The forest was dark all throughout the year with the only source of light being a purple star mist that enveloped the forest. The forest was a literal version of an oxymoron which was why it was always called the nightmare paradise.
The forest was rich in resources and spiritual qi, and the purple mist helped to improve one's comprehension abilities. However, the forest was also home to spirit beasts and spiritual plants that had taken advantage of those conditions to develop themselves. There were also natural phenomena, dangerous at that, that continuously flooded the place such as lightning storms, and because of how rich the area was, tribulation lightnings were not in short supply either.
It was an area fraught with danger at every turn and for the Purple grade test, the participants would have to traverse the whole of it to the finish line. He couldn't help but feel for Mu Li, yes, Yang Qing enjoyed the one shot he received from Guo Feng, but he couldn't help but sympathize.
The Mu Li he saw now, would be broken within days of staying there, and he would be living there for six months, even though it would be a set quadrant and he would not be asked to traverse the whole forest like Yang Qing and the rest of the testees were asked to, but still even staying in a set area was bound to be a harrowing experience.
Instructor Pan didn't lie when he said there were countless creatures there that were as strong, if not stronger than Guo Feng. Mu Li would have to forget what sleep, comfort, or what safe is, for those six months, he would have to make friends with paranoia, pain, losing limbs, and seeing his own body torn apart for a duration of time.
Mu Li would come out a different person at the end of it. He would come out a renewed coward, hyper-alert with a more than healthy suspicion and wariness of everything and everyone, and a deep appreciation for his intact limbs. Yang Qing remembered how he spent hours wriggling his fingers with tears in his eyes. One gets a newfound respect and appreciation for the little things in life not losing your appendages every minute or so.
While it would be one of the worst experiences Mu Li would have to go through, it was something he needed, and he would grow from it. It didn't take long for Yang Qing to guess that the reason Mu Li wasn't sent to the gold grade test at the start despite his achievements, was his willpower and mentality. They were too low, and if he was thrown in there at the start, he would have been traumatized beyond repair. But now, the instructor's have already studied him enough to tailor a training regimen that would help him build it up, and the place they chose to do that at, was the Purple Twilight Forest.
With Mu Li lost in his thoughts at what was exactly waiting for him at the other end, as Yang Qing had already taken out joss sticks to burn in his remembrance, the next fight resumed. The girl sent from the students' side lost her fight, and in her case, Instructor Pan had to step in before she received the death blow.
The next fifteen fights all ended in defeats by the students' side, though most were close defeats where the inmates had to use their experiences of dancing on the blade's edge to squeeze a win-through in the end, while cases like Guo Feng's were rare. Only two more people managed to replicate what he did, though they did not do it as smoothly as he did. One of them was a lady who had the Ashen Obisidian Viper physique which made every part of her poisonous, along with having extreme agility. She defeated her opponent after a few minutes.
The other person to have a smooth victory was a short stout man with long arms that seemed ill-fit for his body as they seemed longer than his entire height. He too had a special physique. He had the diamond cerulean spider monkey physique that gave him a nigh impenetrable defense. He barrelled straight through the attacks he received from his opponent and used a restraining cultivation spell to trap his opponent and bombarded them with a rain of fists.
After the consecutive losses, the moods all around shifted. The students who were full of spirit and contempt at the start all had dark looks on their faces, even the likes of Ren Jie, and Mei Li who had won their fights along with the seven others after them didn't look too good either.
If it went by tally, the inmates were already leading, and they couldn't help but worry if there were other terrifying experts like Guo Feng remaining from the inmates' side.
Over at the inmates' side, there was a liveliness and a sense of bloodthirstiness growing, the kind a predator would get after spotting an injured prey.
Luckily for the students' side, they managed to win the next two fights after that, which helped uplift the spirits of those who would come next. Though the two fights that they won, were hard-fought, the inmates they were fighting against managed to survive in the end, while the students were all on the brink of losing consciousness with heavy injuries to them.
Even though the two wins were not pretty, they drew a look of approval from both Yang Qing and Instructor Pan. The goal of the matchup was slowly being achieved, which was to change the attitudes of the students and the indolence they had, there was now a maddened desperation in them, something that wasn't there. They no longer looked down on their opponents or were careless, and when they fought, they did so like they were risking their lives.
The matchups from Instructor Pan were deliberate which made it easy for Yang Qing to guess how things would pan out. The first seven participants from the students' side were the ones Yang Qing noted were cautious, and studying their surroundings before the test had even begun. They were alert, and the way they carried themselves including how their bodies seemed to be just ready to burst out with power at a moment's notice, showed it was something they had been honing in the four months during their grace period. They did not let up and their results showed.
Instructor Pan had chosen to start with them to create the illusion that the fights were easy, which would make the already arrogant students even more reckless, and when it came to the matchups of those wreckless students, Instructor Pan had a clear grasp of their abilities in those four months, so choosing opponents that would have high chances of defeating them wasn't that difficult.
The students might think their defeat was because they let down their guards, but what they didn't know was it was already set in stone from the moment the life-and-death duel was planned and the goal of it, had been achieved.
The students no longer had the haughty look from before, they were now analyzing each fight as though their lives depended on it. The inmates were no longer lambs for slaughter, they were ferocious tigers who would devour them if they showed even the slightest of openings.
A healthy fear was growing in them, and that fear would continuously be nurtured throughout their period at the Institute until it reached the point where they were so paranoid that they would gain a second nature to themselves and that nature would be going all out against any opponent before they had the chance to turn the tables on you. It did not matter if the opponent was a whole two realms lower than you, assume they would beat you if given the chance, so use everything, even be underhanded if you have to, as long as you're breathing in the end, you have won.
Three fights passed by before finally, it was Peng Zhen's turn.
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