At dawn, on the day of the Martial Academy's Preliminary Exam:
The seventy-two fortified villages and twenty towns of Stone Rock County, along with all eligible young men and women from the County Town, had gathered outside the Martial Academy.
The crowd was packed as densely as a forest, numbering over ten thousand.
The Martial Academy stood near the western city wall, occupying over a thousand acres; outside its gates lay several hundred more acres of open ground.
After swallowing the secretly refined Bright Pearl and training five golden sinews of Mantis Fist, Chu Qing arrived alone at the open ground.
Originally, Madam Jin had wanted to come along.
But Chu Qing had politely refused.
"The Preliminary Exam is simple. You don't need to worry!"
"Besides, I have the reserved spot Madam Shi gave me."
After some thought, Madam Jin felt she should not put pressure on him, so she did not come.
Standing amid the crowd, Chu Qing felt rather regretful.
"Pity I couldn't find any red snakes. Otherwise, Red Snake Leg would definitely break its limit."
Red Snake Leg Wrap required red snakes for three days.
But with so many disaster victims, let alone snakes, even the bugs underground had been eaten clean.
"Still, even without an ultimate Red Snake Leg, it won't make much difference."
As he pondered, he looked around.
Among the people in sight, he spotted several members of the Mantis Assault Class.
They were not close, merely nodding to one another.
What surprised him was that Shi Tiezhu and Zhao Hongxiu were in the neighboring line.
Their gazes met, and they nodded.
Shi Tiezhu opened his mouth, then finally sighed and looked at Chu Qing with pity.
"From today onward, Chu Qing and I will no longer belong to the same world."
Thinking of