Chapter 3 Cultivation Assessment (Seeking Recommendation)

  Sun Li thought about the matter repeatedly and felt it was very beneficial to himself, so he made a decision. However, he had just told Chong Ba that he would give him an answer three days later, and there was no hurry for him to go back on his word with Chong Ba.

  After he entered the mountains of Su Bao, everywhere was a scramble for power and profit, everywhere was devoid of human warmth, everywhere was selfishness.

  Right in this academy, he felt the worldly coldness that he had never experienced in his fifteen years of life. However, Chong Yin and Chong Ba were two rare warm currents in this cold and indifferent mountain gate. It's just that Chong Yin showed it more outwardly, while Chong Ba was misunderstood by no one.

  ……

  Chong Zhong was in a good mood at this moment, and the news that Sun Li had just received fifth place in the martial arts assessment could not affect his good mood. Just now, he had been wanting to climb up the relationship with the Wanjing Taoist sect, and someone came to pass on the message, asking him to go to the Baicao Hall once.

  The Baicao Hall is where Mo Qingyu cultivates in secret, occupying a mountain peak at the back of the mountain - this is the privilege of the great masters of internal alchemy.

  Chong Zhong had always wanted to follow the teachings of Master Wang Qing, but unfortunately his talent was only considered above average and far from meeting the standards of a personally taught disciple. As a result, Master Wang Qing had always ignored his attempts to curry favor.

  Today, he suddenly received a summons from Wan Qing Daozhang and Chong Zhong was greatly anticipated in his heart: Could it be that Wan Qing Daozhang wanted to take him as his apprentice? He knew that Wan Qing Daozhang's previous personal disciple, Chong Shan, had been kicked out for blowing up the alchemy furnace. Wan Qing Daozhang was used to having someone serve him every day, and suddenly he didn't have a disciple, so it might be a bit inconvenient for him?

  With burning anxiety in his heart, Chong Zhong hastily arrived at the Baicao Hall.

  "Master Shu, Chong Zhong requests an audience!"

  He loudly announced to the inside, and after about a stick of incense time, he saw Wang Qingdao's face looking somewhat difficult as he walked out from inside. Seeing Chong Zhong, he squeezed out a smile: "Chong Zhong has arrived, come in."

  Chong Zhong was surprised and delighted: "Thank you, Master Shu."

  She walked into the Baicao Hall, and sat down on the master chair, pointing to a nearby chair: "You sit too."

  "Chong Zhong dare not." He stood there honestly and quietly.

  Wan Qing didn't force the issue and smiled warmly, saying: "Chong Zhong, all these years your filial piety has been remembered in my heart, it's rare for you to be so consistent."

  Chong Zhong was overjoyed and suddenly knelt down: "Master Shu, I have been fascinated by the Dao of Zhuixu Dan for a long time. I yearn for the guidance of a wise teacher, please Master Shu fulfill my wish!"

  Wan Qing waved his hand: "Chong Zhong, I've come to ask you, where did the seven-son first Wus that you brought last time come from?"

  Chong Zhong was hesitant in his heart, just about to answer truthfully, but was interrupted by Wang Qing: "Don't tell me anything about the seven exams at the entrance, there's a hundred-year-old Qi Zi Shou Wu inside."

  He looked at Chong Zhong with a smile that was not quite a smile, while the latter was greatly shocked!

  A hundred-year-old medicinal herb means what? Chong Zhongtao understood, took it out, and a single hundred-year-old medicinal herb could be sold for over a hundred spirit stones. Even someone of the level of Wang Qing Daozhang couldn't easily obtain one.

  Those ten stalks of Polygonum multiflorum are clearly the result of passing the seven exams at the entrance, how can I explain it to Wu Qing?

  He thought for a moment and suddenly understood that Mo Qing had come to find him, not because he was moved by his filial piety and wanted to take him as an apprentice, but because of the precious medicine worth hundreds of years.

  Who is it?!

  Chong Zhong knew that Wang Qing would never make a mistake, he said there was a hundred-year-old Qi Zi Shou Wu, it must be true. But who exactly managed to get their hands on a hundred-year-old Qi Zi Shou Wu for the entrance exam? Or perhaps, unintentionally cultivated a precious spiritual medicine that's hundreds of years old?

  In his heart, Chong Zhong filtered through various possibilities and thought of asking Wan Qing to bring out those ten Seven Sons and First Dark (medicines) to take a look, but that would expose the fact that he didn't know there was a hundred-year-old spiritual medicine among them.

  This is absolutely unacceptable!

  If it's really among the new disciples, someone can cultivate a hundred-year-old spiritual medicine, and control it in their own hands, they can use this to curry favor with Mo Qing, or even let Mo Qing take them on as a disciple.

  This is your only chance!

  Chong Zhong thought for a moment, gritted his teeth secretly, and decided to take a gamble.

  "Master Shu, this hundred-year-old spiritual medicine, even if I used it myself, would be a waste. That's why I thought of offering it to you as a tribute. But I didn't dare say so openly to Brother Chongshan. You see... the previous few times when I offered you some decent things, they were all confiscated by Brother Chongshan."

  Chong Zhong Shun stepped on Chong Shan's corpse again.

  "Master Uncle, if you need it, I'll go get some hundred-year-old Seven Sons First Wokou again."

  Wan Qing found him for this very purpose. Upon hearing this, he smiled and stroked his beard: "Heh heh, I'll have to trouble you then."

  "Master Shu is being polite, this is a great honor for Chong Zhong..."

  As soon as he came out of Baicao Hall, Chong Zhong couldn't help but let out a cold laugh and spat fiercely!

  You're a dignified master, yet you've been taking advantage of your disciple for so long, and now you're still not satisfied. You make empty promises without any intention of keeping them, and on top of that, you have the nerve to ask me for a hundred-year-old spiritual medicine! Your shamelessness is truly boundless!

  Anger begets anger, Chong Zhong still has to think of a way. Such things are common in Suxi Mountain and even the entire Xiu Zhen realm, Chong Zhong is angry but also helpless.

  It is impossible to make further progress on the Tao without the guidance of a famous teacher.

  A hundred-year-old Qi Zi Shou Wu is precious, but compared to the Great Way, it's insignificant. This is also the only place where he can fawn on Mo Qing.

  With a sigh of helplessness, Chong Zhong suppressed the unpleasantness in his heart and began to ponder, who on earth was it that had actually reached the level of a hundred-year-old Qi Zi Shou Wu?

  The first people he thought of were Tian Yingdong and Qin Tianzhan.

  It seems that only these two people are possible. Speculating, Qin Tianzhan is probably a five-elemental spiritual root, good at cultivation, and may be slightly inferior in alchemy. It looks like it's mostly Tian Yingdong.

  Chong Zhong rubbed his chin, thinking to himself that Tian Yingdong probably still didn't know that the Qi Zi Shou Wu he had cultivated had already reached the level of a hundred-year-old spiritual medicine, otherwise he would have told him.

  Chong Zhong revealed a hint of a triumphant smile, if that's the case, then all he had to do was coax Tian Yingdong into continuing to plant, and when the time came, he would just turn it in as his homework, wouldn't that be making a fortune?

  It seems that this matter still needs to be done in such and such a way, so as not to leave any traces or be detected by others!

  From start to finish, he never thought it would be Sun Li.

  ……

  That night, during the interval of practicing "Mortal World One Life Heaven", Luo Huan taught Sun Li a small technique that could disguise the spiritual yuan in his body as Heavenly River Spiritual Yuan, making it undetectable to others.

  Sun Li slightly cultivated for a moment and could deceive the true person below the cultivator's inspection. Then he stopped this Dharma door and continued to cultivate "Mortal World One Life Heaven".

  The next day, during the assessment of their cultivation, he arrived at the classroom to find that all his disciples were already present. Chong Yin still had a gentle expression, standing in front and scanning the crowd with a glance, before smiling slightly: "Alright, let's begin."

  When the previous division was detected, it could be operated by Chong Yin himself. However, after a month of cultivation, many Tianyi disciples had broken through the mortal realm, and if Chong Yin were to operate it again, it would be somewhat inaccurate.

  So Chongin borrowed an artifact from the door.

  This is a sloping stone trough, with a heavy stone ball at the bottom. The base has an array pattern carved on it, and by inputting spiritual energy into the array, you can push the stone ball to roll upwards. The stronger the spiritual energy, the higher the stone ball rises.

  And the stone trough is marked with a scale, absolutely fair.

  Sun Li couldn't help but smile when he saw Chong Yin's approach. He was probably afraid that the "little episode" of Dan Dao's assessment would also be heard, so he came up with this fair method.

  The disciples lined up one by one to take the test.

  The first disciple only managed to lift the stone ball by five degrees before becoming exhausted, and Chong Yin didn't comment, merely smiling faintly as he recorded the result.

  The disciples who went up later were about the same level, basically all five to seven degrees.

  At this time, the gap in everyone's qualifications is revealed. Those who can maintain an average level of proficiency are at least disciples of a third-rate class.

  The first one from Class 1 to go up for testing was Su Xiao Mei, a petite girl and an acquaintance of Sun Li's.

  Su Xiaomei used all her strength, but only managed to raise the stone ball by four degrees. The surrounding crowd murmured in low voices, but refrained from openly mocking her because she was a pretty girl.

  Su Xiaomei walked away dejectedly, although she had known it would be a similar outcome, but who wants to admit they are inferior to others? The bare results were right in front of her, what else could she do?

  It's not that they didn't work hard, in fact all the disciples of Ding's class worked harder than those in the previous classes. They knew their talent wasn't as good as others, so to stay behind they had to put in more bitter effort! But reality is always mercilessly crushing dreams, making the young people feel deeply powerless!

  Chong Yin looked at Su Xiao Mei with some sympathy, but he was also powerless to do anything about it, and could only silently sigh.

  The next disciple who went up had a big "Jia" character embroidered on his clothes, and with both hands pressed on the formation to urge the spiritual element, the Tianhe spiritual element made an effort to push the stone ball to the eighth degree.

  "Good!"

  A loud cheer erupted, applause filled the air! The faces of the first-class students shone with pride. We only sent out an ordinary disciple and broke the records of your three classes, a sense of superiority arose naturally.

  Chong Yin saw his disciples' good grades and couldn't help but smile as he recorded them.

  The next test had its ups and downs, until another disciple from the top class stepped forward, urging Ling Yuan to push the stone ball up to ten marks. Only then did Chong Yin show a look of approval, nodding his head: "Good, first level of the mortal realm!"

  Apart from Tian Yingdong and Qin Tianzhan, there were seven other disciples who broke through the first layer of the mortal realm. However, they had all announced it themselves previously without going through a test, after all, they weren't officially recognized by the sect yet.

  That disciple received Chong Yin's praise, couldn't hide his pride, and rushed to Chong Yin to pay his respects: "Thank you for your teachings." Only then did he turn around and leave.

  Sung-in was also delighted and loudly laughed as he wrote down his score.

  This disciple is also one of the top-ranked in terms of aptitude among the first-class students.

  Almost all the top-class disciples looked at Sun Li behind him with a showy expression: See, this is the difference in natural talent. This gap will become more and more obvious in the future. What's the use of being able to fight? In the future, it won't be just one move that will blow you into ashes!

  Another disciple stepped forward, and the crowd of disciples who were originally discussing stopped at the same time, looking at the disciple's test with full eyes.

  Because he is Tian Yingdong.

  Tian Yingdong's demeanor was impeccable, first bowing respectfully to Chong Yin, who slightly bowed his head in return and said "Let's begin". Only then did Tian Yingdong straighten his clothes and slowly place his hands on the formation. (I'm a bit speechless about this, okay, yesterday I updated a big chapter, looking at the distance from the front it seemed to be getting shorter, originally thinking that today should be explosive, but when I got up in the morning, I was actually behind by one name. I looked at our recommendations and they weren't few, the update volume wasn't small either, the collection shouldn't be bad, it just seems like member clicks aren't working out. The recommendations are many, showing that everyone still supports this book very much, I'm anxious but also calm about it, saying it's a bit contradictory, but indeed so. Thanks to everyone's support, even though the ranking fell behind, today there will be an extra update!)