Chapter 0092 – The Terrible Topics of the Written Exam
“Didn’t Sister Luo Fei come with you? Did you also come to find a spot for the written round? That’s right, I know, you’re helping your younger sister Lou Fei to find a place, right?” Zhu Mu Er immediately connected those questions as she asked Ning Cheng.
After she asked, she basically did not wait for Ning Cheng to answer and once again turned around to face the man sitting behind her with the face like a bitter gourd and said, “Academy Head Yin, you might as well give us the other spot that you have, anyway you know that it’s useless for you, you could not find a better person as a representative for your Hua Yu Academy to attend the written exam.”
After that bitter gourd like face man heard the words of Zhu Mu Er, his face immediately became even more ugly, and said, “Miss Mu Er, I only have a total of two spots that were given to me, I gave one to you already, now you ask me to give you one more, it would be better if you went somewhere else to look.”
Zhu Mu Er just waved her hands and said, “One or two spots does not bother me, you can rest assured, the things that I promised you, I will certainly help you out. My father always followed my words, and would not hesitate for even half a moment, you’ll only be making a good profit from this. Besides, if you go by yourself, I guess that you would not be even able to enter the list, so it would be better if you let me and Sister Luo Fei attend, or do you really think that you would be able to enter the second round, just because you are from the Hua Yu Academy.”
Ning Cheng did not expect that this Zhu Mu Er would be so glib, not to mention that he did not even know what kind of commitment did she make with the Hua Yu Academy. The man sitting at the stall of the Hua Yu Academy looked like he had the cultivation of True Condensation 9th Level, and as such should be the Dean of the 2 Star Academy.
For a True Condensation 9th Level cultivator to be so polite with Zhu Mu Er, it was certainly not because he had good relations with Zhu Mu Er, it should be because Zhu Mu Er had promised something important to him, but also, this matter also had to do something with Zhu Mu Er’s father.
Ning Cheng thought back to when Zhu Mu Er had casually taken out a Level 3 Healing Pill, then thinking about the True Condensation 9th Level cultivator’s behaviour towards Zhu Mu Er, combined with his concern about the things that Zhu Mu Er promised, Ning Cheng could almost guess that Zhu Mu Er’s father must be a Pill Master. The thing that this Academy Head Yin was seeking from Zhu Mu Er, was very likely to be an Essence Building Pill.
To a True Condensation 9th Level cultivator, nothing was more important to them than an Essence Building Pill.
“Is you father a High Tier Pill Master?” Ning Cheng immediately asked to confirm his guess.
“Hey, how do you know that my father is a Pill Master?” Zhu Mu Er immediately became astonished and looked at Ning Cheng in surprise.
Ning Cheng really became speechless, in his heart he spoke, you already have the words practically written on your face, ‘my father is a Pill Master.’ How could it be hard to guess? For her to walk with such a disposition around the Hua Continent, Ning Cheng may really end up worrying for her. A few days ago she was still saying that she would rely on her own abilities to make some achievements to let her father see her in a new light, but now she was using her father’s reputation to show off everywhere, this Zhu Mu Er really was ….
Academy Head Yin only hesitated for a moment, after hearing Ning Cheng ask Zhu Mu Er about her father, he finally grit his teeth and said, “Fine, I’ll give the two places to you. However, after this matter is concluded, you must take me to see the Master Pharmacist.”
Zhu Mu Er received the Jade Card from Academy Head Yin and handing it to Ning Cheng, she said proudly, “Look, is this not the Jade Card to participate in the first round of Written Examinations?”
Ning Cheng received the Jade Card and thanked Zhu Mu Er, then he turned to Academy Head Yin and said, “Academy Head Yin, thank you very much for the Jade Card, I will definitely not let the spot given to me go for nothing.”
“Good, Good, these words I have already spoken them once, so you repeating it is completely meaningless.” Zhu Mu Er waved her hands, and spoke in a very grand fashion.
Ning Cheng put away the Jade Card, looked at Zhu Mu Er and asked, “Did you find a place to live?”
If Zhu Mu Er had not found a place to stay, then Ning Cheng had the intention to ask if Zhu Mu Er would be willing to live with them in the rest stop.
“Of course, I found it easily, to put it simply, there a lot of people here who know my father.” Zhu Mu Er said without any hesitation.
It appears that this Zhu Mu Er to prove herself to her father that she could rely on her own, was still something that she had a long way to go. Ning Cheng scratched his head and once again said to Zhu Mu Er, “Then I will go back, otherwise Luo Fei would be anxiously waiting for me, I hope you can do well in the first round, and then make your father hold you in high regard.”
“That’s natural, I am also going back.” Zhu Mu Er finished, but also did not forget to say her goodbyes to that Academy Head Yin from the Hua Yu Academy before going.
…….
After Ning Cheng said goodbye to Zhu Mu Er, he returned to the rest stop and spoke about the Jade Card that he had obtained from Zhu Mu Er to Ji Luo Fei, Ji Luo Fei actually felt that this Zhu Mu Er had a really straightforward personality.
As the few days passed by quickly, Ning Cheng did not go out to look for Meng Yu Jing during these past few days, he knew that if wanted to meet Meng Yi Jing with his status, it was simply not possible at the moment.
On this day, it was the appointed day for the 5th Written Test Round, Ning Cheng and Ji Luo Fei had already arrived at the Mo Ze Grand Plaza a long time ago. In order to prevent Ji Luo Fei from being recognised by her paternal aunt, Ning Cheng specifically asked Ji Luo Fei to don a veil, and even wear a wide brimmed hat for women. If she did not intentionally sweep her with her Spiritual Consciousness, Ning Cheng believed that Ji Luo Fei would not be recognised.
The Mo Ze City Plaza was soon packed with cultivators that arrived from all directions, because today was the 5th Written Exam Round, moreover after the 5th Written Exam Round ended, the first 1,000 people to enter the second round would also be displayed. Thus, the number of people in the Mo Ze Plaza was extremely huge, as everyone wanted to know what kind of people would be eligible to enter the second round.
The Written Exam would be conducted in an exam hall near the Mo Ze Grand Plaza, after Ning Cheng and Ji Luo Fei confirmed their appointment, he entered the exam hall along with the rest of the participants.
The hall was very spacious and even with 5,000 people sitting inside the hall it did not feel cramped at all.
Ning Cheng looked at the number on the Jade Card, and sat according to it, as the rest of the participants also entered the hall waiting for the round to begin. When he came into the hall he had tried to use his Spiritual Sense to sweep through it and found that his Spiritual Sense would not cover the entire hall, it could not extend to even half of the hall. Not only that, even his head turned blank for a few breaths of time.
Other than the chair that he was sitting on, in front of him was just a table, with a few blank sheets of paper with a pen placed on top of it. Other than those things, there was nothing else.
Half an hour later, a beautiful woman wearing a long white skirt came in, and first swept a glance at the people in the hall who had come to take the written exam, then walking to the front of the stage she said, “Today is the Hua Continent’s five 5 Star Academies last written exam round for the recruitment of disciples, and once today’s round ends, the top 1,000 of these five rounds combined would be displayed. Most of the people from this top 1000 ranking would be selected by the 5 Star Academies, and a few of those lucky people may even get to participate in the tournament between the 5 Star Academies 2 years later. I hope that everybody here in this round, can get the best results.”
This white long skirt wearing woman was not only very beautiful, even her voice was very melodious, making the people who listened to her feel a pleasant and enjoyable sensation in their hearts, and hoped that she continued speaking.
Perhaps she was one of the teachers in the 5 Star Academy, so thinking that if they were able to enter a 5 Star Academy, they would then be taught by such beautiful teachers, all the participants immediately became fired up, and got ready to fight it out, everyone here hoped that this time they would be the ones who would get the best result.
After the beautiful woman finished speaking, she paused for a moment, so as to let everyone there understand how important this 5th Written Round was, then she continued on with her gentle tone, “Today’s written exam is of three and a half hours long, of which you will be allowed to look at the topic of the exam for a full 3 hrs, but you will only get half an hour to answer the questions……”
When Ning Cheng heard that the exam was of three and a half hours, he was immediately surprised in his heart for a moment, as he thought why would it be so long? If that was the case, then wasn’t the exam practically equivalent to 7 full hours. But then when he heard that of these three and a half hours, three hours would be given to just look at the topic of the exam, and would only have half an hour to answer the questions, he immediately became even more confused.
“Although the topic of this written exam is different from the topics of the four previous exams, but I can assure you that the degree of difficulty is the same. The topics for the four previous written exams were: the basics of Talismans, Array Formations, Crafting (Weapon Refining) and Restrictions. So today we want to test your familiarity with the knowledge of Alchemy, of course, it would only cover the basic materials.”
The beautiful woman had just finished speaking, when a lot of discussions started to spring up, even Ning Cheng also frowned. He had never bothered to study the basics of Alchemy, as the matter stood, wouldn’t the people who studied Alchemy profit greatly in this test? No wonder the top scores in the previous four exams were so different from each other, the people who had achieved the top score were definitely the one who knew about those topics thoroughly.
When the beautiful woman saw that there was quite a lot of noise, she immediately raised her hands and started to exude an immense pressure, “After everybody looks at the topic, you will come to know, that even if some of the people here have studied some Alchemy, they will also stand with you on the starting line. Of course, it does not rule out that there might be some people among you who have learned about the topic beforehand and studied up on it, and even if I bring out the topic they would have already known about it. So there would always be some people who would get a high score, that is because they had tried hard enough for them to get such a chance.”
Thinking about it, even if some people knew more about the topic, if a person worked hard and got an opportunity, wouldn’t the 5 Star Academy only chose a disciple who was the stronger of the two?
The beautiful woman saw that everyone seems to have understood her point, and said with a smile, “Everybody, you do not have to keep looking at my face, please look at the tables in front of you, each table has a Projection Array Formation inscribed on it. This time the topic we have chosen is from the basics of Alchemy and mainly focuses on Spiritual Grasses that are used in Alchemy. We have already recorded most of the major Spiritual Grasses used along with their colour, taste, form and texture, however due to time constraints we did not record all of the Spiritual Grasses, and as such the topic only has 4600 pages.”
“These 4600 pages of information about Spiritual Grasses are available on the Projection Array Formation on your desk and you would only be given three hours to read through it, and within these 3 hours you will have to remember as much as possible of these 4600 pages. After the three hours passes, the questions for the exam would be chosen at random from these 4600 pages……”
Almost every participant sucked in cool air, no wonder the scores of the previous tests were so low, trying to memorize the contents of 4600 pages in just 3 hours, this was extremely crazy.
Ning Cheng also turned gloomy like the others, and after hardly waiting for less than 5 seconds, immediately looked at the paper in front of him. Because Ning Cheng knew that the content on just one piece of paper here was similar to the content of two papers back on Earth. Moreover, not only the pages here were larger, even the characters were in extremely small print, it was really terrible.
Ning Cheng was just thinking to use his Spiritual Sense which was even more powerful than other cultivators and would easily help him commit things to his memory before the beautiful woman once again said, “Once the papers of the Spiritual Grasses come out, everybody please commit this to your memory, do not use your Spiritual Sense, as everything here is shielded from the use of Spiritual Sense. If you use your Spiritual Sense here, not only would you be able to see nothing, but even your mind will also turn blank for a few breaths of time.”
Not being able to use one’s Spiritual Sense, and having to completely rely on their own memories, Ning Cheng finally understood why his mind had gone blank for a moment before.
Ning Cheng thought to himself, with his powerful memory capabilities, he did not believe that he would be able to score less than 70 or 80 points.
“Well, introducing you all up to this point. I invite you all who are participating in this written exam to pay attention to your own tables, the projection will begin in a moment.”
Just as the beautiful woman finished speaking, Ning Cheng immediately saw that on the front of the table appeared the first page of the Spiritual Grass Manual which was packed with extremely dense characters, so at this point Ning Cheng did not dare to continue to think of anything else, and immediately started to commit the information about the Spiritual Grasses to his mind.
The first page was displayed only for five seconds, before it was replaced by the second page. The people with a poor memory, simply could not even memorize the first few lines of the first page, before the page was replaced by the next one.