A Hasty Assessment

October 1st, 2626th year of the Douluo Calendar.

Lingyun City, the Great Military Parade Ground in the west of the city.

"I hereby declare the first 'Continental Unified Assessment Advanced Soul Master Academy ' successfully concluded!"

Standing atop the high platform, Ling Yi surveyed the entire arena. Under the gaze of over three thousand pairs of eyes, he remained composed, his voice rising and falling with captivating charisma. "Now, please welcome the top three teams, the top three individuals, the first-place winner in forging, the first-place winner in carving, and the first-place winner in music to the stage to receive their prizes for this assessment!"

As Ling Yi finished speaking, nine figures walked towards the high platform at varying speeds under the watchful eyes of the crowd.

Looking at those nine young people with their youthful and energetic faces, ninety-nine percent of the people in the audience looked on with envy.

Although only about three hundred teachers and students came to participate in the final assessment, the other city guards of Lingyun City were also very envious of the rewards to come.

Upon reaching the high platform, the nine people consciously took their positions according to their respective strengths and rankings. Ling Yi's gaze met that of each of them, and he saw the barely suppressed excitement and tension on their faces.

Although none of these nine people are familiar faces, their ability to stand out from thousands of their peers is enough to prove their excellence.

Ling Yi smiled slightly, his warm and gentle aura enveloping the nine people and easing their tension. He waved to Qingqiu Xin, who was not far away, and said, "Alright, firstly, the team that wins the group battle, the prize is nine drops of ' Thousand-Year Ice Marrow '!"

Upon hearing this, the captain of the ' Spirit Academy Team ' subconsciously took a step forward.

Ling Yi took a white jade bottle, about the size of a child's fist, from the tray in Qingqiu Xin's hand and handed it to the young man named Yu Min in front of him.

Yu Min, Martial Soul "Blood Demon Berserk Bear", 22 years old, Level 48 Power Attack System Battle Soul Ancestor.

Having obtained this treasure, which was classified as Grade A, Level 1 in the "Record of Rare Treasures," and a full nine drops of it, even though his grandfather was Titled Douluo- level elder of the Spirit Hall, Yu Min still couldn't help but tremble.

Without giving Yu Min much time to get excited, Ling Yi offered a few words of encouragement before picking up another white jade bottle and handing it to Ji Cunxi, the captain of the second-place team in the group battle, the "Skywater Academy Team".

Prize: Six drops of "Thousand-Year Ice Marrow".

The third place went to the "Star Luo Royal Academy Team," whose prize was also "Thousand-Year Ice Marrow," but only three drops.

The top three prizes in the individual battle are "Thousand-Year Whale Rubber". The first place winners in the forging, carving and music categories can choose between a "Blue Silver Grass" Soul Ring of any attribute below five thousand years level and a self-selected Spirit Weapon.

Soul Ring are easy to understand. After reaching the required Soul Power level, the three students can obtain a "Blue Silver Grass" with an age of less than 5,000 years as an advanced Soul Ring, with any attribute to choose from.

Spirit Weapon are Spirit Refinement Divine Weapon. They can be specially crafted for various purposes, including conventional weapons such as swords, spears, and axes, as well as forging hammers, carving knives, and orchestral musical instruments.

Therefore, the three captains of the top three teams and the three individuals who won the top three individual battles each received a white jade bottle and a sandalwood box. However, the first place winners in the three categories of forging, carving, and music were empty-handed, and only left the pattern of their chosen Spirit Weapon on Qingqiu Xin's tray.

Yes, all three of them chose Spirit Weapon and gave up the "Blue Silver Grass" Soul Ring.

As the awards ceremony concluded, Ling Yi's gaze swept over the eager faces of the many students below, and he announced again, "The rest of you need not be disappointed. Although you do not receive these material rewards, as an incentive for passing the preliminary assessments and successfully standing on this final stage, each of you can choose one Yellow Rank secret technique in [Lingyun City]. Each of the top three in the team battle, the top ten in the individual battle, the top three in forging, the top three in carving, and the top three in music can each choose one additional Mystic Rank secret technique!"

Upon hearing this, the entire audience fell silent for a moment, but this was quickly followed by a deafening roar of cheers.

To this day, the secret techniques of Lingyun City are widely known throughout the Douluo Continent as a ladder to power, hailed as the second path besides Martial Soul.

Most importantly, this path does not conflict with the path of Martial Soul Master; on the contrary, they complement each other!

The secret techniques of Lingyun City are divided into four levels and twelve grades: Heaven, Earth, Profound, and Yellow. The "Farmer's Three Forms" and "Basic Body Tempering Technique - Twelve Forms" that have spread throughout the Douluo Continent are not graded. The former is not graded when separated, and the latter's twelve forms are not graded when combined. They are ranked as the lower Yellow Rank!

The nine forms of "Beast Martial Soul: Xingyi Fist I" are all Yellow Rank, capable of both physical training and combat application, comparable to a White-grade 10th-level Soul Ring Soul Skill. They are further subdivided into grades based on their specific effects. For example, the third form, "Light as a Swallow," is classified as a lower Yellow Rank, while the eighth form, "Dragon Lizard Shakes Its Armor," is classified as a higher Yellow Rank.

"Beast Martial Soul: Xingyi Fist Style II" also consists of nine forms. As an advanced version of "Beast Martial Soul: Xingyi Fist Style I", each form is equivalent to a yellow Hundred-Year Soul Ring Soul Skill and is ranked in the Mystic Rank.

As for the Earth Rank and Heaven levels, apart from the high-ranking members within Lingyun City, the outside world only knows that corresponding secret techniques exist, but does not know the specific details.

Because even the Yellow Rank and Mystic Rank secret techniques are enough for hundreds of thousands of combat personnel in the vast Lingyun City to learn.

Although the threshold for learning these secret techniques is much lower than that for Martial Soul Innate Soul Power, the higher the grade of the secret technique, the more difficult it is to comprehend.

The ungraded "Farmer's Three Forms" and the split "Basic Body Tempering Technique - Twelve Forms" are accessible to everyone, from octogenarians to four- or five-year-old toddlers.

However, starting with "Beast Martial Soul: Xingyi Fist Quan Style I", without a certain level of physical strength, talent, and wisdom, it's really impossible to learn it.

In addition to the early "Beast Martial Soul: Xingyi Fist Style", the current secret techniques of [Lingyun City] are also filled with "Tool Martial Soul: Eighteen Weapons", "Drawing Sword Technique", "Thousand- Qian Jun Staff Technique", "Thirteen Spear Forms for Breaking Formations the Formation", "Mountain-Splitting Axe Technique"... ranging from low -Yellow Rank to Mystic Rank Xuan rank, all are available.

"Ni Xing ~" Ling Yi instructed the boy holding a spear by the platform, "Later, your team and Mo Yuxiong's team will arrange for people to take these students to the city library. After they have chosen the secret techniques they want to learn, bring them back here and select the appropriate personnel from the city guards to instruct them..."

"Yes!" Ni Xing responded loudly, then waved his spear, signaling his teammates to notify Mo Yuxiong's squad on duty on the other side.

Immediately afterward, Ni Xing strode forward to Yu Min, the captain of the ' Spirit Academy Team,' glanced at Ji Cunxi and the others beside him, and said in a firm and powerful voice, "Please call your teammates, and any other qualified individuals. I'll take you there first!"

Clearly, Ni Xing planned to take his own team of geniuses who could learn Mystic Rank secret techniques and leave first, while leaving the remaining two hundred or so students to Mo Yuxiong's side.

Mo Yuxiong's subsequent cursing of Ni Xing for being cunning after receiving the news, Ling Yi himself led the teachers from various academies to the City Lord’s Mansion to discuss some issues that arose during the first "Unified Assessment of Advanced Soul Master Academy Across the Continent" and to make corresponding arrangements for the second one.

To be honest, Ling Yi wasn't very satisfied with this first Unified Assessment.

Neither the staff quality, the assessment items, nor the final prizes met his initial expectations.

Firstly, regarding the quality of personnel, because the true purpose of [Lingyun City] was uncertain, although all the major universities sent outstanding students to participate in the assessment, most colleges, except for a few, kept their most outstanding talents.

It's important to know that the most outstanding geniuses are basically taken in as disciples by the academy's teachers and elders, and they will most likely stay in the academy later, becoming new teachers or even leaders.

The Soul Master Academy in the Douluo Continent is actually more like a loosely managed sect.

For students with average qualifications, the principle of casting a wide net is followed: as long as they meet the admission requirements, they are all accepted and then taught in a unified manner.

However, the academy generally doesn't pay much attention to students with average potential. The focus of the teachers and even the dean of the academy is on students with outstanding talent. They take them in as disciples and direct disciples first, and vigorously cultivate them to increase their influence within the academy.

Of course, academies such as the Heaven Dou Royal Academy, the Star Luo Royal Academy, and the Four Elements Academy also serve as platforms for the children and second-generation members of various factions to exchange ideas.

In addition, it also serves the purpose of selecting outstanding talents, except that instead of teachers taking on disciples, it has become young masters and ladies making friends and recruiting followers.

In this context, Lingyun City's proposal to implement a "Unified Assessment for Advanced Soul Master Academy Across the Continent," aiming to determine the most outstanding geniuses and award prizes to the winners, is somewhat intriguing to all parties.

[Lingyun City], do you want to reap the rewards?

This idea came to mind for the leaders of the various factions.

Everyone could see that Lingyun City's development was incredibly rapid and unstoppable. Unless the Spirit Hall, the Clear Sky Sect, and the two great empires joined forces to suppress it, Lingyun City's rise was inevitable.

Among the top combat forces are Chen Jianjun, the "Seven Kill Douluo" and his son Chen Xin, the "Sword Douluo", the unfathomable Erlang, and Dugu Bo and Gu Rong, who are at the Soul Douluo level (they have not yet been publicly announced to have achieved the Titled Douluo).

In terms of basic combat strength, due to the development of Body-Tempering Martial Dao, Lingyun City has almost surpassed the Spirit Hall's accumulated strength over thousands of years in terms of combat strength below the Two-Ring Grand Soul Master.

To this day, the only thing Lingyun City lacks is mid-level combat power.

Under these circumstances, various forces could not help but suspect that Lingyun City was planning to intercept outstanding students from various advanced Martial Soul Academy in order to bolster its own mid-level Soul Master combat power.

Because of these doubts, the quality of the students participating in the first "Continental Unified Assessment for Advanced Soul Master Academy," while not bad, certainly did not reach the expected level. This was especially true for the students specializing in combat.

Only institutions like Martial Soul Academy and Star Luo Royal Academy, which have no worries about Lingyun City poaching their students, or Skywater Academy, whose instructors completely trust Lingyun City, would send their top students out to make an early appearance before the various forces of the Douluo Continent.

As for the assessment items and the prizes for the winners, the former is because the acceptance of more detailed assessment items in the Douluo Continent is not high at present. Items such as attack, defense, skills, speed, and support are basically not participated in. People pay more attention to team battles and individual battles, and use combat power as the most intuitive evaluation standard.

If Ling Yi wants to transform Douluo Continent into the ideal state of flourishing diversity, he estimates that he will need to spend at least several decades guiding the public's mindset.

Finally, there are the winners' prizes. It's clear that all the prizes this time were given out by Lingyun City, or rather, by Ling Yi himself.

For the various forces in the Douluo Continent, even their own personnel have to weigh the pros and cons and consider various factors before they can obtain those precious resources. Now, Ling Yi wants to just talk a little, but he wants them to hand over their real money. If their students win, it's fine, but if they lose, then everything will be for nothing.

As the saying goes, people will do anything for a life-threatening business, but nobody will do anything that loses money.

Getting any party to offer something as a reward before they can see the benefits they can gain is as difficult as climbing to the sky!

Even in the original timeline's "Continent-Wide Advanced Soul Master Academy Tournament," the reason why the Spirit Hall offered three Soul Bone as the champion's prize was because the "Golden Generation" had a precipitous lead in strength, essentially pre-determining the champion's position.

Bibi Dong intended to use it as a prize for the tournament champion to silence the objections of the elders and deities of the Spirit Hall. She never expected that a group of protagonists with overpowered abilities would appear, thwarting her plan.

Of course, as a qualified leader, Bibi Dong was a woman of her word. She said she would give the Soul Bone as the champion's prize, and she really did give it away. Even when Tang San distributed the Soul Bone on the spot, she did not think of stopping him. Only after the three Soul Bone were distributed did she have someone capture Xiao Wu.

On their first visit to the legendary Green Cloud Mountain, Bibi Dong, Shui Qingyue, Lan Lan, Meng Shenji, and others were filled with curiosity and anticipation.

Ling Yi is the most legendary figure in the Douluo Continent over the past thousand years. Everyone has a pilgrimage-like desire to explore the place where such a being resides.

Since it was still early, Ling Yi wasn't in a hurry to take everyone to the council hall and went straight to the point. He had someone inform Li Zhishu and Shao Xin, the "Lingyun Special Grade Chefs," to show off their skills. At Bibi Dong's request, Ling Yi led everyone on a tour of the City Lord’s Mansion.

The first stop was the martial arts training ground. Looking at the stone walls and jade discs surrounding the training ground, as well as the lifelike pictures carved on them, everyone fell silent.

They didn't linger in the training ground. Under the watchful eyes of Chen Xin and Gu Rong, even though Meng Shenji and the others wanted to shamelessly continue watching, they could only take a few more glances before reluctantly following Ling Yi to other parts of the City Lord’s Mansion, turning back every few steps.

Bibi Dong and Shui Qingyue, however, didn't seem to care about this and focused more on Ling Yi himself.