Chapter 137 – Round One (2/2)

Ye Wei glanced at the runes sequence structure briefly. He then closed his eyes to feel the energy flow with his Soul Sensitivity, ‘considering its many flaws, this is a powerful stance!’ he immediately realized why refining Quadruple Spirit Sword was chosen to be the first test. He noticed that the stance could be refined by different approaches. Therefore, the task could have more than one correct answer.

It did not take long before Ye Wei picked one of the paths and began to refine Quadruple Spirit Sword.

Time flew by fast; the incense stick Zuo Qiu Ming held in his hand turned to ash on the floor.

“Time’s up! Everybody’s hands down!” his hoarse voice rumbled in the contestants’ ears, shocking them out of their meditative thoughts.

Out of all the twenty-two contestants, eight looked dreadful while the rest looked either satisfied or ecstatic.

“Any volunteers to present the result?” Zuo Qiu Ming’s strict, judgemental gaze landed on the group of contestants.

“I will go first then!” Lu Feng smiled and casually walked out of the flock. He swiped his arm sideways effortlessly, and eighty-three runes appeared in a flash. A total of four twinkling spectral swords came alive. The swords floated between himself and Zuo Qiu Ming.

“Now condense!” Lu Feng’s gaze became focused and cold. The four spectral sword merged and became only two swords. Both of them were four feet long; their energy exceeded when they were in their previous form.

“Peak high-level stance!” the participants were left in awe while watching surges of Qi bursting out of the spinning swords in the air.

‘How could he upgrade the stance all the way to advanced high-level!? I found it challenging just to improve it by a level as requested in such short time!” one of the returning participants mumbled to himself. He was obviously deeply shocked and envious by Lu Feng’s mastery in rune knowledge.

“Good. This youthful man is not just a handsome face…”

“Brother Lu, impressive stuff!”

“I think I just became a fan!”

The three flatterers were even more humbled than they were before the beginning of the exam Of course, as adulators, they would take any opportunity to befriend Lu Feng. They made sure he heard every fawning word they could come up with.

Lu Feng replied with an indifferent smile.

“Pass!”

Zuo Qiu Ming nodded at Lu Feng with an appreciating look. He approved the speed and quality of the refinement and thought that Lu Feng’s talent was impressive considering the ridiculously short amount of time he gave the participants to finish the task.

He was impressed, but his experience of hosting the entrance exam reminded him that the first task was the easiest of the three. Throughout the years, he had seen many peerlessly talented contestants fall to the soul sensitivity test and most notably the stance creation test.

“Next!” Zuo Qiu Ming shouted.

One by one, the contestants went up and showed what they managed to do with the stance in front of everyone else, out of the twenty who were called up by Zuo Qiu Ming, eleven of them did not pass the test.

As the first test was the easiest, Zuo Qiu Ming was a little stunned that half of the contestants were eliminated by it.

“Little man it’s your turn now!” Zuo Qiu Ming said with a curious smile on his face. Never had he seen a child of such a young age take part in the entrance exam in his whole career. In his mind, he was impressed enough by how Ye Wei had obtained the letter of recommendation from Master Yi as informed earlier by Li Xue.

Even though he was impressed, he mumbled to himself, “Hmm, Lu Feng did exceptionally well, we haven’t had participants scoring this high for at least half a year, regardless of age, I wonder if this kid will be the same?.”

Ye Wei calmly and confidently stepped forward. He held his breath, slowly extended his arms, and spread his fingers. Allowing his will-force and Qi travel smoothly in his hands, eighty-three runes bursted out from his calculated movements.

“Zoom! Zoom! Zoom!”

Zuo Qiu Ming and the participants who passed the test nodded as they saw four spectral swords appeared above Ye Wei’s head.

They were all surprised that such a young boy was able to reproduce the stance correctly at all! They never considered Ye Wei to be able to do anything else but just look more innocent and cuter than the rest of the participants.

“Very gifted indeed! When he becomes my age he could probably get through this with flying colors!” Oblivious to the teenager’s identity, Lu Feng was interested in Ye Wei joining the force he was trying to put together.

“Condense!” when everyone thought Ye Wei’s capability was limited by just learning the stance and using it, Ye Wei’s comparatively childish voice sounded in the side hall, the four swords merged to become two five feet long fiery blades.

“What is this smoothness and strength, this is certainly a high-level Spirit stance! This kid made it!” everyone widened their eyes in shock, overwhelmed by the act itself done by just a kid!.

‘I can accept the twenty-two-year-old bringing the stance up a level, but this kid is just sixteen!’ Zuo Qiu Ming’s smile grew larger, ‘advanced high-level… wait…’ he suddenly perceived that Ye Wei’s Quadruple Spirit Sword had a different Qi flow compared to the other refined stances he saw earlier.

‘The energy burst is not as fierce; nevertheless, this stance’s Qi is sustaining incredible well!’ Zuo Qiu Ming tried to identify what exactly made Ye Wei’s stance different than everyone else, but could not accurately pinpoint it.

“Not bad, not bad at all kid!” Zuo Qiu Ming walked up to Ye Wei, gently patted his shoulder, “you are very talented and interesting!” surprised by both Ye Wei’s age and talent.