Chapter 370: Second Test
Chapter 370: Second Test
Inside a vast chamber.
"Instructor Tang, I leave the rest to you." The elder nodded at the person who was standing at the top of a rectangular duelling ground.
"Yes, Elder Gu." Instructor Tang nodded in an appreciative manner as his eyes soon fell on the group of a hundred candidates he would be testing in the following days.
Seeing that Elder Gu had left using the array, Instructor Tang pointed behind himself and asked in a resounding voice, "Can any of you tell me what it is that you see behind my back?"
One of the candidates enthusiastically raised their voice and answered, "I-It’s a wall, Instructor! A mountain wall, to be precise, and it’s a part of one of the several peaks that surround the Sect’s inner premises."
Hearing this, Instructor Tang immediately met the candidate’s eyes and, while at it, made sure to stare at him just enough to make the other party feel uncomfortable.
"I-I may be wrong, so forgive me for my ignorance."
Under the Instructor’s penetrating gaze, the candidate couldn’t hold out for a few extra seconds and started doubting his own words.
Instructor Tang’s expression remained unreadable as he saw those actions. A second later, his eyes fell on the rest of the candidates as he said, "He’s not completely wrong. The wall behind is indeed the bottom part of one of the twelve mountains that surround our clan. However..."
As he said that, his gaze went back to the enthusiastic candidate, who was feeling a bit relieved after knowing that he didn’t make a mistake.
"...I wasn’t asking about the wall but the hundreds of caves that have been carved on it." Disappointment was evident in Instructor Tang’s eyes as he mentioned those words.
"..."
A wave of embarrassment immediately turned the candidate’s face red, as he felt several piercing gazes from the other candidates directed right at him.
Meanwhile, Instructor Tang just momentarily shook his head a little to clear out his thoughts and continued, "These caves which you see behind me, each of them is sufficiently sized to accommodate a single individual, and it’s exactly inside these caves that each one of you will be spending the next fifteen days in."
Murmurs spread the moment Instructor Tang’s words landed in everyone’s mind, which was immediately controlled by his ear-piercing voice.
"Silence!"
Seeing that everyone had quietened down, he nodded to himself and continued, "In these fifteen days, your task in this stage is simple. Gain as much understanding of the weapon which I’ll be assigning to you in these fifteen days.
On the sixteenth day, I’ll be personally exchanging moves with each one of you to test your comprehension level. If it meets the required level, you’ll be cleared for the next stage. If not, then you’ll be going back to where you came from. Understand?"
"Yes!"
Everyone answered simultaneously, hearing those words as several different thoughts appeared in each one of their minds regarding the test they were about to go through, as a wave of nervousness began to take over them.
In order to curb this nervousness, some even began talking with others in an attempt to get some last-minute tips or guidance.
CLAP!
"That’s enough talking around," Instructor Tang clapped his hands and asked them all to line up in front of him.
"Keep coming one after the other and tell me the weapon you’re proficient in," he said before directing his attention at the candidate standing in front of the line.
"You’re proficient in?" he asked the man in his late twenties who was standing in front of him.
"Bow..." the man answered.
Hearing this, Instructor Tang scanned the man’s entire body using his spirit sense before nodding to himself.
The next second, a great sword flew in his direction from the hundreds of weapons that were lined across the walls of the chamber.
"This is your designated weapon. Learn it well." Instructor Tang said while handing the sword out to him the next second.
"This..." Being handed a melee weapon which was completely outside of what he was familiar with, doubt immediately began to arise in the candidate’s eyes.
"Now don’t waste my time and stand over there."
Not giving him the time to respond, Instructor Tang shoved him to his right and began addressing the other candidate the very next moment.
One after the other, candidates kept getting handed weapons they had no idea what to do with. There was no exception to this rule, even for Yi Chen.
"Weapon?" Instructor Tang’s words rang in Yi Chen’s ears.
"Sword..." Yi Chen answered honestly.
He had already witnessed what had happened to the few who tried to play it smart and reported the wrong weapon, all in order to get a weapon of their choice.
’I have no thoughts of getting disqualified like those guys, and most probably he’ll hand me a ranged weapon. With repeated practice, I don’t see how I won’t be able to gain the required understanding of it.
If my spiritual energy was under fifty, then I would indeed be a little doubtful, but thanks to the increase I’ve gained from those ghostly beasts and the Godly Meridians, there’s no room for doubt in my mind.
With this thought, Yi Chen patiently waited to be handed a ranged weapon while getting his body scanned by Instructor Tang’s spiritual sense.
However, instead of a ranged weapon like bows, daggers, throwing knives, and the like, what he received was completely out of his expectation.
"A...mace?"
"Yes, now go and stand there." Instructor Tang immediately gestured Yi Chen towards the side in an impatient manner before repeating the process for a dozen more candidates.
"A mace..." Zhou Mei, who was curiously playing with two throwing knives in her hand, muttered with a forced smile the moment she saw the weapon in Yi Chen’s hands.
"Y-Yes...a mace." Yi Chen muttered while looking at the dull-looking weapon, which didn’t even carry half the elegance that was present in other weapons.
’Moreover...how the hell am I going to practice with this thing? Just hitting it on the ground like a hammer?... Even a pickaxe is more versatile than this.’
Yi Chen whined in his heart, clearly not having a good impression of the weapon he was forced to learn in the next fifteen days.