Soon, the one-hour time given to them was over, and the man from the start entered the hall once more.
"Alright everybody, please return back your books," he said and gestured to the sect people to take back both of the books. Everyone swiftly handed back the book while some grunted that the given time wasn't enough.
"Now that you are done, we will let you enter this room one by one. You, stand up," the man pointed to a lady that was about as young as Ning and said, "You will be first. Go in and name the examiner all the monsters you remember. If you can successfully rank them in order of highest to lowest too, you will get additional points."
"Every single point matter here," he said and sent the girl forward. He then spoke, "Also, I forgot to mention. Only 100 of you here will move on to the next test, and of that only 20 will join the sect. Good Luck," he said with a smile.
Different murmurs started all over the place as everyone was anxious for their turn to come.
One by one, the people started leaving the hall and going into the other room. None of them returned. Nobody was passed or failed until the end result since only 100 could pass, and they needed to test everyone.
Finally, it was Ning's turn to take the test. He was called forward and told to walk into the room like everyone else. Once he was inside, he was shocked to see the sight in front of him.
There were 10 cages with different types of animals, all laying there in the palm of these cultivator's hands. Ning felt a little bad but didn't let that emotion deter him.
"What's your name?" the female examiner inside the room asked him.
"Ning Ruogong," he said. He didn't get a lot of opportunities to use his full name nowadays.
"Alright, Ning. Can you name these monster beasts?" she asked.
Ning looked at the 10 monster beasts kept in the cages. There were wolves, hyenas, snake, large hornets, crows and etc there. Ning only knew the name of 4 of them.
"Singer Ox, Beryl Hare, Autumn Wolf, Scarlet Hornet," He swiftly answered the 4 he knew and stopped.
Now, he had to use the Qi Analysis technique to know the name of everything else. It took a lot out of him mentally to use the 2nd layer, but he hoped that the monsters weren't that strong.
He used his analysis to look through the different monster beasts and swiftly named them as well. Only the snake and the crow were too high level for him to struggle at, but even then he managed to reach layer 2 of each of them while keeping his wits.
'Damn, that was a 6th realm Tearing Viper and a 5th realm Blazing crow. They must be quite strong,' he thought.
"Oh wow, good job on the perfect 10. Can you rank them thought?" the lady asked.
"Sure," Ning said as he proceeded to tell the rankings of all the beasts here. The woman was left dumbfounded at just how much the young man in front of him knew about the different beasts.
"Fu— Full Marks," the woman said in shock. "You pass this test and are guaranteed to move forth," she said as he sent him to the next room.
The next room was also a big hall where all the participants from before were standing around, loitering. They were waiting for the results to be announced. Soon, all the participants were done with their first test and the results came back.
As expected Ning passed without trouble. The examiners didn't reveal the points each of the participants earned, and only told them who had passed.
Soon, most of the participants left the hall in sorrow and sighs. Only 100 participants were now left in the giant hall. With such a little amount compared to before, it looked like there were barely any people here.
The man from before came back once more and started talking, "Congratulations on passing the first test. I saw that a number of you got very good scores. I am truly happy to see such great seeds in this batch of examinees."
"For your next test, will be something similar. You will once more be given these books to read. However, this time it's not based on who can remember the most, but rather who can understand the most."
The man gestured and a group of people once again walked out from the door and handed each of them a copy of a small book. If the previous two books were a decent-sized meal, then this book was just a little dessert that came afterward.
However, in terms of meals, desserts were always the ones that everyone looked for.
Ning read the title of the book, "Ascending Mist Brand". It was a technique that allowed one to create a brand using their Qi and put it on a willing monster beats to tame them.
"You have one hour to read the book and comprehend the technique," the man said and left.
'Not once again?' Ning didn't want to read another book again. 'System, do the same thing and turn it into a technique for me. Put it directly in my head,' he said.
<Not enough Energy>
'What? Again?' he quickly checked the status and realized that he had about 37 million energy right now. Not enough to do anything, unfortunately.
So, he was forced to read the entire book by himself. He only had an hour to read and comprehend a book he had just got. 'That should be impossible right?' he wondered.
Even eidetic memory wouldn't help at this moment. Remembering what was said in a book and understanding what was said were two very different things.
In the end, he couldn't do anything to get away from reading the book and taking the easy way out. So, he turned the book to the first page and started reading it.