Early in the morning, Ning walked out of the tavern room. He still had a few days left on the tavern's duration, but he didn't care about it. If he passed today, he wouldn't have to return at all.
Ning walked to the city center and got himself registered to join the sect. Eligibility was very simple for the Pure Cleansing sect. As long as one was a cultivator, looking to learn the healing arts, they allowed anyone to enter.
Age wasn't even a factor for eligibility. "These are some very charitable people," Ning thought to himself.
He was now in a hall with many others, waiting for the exam. Soon, a middle-aged man arrived in the room and bowed to everyone. Ning was surprised that an examiner would initiate the bow before the examinees.
He looked carefully and realized that he was the same man that made the healing paste for Night. 'Oh, he is the examiner, huh,' Ning thought.
"Welcome everyone to our humble sect. We have a single requirement for being able to join the sect," the middle-aged bald man said. "And that is being able to research stuff and recognize different things."
"So, I will call out your name. Once I do, please come up and one of our disciples will take you to the exam place," the man said. So, he called out 5 different names.
5 people, all of different ages stood up and walked to the door. There were 5 disciples, ready to take them to their respective exam rooms. The room went quiet for a few minutes, and only after 30 minutes did one of the disciples returned.
"Alright, another one," the examiner said and called out another name. The disciple took that person to the back. Another disciple arrived and one more examinee was taken to take their exam.
The same thing happened for a while. A disciple would take the examinee to their exam and once it was done, the disciples returned soon to get another one.
Finally, it was Ning's turn to go. A disciple took him through a narrow corridor and entered one of the 5 rooms it was attached to. The disciple stayed at the door and let Ning walk in.
Inside was a white room with nothing but a table and a woman behind the table. The woman seemed to be quite old and had a streak of white hair running down the side of it.
"Ah, please enter," she said after seeing Ning. Ning walked in and stood in front of the table. On the table were 5 different things kept in different spaces from each other.
On the corner of the table were a set of different books. 'What's going on?' Ning wondered.
"Please tell me the name of all of these ingredients in front of you. You can take as long as you want and can freely look through these books for answers," the old woman said.
Ning was a little surprised at how different the test was from Mist Origin Sect and said," Okay."
"Very well, you can now start," she said as he took out an hourglass and flipped it on the table.
'An hourglass? For what? I thought we could take as long as we wanted?' Ning wondered. 'Wait for a second, If we can take as long as we wanted, how are they even going to select the ones that can enter. Could it be that us having all the time we need is a lie?' Ning wondered.
'Alright, I got no time to waste,' he thought and looked at the 5 different items on the table.
Starting from the left to the right was a root, a berry, a leaf, a bone, and a flower. Ning immediately picked up the first book and started flipping it around.
He wanted to find images that matched the items that were in front of him, but there were just too many in the book. Still, he didn't give up. Once the first book was over, he looked at the second book and found one item.
It was the flower called Spring Dew Orchid. "This one is Spring Dew Orchid," he said.
"Yes," the woman said and put out a badge in front of the flower that had its name on it. 'Alright, off to the other ones,' he thought. He flipped through the rest of the books, but there were just too many to just read them while still finding images that matched the ones in front of him.
'God, I don't know how many times I might have missed them already,' Ning wondered. His mind was way faster than normal humans thanks to the tempering art and the process of reducing mental energy to the lowest and bringing it all backup.
Even then, it was impossible to look through the whole book to search for these ingredients. So, Ning decided to take a shortcut.
'System, give these book's information straight into my mind,' he said.
<It will cost you 734,000,000 energy for all the books>
'Yes, do it,' he said.
<Confirmed>
Suddenly, all of the book's knowledge was readily available for him to know. His eyes shined brightly as he recognized the root on the left. He picked up the corresponding book and turned the page to where the root's information was.
He acted as if he had randomly found the page and said, " That's a root of a twin leaf tree."
"Correct," the woman said and brought out a badge with its name on it and put it upfront. Ning acted as he looked through the book once more and after a few minutes correctly named the leaf and the berry.
"The berry is a Wild Gale Berry."
"The leaf is a Bitter Bane leaf."
He was obviously right on both accounts. The woman brought out the badges for them too and kept them in front of the item. Now, only the bone was left but that was where the problem lied.
He had no idea what the bone was.