Real Effort? It Was All Talent

Li Xiuchang followed the tall Senior Sister. Before long, he received his upgraded Identity Token, along with the "big gift package" from the sect.

It really was a big gift package.

A big gift package of Tier 1 talismans.

Li Xiuchang received over a thousand Tier 1 talismans—offensive ones, defensive ones, escape talismans, healing talismans... Every kind imaginable was included!

"This..."

For a moment, Li Xiuchang did not know what to say.

The gift was very practical, but... why talismans?

Not pills, not magical artifacts, but talismans—and all of them Tier 1 talismans.

He could not help but wonder... Could it be that the sect's stockpile of Tier 1 talismans was also so huge that they could never use them all, and they did not know where else to put them?

So they had simply taken them and used them as coming-of-age gifts for new disciples.

Although there were quite a lot of talismans, they were not actually worth many spirit stones.

The key point was that Li Xiuchang was determined to hole up inside the sect and develop himself. He had no plans to venture outside and fight people with magic or anything of the sort. He might truly never get a chance to use these talismans.

Seeing Li Xiuchang's expression, the tall Senior Sister did not avoid the subject. Covering her mouth, she chuckled and said, "There are too many Tier 1 Talisman Masters in the sect. According to the rules, every year the sect has to issue them sect missions to make talismans, but in reality, because Tier 1 talismans are constantly depreciating in value, the sect loses some spirit stones every time they complete a mission.

"Besides, Tier 1 talismans are flooding the outside world. Even if the sect wanted to sell that many Tier 1 talismans, it couldn't get rid of them. Or rather, selling them would only result in even greater losses, so it might as well use them to reward new disciples who have only recently joined the sect.

"They may not be worth many spirit stones, but they're still very practical. These days, when Qi Condensation Cultivators fight each other, they just grab a stack of Tier 1 talismans and hurl them wildly. They're more useful than any magical artifact or spell."

Li Xiuchang had zero experience fighting anyone, so he really had not known this.

It seemed that the proliferation of Tier 1 Talisman Masters had already changed the way low-level cultivators fought.

Indeed, talismans were convenient and quick to use, did not consume magical power, and, most importantly, were cheap!

In any case, the sect had given him these talismans for free. Li Xiuchang had no reason to be dissatisfied. He immediately expressed his thanks and left the General Affairs Hall.

After returning to the Eastern Geng District, Li Xiuchang immediately began preparing for the Spirit Plant Cultivation Arts assessment the next day.

Although he was extremely confident in his Spirit Plant Cultivation Arts—mainly because his talent in this field was simply too strong—he still could not afford to be careless, lest he capsize in a ditch.

Cramming the day before an exam was the bare minimum respect one could show it.

The next day, Li Xiuchang went to the General Affairs Hall early in the morning to take the Tier 1 Spirit Planter examination.

Immortal Dust Sect was one of the few sects in the cultivation world qualified to conduct Cultivation Techniques examinations. This saved Li Xiuchang quite a bit of trouble, since he could take the examination within his own sect.

The chief examiner presiding over the assessment was an old man with black hair and white whiskers. According to the rules, the chief examiner had to be from outside the sect and had to be proficient in the technique being tested.

This old man was at least a Tier 4 Spirit Plant Master.

There were also six assistant examiners. They had to be Tier 2 Spirit Planters or above, and members of the sect could make up no more than half of them—in other words, at most three assistant examiners could be from Immortal Dust Sect.

Li Xiuchang had gotten in through the back door and cut in line this time. Three others were taking the examination with him, all of them outer disciples of Immortal Dust Sect.

There were also a few spectators, including Senior Brother Yan Song, as well as the tall Senior Sister.

The examination began. The chief examiner slowly and clearly read out the rules and procedures.

Actually, even without him explaining them, anyone who came to take the assessment had naturally learned about them in advance.

The Tier 1 Spirit Planter examination was very simple. It was divided into a theory test and a practical test.

The theory test came first. Put bluntly, it was just answering a written paper.

The chief examiner took out a magical artifact shaped like a pendulum. It was a Proctoring Magic Treasure specially refined for examinations, serving both to keep time and to suppress Spiritual Sense.

The moment the pendulum of the Proctoring Magic Treasure began to swing, the four examinees, including Li Xiuchang, immediately felt their Spiritual Sense being suppressed and becoming unusable. This also eliminated any possibility of cheating.

The assistant examiners then handed out the papers to the four examinees. They had half an hour to complete them.

Li Xiuchang first skimmed through the contents of the paper. Most of it consisted of basic questions testing things that had to be memorized by rote.

The questions mainly asked about the planting and harvesting methods of Tier 1 Spirit Plants, as well as basic ripening techniques and the like.

After all, Li Xiuchang had endured... or rather, undergone more than a decade of exam-oriented education. This was his strong suit. His approach to memorizing things was simple: he remembered them quickly and forgot them just as quickly.

He had gone over this basic knowledge once before coming. The memories were still hot, and his brush moved as if guided by divine inspiration. He finished the paper in one smooth, flowing burst.

The final questions on the paper involved somewhat divergent thinking. Their difficulty suddenly increased, but they were not beyond the syllabus. They all remained within the scope of a Tier 1 Spirit Planter.

After thinking briefly, Li Xiuchang realized that Senior Brother Mo had seemingly mentioned all of them, either directly or indirectly, in the lesson he had given him back then.

By drawing inferences from one example and applying what he had learned to related matters, he smoothly answered the final few major questions as well.

For a moment, Li Xiuchang could not even tell whether his comprehension in Spirit Plant Cultivation Arts was heaven-defying, whether Senior Brother Mo had taught him well, or whether it was both.

After finishing, Li Xiuchang did not hurriedly hand in his paper. Instead, he half-heartedly and half-seriously checked it from beginning to end while waiting for the other three to finish.

Clang!

The pendulum artifact let out a deep, resonant sound, signifying that the half-hour allotted for answering had ended.

Only then did the other three examinees reluctantly put down their papers. From the look of things, they had not finished writing.

Li Xiuchang seemed to see his former self in them. They looked exactly like him during exams in his previous life, when he could not solve the final few difficult questions and could only spout a bunch of nonsense, trying to write as many words as possible in the hope of begging a few more points from the graders.

Pitiful point beggars!

But this time, he was playing the part of a genius top student.

It felt amazing!

The four papers were all handed in, and the examiners graded them with remarkable speed, finishing in only a few minutes.

For the theory test, scoring above eighty percent was enough to pass.

Anyone able to take the examination naturally had confidence in themselves, so there was no doubt that all four passed.

However, the first three examinees had only scraped by with low scores.

When it was time to announce Li Xiuchang's result, the chief examiner cast him an approving look. "Li Xiuchang, full marks."

Li Xiuchang instantly became the center of attention.

Even Yan Song gave an almost imperceptible nod.

Although the theory test was simple, getting full marks was not easy.

"It seems Junior Brother Li really put in a great deal of effort," the tall Senior Sister praised him without holding back.

Li Xiuchang really wanted to tell her: Not at all. It was all talent.

After the theory test ended, the practical test followed, and they needed to change locations.

The practical examination site was in one of Immortal Dust Sect's medicinal fields.