Chapter 178: Chapter 178: Absolute Genius
"Brother Ye Xuan, don’t be so formal. Without you, I wouldn’t have reached first place on the Eminence Rankings, and I certainly wouldn’t have been able to take the top spot."
Zhao Wei’s tone was extremely sincere.
Only Ye Xuan understood the double meaning in his words. The first was that without the Soul Crystals Ye Xuan had given him, he never would have had a breakthrough and reached first place on the Eminence Rankings. The second was that if Ye Xuan had defeated King’s Dao himself, Zhao Wei wouldn’t have taken first place either.
"Come on! To celebrate me taking first place on the Eminence Rankings, it’s my treat today."
Zhao Wei was ecstatic after defeating King’s Dao. Without even changing his robes, he grabbed the others and headed out of the academy.
The group swaggered off.
"Senior Brother King’s Dao, are you all right?"
Only then did a few members of the Crown Prince Alliance, their faces ashen, rush onto the stage to check on him.
King’s Dao’s face was chalk-white, completely drained of color. A trace of terror lingered between his brows.
He shook his head and said in a trembling voice, "I’m fine. What happened here today... we must report it to His Highness the Great Prince immediately. Right away."
No one knew that he had been ordered by the Great Prince to occupy the top spot on the Eminence Rankings and deliberately hold off on graduating from the Profound Spirit Academy.
The Great Prince’s goal was to have him guard the number one position and prevent Zhao Wei from graduating in first place.
But with his defeat today, the Great Prince’s plans were shattered in an instant. Soon, he would have to face the Great Prince’s thunderous wrath.
The thought of the Great Prince’s terrifying nature made King’s Dao’s pale face turn even uglier. Fear flooded his heart.
At that very moment, in a corner several hundred meters from the challenge stage, a dignified, middle-aged man in a white robe watched the events unfold with a faint smile.
’Zhao Wei’s talent is quite impressive. That move, "Heaven-Devouring Rushing Thunder," cleverly combined his Martial Soul and Profound Qi, unleashing eighty percent of the technique’s essence. Among the princes, aside from Zhao Feng and Zhao Tian, this Zhao Wei’s talent is top-tier. Not bad, not bad at all!’
The middle-aged man spoke with a faint smile, but before the sound of his voice had even faded, he vanished from the spot.
Ten minutes later, this man arrived outside the building where Ye Xuan had just taken his assessment.
"My Lord." Upon seeing him, the two Celestial Martial Artist guards stationed there immediately bowed respectfully, their eyes filled with endless adoration.
"Mm," the middle-aged man nodded and walked into the hall.
"My Lord, you’ve arrived."
The moment he appeared, the middle-aged manager from before scurried out, bowing and scraping, his face a mask of sycophantic flattery.
"Have all the assessment scores been tallied? Have you discovered any geniuses from this class at Profound Spirit Academy?" the middle-aged man asked calmly.
A fawning smile on his face, the manager quickly produced the assessment score sheet. "There are a few geniuses, but I’m afraid they still fall short of your requirements, My Lord."
The middle-aged man in white took the score sheet and examined the results carefully.
A moment later, the middle-aged man sighed softly. ’Could it be that my assessment is too strict? In ten years, I haven’t found a single genius who satisfies me.’
On the list, the top performer had defeated thirteen of the eighteen wooden men before finally losing. In the second stage, that person had lasted for the time it takes an incense stick to burn before their mind gave out and they were ejected from the Illusion Realm. Such results were far worse than what the middle-aged man had expected.
"Fine. Bring me the drawings from the third stage for the top ten performers from the first two stages."
The middle-aged man shook his head and said flatly.
The manager scurried off and quickly returned with a stack of drawings.
The middle-aged man looked at them, shaking his head repeatedly. ’These ten only achieved high ranks in the first two stages because of their high cultivation, not because of their talent. These third-stage drawings capture the image of flowing water but none of its intent. They’re a complete mess.’
The man’s heart was filled with disappointment.
This man was none other than King Chu, Chu Yunfei, known as the greatest master in the Liuyun Kingdom.
He had established this assessment at the Profound Spirit Academy a decade ago, hoping to find a genius to inherit his legacy. But in ten years, not a single one had appeared who could pass all his tests to his satisfaction.
"Hm?"
Suddenly, his eyes fell upon a drawing. He let out a sound of surprise and snatched it from the pile with a SWISH.
"This drawing seems plain, but it contains a trace of the flavor of my Flowing Water Sword Intent. It’s faint, but it has at least mimicked about one-twentieth of my Flowing Water Sword Intent. Who is this person?"
The middle-aged man was overjoyed. In the ten years of his assessment, this drawing was one of the strongest simulations of his Flowing Water Sword Intent he had ever seen.
The manager leaned in for a look, checked the information against the drawing, and then said, "My Lord, that person is a new student who just joined the Profound Spirit Academy this year. Her name is Leng Yingying. She’s sixteen, and her cultivation is at the Third Layer Samurai."
"Not bad, not bad at all," the middle-aged man nodded. "A Third Layer Samurai at sixteen. Her talent is quite good."
"My Lord, shall I summon her?"
"No need. This person needs to be observed further." Chu Yunfei shook his head. At the same time, he also discovered a flaw in his own assessment.
In the past, he would usually look at the scores for the first two stages first. However, the geniuses who performed well in those stages were typically older students at the Martial Master Third Layer. With their high cultivation, they had learned a great deal, but their knowledge had also become cluttered and impure.
Meanwhile, students with astonishing talent who performed poorly in the first two stages due to their young age and lower cultivation were completely overlooked by him.
For example, if he hadn’t accidentally seen Leng Yingying’s drawing today, he never would have noticed her.
’It seems I’ll need to pay more attention to the ordinary students next time.’
As he thought this, Chu Yunfei’s gaze fell back onto the score sheet, and his brow suddenly furrowed.
"What’s with this person? Why is there no score, just an X? And their information isn’t even registered?"
He was talking about Ye Xuan, the last person to take the assessment.
"Replying to My Lord," the manager said with a disdainful look, "that person took the assessment last, and his results were an absolute mess. In the Eighteen Wooden Man Formation, this humble one didn’t even see a sign of a fight before he was defeated. He didn’t beat a single wooden man. In the second stage, he lasted less than ten breaths in the Illusion Realm. His score was so abysmal that this humble one didn’t even bother to record it. As for registration, the man showed up after the assessment was over, clearly lacking sincerity. With such poor results on top of that, this humble one didn’t let him register."
Chu Yunfei’s brow furrowed, however. He asked doubtfully, "He didn’t break a single wooden man, and there wasn’t even a sign of a fight? Then how did he pass through the wooden man corridor?"
At his words, the middle-aged manager froze.
’That’s right.’
The Eighteen Wooden Man Formation was designed so that a student had to fight the wooden men. Only if the student was overwhelmed and in danger would the Array automatically stop.
But according to what he just said, if there were no signs of a fight, how could the person have passed through the Wooden Man Array?
The manager gave an awkward laugh. "My Lord, well... perhaps it was because his strength was so pathetic that the Wooden Man Array sensed he was in danger before it even fully activated. That’s why there were no signs of a fight."
The manager thought it over and felt this explanation was quite reasonable.
In truth, he had been annoyed with Ye Xuan for not offering him a "gift," so when he saw that no wooden men had been defeated, he had simply marked an X without bothering to look closely.
"Nonsense," Chu Yunfei snorted. He had designed this Wooden Man Array, so how could he not be clear about its inner workings? This stage tested a Martial Artist’s reaction and acuity when facing a battle formation; the situation the manager described was simply impossible.
"Then... could the Wooden Man Array have malfunctioned?" the manager asked sheepishly.
"After he passed through the Wooden Man Array, did you touch it?" Chu Yunfei asked in a cold voice.
"This humble one has not. I was busy recording scores and haven’t had time to reset the three assessment stages yet."
Chu Yunfei said no more and went directly to the location of the Wooden Man Array.
He also suspected that the Wooden Man Array might have malfunctioned, just as the manager suggested. Otherwise, it would be impossible for someone to pass the assessment without any trace of a fight.
Before Chu Yunfei stood the wooden men, frozen in the offensive postures they had held when Ye Xuan passed through.
"The Wooden Man Array doesn’t seem to have any problems," Chu Yunfei muttered to himself. Suddenly, he seemed to notice something. His eyes went wide as saucers, and he stared at the Wooden Man Array in utter shock. "This... this is... impossible!"
Any other Martial Artist might not have been able to see the mystery within the Wooden Man Array. But as its designer, Chu Yunfei knew clearly that the eighteen wooden men in the corridor, which appeared to be in disarray, actually followed some kind of extremely exquisite pattern.
’This person must have started here, then stepped here, passing between these two array nodes, perfectly dodging the attacks of these five wooden men. Then he circled back to this node, causing these three wooden men over here to lose their angle of attack, and in the next second, he stepped on this node...’
A clear simulation of Ye Xuan’s footsteps and route through the Wooden Man Array played out in Chu Yunfei’s mind, leaving him utterly dumbfounded.
’No wonder there wasn’t a trace of a fight when he passed through the Wooden Man Array so easily. He had completely deciphered the battle formation of the Wooden Man Array! By using the array nodes, he found a path where he couldn’t be attacked at all and simply walked through.’
Chu Yunfei’s mind was reeling as if struck by colossal waves.
A genius! An absolute genius!
To accomplish this, the person must have an extremely profound understanding of Arrays. Not only that, but they also must have an astonishing grasp of the wooden men’s strength within the Wooden Man Array. Only by combining both could one achieve this feat so perfectly.
Even for Chu Yunfei himself, accomplishing such a feat without first simulating the route Ye Xuan had taken would have been extremely difficult.
