Heavenly Leaf Scholarship Fund

Sitting in the carriage, Fang Yun pondered calmly. First place in the Metropolitan Examination was already as secure as Mount Tai. More than seventy Half-Sages and six Second Saints had awakened—an unprecedented event. If he still could not become Huiyuan under such circumstances, the Literary Star might as well shatter.

The New Year was next. When the time came, the academies would close and every region would go on holiday. But for some newly promoted Metropolitan Graduates, it would be their busiest season, because the finest among them not only had to take part in the Ten Kingdoms Spring Hunt during the Lantern Festival, but also prepare for the coming Palace Examination.

Not every Metropolitan Graduate was qualified to participate in the Palace Examination. No matter how hard Jing Kingdom tried this year, it could only send its top fifty Metropolitan Graduates, because the Palace Examination required them to serve as acting county magistrates in a county town. Jing Kingdom was a small nation, with fewer than three hundred counties in total. In past years, it could only spare twenty counties for Metropolitan Graduates to govern temporarily.

Major nations such as Qi Kingdom could casually produce more than a hundred counties.

Being able to participate in the Palace Examination meant having a chance to enter the Sea of Learning. Major nations possessed an enormous advantage, even creating a snowball effect that ensured small nations could never surpass them.

As for when to launch a Literary Battle for a Prefecture against Qing Kingdom, Fang Yun had not yet decided. Qing Kingdom's veteran Metropolitan Graduates were simply too powerful. If Qing Kingdom's aristocratic clans cast aside all shame and sent Poem Maniac Metropolitan Graduates or Metropolitan Graduates from the Desolate City Ancient Land, the outcome would be difficult to predict.

Those strongest