decisive during the first test, stopping after only one exchange and answering the questions related to all eight of the languages he knew for 80 marks. For that test, he probably had the highest mark in the room.
I'm really looking forward to his final score. Will he be able to compete against those geniuses at the capital?
The contents of the examinations were standardized for the entire prefecture. The process and grading system were also the same. Thus, Su Yu's score could actually be compared against the students of the entire prefecture.
Old Xie was really looking forward to Su Yu's final result. In Nanyuan, Su Yu was probably the only student who could compete against the geniuses in the capital. The others had no chance as their cultivation level was too low. Strong foundation alone would not be able to make up for the gap in cultivation level.