"The assessment starts now!" Elder Han Mei's voice echoed through the hall, sharp and commanding.
Immediately, the hundred disciples sprang into action. Spiritual energy flared in the room, faint glows of blue, green, and white blooming across palms and fingertips.
One after another, they pressed against their dummies, rubbing and kneading specific points, some poking with focused precision as they imitated the techniques Elder Han Mei had drilled into them during the past week.
Murmurs of concentration filled the air, mixed with faint sighs as some disciples struggled to maintain rhythm.
Jian, however, hadn't moved. Arms folded loosely, he sat silent, eyes half dulled as if he was merely a spectator.
Yet his gaze tracked everything — the way one disciple's hand faltered at the fifth sequence, another's sloppy pacing, and the rare few whose motions were fluid and precise.
Finally, he shifted his gaze back to his own dummy. A faint smirk tugged at his lips.
With deliberate calm, Jian extended his fingers. Spiritual energy surged, condensing with unnatural density until his fingertips glowed a yellowish-red, as he could not yet release his spiritual qi outwardly. The glow was faint, like an iron rod that has been left in a forge for a long period of time.
He began to move. Each touch of his fingers landed with precision, pressing specific points at a rhythm so measured it was almost melodic. Rub, knead, pause. Rub, knead, pause. The motions looked deceptively simple — yet the subtle pace and alternating pressure made the dummy quiver in response, faint tremors coursing through its frame. But all this went unnoticed as no one wanted to pay attention to him while wasting their prescious time.
His movements were neither rushed nor hesitant, only steady, confident.
Minutes passed.
"Enough," Elder Han Mei's voice cut through the room. All hands stilled at once.
Elder began walking through the rows, one hand clasped behind her back, the other pressed lightly against each dummy as she infused a strand of her Qi to activate the internal circuit that measured pleasure percent.
"Forty-two point four percent."
"Seventy-three percent. Well done."
"Eighteen point nine percent."
Her tone remained neutral, but now and then a faint smile curved her lips when she encountered talent. A handful of disciples glowed with pride under her recognition, relief written across their faces.
Finally, she reached Jian.
He sat casually, nonchalant as though he hadn't just performed under the eyes of a hundred sneering peers with him being the least capable of passing the assessment due to his cultivation and lack of experience.
Elder Han Mei raised a brow at his composure.
"If you manage to get over thirty percent," she said coldly, "I'll award you a thousand points."
The class buzzed with murmurs at once.
A thousand points?! That was nearly impossible to earn at once for an outer court disciple. Whispers of "she's mocking him" and "he'll never reach it" spread like wildfire.
Without further delay, Elder Han Mei placed her hand on the dummy Jian had worked on. She infused her Qi into the circuit—
—then froze.
What!" Elder Han Mei's voice cracked in disbelief as she staggered a step back, her eyes wide, struggling to reconcile what the dummy displayed.
Her lips trembled, fighting against denial, but the truth was undeniable.
"Ninety-five… point one percent," she whispered.
The words were soft, yet in a hall full of cultivators, whispers carried farther than shouts. At once, the room erupted.
Gasps rang out.
Murmurs turned into stunned exclamations. The sneers and laughter from moments before evaporated, replaced by an oppressive silence broken only by scattered voices.
"That's… impossible."
"Ninety-five?! Even some inner court disciples can't…"
"How could a waste like him— a helper fucker who just entered the sect."
Before the noise could fully settle, one disciple shot up from her seat. She was already at the front of the hall, but her body moved with the urgency of disbelief, rushing to the dummy as she had to see it with her own eyes.
This was none other than Lin Xue, one of the most talented individuals in the outer court — a prodigy who had carved her way to the top through raw comprehension and relentless progress.
Only four years had passed since her entrance exam, yet she had already clawed her way through the leagues, earning her place as one of the aces of League One. She was proud, not without reason.
In her heart, she had believed herself untouchable among her peers.
And now… this?
Her breath trembled as she pressed her palm against the dummy, infusing her spiritual Qi through the circuit. The result flared instantly:
95.1%.
Her eyes widened. For a heartbeat, she could only stare. Then, slowly, she turned her head back toward the three beauties who had stood at the back earlier, the very ones who had risen with her, their eyes equally burning with disbelief. Meeting their gaze, Lin Xue gave a faint nod.
"It was true."
Jian leaned back into his seat, his expression blank, as if the result meant nothing acting like he had done nothing worth mentioning. Yet inwardly in the depths of his mind, laughter rolled like thunder. Maniacal and mocking.
But none of those reactions reached his face. On the surface, he was calm, almost bored. Slowly, he rose to his feet, feigning a hint of surprise.
"Does that mean…" he said evenly, scanning the silent hall, "I hold the highest score?"
The words were not loud, yet they struck the disciples harder than a slap.
"Impossible!" Lin Xue's voice cracked, sharp with disbelief. Her delicate fingers tightened into fists. "Elder Han Mei, how can he score higher than us when he can't even project spiritual Qi? He—he must have cheated!"
As if her outburst had broken the dam, another disciple's voice followed quickly.
A young man with sharp brows, known for his own brilliance, stepped forward. He had proudly scored eighty five being very close to some of the fairies that had passed the ninety-one percent benchmark earlier, and the sting of defeat twisted his tone.
"He's hiding something," he spat. "There's no way a cripple could surpass us without trickery. Elder, this isn't possible!"
The hall buzzed again, anger rising like wildfire, "his dummy might be broken!" Another disciple said from the crowd.
Elder Han Mei was out of words as she was in this same dilemma along with the other disciples as Jian did not only pass the assessment but smashed her own real score, even if it was just by a point one margin. Hence why she was silent.
Jian remained calm absorbing the accusations, but suddenly his eyes hardened. As the accusations clawed at him — not because they were unexpected as he had anticipated this outcome, but because of who they came from.
If it had been the three fairies or other top prodigies pointing fingers, that, he found amusing he might have even considered to play along just for the fun of it .
But to be accused by some disciples that had no clue of what to do?
That… was an insult.
His jaw set, and for the first tim
e, the air around him shifted, as he stood up from his seat with a firm gaze one void of emotion.