Assessment Ends

Under the moonlight, Sett continued his slaughter in Monster Town.

Empowered by Pummel, Sett felt no fatigue at all; on the contrary, he grew increasingly excited. Just then, he spotted five Tiger Mastiffs appearing at the street corner opposite him.

"Perfect timing!" Sett let out a loud shout and charged into the pack of five Tiger Mastiffs, moving like a charging tank.

Pummel! With a punch from his left hand, Sett sent one Tiger Mastiff flying several meters away, unsure if it was dead or alive. The remaining four Tiger Mastiffs lunged at him, and Sett used his right hand to punch another one away.

He followed up with a sweeping kick to knock one aside, but two others were already within inches of him. In an instant, Sett narrowly dodged the bite of one Tiger Mastiff.

The last Tiger Mastiff managed to bite into Sett's back.

Sett felt a sharp, searing pain in his back and let out a roar. He reached back with his large hand, grabbed the Tiger Mastiff biting him, and slammed it onto the ground, crushing it to pieces.

Pummel! Sett punched the remaining Tiger Mastiffs one by one, shattering their heads with his blows.

In just two minutes, all five Tiger Mastiffs were killed by Sett, though he had naturally sustained some bites from them as well.

After cutting off the ears of the five Tiger Mastiffs, Sett ducked into a nearby room and used bandages to stop his bleeding.

For a martial artist, such minor injuries would heal quickly; as long as there wasn't excessive blood loss, it wasn't a major problem.

After a simple dressing, Sett rested for an hour to recover his strength.

Whew, the feeling of every punch connecting with flesh is truly exhilarating. I feel like I'm becoming a bit bloodthirsty, Sett thought. After all, the vast majority of prospective martial artists used blades or swords, and the few remaining used blunt weapons like clubs; only Sett used gauntlets.

Sett had originally planned to use brass knuckles, but the actual combat assessment didn't provide such items, so he had to make do with gauntlets.

After several hours of fighting, Sett increasingly realized that Pummel was tailor-made for him. He also discovered that his strength had grown significantly; it seemed that as long as he kept fighting, he could keep getting stronger. It was incredibly satisfying.

He had 30 ears already, and it was only 12:00 AM. With six hours left, he had to keep going. After resting, Sett stood up and stretched his body. Finding nothing seriously wrong, he decided to head back out to continue slaughtering monsters.

After all, he had a bet with Wan Dong of the Thunder Dojo, and he certainly couldn't hold Luo Feng back.

On the other side, Luo Feng held his battle blade, locked in a life-or-death struggle with eight monsters.

Facing the siege of eight monsters, Luo Feng didn't panic; instead, he became even calmer. Each time, Luo Feng used only a tiny shift in position to evade the monsters' attacks. Despite there being eight of them, they couldn't touch him at all.

Clearly, Luo Feng had decided to fight so many monsters to hone his footwork, though he also had his Spirit Reader abilities as a trump card.

Looking at it this way, Luo Feng's footwork was already approaching the Micro-level.

"That's the fourth one. Becoming a martial artist is definitely in the bag," Yang Wu thought not far away after slicing off the left ear of a Shadow Cat. "Time to rest a bit and keep fighting." Yang Wu found a room to rest briefly before heading back out to hunt monsters.

After all, the monsters in Monster Town were the weakest of their kind, making this a great opportunity for prospective martial artists to practice. If they missed this chance, it wouldn't be this easy once they reached the Wilderness Zone.

In the blink of an eye, the sky turned hazy, and the time remaining for the actual combat assessment grew shorter.

The entire Monster Town was much quieter now. Following a night of slaughter, the number of monsters had dwindled significantly. Many prospective martial artists, having hunted what they deemed enough monsters, had gone into hiding to wait for the assessment to end.

Only those who lacked enough monster ears were still searching for opportunities.

Of course, the Madman, Luo Feng, was still diligently training his footwork.

"Finally, I've mastered it," Luo Feng smiled after killing four monsters. He had finally mastered Micro-level footwork; his efforts throughout the night hadn't been in vain.

"78 ears. I'll kill two more and then finish. I remember Wan Dong had forty or fifty in the original story," Sett thought. After all, too much time had passed, and he couldn't recall many details from the original story, especially since it was such a long novel.

A night had passed, and Sett had made obvious progress. He felt that his force-exertion techniques had changed; with the same physical fitness, he could now output much more power than before. Even without using Pummel, he could kill Shadow Cats and Tiger Mastiffs with a single punch.

"A night has passed, and I've killed ten monsters. Although I can't compare to Luo Feng and Sett, the gap probably isn't that big," a tall man with a scar on his face thought after cutting off the ear of a Shadow Cat. It was Yang Wu.

Yang Wu looked at the sky and saw that dawn was approaching, so he decided to call it a day. After a night of work, Yang Wu's strength had also improved quite a bit.

Not long after, a piercing sound rang out across the entire Monster Town, followed by a loud, resonant voice: "The assessment time is up. All prospective martial artists, report to the town entrance immediately."

"It's over. My first time can be considered a successful completion," Sett smiled upon hearing this, his body, tense from the night's work, finally relaxing.

At the entrance of Monster Town, prospective martial artists emerged one by one. Every one of them was stained with blood—either the blood of monsters or their own. Some had sustained serious injuries and were being helped out by their friends.

The carcasses of the monsters killed by the prospective martial artists were loaded onto trucks and hauled away.

In a spacious area nearby, many corpses were laid out. Some had even been half-eaten by monsters, a sight that made the prospective martial artists feel deeply uncomfortable.

"If you recognize anyone, please come forward to claim them," an officer said near the pile of bodies.

For a moment, the town was cast in a somber mood.

"Fighting monsters! How can there be no deaths? Since you have chosen the path of a martial artist, you must be prepared for death! The entire human society grants martial artists such high privileges, not for you to enjoy, but for you to slaughter a large number of monsters.

The safety of all humanity is placed in your hands. Only through your dedication and sacrifice can the safety of human society be maintained.

Even for the sake of your families and friends, I hope you will stand up for humanity and fight the monsters!

This actual combat assessment only involved the lowest-level monsters. If you can't even pass this hurdle, how will you fight monsters in the Wilderness Zone later? How will you survive?"

After the instructor finished speaking, he paused and continued: "Alright, I won't say too much more. Now, take your trophies to the front for tallying."

"Sett, are you okay?" Luo Feng asked quickly upon seeing The Boss emerge, noticing a hole bitten into the back of his combat suit.

"I'm fine. I got a bit carried away fighting the monsters and took some superficial wounds," Sett replied, putting Luo Feng at ease.

"Brother Yang, how about it? How many monsters did you kill?" Sett asked hurriedly upon seeing Yang Wu nearby.

"Hehe, I killed ten monsters. I'm still pretty impressive, right?" Yang Wu said, raising an eyebrow.

Soon, it was the turn of the three of them. Yang Wu poured ten ears out of his backpack, causing the prospective martial artists nearby to gasp. Being able to kill ten monsters was naturally very impressive.

"Yang Wu, ten monsters in total. Not bad. Next," the examiner said with a smile after seeing Yang Wu's results.

Next was Sett. Sett took the backpack off his back, unzipped it, and poured out a large number of monster ears, filling the collection container to the brim.

"Wait, there's one more in here." Sett laughed as he pulled out an ear that had gotten stuck in the backpack.

"Who is that? How did he kill so many monsters?"

"That's Sett. See the guy next to him? That's Luo Feng. Both of them were recruited early by the Extreme Martial Arts Hall."

"Those recruited early really are different. We risk our lives just to kill two or three, but he just goes and kills dozens."

After counting for quite a while, the examiner sighed and said, "82. You really are something, Sett. Although you're a bit injured, this is impressive." The examiner was a martial artist himself; thinking back to his own actual combat assessment where he had only killed a few monsters, it was truly incredible that this prospective martial artist had killed so many.

"Damn, Sett, I never thought you were this strong. I kept thinking that since I killed ten, the gap between us wouldn't be that big, but reality just dealt me a fatal blow." Yang Wu punched Sett on the shoulder, exclaiming in surprise.

Next, Luo Feng also poured a pile of monster ears out of his backpack. After counting, he had 68, which was fewer than Sett but still very impressive. "Wan Dong, 66. Not bad."

Seeing that Wan Dong had only killed 68 monsters, Sett and Luo Feng looked at each other and smiled slightly.

It looked like the money was in the bag.

The contract has been sent, investment is welcome.