For the next half hour, the two of them never discussed any serious business about the Secret Realm again.
They pulled out their phones. One checked whether there was any good whole roast lamb near the Bahrain Desert, while the other searched road trip guides for northwestern China for recommended desert camping gear.
"You're going to a Secret Realm, not on a vacation in the northwest."
"That doesn't stop us from eating roast lamb legs on the way, Master!"
Chen Hao said nothing more.
He picked up his phone again and reread the briefing.
A Secret Realm that belonged to no known era or race.
Its scale far exceeded anything that made sense.
And it was opening on its own.
That alone was abnormal.
Primordial Secret Realms all had owners, and where there was an owner, there was a lock. Without a key, a Secret Realm would not open itself to the outside world.
Unless...
Whatever was inside was forcing its way out.
He turned off his phone and pushed the thought aside.
Perhaps he would know once he got there and took a look.
Over the following week, society as a whole shifted into high gear.
High Martial Arts Schools launched admissions tests simultaneously across all thirty-one provinces nationwide.
Each province had five testing sites, operating from eight in the morning until ten at night. The lines stretched from the testing center entrances to two streets away.
Online "talent rankings" for each province were updated daily.
Those above 5% were exceedingly rare, freakishly gifted geniuses.
Those between 3% and 5% were dubbed "near-geniuses" by netizens.
Those between 2% and 3% barely qualified and were called "bare-minimum candidates."
But after taking the test, the vast majority stared at the figures of 0.3% or 0.5% on the screen, then silently left