Chapter 316 - There Was Never a Thing Called Absolute Fairness (1/2)

Rows of young men and women were seen taking ordeals of illusions in the plaza under the hot sun.

Young men and women would emerge out of their trials every two hours, with some wearing beaming smiles and others, ashen looks.

“I did it! I made it into the Heavenly Palace!”

“How could this be? Why wasn’t I able to tough it out?”

“This is impossible! This is outrageous!”

A great majority of those who emerged wore glum, sullen looks on their faces, completely unable to swallow the fact that they failed to make the cut. All of them had been lauded by many to be geniuses before they came, and they found it to be utterly impossible to get eliminated so easily.

Yet, those people failed at the trial of illusions, which was the last round of the series of selections.

Lu Xuan himself formulated the illusory scenes. All of those young men and women would then be subjected to all manner of tests in the illusions, be it in terms of courage, resilience, character, tendency for betrayal, and more.

Only a handful managed to pass the test, and there were even several batches that saw none being able to make it out successfully.

In a high-rise building within the Heavenly Palace base, Duan Shan and the rest of the 12 military governors gathered around.

As the first among the disciples that the Heavenly Palace took it, all of them came back to hold the fort, although none would come to cause trouble.

“Great way of going about with the selections. This would easily filter out all those who are either of impure intent, shaky resolve, and cowardly.”

Duan Shan commented as he watched batches after batches of young men and women who either passed or failed to make the cut below.

None of them knew how Lu Xuan would go about with the selections before they came for the tests.

The series of tests was meant for selecting the best among the 200 thousand who came to join the Heavenly Palace, after all. Those who did not make it in the age and talent requirement were eliminated early, with all who remained being of the right age, the right talent, and possessing decent potential.

To the 12 military governors, all of those people were undoubtedly the best there could be found. Those young men and women would have been considered seed candidates to be high on the priority list for further nurture, back in their respective sects and clans.

They even knew that the other organizations that they originally belonged to, which included even the likes of the Special Task Force, the Dragon Fang Special Forces, and several others, sent representatives to the scene to select potential candidates from those who failed to make the cut.

It was especially so in the case of the organizations serving the government, as their capacities for fostering capable people were so high that they could have taken in all 200 thousand of them.

The feat of selecting 2000 among them all was deemed too difficult to be executed by many.

After all, all of those people were at different points of training. Some had only begun to train, while some others were considered quite accomplished as they were. They were also a great many cultivators who were at Baodan Grandmaster and Martial Arts Legend levels as well.

If they were to be selected purely based on their combat prowess, the processes would have been extremely unfair to those who had only begun to train.

No one expected Lu Xuan to come up with such a way of selecting the candidates.

All of them knew that all those people would be subjected to many trials and tribulations in the illusions, in a very short period.

While it was made clear to all of them that it was all just illusions, the process nonetheless served well for honing the subject in question. It was especially given that the true, original character of those who were subjected to the illusions would be laid bare for all to see. There was simply no way of concealing their true character.

All those who made it past the trials of the illusory formation were no doubt the best among the elites to make it past the test for joining the Heavenly Palace.

Be it resilience, character, courage, and whatever other factors involved, only the best among the best would be able to make the cut.

In truth, it was made clear to everyone that only those who were of extreme talents would be able to make it that far in the first place. As such, talents were no longer the highest among the list of priorities in that test.

On the contrary, the quality of their character was deemed to be of utmost importance instead.

In Lu Xuan’s perspective, talents were hardly of any importance at such a level, unless the one in question was someone whose talents were far beyond reasoning, like Yun Ling’er. Talents would otherwise be a minor factor in one’s path in cultivation from then on out.

Lu Xuan even had the means to boost the innate talents of all those people involved. He had all manner of alkahestry resources and cultivation methods up for the job at his disposal, after all.

Talents could be transformed, but not necessarily so with one’s character and temperament.