Passed the Assessment

Before him stood a towering, iron-black mountain that seemed to pierce the sky. At its foot was a cave about a hundred meters high, and before the cave stood a stone chamber built from massive boulders. A bald, burly man dressed in red was drinking in front of it.

Instructor Golden Lion walked up beside the man. Before he could speak, the man glanced sideways at Yin Congyang. "The sixth one. Go on..." As he spoke, he tossed over a token and an Optical Computer bracer. The token felt slightly heavy in Yin Congyang's hand. "Put on the bracer and keep it on the whole time. The token will teleport you out if you suffer a fatal attack—that means you've failed the assessment. It takes only a brief mental impulse to activate. If you're killed before you can activate it, the token will teleport itself back. One unlucky fellow before you died before he could activate the teleportation. That's why this token came back on its own... Need a weapon? If so, go pick one out in the stone chamber."

Yin Congyang shook his head. Before coming, he had already bought a second-tier Origin Force battle axe, a Force Battle Suit, and a second-tier telekinetic weapon, the Cloud-Flowing Awl. It was a slender, pyramid-shaped weapon made up of 108 triangular daggers. It wasn't particularly powerful and could only handle situations like being swarmed by a sea of enemies.

"There are nine passages inside. Take the one marked number nine, and keep going until you reach the end. Then you'll have passed the assessment," Instructor Golden Lion told Yin Congyang. "I'll be waiting there to take you—or your corpse—back."

Yin Congyang grinned at him and stepped into the cave. It wasn't dark at all; a faint white glow spilled down from the cave walls. He spotted the nine passages at a glance, each marked with a number. Taking a deep breath, he entered passage nine.

Once he stepped into passage nine, the space opened up around him. The ground looked as if it had been paved with metal and was extremely hard. He had walked less than a hundred meters when the ground all around him bulged in a bizarre fashion. One metal man after another seemed to grow right out of the floor. More than a dozen appeared at first, while others continued emerging from the ground behind them.

The metal men that had emerged first wielded swords and blades, and they charged at Yin Congyang.

Yin Congyang gripped the Heaven-Opening Axe as eighteen Cloud-Flowing Awl spikes flew from his back, darting toward the metal men.

"Clang! Clang! Clang..."

A string of metallic clangs rang out. The metal men staggered back a few steps when the spikes struck them, but they had clearly suffered little damage. They charged at him again. Yin Congyang swept them with his telekinesis and found that they had no souls. It looked like he would have to rely on the Heaven-Opening Axe in his hands.

He expanded his Domain, immediately slowing the metal men by a full level. Making easy use of his Domain's power, Yin Congyang chopped them down one by one. These metal men were incredibly tough—he guessed they were made of C-Grade Alloy. The axe blade could only cut into their bodies when empowered by his Domain. So he turned the axe around and used the back of it to strike them one by one. He focused his strength into each blow, sending the force through their bodies to crack or damage the cores they protected inside. The moment a core was damaged, the metal man melted away and sank into the ground, disappearing.

Yin Congyang kept walking and striking, and made it through the stretch of metal flooring with relative ease. The path ahead turned to dirt. After a while, countless branches resembling willow branches suddenly appeared along the cave walls. They were exceptionally tough and lashed at Yin Congyang like whips, one after another, blanketing the passage so densely that he couldn't chop them all down in time. He could only keep dodging as he pushed forward. Fortunately, his Domain came in handy: the branches that entered its range were hindered by it and slowed considerably, giving him plenty of room to dodge. Before long, he made it through the stretch of whip-like branches without incident.

As he went on, the dirt path gradually sloped downward, and puddles began to appear. The water grew deeper and deeper until it filled the entire passage. He held his breath and switched to internal circulation.

Numerous translucent water spirits suddenly appeared in the water and attacked Yin Congyang. He tried to fight back with the Cloud-Flowing Awl and the Heaven-Opening Axe. Both the axe and the awl could easily injure them, but the attacks had no effect: when the axe split a water spirit in two, it immediately merged back together; when the awl pierced a hole through one, it healed the next second.

None of his attacks could effectively harm the water spirits. Fortunately, their attacks weren't very strong. Relying on his Domain to protect him, Yin Congyang endured the attacks of countless water spirits and made it through the underwater stretch.

The passage gradually sloped upward and grew dry, while the temperature kept rising. In no time, it had climbed by more than a hundred degrees, and it continued to increase as he went deeper.

The heat was bizarre. His Domain could keep it from affecting his body, but his soul in the Consciousness Sea still had to endure every degree of the rising temperature. What did it feel like to have a normal body temperature while the soul in your mind grew so hot it was about to be steamed? That was exactly what Yin Congyang was feeling now!

Fortunately, the fluctuations from his Dantian were powerful. They suddenly surged faster toward his soul, protecting it from the heat. Yin Congyang breathed a sigh of relief and walked step by step out of the Flame Soul-Refining Passage.

This stretch of high-temperature passage was extremely strange. If you moved slowly, the temperature would reach a maximum threshold that a Planetary Level Peak soul could withstand. But if you sped up, the faster you went, the higher the temperature climbed. The previous trial taker had died in this passage. His soul power had not yet reached Planetary Level Peak, but unwilling to accept failure, he had tried to race through. The heat had roasted his soul, and his body had burned to ash before he could activate the teleportation force and get himself out.

At last, after relying on his powerful will and soul force to get through the passage, he saw that it ended just ahead. A stone tablet stood there, with a message written in Universe Common Language: "The exit is one hundred meters from here. Dig your way out."

There was nothing for it but to start digging. The cave walls were exceptionally hard. Yin Congyang was only at Planetary Level Three, and his base strength was dozens of times lower than that of someone at Planetary Level Nine. Fortunately, the Thirty-Six Heaven-Opening Axes could be used not only to fell trees but also to split mountains. He brought his Domain to bear, swung his axe, and got to work, digging forward nonstop. Every time he dug ten meters ahead, the cave wall behind him automatically restored itself. Yin Congyang couldn't help marveling at it.

He kept digging forward, then suddenly stopped. Something was wrong. He had dug several hundred meters at least. Why hadn't he reached the exit? Had he gone the wrong way? He shook his head. No. The Optical Computer bracer showed a straight line, and even if some sort of mental Illusion Technique could affect him, the computer had no soul.

Then he would just keep digging. The darkness around him seemed to deepen, as if a voice kept whispering, "Give up. You're digging in the wrong direction. You'll never get out. Use the token to leave!"

As he dug, Yin Congyang suddenly smiled. He had figured out what passage nine was testing.

The metal man passage tested attack power. Without enough attack power, there was no way to get through. The willow-whip passage tested reflexes and footwork; once even one whip caught you, you would have little chance of escaping. Attacks were useless against the water spirits, so that passage tested defensive strength. The water spirits couldn't be killed, and there was no way through without sufficient defense. The high-temperature passage tested soul power, perhaps along with willpower. But this fifth stretch tested nothing but willpower. Those who lacked confidence in themselves and whose resolve was weak would give up under the influence of the omnipresent mental Illusion Technique and use the token to teleport out, which meant failure. Of the two people who had come before him, one had died and one had failed. The one who failed had lost heart on this stretch and eventually used the teleportation token to get out.

Having figured it out, Yin Congyang continued hacking a path forward with the axe in his hands. He dug for nearly ten thousand meters before finally smashing through the cave wall with one blow. The passage opened up before him, and Instructor Golden Lion was standing there, smiling at him.

"Very good, Yin Congyang. You've passed the A9-Level Assessment and been promoted to the Planetary-Level Class A," Instructor Golden Lion said as he led him outside. "Your information has been entered into the Training Camp Intelligent System. You can go rest in the Student Zone for now... Oh, the Smart Optical Computer in your hand has been assigned to you. It contains some of the Training Camp rules, important information, and a map. Tomorrow, you'll receive an SS-Type Bloodline Evolution Agent. Use it as soon as possible. The Training Camp officially begins in ten days."

Yin Congyang brought up a map of the entire Training Camp on his Smart Optical Computer and found the Student Zone. After thanking Instructor Golden Lion, he headed there alone.

He found Kekechi, the supervisor in charge of student affairs in the Student Zone. Kekechi brought up Yin Congyang's information. "You're the fourth student in Class A. We've assigned you a villa in A04 and authorized you to enter. Go there on your own. If you need anything, ask the Smart Butler in the villa. It's best not to wander around for the next few days. Tomorrow, you'll receive an SS-Type Bloodline Evolution Agent, which you must accept in person. After that, there'll be more resources distributed to the Class A students..."

After finding the A04 villa, Yin Congyang went inside and began carefully reading through the Training Camp rules and important information.

There weren't many rules. The main ones were to follow the instructors' arrangements and attend theoretical and practical lessons. Students in Class A also received 100 Student Points each month. Aside from basic resources, they had to use points to exchange for anything else they needed.

The main purpose of the Training Camp was to get these students to break through to Star Level within a hundred years and become powerful even among Star Level fighters. Only then could they transfer to the Star Level Training Camp and continue their training.

There weren't many other important points. The main one was that students weren't allowed to fight one another under normal circumstances, except in a few places such as the Combat Arena. Resources they received or items bought with points couldn't be transferred to other students without prior approval from an instructor, to prevent anyone from exploiting others and squeezing resources out of them.

Overall, the rules were fairly fair. If they wanted to grow stronger, they had to rely on their own efforts.

Planetary Level students had a small assessment once a year, a medium assessment once every five years, and a major assessment once every ten years. After each major assessment, there would be a Life-and-Death Trial lasting from half a year to a year. The format varied.

Each group of Planetary Level students had a maximum training period of one hundred years. Those who joined midway were subject to the same graduation deadline. If they failed to break through to Star Level by the end of the hundred years, or broke through but failed to meet the combat-strength requirements, they would have to leave the Training Camp and become external members, continuing to serve the Virtual Universe by carrying out tasks suited to low-level cultivators.