Among the boys and girls in the square, twenty heard a summons in their ears. When they entered the hall, they saw different numbers appear on the meditation cushions. No one dared dawdle. They hurried to find the places bearing their numbers, sat cross-legged, and began circulating their cultivation arts.
High above them, another hall hung in the air. But when the examinees below occasionally looked up, all they saw was blue sky and white clouds.
Seven desks stood inside the hall in the sky, and six of them were occupied. The six people wore very different clothes: one Daoist, two cultivators, two Confucian scholars, and one monk. Before them, the hall below was completely transparent, revealing the examinees seated cross-legged inside.
The six were the judges for this imperial examination, with the power of life and death over the examinees. Each possessed an extraordinary bearing, yet all of them acted as if they didn't see the empty desk beside them.
At that moment, in the great hall below, pillars of light began rising from the incense burners beside the first batch of examinees. The pillars varied in thickness and brightness.
The pillar on the left represented Root Bone talent, while the one on the right represented fate and fortune. Before even half the allotted time had passed, the pillars of light belonging to more than half the examinees had stopped growing, reaching no more than a foot in height. A few breaths later, only the final examinee's Root Bone talent pillar was still growing. At last, it reached three and a half feet high and was as thick as a fist, with a golden line constantly coursing through it. His pillar of fate and fortune, however, reached two feet but was dull and gray, with nothing special about it.
In the hall in the sky, the senior cultivator said, "His Root Bone is average, but it has the sharpness of metal, so we can raise his rating a little."
The other judges nodded in agreement. Since there was little room for disagreement, the six judges wrote their evaluations in their respective registers. A stone stele stood in the middle of the Deliberation Hall. Once the six judges had finished writing their evaluations, the examinee's name and final score appeared on it. The final score was the average of all the judges' marks.
At the sound of a bell, the examinees in the hall left, and the next batch filed in. Li Zhi was among them.
Li Zhi sat down and closed his eyes. In an instant, two pillars of light surged from the incense burners on either side of him!
The pillar on the left was green, with surging waves visible within. It grew to more than eight feet before finally stopping. The pillar on the right was bright gold, shooting straight up to ten feet! Then countless points of light appeared inside the golden pillar, gathering into a small cauldron.
In the Deliberation Hall, the elderly Confucian scholar stroked his beard with a smile and said, "His Root Bone and fate are both upper-grade, and the cauldron is an auspicious sign as well. I, Liu Sigu, have met few talents like this in my lifetime. Duke of Grace has certainly raised a fine son!"
The senior cultivator said, "It seems the Four Saints Academy will gain another excellent disciple this time. He may even join Elder Liu's tutelage."
The old Confucian scholar laughed even more heartily. "Of course, of course!"
In fact, each judge had a list in hand, clearly stating which immortal sect each family's child was meant to enter. Li Zhi, the eldest son of Southern Qi's Duke of Grace, was supposed to enter the Four Saints Academy. But the lists and quotas didn't necessarily match. For example, five families were competing for Taichu Palace's three places. Who would ultimately claim them depended first on how the examinees performed, and then on how the judges performed.
As for those who weren't on the lists, it went without saying. Even the second-tier cave-heavens had already allocated all their places, leaving only a few scraps for them to fight over.
Liu Sigu picked up his brush and wrote "Heavenly Grade A" and "forty" beside the number nineteen, which represented Li Zhi, in the register.
By tradition, pillars of light measuring less than three feet—whether for Root Bone or fate—were human-grade; four to six feet were earth-grade; seven to nine feet were heaven-grade; and anything over ten feet was beyond-grade. If a pillar resonated with Heaven and Earth, it would produce all manner of auspicious signs. Such signs were commonly ranked in three tiers, with ritual vessels like bells, cauldrons, and incense burners considered upper-grade. Any auspicious sign would raise the evaluation accordingly.
The Heavenly Grade A Liu Sigu wrote was a rating under the old system, while forty was a score under the new one. He had given Li Zhi the highest marks in both. The other judges had all assigned the same old-system rating: Heavenly Grade A. The new system, however, was more precise, so their scores varied slightly.
Li Zhi's final rating was Heavenly Grade A, with a score of thirty-eight. At first glance, his score might not seem to reach the pinnacle, but he was meant to cultivate the Imperial Way of the Human Realm, which placed the greatest importance on fortune. His foundation wasn't the key.
In the next two batches, several more prodigies appeared. Some had a nine-foot foundation; others had nine-foot pillars of fortune. But none were as well-rounded as Li Zhi.
When the fourth batch of examinees arrived, one person's fortune suddenly surged, breaking through ten feet in the blink of an eye!
The judges were all startled and turned their eyes toward him. They saw a young man with delicate features and brows as pretty as a girl's. His foundation was ordinary, only five feet, but his fortune was truly astonishing. It passed ten feet and kept rising, only stopping after growing another half-foot. The first beyond-grade examinee had appeared!
So there really was a Child of Fortune!
The six judges immediately grew serious and fell silent in thought.
The immortal sects' original intention was to recruit several Children of Fortune in Fengyuan Commandery, where powerful forces and talents converged. That was why they had granted places. The problem was that those places had already been divided up before the examination even began. This examinee wasn't on any of the judges' lists, which put them in an awkward position. If a Child of Fortune really appeared and the immortal sects refused to take him, that would be far too blatant.
Just then, the young man's fortune changed again. The pillar of light turned dark red, revealing a vast sea of blood!
The young monk suddenly smiled. "So it's a Buddha's Blood Sea! That sort of fortune would be troublesome for your sects to take on, but it could be useful to my Great Precious Flower Pure Land. I'll take this child!"
The Daoist dressed in Taichu Palace's robes opened his eyes and asked evenly, "Do you have a spare place?"
The monk chanted a Buddhist invocation. "I don't have a spare place, of course. But I can go ask for one right now, and secure it as soon as the Dao Assessment is over."
Everyone nodded and said no more, but they couldn't help feeling wary. The monk was able to ask for a place just like that, which meant he had deep roots in the Great Precious Flower Pure Land. He was not someone to offend lightly.
None of them intended to compete with him for the young man. As the monk had said, although the young man was a Child of Fortune, the calamity of slaughter in his fate was immense, threatening both himself and others. He would be extremely troublesome to handle. Besides, all the judges had lists in hand. Where would they find a place for him?
The judges opened their registers and were about to write when the monk suddenly said, "I'm determined to take this child. I hope you'll show some mercy when you write your scores. It would be a shame if his ranking ended up too low and he lost his chance to join me. I've let go of the four great attachments. I have only one lingering obsession: holding a grudge."
The judges all assured him that they would never let the master's opportunity slip away. Only then did the monk let the matter drop.
A line of text appeared on the stone stele: Duan Yusheng, Heavenly Grade C, thirty-five.
Below, after another batch of examinees had entered the hall, Wei Yuan heard his number called.
Wei Yuan entered the great hall with the other examinees. He saw his number flashing on one of the meditation cushions, walked over, and sat down.
At the clear ring of a chime, the Dao Assessment began.
Wei Yuan quieted his mind and circulated his energy according to the methods laid out in his cultivation art.
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