A Bet

The Unified Exam Elimination Round continued.

More and more students were left miserable under the attacks of the Flesh Puppets.

Within the golden ring of light, the twelve Homeroom Teachers spread out their divine senses, monitoring the conditions in every student's divine realm.

"Another student has been eliminated. I'd thought quite highly of him," one Homeroom Teacher sighed.

"Twenty students in my class have already been eliminated. I've lost a third of them."

"My class is doing even worse. Half the students have already been eliminated. Isn't this Unified Exam a bit beyond the syllabus in difficulty?"

"Ahem!" Director of Studies Xu Mei coughed, interrupting the Homeroom Teachers' complaints. "The principal is leading three vice principals at the front lines to contend with the Abyssal Civilization for planes. There must be a reason he chose Flesh Puppets as the invading enemies for the elimination round. It is not our place, as demigods, to speculate."

"Yes, yes, Director Xu is right. We only need to conscientiously complete the tasks assigned by the principal. Don't you all agree?"

"That's right. We firmly support the principal."

Only then did Xu Mei's expression improve.

At that moment, Tian Wen suddenly clapped his hands excitedly. "Good lad! The Flesh Puppets that others see as nightmares have actually become food for feeding his followers. He really knows his stuff."

The other Homeroom Teachers promptly turned their divine senses toward the screen Tian Wen was watching.

"There are followers that can withstand the toxins contained in a Flesh Puppet's flesh?"

"They even know to roast it before eating. How particular!"

"Locusts can ignore the Flesh Puppet's toxins? That's a new discovery! It's worth researching."

Seeing Han Wu's locusts gnawing away at the Flesh Puppets, the Homeroom Teachers all praised him.

Liu Letian stood behind them, his face as ugly as if he had eaten shit.

"Hmph, he's just stepped in dog shit and gotten lucky, accidentally hitting the mark. In terms of strength, his locusts are trash," Liu Letian said indignantly.

"Teacher Liu, I can't agree with that." Tian Wen had never seen eye to eye with Liu Letian, and now that he had a chance to criticize him, he naturally seized it.

"Luck is also part of strength. Besides, look carefully—the locusts he raised aren't weak at all."

As he spoke, Tian Wen enlarged the display, revealing the Explosive Locusts Han Wu had cultivated.

"Oh, Extraordinary Lifeforms! Though they can only be considered bottom-tier among Extraordinary Lifeforms, they have still crossed the threshold into the extraordinary." A Homeroom Teacher with detection abilities offered his assessment.

"Extraordinary Lifeform locusts are still locusts, aren't they? Their overall combat power is only about equal to Normal Lifeform goblins, and in some respects they're even inferior to goblins," Liu Letian disparaged.

"Teacher Liu, that's one-sided. You can't always compare a locust's weaknesses with other races' strengths. Let me ask you: locusts can expand their population a hundredfold or a thousandfold in a year. Can goblins do that?" Tian Wen argued on solid grounds.

"I'm not arguing over such useless things with you. Let's see the results. There's a student in my class named Liu Mo, and his followers are goblins. I dare bet that Liu Mo's final score will definitely be better than Han Wu's. Do you dare?" Liu Letian had been holding in a bellyful of anger and was looking for an excuse to vent it.

Tian Wen and Liu Letian had never been able to stand each other, and Liu Letian's "Do you dare?" immediately got under his skin.

"What's there to be afraid of? A bet it is. I bet that Han Wu from my class will definitely score better than Liu Mo from yours." Tian Wen slapped the table.

A faint sneer appeared on Liu Letian's face. "Good. Everyone here can bear witness. If I win, I don't ask for much—five points of divinity. You can afford that, can't you?"

Tian Wen said, "If you lose, you'll compensate me with five points of divinity too."

"No problem. It's settled, then." Liu Letian finalized the matter on the spot.

He was extremely confident that Liu Mo would achieve excellent results.

Because Liu Mo was his own nephew.

To prepare for the Unified Exam, Liu Letian had given Liu Mo quite a few resources and much guidance, both publicly and privately, all so Liu Mo could bring him some glory during the Unified Exam.

As for Han Wu, Liu Letian didn't believe Tian Wen would provide Han Wu with much resource support.

After all, Tian Wen had quite a few good students in his class. Han Wu's current performance was not yet enough to warrant preferential investment of resources in his cultivation.

The two Homeroom Teachers made their wager.

The elimination-stage assessment also entered its final stretch.

Of the more than seven hundred examinees, only four hundred and thirty passed the elimination-stage assessment.

The pass rate barely reached sixty percent.

The Homeroom Teachers within the golden ring of light all looked rather grim.

These results were somewhat too embarrassing to show anyone.

When it came time to choose whether to proceed to the ranking assessment, another one hundred and thirty students directly chose to forfeit.

"What a bunch of spineless cowards!" one hot-tempered Homeroom Teacher cursed.

"Don't blame the students. This Unified Exam is very difficult; it's normal for some to withdraw."

"The students who can survive a grueling war are the ones we should cultivate in the future."

The Homeroom Teachers nodded one after another, their gazes falling upon the screens showing their remaining students.

"The ranking assessment begins now," an emotionless mechanical voice announced to the remaining three hundred students.

An even denser aura of ill omen poured from the enormous teleportation gate.

A crunching, grinding sound came from within.

The students continuing the assessment could not help but grow nervous.

Before long, the invading outsiders revealed themselves.

They were Skeleton Soldiers—one hundred thousand in total.

The Homeroom Teachers within the halos of light, along with the students taking the assessment, all widened their eyes and blurted out the same two-word exclamation.

"That's it?!"

As everyone knew, Skeleton Soldiers were the lowest-tier existence among Demonic Beasts. In planar wars, they were often used as cannon fodder to wear down the enemy's strength.

Moreover, the first wave of Skeleton Soldiers in this assessment were clearly only the most basic ordinary Demonic Beasts.

There was not even a single elite Demonic Beast among them.

This point was practically being handed out for free.

The 130 students who had chosen to withdraw regretted it so badly their intestines turned green.

Had they known the next assessment would be Skeleton Soldiers, they never would have withdrawn.

Skeleton Soldiers were something practically anyone could bully.

But there was no medicine for regret in this world.

Those students who had withdrawn could only blame themselves for being too cowardly.