The entire place fell deathly silent!
All seventy-one martial arts students gaped, their faces filled with disbelief!
What had they just seen?
A Transformation Realm martial skill!
Xu Yuan had actually unleashed a Transformation Realm martial skill?!!
What the fuck... were they seeing a ghost in broad daylight???
At the invigilators' table.
Niu Gang, Lin Yuan, Chen Rui, and Cao Wanwei all rose to their feet!
Even the school administrators, who were not divine warriors, could not help standing up with them!
Every pair of eyes locked onto Xu Yuan inside the testing chamber!
"I thought complete mastery was his limit. I never imagined it would actually be the Transformation Realm..."
Only after who knew how long did Lin Yuan murmur as though talking in his sleep, "The Transformation Realm... the Transformation Realm..."
No one spoke.
After a long while, Niu Gang suddenly swore, "Fuck, this kid is a fucking martial arts prodigy!"
Cursing away, Niu Gang suddenly grew furious. "That son of a bitch! With talent like that, instead of training properly, he spends all day screwing around! Today, I'm going to beat him to-"
No.
He could not beat him to death.
Anyone who could comprehend a martial skill to the Transformation Realm was a talent Great Xia desperately needed. If he beat the boy to death, the people above him would beat him to death!
Right, he could not beat him to death.
He could not even hit him. If he injured him, people would still come after him!
At that thought, Niu Gang's bull-like eyes abruptly rounded on Lin Yuan. "How the fuck are you doing your job as a teacher? You had a martial arts prodigy in your class, and you never noticed?!"
"I didn't know! This kid has never performed a martial skill in front of anyone. Who could have known he had this talent?"
Lin Yuan nearly died from the injustice of it. Fuck, I might as well change my name to Lin 'Wronged' Yuan.
Beside him, Chen Rui's eyes were practically turning red. "This kid alone is worth twenty merit points. Old Niu, what kind of fucking dogshit luck do you have?"
Twenty merit points!
Without earning any special merits, it would take him four years to save up that much.
Now that Xu Yuan had emerged, Niu Gang could immediately collect twenty merit points!
That bastard Old Niu really fucking deserved to die!
Cao Wanwei was not close enough to Niu Gang and Lin Yuan to joke like that. He could only cup his fists, his face full of envy. "To think Third High has produced a martial arts prodigy. Congratulations!"
Out on the floor, the students also recovered from that utterly shocking sight, and discussion erupted with a roar:
"The Transformation Realm! Xu Yuan actually trained the Savage Bull Heart-Shattering Butt to the Transformation Realm!!!"
"So this bastard really wasn't bragging! His fucking martial arts talent really is incredible!"
"Good thing I didn't join the betting, or I'd have lost big!"
Some looked relieved, while everyone who had placed a bet completely fell apart!
"What a fucking scam! This bastard wasn't betting with us. He was committing fucking fraud!"
"I'm screwed! I fucking bet a whole five hundred!"
"Five hundred is jack shit! I fucking bet a thousand!"
Cries of misery filled the field, curses rising in a chorus!
But soon, they realized they were not the ones suffering most.
Someone else had it worse!
Zhang Baosheng!
They had only lost money, but Zhang Baosheng had been pushed out of the top thirty!
Xu Yuan had scored 50 in martial skills. Adding his cultivation score of 30.2, his total shot straight past the 80-point mark!
Forget the top thirty-he had made the top ten!
That naturally pushed Zhang Baosheng, previously ranked thirtieth, out of the top thirty!
Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh!
Dozens upon dozens of gazes turned toward Zhang Baosheng.
They saw him standing there, his face alternating between deathly pale and livid, seemingly barely able to stay on his feet.
He had bet three thousand!
Three thousand!
But that was not what hurt most. What hurt most was that he could not pass the assessment!
And everything he had said earlier... about breaking Xu Yuan's legs, about making Xu Yuan learn the consequences of touching his family, had all become a joke!
With Xu Yuan having mastered a Transformation Realm martial skill, even if he was only at skin tempering second tier, Zhang Baosheng might not be able to beat him.
Even if he could, would he really dare?
A martial arts prodigy! If he dared lay a hand on him, wouldn't Niu the Brute slap him dead?
Thinking of all this, Zhang Baosheng felt his vision darken and the world spin, nearly fainting.
Inside the testing chamber.
The phantom bull had dissipated, and the chamber door had opened.
Xu Yuan looked at the battered practice dummy, then at the 50 points on the display. He should have been happy, but instead, his brow was slightly furrowed.
Too weak.
Skin tempering second tier really was far too frail.
The practice dummy was made of special rubber, its strength comparable to skin tempering ninth stage, but it was not particularly hard. Yet the recoil from a single strike had left his elbow in intense pain!
If he rolled up his sleeve now, his elbow would definitely be bright red!
Had the dummy's material been any harder, his elbow would probably already have been a bloody mess!
Cultivation!
I had to raise my cultivation!
What good was a Transformation Realm martial skill if my cultivation couldn't keep up?
Even hitting a rubber dummy fucking hurt my own arm!
So I had to hurry up and fleece the Beast Ranking!
Otherwise, cultivating with my tier-one talent really was too difficult.
I had it rough...
With these thoughts, Xu Yuan walked out of the testing chamber, his face clouded with worry.
The students were all dumbfounded at the sight.
After showing off that hard and scamming them out of so much money, why was this guy still wearing that expression?
As though noticing their confusion, Xu Yuan sighed and said gloomily, "I'm too weak."
"??????"
"Fuck, he's showing off, right?"
"If you're fucking weak, what does that make us?"
"This son of a bitch is deliberately rubbing salt in the wound!"
The students cursed and bared their teeth at Xu Yuan.
But now, there was actually little malice behind it.
A martial arts prodigy could become a special-grade teacher in the future, even without good divine talent!
If he was even more amazing, he might become one of those legendary martial skill researchers!
Teenagers could not swallow their pride and flatter him, but who would be stupid enough to offend Xu Yuan now?
Of course, there were exceptions.
Zhou Ling still stared coldly at Xu Yuan.
Amid that coldness was now a thick streak of jealousy!
Sensing the malice, Xu Yuan looked over. Seeing that it was Zhou Ling again, he frowned.
What the hell was wrong with this guy?
Did he have a hole in his brain?
Still, biting dogs didn't bark. It was a good thing this guy displayed his malice so openly. I just had to keep my guard up.
With that thought, Xu Yuan was about to return to the line when Niu Gang's voice rang out.
"Silence!"
At his sharp shout, the noisy examination hall instantly fell quiet.
"You have ten minutes to attend to personal matters. In ten minutes, the assessment results will be officially announced!"
Niu Gang waved everyone away, then turned to Xu Yuan. "You, brat. Come here!"
Something stirred in Xu Yuan's mind. Under everyone's gazes, he walked toward the invigilators' table.
When he reached them, the four Bone Tempering experts and all the school administrators scrutinized him.
The school administrators had actually heard of Xu Yuan.
He never learned anything good, doing nothing but petty thieving and rotten things like bullying classmates!
It was only because he had never caused any major trouble that he had not already been asked to withdraw.
Yet this notorious fellow had turned out to be a martial arts prodigy.
"Tell us, why have you kept such outstanding martial arts talent hidden? Could someone steal your talent if you revealed it?"
Just as their stares were making Xu Yuan uncomfortable, Niu Gang spoke, his face dark.
Sure enough, that was what they were asking. Xu Yuan then brought out the explanation he had prepared long ago. "I've offended too many people. I kept something up my sleeve so they couldn't figure out everything I had and deal with me."
Everyone: "..."
"Then why reveal it now? What, you're no longer afraid of people figuring out everything you have?"
"I am, but if I didn't show it, I couldn't pass the assessment!" Xu Yuan looked regretful, as though he had actually wanted to keep hiding it.
Niu Gang was speechless.
Did this kid have some kind of persecution complex?
"So the embryonic martial skill you developed specifically for the punching power assessment was also meant to keep your Transformation Realm martial skill hidden, correct?" Lin Yuan asked then.
Huh?
An embryonic martial skill?
What embryonic martial skill?
Xu Yuan was baffled. Was the force-exertion technique I used in the punching power assessment called an embryonic martial skill?
Without waiting for Xu Yuan's reply, Lin Yuan continued on his own. "You wanted to boost your score through the punching power assessment, then pass by performing a complete-mastery martial skill. But you didn't expect everyone to perform so well. That meant even a complete-mastery martial skill wouldn't let you pass, so you had no choice but to reveal your Transformation Realm martial skill!"
The more Lin Yuan spoke, the more reasonable he found his conjecture.
By the end, his eyes had lit up. "Am I right?"
Xu Yuan said, "...Ah, yes, yes, exactly!"
Good grief, even I hadn't thought that far.
These overactive imaginations were terrifying. He had filled in all the gaps for me!
Niu Gang was even more speechless.
Inexplicably, he also felt a little relieved.
Fortunately, the kid had not managed to keep it hidden, or he would have lost out badly.
Twenty merit points!
If Xu Yuan had not revealed his ability, he would have received twenty fewer merit points this year!
That was two million!
And they were worth even more than two million!
At that thought, Niu Gang felt that even the kid's features looked rather handsome now.
"All right, I won't bother with all that past crap of yours. But from now on, if you keep screwing around and wasting your talent, watch your hide!"
He did not have the spare time to care whether a useless person was good or bad.
But since Xu Yuan was a martial arts prodigy, he could not watch him keep messing around as he had before.
"Absolutely, absolutely. I'll definitely be a decent person from now on."
Xu Yuan put on a frightened expression and nodded like a chick pecking grain.
At the same time, he carefully observed the four men's expressions.
It looked as though he had passed this hurdle.
The principal's gaze, however, seemed a little off, carrying some dissatisfaction and some regret.
He probably thought Xu Yuan's divine talent was too low, squandering his martial arts talent.
Xu Yuan thought so himself, to some extent. He could only hope the Beast Ranking would give him a reward that could improve his talent.