Chapter 196: Qingyun Sect Examination (Part 6)
Fifteen minutes later, the elimination round came to an end.
Of the ten thousand who had entered the waiting ground, only one thousand remained. Surprisingly, both Su Ji and Su Gang had held on until the very last minute before their legs finally gave out and they lost consciousness. But by then, the aura had already been withdrawn. They had passed.
All five of the Su family's talents had cleared the elimination round. That alone placed them above many third-rate forces who had arrived with larger delegations and left with fewer survivors. Several had only two or three participants remaining. Among the unrated forces, some had one. Some had none.
The elimination had been brutal—and it had made everyone present quietly re-evaluate what it meant to join a Great Sect.
Healing pills and Qi recovery potions were distributed to those who had passed, giving their injury time to stabilise. A handful had genuinely been hurt—those with lower cultivation bases who had refused to go down on sheer willpower, and had paid for it in blood and torn meridians.
Once Huo Changfeng was satisfied that those who was injured or lost consciousness had returned to full condition, he drifted forward with his familiar easy smile.
"Congratulations on passing the elimination round!" he announced, voice carrying easily across the ground. "You'll now go through a series of tests. Whether you pass or fail will determine if you're worthy of joining the Outer Court."
"The rules are simple," Bai Tianhu said, moving to hover at Huo Changfeng's right shoulder. His voice had none of the warmth. "First—cultivation base. Only those at 7th level Martial Disciple Realm and above can join the Outer Court."
Low sounds of dismay moved through the crowd. Many had known this requirement going in. Knowing it and hearing it confirmed aloud after surviving what they had just survived, were two different things.
Su Ji and Su Gang exchanged a glance and said nothing. Their fists tightened. Whatever the result, they had already decided—they were not going home.
Su Ruxue wiped sweat from her temple and allowed herself a quiet exhale. She had made it to the 7th level. It was enough.
"Don't relax yet," Bai Tianhu said, his silver eyes cutting through the crowd as though he had seen the exhales and decided to address them personally. "Reaching the 7th level doesn't guarantee entry. Next—talent."
Duan Fei drifted to Huo Changfeng's left, her emerald hanfu catching the light as she settled into position.
"Talent is everything in cultivation," she said, her voice unhurried and effortlessly carrying. "The Qingyun Sect accepts only four-star talent and above."
Dozens of faces went pale. Some had just steadied themselves against the cultivation requirement, hoping to improvise—become a servant disciple—only to find a second wall directly behind it. The hope of at least entering the Ashenveil Peak—still dim, still possible, flickered for a moment under that angelic voice before several let it die entirely.
"And finally," Huo Changfeng boomed, his voice landing like a thunderclap, "bone age. Any participant who is not under twenty will be eliminated—regardless of what the other two steles say."
A different kind of silence followed. Elder Gu Lie hadn't been bluffing after all.
"Let us begin."
Huo Changfeng extended his right hand. Bai Tianhu followed—rough and direct. Duan Fei followed—precise and unhurried.
"Raise the Three Steles!"
The three Grandmasters shouted in unison.
The air shifted immediately. Intense. Profound. The temperature dropped.
Whoosh!
Blue array circles and rune symbols ignited across the ground beneath the feet of dozens of startled participants—erupting from the stone with a cold, brilliant light.
"Step away from the formation!"
Elder Gu Lie's voice cut through the panic. The participants snapped out of their daze and scrambled to the sides.
The moment they cleared the range, the ground beneath the circles began to tremble. Stone cracked. Dust and debris shot outward. From within the fractured earth, three massive steles rose—slow, deliberate, shaking the waiting ground with every inch of their ascent until they stood fully upright.
"What is happening?!"
"Brother Tianhao—what is that?" Wang Bing asked, eyes widening.
"The Trinity Appraisal Array," Su Tianhao said. "It's used to store multiple constructs underground, kept stable by a unified bonding array beneath the surface. The system itself isn't particularly difficult to design or maintain—but only a force with genuine resources and institutional patience would bother constructing something like this."
"It might not impress you," Wang Bing said, turning back to the steles with undisguised wonder, "but it's remarkable."
The circular array formations had dissolved. In their place stood the three steles—solid, seamless, connected to the ground as though they had always been there and the earth had simply chosen now to reveal them.
Su Tianhao studied them with narrowed eyes. The runes and array symbols covering each one were complex, intricate, and distinct—each stele a different system entirely. With his knowledge of inscriptions already rivalling a grade four inscription master, he read them easily without difficulty.
The first was the Qi Measuring Stele—designed to draw out and gauge one's spiritual energy to determine cultivation base. The second was the Aptitude Rating Stele—functionally similar to the talent orb used during Su Tianhao's talent testing ceremony, but more sensitive and more accurate. The third was the Bone Age Discernment Stele, built to read the physical age recorded in bone structure, immune to any cultivation technique designed to obscure it.
"Proceed with the tests," Huo Changfeng said.
Elder Gu Lie stepped forward. His eyes moved across the crowd with the slow deliberateness of someone who had already made decisions. Then his finger extended, pointing at a frail young man standing near the far edge.
"You. Step forward."
The young man flinched. "Y-Yes, sir!"
He moved with nervous steps, drawing a few quiet snickers and pitying looks from those nearby.
"Elder Xie Ning," Elder Gu Lie said, gesturing toward the steles. "Please do the honours."
Elder Xie Ning—the female Elder from the Silverblade Peak who had muttered about Gu Lie's sadism not an hour ago—nodded with furrowed brows and guided the young man forward.
"Take a deep breath," she said, gesturing to the first stele. "Place your hand on the Qi Measuring Stele. It will reveal your cultivation base."
The young man gulped. His trembling hand found the stone surface.
The array symbols ignited immediately—a radiant glow spreading outward as the stele drew his spiritual energy up and forward, causing his aura to explode without warning.
7th level Martial Disciple Realm.
The characters shone clearly on the stone. The aura the young man now radiated confirmed it.
Elder Gu Lie's brow furrowed slightly, he hadn't expected the outcome, and hadn't checked beforehand.
Elder Xie Ning smiled and gestured to the second stele. "Place your hand on the Aptitude Rating Stele. It will reveal your talent grade."
If one looks closely, nine star-shaped engravings sat beneath the array symbols, faint and easy to miss at first glance. The moment the young man's hand touched the stone, they began to ignite—one by one, rising from nothing into blazing gold.
One. Two. Three. Four.
"Four-star talent," Elder Xie Ning announced.
The young man's shoulders dropped with relief. The nervousness drained from his face, replaced by barely contained excitement.
"One more," she said, her expression carefully neutral—though the knowing quality in her eyes suggested she already knew what the third stele would say. "Place your hand on the Bone Age Discernment Stele. This one will decide whether you walk into the Outer Court today or walk back down the mountain."
A thousand pairs of eyes fixed on him as his hand touched the final stone.
Whoosh!
A flash of light—more intense than the others—washed across the array symbols and spread over his skin. For just a moment, the flesh of his hand seemed to thin, bones and veins visible beneath the surface like shadows through paper.
Then the light faded. Two characters appeared on the stele, clear and steady.
17
"Seventeen years old," Elder Xie Ning confirmed. She turned to him with a composed expression. "Congratulations. You've officially joined the Outer Court."
---
The test continued.
One by one, participants stepped forward. The results told an honest and frequently unkind story about the cultivation world's distribution of talent.
Most landed at four stars—the minimum threshold. Enough to enter, but not enough to stay relevant.
Some fell short. Three stars. Two stars. Cultivation base cleared, bone age confirmed, but talent remained a wall that wouldn't bulge. They left in different ways—some quietly, some breaking down completely.
Several were disqualified by bone age alone. The stele made no exceptions and offered no sympathy. They were simply escorted out with heavy warnings.
Five-star results drew murmurs. Each one earned recognition before the exam moved on.
Then the Su family's turn came.
Su Ji stepped forward first, composed in the deliberate way of someone who already knew the outcome. The Qi Measuring Stele confirmed 6th level Martial Disciple Realm. The Aptitude Rating Stele lit four stars. Bone age—sixteen.
"Failed on cultivation base," Elder Xie Ning said flatly. A pause. "But your potential is real. You can remain in the Ashenveil Peak as a servant disciple—or return next year. The choice is yours."
"I'll stay," Su Ji said almost immediately, fists clenched at his sides.
"Good choice."
He stepped aside. Jaw set. Eyes already forward.
Su Gang's results were almost identical—6th level, four stars, sixteen. He moved to stand beside Su Ji without a word. There was no need for it.
Su Ruxue came next. She placed her hand on the first stele with composed steadiness. 7th level Martial Disciple Realm—the minimum, exactly met. The crowd already have dozens of 7th levels so there was no particular reaction.
The second stele lit four stars.
Bone age confirmed at sixteen.
"Pass," Elder Xie Ning smiled and the exam simply moved on.
Su Ruxue stepped aside. She had been among the top three talents of the Su family—praised, admired, looked up to by many. Here she was just another disciple passing the minimum requirements, average in a crowd of a thousand. She smiled wryly.
Then her expression hardened.
She didn't need applause. She needed results. And results were something she had always known how to build.
Su Jian stepped forward.
He moved to the first stele with the deliberate ease of someone who had done his preparation a hundred times over in his mind. His hand touched the stone.
The glow that followed was immediate and intense—brighter than anything the stele had produced all morning. Heads turned instinctively across the waiting ground.
9th level Martial Disciple Realm.
Murmurs swept the crowd. The Elders' expressions shifted, spectators straightening, a few exchanging quick looks. Peak-stage Martial Disciple. This was a good talent.
Su Jian felt the shift in the air, the praise and awe, and allowed himself a moment of it. He turned involuntarily to where Su Tianhao to see if he was watching. He was not.
Su Tianhao and Wang Bing stood side by side in casual conversation. As if the examination were background noise neither is them needed to acknowledge.
Su Jian's jaw tightened. "Damnit!" he muttered under his breath and moved to the second stele.
One star. Two. Three. Four. Five.
A beat.
Six.
"Six-star talent," Elder Xie Ning beamed, her voice carrying a genuine weight it hadn't had all morning.
The crowd erupted. Peak-stage Martial Disciple, six-star talent. The kind of result that was enough to turn heads.
From above, Huo Changfeng's grin widened with genuine appreciation. Bai Tianhu gave a single approving nod. Duan Fei's gaze moved to Su Jian with the professional attention she reserved for things worth watching.
Bone age confirmed at sixteen.
Su Jian stepped aside to applause and cheering from the spectators around the edge of the ground.
But he felt none of it, not anymore.
His fists clenched as he took his place among those who had passed. His eyes carrying none of the excitement they had, but something deeper, a fierce hunger to prove himself.
'I will make you see me... brother.'
---
The examination continued. Four stars was the floor. Five drew murmurs. Six drew real attention.
Then a rogue cultivator stepped forward.
No sect emblem. No clan colours. Grey robes, worn at the hem. A face that clearly showed it has spent more time in forests than in training halls, and have walked through it transformed.
The first stele lit.
9th level Martial Disciple Realm.
The second stele followed.
Seven stars.
The third stele confirmed—sixteen years old.
The waiting ground went completely silent.
Then—BOOM!
The crowd erupted with a symphony of voices and animated discussions.
Seven stars. Rogue cultivator. Sixteen years old. No backing, no resources, no sect foundation, no family technique. Just raw, uncut potential standing in worn clothes standing on a mountain it had climbed without assistance.
Bai Tianhu drifted forward.
"Your name."
"Chen Mu," the young man said. His voice was quiet, but his eyes held the quiet fire of a man who had gone through trails most his age could only imagine.
Bai Tianhu looked at him for a moment.
"I have high hopes for you, Chen Mu."
The crowd gasped. Bai Tianhu—who hadn't offered a personal word to anyone all morning—had just spoken directly to a rogue cultivator with a compliment.
Su Tianhao turned to the young man, his golden eyes carrying quiet curiosity. Although Chen Mu had same cultivation base with Su Jian, his potential was a different matter entirely. Without clan support, he was equal. What happens once he starts receiving sect resources?
Su Jian thought the same, he glanced at Chen Mu with the focused intensity of a man who had found a rival
But where Su Jian found a rival, Su Tianhao saw a young man with potential and deep scars to heal. To him, Chen Mu wasn't a threat, no one was.
"What do you think?" Wang Bing muttered from behind him.
Su Tianhao averted his gaze, "he has real potential, but a haunting past."
In many ways Chen Mu reminds him of himself during that one year of isolation in Fei Wu quarter. The emotional numbness, the cold detachment, the stubborn resolve to pursue what he had lost—he saw all that in Chen Mu's eyes too—something Elder Bai Tianhu had seen as well.
Elder Gu Lie observed the young man with an expression that for once held something close to genuine intrigue. This result hadn't been part of his calculations.
A few participants who had been watching closely were beginning to notice the pattern. Elder Gu Lie hadn't been calling names at random. He had been building deliberately—lesser results first, stronger ones held back, the crowd's anticipation sharpened with each round. But Chen Mu had arrived outside the expected sequence. An interruption. A variable that hadn't been accounted for.
The examination was nowhere near finished.
And Elder Gu Lie's eyes were already moving again.