Chapter 28 (1/2)

After passing the second round of exams and being commended for having an iron will by Lu Chongyang, Zhou Bai became the center of admiration and attention of many applicants.

As he walked to the examination site for the third round with Jing Xiu’s support, he shouted to Christina in his mind the entire way, “Hey, you stupid cat! Did you know something at the beginning of the test?”

“I’m just a little kitty,” Christina said. “What would I know about Tao practice?”

“Then what were you laughing about?” Zhou Bai asked. “And besides, didn’t you say this place felt very familiar?”

“It does feel familiar,” Christina mumbled. “I feel like I’ve lived here before… Turn left up ahead… That should be a cafeteria… I remember the food there being pretty good…”

After turning, they stopped and stared at a dumpster before them. Christina said awkwardly, “That’s strange… Did I remember wrong?”

Zhou Bai’s lips twitched. This isn’t the first time this stupid cat has been wacky. I’ll take everything she says with a grain of salt.

“Brother Zhou, are you looking for something?” Jing Xiu asked him.

“No, no, no,” he responded. “Let’s go quickly so we’re not late.”

The site of the third round of exams was in a large indoor classroom, where 1,200 seats were neatly arranged.

In front of the seats, five proctors levitated in the air with their legs crossed. One of them was Lu Chongyang.

An elder in the center of them stroked his beard, smiling, and began speaking to the 1,200 applicants. “Everyone, I’m very happy to see you here. I’m the vice-principal of Donghua Tao Academy, Zhao Shouyi. I’m also one of the five judges for this third round of exams.”

Zhao Shouyi looked kindly at all 1,200 applicants. In his eyes, these people were the future of humankind, the central force in a few decades.

With a wave of his hand, a scroll painting slowly unrolled in midair.

The moment they saw the contents of the scroll, all 1,200 applicants went into a daze—they felt as if they saw something on the scroll, but also as if they didn’t.

A mysterious, indescribable feeling burst in their hearts, making their hair stand on end, as they felt countless ideas spewing out of them.

At the same time, Zhao Shouyi said in a clear voice, “During the last test, everyone reviewed the three main codes of Tao practice. The first one is that you must not face the Heavenly Tao directly. Does everyone know why?”

A bald young man began to speak. “The Heavenly Tao became distorted and Spark became polluted 120 years ago.”

“The Heavenly Tao that used to be difficult to summarize and describe with words began releasing vast amounts of information, which could be read and understood directly.

“This made the Heavenly Tao less difficult to grasp. It became endless, concrete knowledge that could be described word by word.

“But among this knowledge were vast amounts of distorted, evil, and fallen knowledge. Just the act of reading it would cause an ordinary person to go insane.

“Even for practitioners, there was great risk in reading it directly. That’s why the big sects united and created Tao academies. They censored all the information spurting out of the Heavenly Tao and compiled it into text that normal people can understand and read safely.

“Then independent Taoist Qingjing brought up the three main codes of Tao practice. The first one is that you must not face the Heavenly Tao directly.”

Hearing the bald man speak, Zhou Bai was deep in thought.