After Fang Xin stepped into the examination room, a owl flew in mid-air.
The owl's eyes were fixed on Fang Xin.
Beep!
"Ninth Division new student Fang Xin!
Identity verification successful!
Baseline test begins!"
As the words fell, the owl flapped its wings and flew high, hovering in mid-air like an invigilator.
Fang Xin's gaze shifted.
He noticed that the surrounding scenery began to change.
The original classroom transformed into an old, dilapidated residential area.
Immediately after, a scar-faced man walked out from one side, swaying his head as he sized up Fang Xin.
Fang Xin was startled, clearly not expecting the puppet to be so realistic.
Moreover, the environment of this examination room was too unexpected.
It was an infinitely close to actual combat simulation.
The scar-faced man twisted his head, gripping a dagger, and charged towards Fang Xin.
The opponent had a peak Level 1 combat power.
However, in front of Fang Xin, he was simply not enough.
As soon as he came over, Fang Xin didn't use any flashy moves.
He delivered a powerful slap.
The scar-faced man's head tilted, and he lay motionless on the ground.
The owl in mid-air tilted its head.
The scar-faced man on the ground stood up, and a long-haired young man walked out from the side again.
The scar-faced man was a Strength-based attacker, and the long-haired young man was a fire-attribute attacker. The two, one far and one near, cooperated with each other, instantly flanking Fang Xin.
Fang Xin didn't give the two puppets any time to think and charged straight at them.
He twisted his waist and delivered a powerful punch, directly knocking the scar-faced puppet to the ground, where it lay motionless.
Another fire-attribute attack fireball was easily dodged by Fang Xin, who then finished it with a flying knee.
In the blink of an eye, the two puppets got up, and another puppet in the form of a young man wearing a baseball cap emerged from the side.
He immediately launched a mental attack.
A nearly transparent palm reached towards Fang Xin's head.
Fang Xin rolled on the ground. Having undergone countless battles, Fang Xin had accumulated a lot of experience: when encountering a mental attack, one must first focus their attack on the mental attacker.
A slide tackle brought down the mental attack puppet, and Fang Xin's elbow strike broke the mental attack puppet's neck.
He turned and threw the incapacitated puppet, knocking down the fire-attribute attack puppet. Fang Xin flew over and elbowed the scar-faced puppet's head into its chest. Turning, he delivered a whip kick, incapacitating the fire-attribute attack puppet as well.
"Student Fang Xin, First Stage! Cleared!
Time taken: forty-two seconds!"
His vision blurred, and the surroundings changed. Fang Xin turned his head and found himself standing at a ferry crossing.
An ice cone shot out from the water.
Fang Xin used his strength to break all techniques.
With a realm advantage, he didn't give the opponent many opportunities to attack, charging forward with an Iron Mountain Lean.
It's not without reason that Strength Talent is also called Mangfu Talent; once the physical body reaches a certain level, there's no reasoning with it.
After that, a mental attack puppet and a metal-attribute attack puppet appeared one after another.
For someone like Fang Xin, who had been through hundreds of battles, these were merely child's play, and he ended the fight with ease.
Before coming in, he thought it would be difficult, but after coming in, he realized it was much simpler than what he encountered in the previous beheading operation.
"Student Fang Xin! Second Stage! Cleared!
Cumulative time for the first two stages: two minutes and twelve seconds!"
As soon as he entered the third stage, he encountered a Beast Taming Department attack.
Fang Xin smiled when he saw this.
Immediately, he shook his arm, and two black and white light figures flashed, intertwining, as two wolves appeared.
Since the test was so simple, he wouldn't waste time. He decided to attack with the two wolves together to clear the stage quickly. If he got a good ranking, there would be points.
Outside the examination room, Li Bao'er's score hung high above everyone else's scores.
Seven minutes and one second.
This score would rank in the top five in Sky Shield Academy's history.
Many new students, and even many teachers, craned their necks to look in Li Bao'er's direction.
Li Bao'er was a bit shy and hid behind Zhang Yaozu, scratching her head, seemingly disliking being stared at.
However, this demeanor was completely at odds with the two machetes tucked under her armpits.
Shi Tailang walked over, his face bruised and swollen.
Both his eyes were swollen shut, only visible as two slits, and one side of his lip was highly swollen. Shi Tailang crooked his mouth and took a sip of water with the other half of his mouth, saying,
"Bao'er is amazing! Seven minutes and one second!"
The injured Bai Yulin and Shen Yu, whose arm was dislocated, also walked over one after another.
"Bao'er is really incredible! A clear first place! Five minutes faster than the second place!"
"Where's Xin Ge?" Shi Tailang asked again.
"He just went in!"
Shi Tailang tightened the bottle cap.
"Bao'er said she can't beat Xin Ge. Bao'er got seven minutes and one second, so how much will Xin Ge get?"
"Six minutes? What do you think, Bao'er?"
Li Bao'er looked up, appearing dazed and naive, "I don't know! We haven't fought!"
"Surely he can't break into under five minutes, right?" Zhang Yaozu asked.
Shi Tailang licked his swollen lip, "Under five minutes? Zhang Meiqiu'er, are you kidding me! In the entire Sky Shield Academy, from its founding until now, only two senior students have finished under five minutes! The best score in history was three minutes and thirty-nine seconds, and the entrance test back then wasn't as difficult as it is now!"
"Fatty, can't your perspective be a bit broader?"
Shi Tailang retorted, "But you have to be realistic! You can't just dream and make things up for your 'broad perspective,' right!"
"Fatty just loves to argue with me!"
"How many minutes did Instructor Zhuge take to clear it back then?"
"Instructor Zhuge skipped the Youth Training Camp and joined the Ninth Division directly! But with his talent, getting into the top three would have been easy!"
Shi Tailang brought the conversation back, "Speaking of which, Bao'er is truly amazing. Some people couldn't even last seven minutes in the first stage, but Bao'er cleared the stage in seven minutes!"
Bai Yulin lifted his chin, "As for other divisions, let alone lasting seven minutes, at least 1,200 people couldn't last three minutes."
"After all, before coming here, they were all students and didn't have much actual combat experience. Those puppets in the baseline test are all peak Level 1 combat power, so it's normal not to last three minutes!"
Zhang Yaozu linked arms with Li Bao'er, "So, it further proves how awesome our Bao'er is!"
"Xin Ge's pancake and porridge are half-eaten?" Shi Tailang noticed the half-eaten food in Zhang Yaozu's hand.
"Yes, I just took two bites, and then the announcement came for the exam. I'll have to warm it up for him later!"
As they were talking, the originally noisy teachers and students across the school suddenly fell silent.
Shi Tailang's swollen eyes looked left and right, and he quietly asked, "What's wrong? What happened?"
Everyone uniformly looked towards the large screen displaying the scores.
The screen flickered, and a name slowly appeared above Li Bao'er's name.