Chapter 779 - Training Ground

The rules were simple. Everyone would start with a base point of one hundred. The participants would receive a hundred points for obtaining a jade token with an identical number, five points for those with a matching last number, and one point for a number that did not match in any way.

Upon entering the training ground, everyone would find someone with the same number or match the last number if it wasn't possible. This was the only way they could gain enough points to enter the top 5,000.

"We will now distribute the clothes, and it doesn't matter what number you receive, as it makes no difference. There's no advantage between number one and five thousand," Qu Su announced.

All twenty-five thousand sets of clothing were shuffled randomly and placed before the participants, who each picked a set. The participants were then divided into several groups, and each group wore clothing before leaving.

There was a jade token within each clothing, which matched the number on the clothes.

When it was Liu Wuxie's turn, he casually reached out to pick a set with the number 'seven' written on the back with a circle around it.

"You're not allowed to take it off once you put on the outfit until the examination ends. Hiding your number is also strictly forbidden!"

After collecting their outfits, none of the participants wore them immediately, knowing it would make them prime targets. They planned to put them on only after entering the training ground. From that point, their success over the next seven days would depend entirely on their skills and strategy.

"I’m number one hundred and fifty. What about you?" Liu Xin’er leaned over, curiosity lighting her eyes as she asked Liu Wuxie.

"Seven," Liu Wuxie replied. Liu Xin'er was the only person he could trust out of so many competitors.

"Let's hope that the other number sevens aren't too strong. If you can seize all their tokens, it should be enough for you to advance," Liu Xin'er said.

However, the challenge wouldn’t be simple. As Liu Wuxie hunted them, they would also be hunting him.

Liu Wuxie nodded, as that was precisely his plan. He planned on collecting all the number seven tokens before finding a quiet place to cultivate in peace for the remaining days.

As the participants discussed their strategies, a spiritual array with a groove at its center appeared on the platform.

"Step forward one by one," Qu Su instructed. "The teleportation array will send you directly into the training ground. You can roam freely, but avoid entering any area marked in yellow. The teleportation is random, and even we don’t know where you will land." His tone was brisk, emphasizing the urgency.

Ning Hai, as always, was the first to step forward. The moment he set foot on the array, a radiant glow enveloped him, and in an instant, he vanished, whisked away to an unknown location within the training grounds.

The number of participants on the platform decreased one by one, and those who were eliminated could only watch with envy.

Many of the eliminated had impressive cultivation, including dozens in the True Profound Realm. Even participants at the fifth- and sixth-level Nascent Transformation Realm had failed to qualify for the final stage, further fueling their bitterness.

Meanwhile, Miao Hanxuan sneered. He had initially planned on using some tricks to kill Liu Wuxie, but it seemed there was no need to lower himself. He could foresee that Liu Wuxie was going to be nothing more than a corpse by the end of the trial.

"I'll go in first," Liu Xin'er said before stepping onto the teleportation array. The radiant light enveloped her, and she disappeared. Liu Lin had already entered, leaving only a few participants still waiting on the platform.

Liu Wuxie turned to give his father and grandfather a nod. They couldn't speak to each other but could relay their messages through expression. After he was done, he stepped onto the teleportation array and allowed the light to wrap around him before he vanished.

When he opened his eyes, he was no longer on the platform but in a primitive mountain range.

"What an ancient mountain range!" Liu Wuxie didn't know where he was and could only wait for the trial to conclude so that Qu Su could gather the participants in a designated area.

Only the examiners knew how massive the training ground was. The participants were to turn back when they encountered places marked in yellow, as failing to do so would result in forfeiting the assessment.

The training ground was a designated battleground where the disciples would fight among themselves, stealing jade tokens to accumulate points. Since the participants had been teleported randomly, they were scattered across the vast wilderness.

However, some unlucky blokes ran into other disciples when they came in and had their jade tokens snatched from them. Even losing one's jade token didn't mean elimination, as they could still snatch jade tokens from others to regain points and resume the assessment.

"The test officially begins now, and all participants must gather at the Star River Valley on the eighth day, and that will mark the end of the assessment," Qu Su said, his voice echoing throughout the battlefield under the amplification of spiritual arrays. Everyone heard the message no matter where they were.

"Star River Valley? Where's that?" Liu Wuxie muttered. But he soon noticed something peculiar: a rough map of the training ground was on some trees and rocks. These were likely meant to help the participants to orient themselves.

It didn't take long before he made a strange discovery: They weren't the only ones there; powerful profound beasts also lived there. This meant this training ground was an actual section of wilderness that was temporarily repurposed for the assessment.

This year's recruitment test was much harder than in previous years. In previous years, participants only had to fight each other. But this time, they also had to beware of profound beasts lurking in the shadows.

Tightening his grip on the Heretic Blade, Liu Wuxie leaped onto a tall tree and extended his divine sense.

"What ancient laws... my divine sense can only extend out for ten meters..." Liu Wuxie muttered, shocked by the manipulation of spatial laws in the training ground. The restriction prevented him from detecting anything beyond ten meters, forcing him to rely solely on his vision.

This limitation drastically increased the difficulty of the trial. If an enemy hid behind a tree just beyond his range, he wouldn’t sense them, making ambushes a serious threat. With the odds stacked against him, Liu Wuxie was left with two choices:

The first was to stay hidden and wait out the trial, a passive approach that would likely lead to elimination.

The second was to seek out the other disciples and snatch their points. Based on the past recruitment tests, five hundred points would secure advancement into the academy.

Liu Wuxie vanished from the tree to seek higher ground.

Meanwhile, the ten examiners had vanished from the platform and reappeared on the training ground. They could clearly see every participant's movements.

"Someone ran into each other so quickly?" Not long after they arrived at the training ground, the battle for the jade tokens had already begun. As killing wasn't restricted this year, the intensity of the fight had escalated to a whole new level.

A sword aura shot towards Liu Wuxie when he landed on a tree branch. Someone had been waiting there in ambush.

"You're courting death!" Liu Wuxie growled. He was enraged as he detested ambushes the most. He believed that if someone wanted to fight, they should do so openly.

The Heretic Blade's power had increased dramatically after becoming an origin artifact, and the incoming sword was shattered with a hack.

The sixth-level Nascent Transformation Realm cultivator standing before Liu Wuxie froze in disbelief, his eyes widening as he watched his weapon disintegrate. But the initial shock quickly twisted into a sneer. "It’s you!" he spat, his gaze narrowing.

This man wore the number nineteen, an utterly unrelated number to Liu Wuxie. Even if they fought and took each other's jade tokens, it would only yield them a single point. But a point was still a point, and no one would let it slip away willingly.

Liu Wuxie had no idea who this person was, but everyone recognized him due to his recent exploits. Liu Lin had even made sure that everyone knew Liu Wuxie’s name, cleverly manipulating the situation to use others as tools to eliminate him.

"You intend to kill me?" Liu Wuxie's eyes turned cold. If the other party were willing to hand over his jade token obediently, he wouldn't mind sparing the other party's life.

"Kill you?" The youth’s sneer deepened, and his murderous intent flared. "Not only will I kill you, but I will seize your fortune and search your soul!" His greed was apparent—Liu Wuxie carried immense fortune, and killing him would grant access to it all.

"Since that's the case, you can die now," Liu Wuxie said. He wouldn't show mercy for someone who was courting death.

The youth swung another longsword at Liu Wuxie, who charged toward his opponent head-on instead of blocking the attack.

The ten examiners observed Liu Wuxie with curiosity.

"What is he trying to do?" a female elder asked, her brows furrowing. With the drastic difference in cultivation between him and the sixth-level Nascent Transformation Realm opponent, she assumed he might be adopting a more evasive strategy. Charging head-on would be no different from seeking death.

The moment she asked the question, Liu Wuxie had already appeared before the man, his speed reaching its peak. Before the man could react, the Heretic Blade flashed, slicing cleanly across his throat. The swift, decisive outcome left the ten examiners momentarily stunned.

"We’ve all underestimated his combat strength," one examiner muttered, shaking his head. They had initially believed Liu Wuxie’s abilities to be typical of someone in the Astral River Realm, but the gap between their assumptions and reality was now glaringly obvious—especially after Liu Wuxie had advanced to the ninth-level Astral River Realm.

Unless he faced someone in the True Profound Realm, most cultivators in the Nascent Transformation Realm posed little to no threat to him, though he couldn't rule out the possibilities of monstrous prodigies.

Liu Wuxie noticed that many of the participants in the Nascent Transformation Realm could fight those with higher cultivation than them.

After he ended his opponent's life, he rifled through his belongings and retrieved the jade token, tossing it into his interspatial ring. Killing one person for a point was too inefficient, and he didn't even bother disposing of the corpse, leaving it where it was. However, he did take the man's interspatial ring.

He pressed on and sharpened his focus to prevent any potential ambushes again.

Miao Hanxuan’s face darkened as he watched Liu Wuxie kill a sixth-level Nascent Transformation Realm cultivator in a single strike. The monstrous talent Liu Wuxie displayed was a threat that Miao Hanxuan couldn’t afford to ignore. If left unchecked, it could spell disaster. Liu Wuxie had to die—no matter what.

"I have something to attend to. I’ll be back shortly," Miao Hanxuan said calmly. The examiners were free to leave the training ground during the assessment as long as someone remained behind to supervise. They only needed to return by the morning of the eighth day.

None of the other examiners paid him any attention. It wasn’t unusual for examiners to leave early, especially on the first day, and most of them would likely take turns leaving by tomorrow.

After he left, Miao Hanxuan didn't return to the Heavenly Spirit Celestial Academy and delved deeper into the mountain range instead. He took out a weird spiritual talisman and began igniting it, forming seals with his hand and guiding them to the training ground.

A strange phenomenon soon followed as images began to appear in the minds of many participants.

"Liu Wuxie...is in the Pinewood Grove!" The message appeared in everyone's mind, broadcasting Liu Wuxie's exact location to the other participants.