Great Xia.
The Martial Exam had been underway for only half a day before it was forcibly brought to an abrupt halt.
It was an annual grand event for humanity, involving countless people. What family didn't have a child? Every year, the Martial Exam affected nearly every industry across Great Xia.
This year's Martial Exam, however, was a little different.
A massive geological upheaval had suddenly struck the Ten Thousand Beast Mountain Secret Realm, throwing every safe zone previously marked out by humanity into disarray.
They had discovered the problem in time, but how could a group of high school examinees possibly enter the Ten Thousand Beast Mountain Secret Realm with its territories in chaos?
By the time the Department of Education noticed the problem, half a day had already passed. During the following hours, news that the Martial Exam had been suspended and that its venue had been compromised swept through every industry like a storm.
The incident affected too many people. There was no way to keep the news under wraps.
After all, even the various departments of Great Xia had employees whose children were taking this year's Martial Exam!
The examinees were only Martial Apprentice-level Martial Artist Reserves. After entering a Secret Realm through the exam's Secret Realm Teleportation Device, they could only wait seven days for the teleportation to reopen and the World Mark to pull them back.
If it hadn't been seven days, their bodies simply couldn't withstand multiple teleportations within such a short period.
The upper echelons of Great Xia urgently deployed the highest-grade Secret Realm Teleportation Devices and dispatched a large number of Martial Artists to the Ten Thousand Beast Mountain Secret Realm to rescue as many examinees as possible.
Nearly every Martial Artist in Great Xia who met a certain strength threshold was mobilized. They entered the Ten Thousand Beast Mountain Secret Realm at once to begin the rescue.
Hundreds of thousands of Martial Artists spent the entire night searching every inch of the areas once controlled by humanity in the Ten Thousand Beast Mountain Secret Realm. They managed to rescue 768,361 examinees.
That was less than half the total number taking this year's Martial Exam. After all, the exam involved the entire Great Xia!
And that was only because they had discovered the problem relatively early. Otherwise, they would likely have rescued even fewer.
The massive geological upheaval kept changing the terrain of the Ten Thousand Beast Mountain Secret Realm. The basic network humanity had set up for the Secret Realm had completely collapsed, so they could no longer use the examinees' wristbands to track their locations.
After those 768,000 examinees had been rescued, the remaining examinees were scattered far and wide. Some had even already met with disaster.
The geological upheaval had also forced some powerful Monster Beasts and Demonic Beasts out of their territories, seriously hampering the rescue effort.
Many of the original Patrol Examiners had also gone missing.
The Director of the Education Bureau moved through the woods, using his powerful Martial Artist senses to keep watch over everything within a three-mile radius. Whenever he detected an examinee nearby, he rushed over at once, rescued them, and sent them back to the present world.
He had been running nonstop for half a day and a whole night.
Along the way, he had encountered powerful Monster Beasts and rescued quite a few examinees.
Running, sensing, fighting, rescuing. For half a day and a whole night, his mind had remained wound tight. Even with his current cultivation, he was utterly exhausted.
But he couldn't stop. He didn't dare stop.
If he did, who knew how many of the examinees still waiting to be found might die in the jaws of Monster Beasts or at the hands of Demonic Beasts?
Every second counted!
A major failure like this at the Martial Exam was a dereliction of duty he couldn't shirk as Director of the Education Bureau. Whatever punishment awaited him afterward, he would accept it. But when he thought of all the young examinees who might still be in grave danger, he couldn't stop.
At the very least, he had to save a few more!
In half a day and a whole night, the Director of the Education Bureau had rescued nearly seven thousand examinees through his formidable strength.
But it still wasn't enough!
Nearly sixty percent of the examinees were still missing!
He couldn't stop yet!
"Kids, I'm sorry. You have to hang on..."
Guilt overwhelmed the Director of the Education Bureau, threatening to drown him whole.
On the first day of the Martial Exam, just as night gave way to dawn, he rescued nearly seven thousand examinees.
But on the second day, with noon already approaching, he had rescued only about three hundred. It wasn't that he was weak; the Ten Thousand Beast Mountain Secret Realm was simply too vast, and the remaining examinees were scattered too far apart.
On top of that, the Secret Realm was still undergoing an extremely subtle, large-scale geological upheaval. The terrain kept shifting, making the rescue effort more and more difficult.
Cloud City No. 1 High School.
Inside the Grade 12 Class 4 classroom, homeroom teacher Li Bindao stood at the lectern, deep exhaustion in his eyes.
A thick stench of blood clung to him. He had taken part in the rescue effort, too.
But he was getting on in years, and an old injury had left his qi and blood depleted. After holding on for only half the night, he had been forced to return to the present world.
He wanted to keep rescuing people, but he knew full well that if he pushed himself any further, he might end up needing rescue himself. That would only add trouble to the operation, so he had wisely withdrawn.
Fortunately, his students seemed to have been lucky. By daybreak, almost all of them had been rescued. Though fear still lingered on their faces, they were alive, and that was what mattered.
"Class, I know you're scared and want to go home, but you can't yet." Li Bindao's voice was hoarse as he continued, "Two of your classmates haven't returned. Please wait at school a little longer."
He did his best to calm his students and asked them to wait at school until the rescue operation was over and the casualties had been counted.
The other classes were the same. The students who had been rescued sat quietly in their classrooms, remembering the terrifying scenes they had witnessed in the Ten Thousand Beast Mountain Secret Realm and waiting.
Teachers who weren't fit to join the rescue, or who had already depleted too much of their qi and blood to continue, did their best to calm the students.
Grade 12 Class 4 had forty-six students. Forty-four had returned so far.
As Li Bindao comforted his students, he glanced at the only two empty seats in the classroom.
Two students still hadn't returned.
Class monitor Liang Shixian, and Ji Ruo.
"An audio announcement, too? Not bad. This one's worth enough to get into college."
Ji Ruo muttered happily to himself.
Normally, the exam grounds were cleared out before the Martial Exam began. In theory, examinees should only encounter Monster Beasts or Demonic Beasts at or below the sixth level of Martial Apprentice.
But that wasn't guaranteed.
Unexpected circumstances could still arise, such as a Monster Beast or Demonic Beast suddenly breaking through to a higher level, or a powerful one wandering in from another area.
During the Martial Exam, situations like these were known as "Out-of-Syllabus Exam Questions."
They were certainly dangerous, but the annual Martial Exam's nearly three-percent fatality rate was due to "Out-of-Syllabus Exam Questions" almost thirty percent of the time.
If an examinee managed to kill one, the reward was naturally substantial.
The Martial Exam's scoring system was a little complicated.
But as Ji Ruo understood it, an "Out-of-Syllabus Exam Question" was basically worth a perfect 150 on one of the exams he'd taken in his previous life.
In other words, full marks on an entire subject!
An ordinary Goblin Lord was normally about as strong as an eighth-level Martial Apprentice.
But this one could even speak, so it had to be stronger. It might even have reached the ninth level of Martial Apprentice!
Ji Ruo had practically stumbled upon a windfall, so of course he was happy.
Of course, his estimate of the Goblin Lord's strength was only a guess. He had no idea how strong it had actually been.
After all, when he found it, the creature had already been on death's door. Even without Ji Ruo's Iron Sand Palm, it wouldn't have lasted much longer.
So Ji Ruo had no idea what level it had been.
He only knew one thing: the fact that it had triggered the wristband's audio announcement meant it was definitely an "Out-of-Syllabus Exam Question"!
Thanks to the book friend "Yu Xuelishang" for the 240 site currency tip~
Before you continue