The county held the Martial Examination; the prefecture held its higher-level counterpart.
In a county's Martial Examination, a martial artist competed against hundreds of others from the same county. Anyone who rose above the rest could already be called a local talent. Yet across Cloud Prefecture as a whole, that merely earned them the right to step through the gates of the martial path.
The prefectural Martial Examination was different.
Great Zhou held its prefectural Martial Examination once every three years, administered by the prefectural government and overseen by the Martial Temple. When the time came, champions of local Martial Examinations, direct heirs of great clans, sect disciples, elite soldiers, and even legacy disciples of the various academies would gather in the prefectural capital.
Any one of them would be considered a genius back home.
The purpose of the prefectural Martial Examination was to select, from among these geniuses, those who could truly represent the martial prowess of an entire prefecture.
But achieving Dragon Ascension in the Martial Examination meant truly soaring to greatness.
Not only could they receive official appointments and noble ranks, they might even enter the Upper Sect and obtain Mystic Aperture Realm cultivation arts!
From the Blood-Moving Realm to the Dragon-Manifestation Realm, martial artists always cultivated their own blood and vital energy, flesh, sinews, bones, and organs.
The Mystic Aperture Realm was different.
Once they opened the body's profound apertures, martial artists could connect their inner and outer worlds and command wondrous power far beyond blood and vital energy. Their lifespan, physique, perception, and even the might of their martial arts would undergo earth-shaking changes.
That was an entirely different level of the martial path.
It was also a world countless ordinary martial artists could never touch in their lifetimes.
The prefectural Martial Examination was the