Ning Rongrong soon reached the old man.
She held out her hand for him to test her aptitude.
"Huh?"
The old man abruptly looked up, his face full of surprise and suspicion.
"Um, may I ask if I passed the preliminary test?"
Ning Rongrong felt a little puzzled.
"Does your family know you came here?"
The old man frowned.
Oh, so he knew who she was. That was only natural. Once someone reached level sixty, it was hard not to know.
Ning Rongrong smiled and changed the subject.
"That shouldn't matter, right? I meet the academy's standards. You have no reason not to accept me."
The old man hesitated for a moment before letting Ning Rongrong pass.
Following the directions, Ning Rongrong arrived at the second test.
On the way, she noticed that the blue-haired boy, the pink-haired girl, and the blond man knew each other. And that white-bearded "old man" was actually a student at Shrek Academy. But none of that had anything to do with her. She reached the second test site, and soon it was her turn.
She saw the blond man exchange a few words with the older examiner, who then let the blond man send the blue-and-pink pair straight to the fourth test.
"Pulling strings?"
That was the first reason Ning Rongrong thought of. Then the examiner spoke:
"Anyone with Soul Power above level twenty-five can skip the second and third tests."
Ning Rongrong immediately grew confident. Seeing that the blue-and-pink pair had only tested at level twenty-nine, she became even more confident, though there was a hint of unease beneath it.
She hadn't trained herself to level thirty.
But that didn't matter.
"Teacher, I believe I can skip the second and third tests as well."
Smiling, Ning Rongrong walked over to Xiao Wu and took the crystal ball, pouring her Soul Power into it.
Crack.
Cracks appeared across the crystal ball, then it shattered outright.
Huh?
Ning Rongrong's mouth twitched.
The examiner whipped around, his jaw hanging open.
"At least level thirty Soul Power! A genuine monster. Looks like I'll be getting a raise this year."
"Level thirty?"
The black-clad girl behind her stared wide-eyed. The girl in front of her was twelve, just like her, yet she was already level thirty?
She herself was only level twenty-seven!
Dai Mubai, Tang San, and Xiao Wu were all stunned, too.
"Brother, is she even human?"
"Don't be afraid, Xiao Wu. She just comes from a different family. We're no worse than her."
Tang San comforted Xiao Wu, his competitive spirit suddenly flaring up.
One day, he, Tang San, would surpass her!
He, Tang San, would be the strongest among his peers!
The examiner noticed the black-clad girl's hand was halfway outstretched. He took out another crystal ball and handed it to her.
Level twenty-seven.
Having already seen three even more monstrous monsters, the examiner's expression barely changed.
"Good, good, four of you, and one of them is at least level thirty. Mubai, take them to the fourth test."
The four applicants followed Dai Mubai toward the site of the fourth test.
Ning Rongrong wasn't familiar with the other three. The black-clad girl beside her seemed just as unfamiliar with them, while the blue-and-pink pair appeared to know Dai Mubai.
Without thinking, Ning Rongrong edged half a fist closer to the black-clad girl.
Just then, she heard a remark that made her a little angry.
"Some people are born into noble families, pampered and spoiled, without a shred of combat experience. Our academy doesn't want people like that."
Ning Rongrong smiled, her brows already drawing together.
Zhu Zhuqing suddenly felt the killing intent beside her intensify and quickly moved a fist's distance away.
The four soon arrived at the fourth test site. After a lot of rapid-fire chatter, Ning Rongrong understood.
The steel-built giant before them was the target of their fourth test.
At noon, Lu Ma had just woken up.
The first thing he did was open Green Bubble on his phone to see if Dolphin Head had sent any feedback.
He saw that the other party had sent him a file along with some notes.
The gist was that the file was a patch. It fixed injuries from running into walls, enabled the save-and-load function and the character panel, and optimized the language system.
Other characters were still unavailable.
As for loading saves, the other party had also thoughtfully added a warning:
[Mr. Lu, loading a save will erase all progress made after that save, including the main story, chests, and teleport points.]
What main story? You don't even have one.
Lu Ma cursed to himself.
After stretching, he turned on his computer, installed the patch, then launched the game.
Continue...
Then, without any warning, his screen pressed down and displayed the standard BOSS name card—
[Immovable Wisdom King, Zhao Wuji, level 76 Soul Saint]
"Rongrong, watch out!"
An urgent female voice rang in his ears.
Lu Ma had never heard that voice before.
The Soul Skill he was using was in the middle of being canceled.
Zhao Wuji's Soul Skill was already bearing down on him.
"Where the heck did you send me?"
Lu Ma was bewildered. He hurriedly hit ESC to pause the game.
As he remembered it, this was the entrance exam at Shrek Academy, and Zhao Wuji followed one basic principle: when facing a team with a Seven Treasures Glazed Pagoda Martial Soul, take out the Seven Treasures Glazed Pagoda Soul Master first.
But...
Lu Ma's head began to itch. He clearly remembered that before logging off, he'd returned to bed so he could log back in feeling refreshed and explore the main story. Who knew that when he logged in, the main story would already be underway?
But what happened in between? There hadn't even been a cutscene.
He opened the save menu and saw two lonely save files.
The first was the quick-save slot, saved while he was in bed—that is, when he'd logged off.
The second was from three days later in the game, when Ning Rongrong was preparing to leave the Seven Treasure Glazed Tile Sect.
He had no idea why that save existed.
But he didn't worry about it for now. He saved a third file.
Then he opened the character panel.
[Ning Rongrong, age 12, level 30, Soul Grandmaster] [Martial Soul: Seven Treasures Glazed Pagoda (+1)] [Physical Strength level 12, Mental Strength level 26] [Soul Rings: Yellow, Yellow]
The character panel showed only a few simple lines, without even the basic life energy stat.
The status bar at the bottom of the game hadn't been covered. Lu Ma clearly saw that the long red and blue bars looked exactly the same as yesterday, aside from no longer showing specific numbers.
Great, so that's how they fixed running into walls and getting hurt.
"Phew—let's give it a shot. I finally made it into the main story. Maybe I can win?"
For a player like Lu Ma, fighting above his level was old hat. It wasn't as if he'd never opened a door, touched a tree, and triggered a powerful boss.
He resumed the game and immediately pulled off a Perfect Dodge, leaping into the air to avoid both the shockwave and his teammate's vines.
"Phew, my teammates can interfere with my movements?"
Lu Ma found it hard to believe.
Seeing that Ning Rongrong was fine, Tang San withdrew his vines and focused on attacking Zhao Wuji.
Lu Ma controlled Ning Rongrong and used two more Soul Skills.
Under the attacks of the three teammates, she seemed to be nothing more than a buff machine. There wasn't much for Lu Ma to do during the rest of the fight, so he had plenty of time to watch Zhao Wuji's health bar.
The three of them sent the enlarged Zhao Wuji flying and pummeled him in midair. It looked impressive, but the incense stick had burned down by less than a third, and his health bar had barely budged.
Not to mention, when Zhao Wuji started using a Soul Skill, a long white bar suddenly appeared beneath the red health bar.
The damage dealt by his teammates went to the white bar below, and the white bar kept regenerating.
Lu Ma immediately understood.
It was a common shield bar in games, and the kind he hated most—
A regenerating shield bar.
This kind of shield bar tested your DPS. If you didn't deal more damage than the shield regenerated within a set time, you couldn't defeat the BOSS.
These shield bars were usually there to force players to spend money...
Before you continue