After half a year of devastation at the hands of Demon Beasts, the ancient Prefectural City of Great Wall Prefecture had escaped being slaughtered to the last soul. Yet a faint stench of blood and ruin still lingered in the air.
Gouges torn by Demon Beast claws marked the city walls everywhere, alongside dried, blackened bloodstains.
Yet at the center of this city struggling to rebuild, one building still stood in absolute dignity and solemnity, spotless and shimmering with spiritual light: the Examination Office established here by the Great Zhou Dynasty.
The Examination Office represented the official will of the Great Zhou Dynasty. It was the highest authority responsible for coordinating cultivators' examinations and advancement throughout the prefecture.
Whether it was the Azure Ordination Heavenly Examination coveted by Qi Refining cultivators or the Purple Register Heavenly Examination now stirring all of Qingzhou, each began here.
Today, layer upon layer of formations had sealed off the square before the Examination Office. No one without authorization could come within half a step.
At the center of the square, ten figures stood silently on paving stones of white marble.
They included men and women, dressed in all manner of attire.
Some carried ancient swords on their backs, their Sword Qi soaring skyward; others wore splendid robes and radiated aristocratic grandeur.
Still others were surrounded by phantoms of strange spirit beasts, their auras wild. Without exception, however, the spiritual power radiating from them placed every one of them at the peak of the Foundation Establishment Realm!
They were the foremost prodigies among the younger generation left in Great Wall Prefecture after the brutal Demon Beast calamity.
Some were young masters who had fought their way out of mountains of corpses and seas of blood among Great Wall Prefecture's four great Lineages. Some were peerless