Half an hour or two incense sticks worth of time had passed. And in that time, I was mentally prepared for the upcoming event. A group of alchemists donning similar robes stood at the front of the participants. They were five of them, four old-looking men and an elderly woman that all looked wise and calm. The five of them approached us and one of them moved ahead of the rest and coughed.

That single cough was so loud and yet at the same time felt natural. And was enough to quiet mutters of the audience. Having gained everyone’s attention, the old man rubbed at his beard and said, “So many participants. Though I admire the dedication of so many disciples of the martial arts, alchemy is not for everyone. We cannot accept everyone to partake in this tournament so we will be doing an elimination round.

Out of the five hundred and eighty participants here, only one hundred will partake in the alchemy challenge.”

More mutters sounded through the audience, and so did the participants, as worried looks on their faces was a sure tell at their incompetence, but a rare few had a confident look on their face, and among them, was Meng Hao and his little sweetheart Yan Song, though I doubt he is into her as she is into him. Matters of the heart are strange. Meng Hao’s apparent first love will always be the martial path, the girl was in for a rude and arduous undertaking if she was to win his cold heart.

As for many of the participants, the majority were worried, scared, and unknowing of what’s going to happen.

“First trial will be a test of your mental ability and general knowledge. An alchemist should know by heart a vast majority of herbs and plants. And since many of you have not come from the same background, and received different teaching methods, it would be unfair to compare your knowledge against each other.” The man stopped and the woman of the group continued after him.

“We cannot compare a fish’s swimming ability to a monkey climbing the trees, we’re fair and just and we shall do the test so no one will complain. Your test will be presented before you as a series of names of herbs of a higher grade than you have seen, your test will be to memorize the herbs, their traits, and then you’ll be required to present a written paper of all the herbs that you have seen. You’ll have half an incense time to memories the 999 herbs of the seventh level!”

The woman said and then pulled a pile of papers from her sorting bag and then threw them in the air. The papers flew up then all came down, each participant had their own paper but they were all blank.

Another man took the lead in explaining the rest of the test.

“The test will begin once I show the first herb, then I’ll continue with showing more of the herbs until I finish all the 999 herbs, be warned though, it will be fast.” The alchemist said with a clear tone, there was no room for mercy in his voice as if this test was that of a life and death test instead of a memorization exam.

He then approached the participants and said, “All of you sit down,” and we did as he raised his hand and projected a small herb with red thorny petals. The projection was beautiful uncanny and bright enough for everyone to see.

A Flesh Severing Arcadia. That’s a really rare herb. Then a description of what the herb entailed appeared above it. The Flesh Severing Arcadia is a dangerous semi-sentient spiritual herb that will attack anyone that comes towards it with malicious intentions. Its extract can be used on weapons to increase their cutting power and it can also be used in a pill to create a restorative pill that can actually attach limbs once they were torn.

Yet the description disappeared almost the same time that it appeared. I didn’t have a problem with memorizing the herb, I had already seen it in the poison god’s book. Another spiritual herb appeared and another description, then more. The old man kept showing holographs of the spirit herbs using his own Qi and I was more impressed with him showing the herbs than the herbs themselves. Also, there were many mistakes in this man’s display. Something I wasn’t going to voice out, at least not now.

After half an incense time, the old man reached exactly the number 999, the final herb then he said to everyone, “You’ve all seen the herbs you’ll be tested about. Your task is to write them all down. Forgetting a spiritual herb will count as a point deducted, miss-writing a description will be counted as a point deducted. And taking longer than four incense time to present your paper will be counted as a failure.” The old man said, his tone unmoving as a mountain.

The fourth man spoke, “I’ll be here to guard against cheating, if one is caught cheating, they shall be executed!” his words, crisp clear and had no hint of hesitation whatsoever.

Now, this was cause for worry. Looking around, I was the only one uncomfortable with this. Cheating is equating to losing one’s head, damn, tests in a cultivation world are kinda ruthless.

The test began almost immediately, as I pulled out my brush and began writing the same things that the old man had writing, I didn’t need to adjust anything or fix anything, I only needed to pass this test, and didn’t actually need to correct their mistakes.

After two incense times, I had already written the majority of the herbs, but I was honestly feeling vexed. The fact that I was writing wrong statements didn’t bod well with me. And the most annoying thing was the divine sense. At first, only one divine sense went past me, and you could feel it as hair stood up on your skin. But soon when I was halfway through my writings, more divine sense came at me scanning me and lingering far longer than it was comfortable.

After a while, I could feel more divine senses lingering and I was seriously annoyed as I couldn’t focus.

I looked up and saw one of the exam administrators looking at me.

“Is there a problem?” the examiner said and this made everyone halt for a moment as they waited for me to answer.

“Yes, the divine sense, they’re really annoying and pervasive, I can’t focus with everyone looking at me. It makes one feel naked.” I said as I shuddered.

Almost immediately most of the examiners coughed, some even turned red-faced as they knew that they had been caught scrying. Most of all, the fact that most of them were keeping close tabs on me was divulged, it only served to make them feel ashamed like a person being caught peeping.

“Right, I’ll ask my colleagues to tone it down, we’re only doing this to ensure fairness and that no one is cheating.” The man tried an excuse and it seems to save some of his ‘face’. Ugh.

“Okay, it would be best for just one divine sense, too many of them makes one feel like a young maiden being peeped at by a little pervert, though I’m no chaste maiden, I can’t say the same for the rest of these little friends.” I grinned as I spoke. A small joke that served to lighten the mood around me as I received a good few chuckles and some annoyed scowls as some dolts thought I spoke about them.

The administrator nodded at his colleagues and the intensity of the scrying lessened significantly.

I then focused back on my paper and continued writing, and the moment I finished, I sighed. I wasn’t going to present this paper. It just didn’t feel right.

However, once one of the administrators saw me finish he used his divine sense, thankfully this time just to check my paper, he smiled widely and came to collect the paper, only to stop halfway as I picked up my brush and started adding more sentences.

I looked up and saw the administrator frowning, he was worried that I was going to screw myself over, for his first scrying he had already deduced that I had scored a perfect score, and changing anything would only make the paper lose points. But I don’t care about that right now, all I care about is what I present is the truth about spiritual herbs.

I continued adding, removing, and changing a few of the descriptions. Then asked for another paper, something that many students found to be needless, as they barely were able to finish the first paper.

The moment I wrote the final sentence, the administrator spoke up, “Time is up! Please present your papers, if anyone is seen adding anything to their paper their score will be zero, and they’ll be eliminated.” The man said and everyone put down their brushes.

Well, time to see how I scored.