***

“I can’t believe they actually defeated a Low-Stage Rank 4 Magical Beast! You were also right about Maria, Diana! She’s much stronger than she looks and acts! That looked like a Sword Art that she just performed and an incredibly powerful one at that. Also, all 5 people played their roles perfectly! It seems Mira makes an extraordinary leader. I wonder if she is just a natural or has plenty of practice?” One of the Elders watching Mira’s group said after they defeated the Rank 4 beast.

“Ahaha. I figured she was strong, but that was much stronger than I had anticipated.” Diana laughed awkwardly at the Elder’s comment.

“Well, I guess this means they pass this test. There is only one more test after this before the tournament. There should be no reason that Mira or Maria should fail the next test, so this essentially means that they are going to join the Battle Maiden Sect. I think we should start discussing Mira. Is it okay to allow someone like her into the Sect?” Another Elder spoke and everyone else agreed. They then began to discuss Mira along with watching some of the other groups that are still hunting.

***

4 days went by quickly for Mira’s group. They did nothing but cultivate for the next 4 days since there was nothing else to do. Well, everyone except Maria cultivated. She wanted to play around with the beast companions. Rhydian was the most playful out of all of them, but playing with Rhydian is almost a death wish so the other 3 beasts didn’t even think about getting close to her. She’s too strong and doesn’t know how to control that strength. Mira decided to not pay attention to anything and will just stop cultivating in 4 days to see if Maria is dead or not.

After 4 days, Mira opened her eyes because it was almost the end of the test. She looked around and noticed Maria laying on the ground covered in bruises while Rhydian is standing on her chest and staring at her face while wagging her tails.

“Rhydian.” Mira called out and Rhydian looked over towards Mira and immediately launched herself off of Maria. This caused Maria to roll around like a ragdoll. Mira knew this was coming so she was able to dodge Rhdyian’s headbutt and grabbed her by the scruff of the neck when she flew past Mira.

“Let’s go, everyone.” Mira said as she got up and started walking towards the area the middle-aged lady released them into the forest. Everyone opened their eyes and got up to start following Mira. The only one left was Maria. She just groaned and had Vulcan help her up then started to slowly follow Mira.

It didn’t take them that long to make it back to the area where they started. There were a couple of groups already waiting there and they immediately looked over towards Mira’s group. Then they started whispering about them since their group had 2 crazy people in it.

“Isn’t that the group with the 2 women that beat each other up? I overheard that one of them is a masochist. Maybe all of them are if they can have normal conversations while their bones are being broken.”

“Why is the blonde girl all beat up? Maybe she really is a masochist? The rest of their group isn’t beat up, so it’s a possibility.”

“That group looks incredibly strong. Even their beast companions are crazy strong. I wonder why I’ve never heard of them before?”

Mira’s group heard the other women talking about them and started giggling when they heard so many people talk about how Maria’s a masochist.

“I-I’m not a masochist! Look what you did, Mira! Telling people that I enjoy getting hurt! I’m forced into this! Forced!” Maria yelled as she tried to defend herself, but nobody believed her. The people that believed her the least were Nisha, Audra, and Celaine. With how Mira treated Celaine just because she couldn’t kill a beast, they couldn’t begin to think how Maria could stick with Mira for years. She had to either be crazy or a masochist. She didn’t seem crazy so the only other option was a masochist.

Maria kept pleading, but just got ignored.

More and more groups started to return. Before long, every group returned back to the starting point. Mira was a bit surprised to see every group return alive and with all of their people. She guessed that this is probably because these are all women. Guys have their useless pride and always try to show off, while women like to stay alive and only do what they know they are capable of. Of course, there are special cases where that is not true, but Mira guessed that probably 10% of these people would be dead by now if they were made of guys instead of women. The middle-aged lady from before then showed up again to announce the results of the group hunt.

“Congratulations for making it through the past week. I’m slightly surprised to see all of you back here alive. We have been watching over your groups for the past week to make sure that there is no cheating, but now we will be counting up your points like before. Remember, only the top 40 groups are able to move on with the Exam. This would usually be the case, but there is one group that actually killed a Rank 4 beast so they immediately pass this test and get to move on. That will only leave the top 39 groups able to move on with the Exam since they immediately pass. Mira’s group, please come up and show me your kill!” The middle-aged lady announced. Mira’s group then stood up and started walking up towards the middle-aged lady. Once they reached her, Mira took out the large corpse of the Mountain Bear along with its head. Everybody gasped when they saw the beast and felt the aura still coming off of it. It truly is a Rank 4 beast. The middle-aged lady started to examine it, but it only took a couple of seconds because she was told beforehand by the Sect Elders watching that Mira’s group had killed a Rank 4 beast.

“Very good! You can keep this corpse with you. Please move to the side over there and wait. Alright! We will now continue with scoring everybody. Please start making your way up and tell us the name of the leader in your group.” The middle-aged lady pointed to her side and Mira’s group walked over to wait.

There were 10 Sect Elders brought here to grade the groups so there ended up being 10 lines with around 50 groups in each line. The groups would walk up to the Elders and dump all of their kills in front of them. The Elder would then count off the cultivation and number killed at that stage, then write down the group leader’s name and score on a piece of wood.

It took several hours for the Elders to score all of the groups. Once all of the groups were scored, they took the top 40 groups and their scores and wrote that down on a separate piece of wood. Then they handed it to the middle-aged woman to announce the results.

“We now have the results of the top 40 groups. If you don’t hear your group listed here then you failed this test and are unable to continue with the rest of the Exam. If you hear your group please come forward and wait with the rest of the groups. The top score is from Nancy’s group with a score of 2462. Second is Lucy’s group with 2152 points. Third is…” The middle-aged lady started announcing the scores until the 39th group.

“…Last we have Mary’s group in 39th place with a score of 647. Congratulations to these 40 groups. Remember that if you didn’t hear your group then you didn’t pass. A different Elder will lead you back to the Sect and escort you out of the Exam site. I will lead the groups that passed back to the Sect to proceed with the rest of the Exam. Let’s go!” The middle-aged lady announced all of the groups that passed and went to the front of those 40 groups and started leading them back to the Sect. The 200 people that made up these 40 groups started running with her back to the Sect.

Meanwhile, all of the groups that failed had their heads down and were lightly crying. Some of them will be older than 30 in 3 more years and this was their last shot to join the Sect. Others felt bad that they made it this far and still couldn’t make it into the Sect, but this only renewed their determination to get stronger and work harder for the next Exam in 3 years. Another Sect Elder walked in front of the groups that failed and told them to start following her back to the Sect. Most were a little reluctant when they heard this, but it wouldn’t change the fact that they already lost.

***

A few hours later, the 200 people that passed the group hunting test made it back to the Sect. It was slightly before noon when they made it back.

“Now that we have made it back to the Sect, we will immediately move onto the next and final test. There will be a tournament after the test, but this is more for us so we can determine whether you will be an Outer, Inner, or Core Disciple. The tournament will not determine whether or not you can join the Sect. Enough with that! This final test is called the Endurance Test. What we are testing here is a bit different from the Test of Will and Strength Test. In the Test of Will, we tested how resilient you are to pain and your will to move past it, but in the Endurance Test, we will be testing the limits of your body. This is also not the same as the Strength Test. In the Strength Test, we wanted to see how much power your body can unleash in a single strike, but the Endurance Test will see how long you can last while being under enormous pressure. This also gives us a good idea of how long you can fight and how resilient your body is. To make this Test a bit fairer because people with higher cultivations can resist more than people with lower cultivations we have set it up so that the difficulty scales with the cultivation of each individual. The longer you can last, the better. Only 100 people can pass this test and remember that this is the last test. We have set up a Pressure Array on the Exam Site. Once we activate it, you will feel pressure start to weigh down on your body that is based on your current cultivation. Please spread out a bit and wait until we activate the formation.” The middle-aged lady announced the next test and the examinees started to spread out. Once all 200 people were spread out she announced the beginning of the test.

“Activating the array in 3, 2, 1! Start!”