Chapter Summaries

The leaderboard revealed Su Mu in first place, while the exact scores of the top fifty remained hidden. Wang Hao saw Su Mu’s ranking and, despite his jealousy, held on to the hope that he could outperform him in the remaining rounds.

• The examinees learned that the top fifty scores had been hidden under a new policy, and speculated that the leaders had earned between 25,000 and 40,000 points.
• Wang Hao spotted Su Mu of Rongcheng No. 1 High School in first place and struggled to believe that someone with Su Mu’s core card had beaten the top-ranked awakened.
• A lackey recognized Su Mu’s name, but Wang Hao cut him off before he could question Su Mu’s core card.
• Wang Hao accepted that Su Mu had outperformed him in the first round, then reminded himself that three rounds remained and turned away from the leaderboard.

After Su Mu took first place in the monster-clearing round, Ye Qingxue and Zhao Wuji wondered how he had scored so highly, while Su Mu avoided telling Ye Qingxue his score. The second round began with candidates facing increasingly powerful waves of bosses, leaving Su Mu to prepare Little Drill Wind and White Bone Spirit for a new challenge.

• Ye Qingxue told Su Mu that she had scored 131,068 points and placed thirteenth, and Su Mu estimated that the scores above hers were not far higher.
• Zhao Wuji and other SSS-rank students from Provincial Capital No. 1 High School questioned Su Mu’s first-place finish and expected later rounds to show whether he was truly stronger.
• Ye Qingxue asked Su Mu for his score, but he hesitated because his 970,000 points dwarfed her result and he did not want to discourage her.
• A bell announced the second round, interrupting their conversation and revealing that candidates would face waves of bosses in individual Dungeon Spaces.
• Su Mu read that boss levels would rise through the eleventh wave before their numbers and combat capabilities increased, and considered the challenge ahead for Little Drill Wind and White Bone Spirit.

Su Mu’s Little Drill Wind and White Bone Spirit cleared the first ten boss waves in under three minutes without taking significant damage. The proctors watched as the next waves promised coordinated groups of bosses that would test the dungeon’s real combat strength.

• Su Mu ordered Little Drill Wind to attack from the front and White Bone Spirit to flank each boss.
• Little Drill Wind killed the level-ten Goblin Warlord with a single strike, beginning a string of fast boss clears.
• Little Drill Wind and White Bone Spirit defeated all ten bosses in two minutes and forty-seven seconds while keeping the score multiplier at 1.0.
• The proctors noted that Su Mu’s cards had lost almost no health and attributed their performance to superior base stats.
• Elder Xiu and the teachers explained that later waves would pit Su Mu against increasingly numerous, coordinated groups of bosses.

Su Mu cleared waves eleven through fourteen with Little Drill Wind and White Bone Spirit, reaching a 500-point multiplier with his core card intact. The fifteenth wave began with five powerful Crimson Crown Royal Court bosses emerging from an expanded rift.

• Su Mu identified the eleventh wave's Ironclad Warlord and Shadow Priest as coordinated opponents and ordered Little Drill Wind to kill the priest while White Bone Spirit held off the warlord.
• Little Drill Wind and White Bone Spirit killed both bosses in under a minute, raising the point multiplier to 200.
• Su Mu cleared waves twelve through fourteen as the boss groups grew larger and more tactically coordinated, reaching 26 total kills and a 500-point multiplier.
• Su Mu judged that the fifteenth wave would mark a new dividing line and watched the rift expand across the ground before him.
• Su Mu appraised five level-twenty Crimson Crown Royal Court bosses, including an SS-rank Crimson Crown Commander.

Su Mu watched Little Drill Wind and White Bone Spirit defeat the coordinated bosses of the fifteenth wave, whose intelligence and abilities approached those of Hell-difficulty bosses. The wave’s completion revealed that the points multiplier had doubled to 1000, leaving Su Mu to anticipate even greater difficulty.

• The Crimson Crown Commander led four other bosses against Little Drill Wind and White Bone Spirit, while Su Mu told his allies to break up their coordination.
• The bosses combined shields, curses, healing, ranged attacks, stealth, and commands, but Little Drill Wind and White Bone Spirit targeted the links that sustained their teamwork.
• White Bone Spirit broke the Blood Curse Shaman’s staff, and Little Drill Wind shattered the Golden Armor Imperial Guard’s shield before killing the Shadow Fang Assassin; White Bone Spirit then burned the Rock-Splitting Thrower, and Little Drill Wind killed the Crimson Crown Commander.
• Su Mu saw the fifteenth wave marked complete with 29 bosses killed and the core card intact, while the points multiplier jumped from 500 to 1000.

Su Mu’s cards defeated the sixteenth wave’s five Royal Court Guards, despite the bosses’ stronger coordination and attacks. As the seventeenth wave’s rift opened, the proctoring teachers wondered whether he could go any farther.

• The proctoring teachers discussed how Little Drill Wind and White Bone Spirit had cleared the fifteenth wave with practiced ease, and Elder Xiu suspected Su Mu had cleared hell-grade dungeons before.
• Five level-20 Royal Court Guards emerged for the sixteenth wave, led by the SSS-rank Judgment, which recognized Su Mu as an unusually accomplished examinee.
• The Royal Court Guards pressured Little Drill Wind and White Bone Spirit, wounding Little Drill Wind and forcing White Bone Spirit to reposition.
• Little Drill Wind and White Bone Spirit adapted their tactics and defeated all five bosses after a battle lasting nearly fifteen minutes.
• The wave-clear panel showed a 2000 point multiplier and an intact core card, while the teachers debated whether the seventeenth wave would stop Su Mu.
• The seventeenth wave’s rift tore open.

Su Mu faced the nineteenth wave, whose five SSS-rank Dragon Court Imperial Guards surpassed the bosses he had encountered in the hell dungeon. After ordering Little Drill Wind and White Bone Spirit to fight at full strength, he learned the dragonfolk bosses had combat power ranging from 684,000 to 852,000.

• Little Drill Wind and White Bone Spirit defeated the eighteenth wave after overcoming the bosses’ coordinated attacks.
• Five dragonfolk emerged in the nineteenth wave, led by the Goldscale Commander, who recognized Su Mu’s talent but declared that he would fall there.
• Su Mu ordered Little Drill Wind and White Bone Spirit to use their full strength through Soul Link.
• Su Mu appraised the five Dragon Court Imperial Guards and found that all had combat power above 600,000, with the Goldscale Commander strongest at 852,000.
• Su Mu realized the dragonfolk bosses surpassed the five bosses from the twenty-fifth wave of the hell dungeon.

Su Mu’s Little Drill Wind and White Bone Spirit fought the five coordinated Dragonman bosses of the nineteenth wave but were defeated after a prolonged battle. Su Mu left the dungeon with a high score and knowledge of the bosses’ tactics, while Elder Xiu ordered the top fifty results suppressed.

• The five Dragonman bosses used coordinated defenses, curses, flames, and stealth attacks to suppress Little Drill Wind and White Bone Spirit.
• Little Drill Wind and White Bone Spirit fought for nearly twenty minutes, but their health was depleted and the secret realm teleported them away without lasting harm.
• Su Mu stopped at the nineteenth wave, and the teachers recognized that he had reached beyond the secret realm’s expected limit for a level-twenty examinee.
• Elder Xiu ordered the exact wave and the top fifty results kept from public view.
• Su Mu’s panel recorded 365,200 points for the second stage, bringing his total above 1.3 million, and he resolved to use what he had learned in future battles.

Su Mu waited in the square after quickly clearing the boss waves, while Wang Hao mistakenly believed Su Mu had been defeated early. Ye Qingxue and Zhao Wuji later emerged, and Zhao Wuji hid that he had killed a wave sixteen boss as he waited for the leaderboard to reveal his result.

• Su Mu returned to the square before most examinees and waited, realizing that his fast boss fights had made him finish early.
• Wang Hao came out after failing to reach wave fifteen and assumed Su Mu had been defeated before him, taking satisfaction in what he thought was Su Mu’s poor performance.
• Ye Qingxue emerged after clearing wave fifteen, exchanged a nod with Su Mu, and rested by a stone pillar.
• Zhao Wuji came out after reaching wave sixteen and killing its first boss, then joined the Provincial No. 1 High School students.
• Zhao Wuji decided to conceal his achievement until the leaderboard appeared and vaguely told his classmates that he had fought for a while.

The second-stage rankings placed Su Mu first, Lin Qingyin second, and Zhao Wuji third, shocking the students who had assumed Zhao Wuji would lead. Lin Qingyin revealed she had killed two sixteenth-wave bosses, and the crowd realized Su Mu had likely defeated at least as many as the story moved toward the third stage.

• Zhao Wuji waited for the rankings, expecting to reveal that he had killed a sixteenth-wave boss.
• The leaderboard ranked Su Mu first, Lin Qingyin second, and Zhao Wuji third, leaving Zhao Wuji stunned.
• Zhao Wuji avoided telling his classmates that he had killed one boss when they asked how much damage he had dealt.
• Students learned Lin Qingyin had killed two of the five bosses on the sixteenth wave.
• The crowd concluded Su Mu had killed at least two bosses, and Zhao Wuji resolved to seek a comeback in the third stage.

After learning that Su Mu had cleared nineteen waves, Su Mu and Ye Qingxue kept the gap between them unspoken as the third trial was announced. The examinees were told to design dungeons, giving Zhao Wuji hope that he could overtake Su Mu through his design skills.

• Wang Hao saw Su Mu at the top of the leaderboard and struggled with jealousy, disbelief, and fear.
• Ye Qingxue saw that she ranked sixth and assumed Su Mu had cleared only one more wave than she had.
• Su Mu was relieved that Ye Qingxue did not ask how far he had reached, since he had cleared nineteen waves to her fifteen.
• The trial's voice announced that examinees would spend one million Soul Power points designing dungeons that would be tested against invading monsters.
• Zhao Wuji decided that dungeon design was his chance to make up ground on Su Mu, relying on his years of instruction and experience designing the Nine Nether Sword Master's dungeon.

The third round of the provincial assessment began with dungeon design as its topic, a field in which Su Mu had long excelled. As the competitors prepared to compete, the proctors revealed that the assessment reflected a wider shift toward dungeon design, driven by a mysterious super-large nest and future strategic needs.

• Wang Hao lost hope of competing after seeing that the third round tested dungeon design, Su Mu’s strongest field.
• Lin Qingyin recalled Su Mu’s victory in last year’s provincial design assessment and resolved to hold on to second place.
• Ye Qingxue accepted that Su Mu was likely to take first, then resolved to give the round everything she had and grow stronger.
• The proctors explained that a super-large nest had resisted investigation and that universities were establishing dungeon design departments.
• Elder Xiu said dungeon design would shape future battles, then thought of a secret realm theme joint operation.
• The third round began.

Su Mu entered the Territory Defense assessment and learned that his vast, populous territory faced three powerful nomadic tribes along vulnerable grassland borders. After reviewing the territory’s defenses and past defeats, he considered building the Great Wall and searched the card pool for building cards.

• Su Mu appeared on a floating platform and learned the assessment’s population, survival, scoring, and Soul Power rules.
• Su Mu studied intelligence on the Azure Wolf Tribe, White Eagle Tribe, and Crimson Tiger Tribe, which raided for supplies and used highly mobile cavalry tactics.
• Su Mu learned that the territory’s million-strong army was poorly suited to fighting the tribes and that a past expedition had nearly been wiped out.
• Su Mu compared the situation to historical conflicts between agrarian and nomadic peoples and focused on building the Great Wall as a possible defense.
• Su Mu opened the card pool, searched for buildings, and viewed rows of building cards.

Su Mu spent nearly all his Soul Power building an eighty-thousand-li border wall and naming it the Great Wall of Ten Thousand Li, which raised it to S-rank and transformed lookout platforms into A-rank beacon towers. After the territory trained new defenders and endured a quiet first year, the Azure Wolf Tribe attacked in the second year and broke through a section of the wall.

• Su Mu spent 990,000 Soul Power on rammed-earth walls, lookout platforms, and classes for heavy armored infantry and heavy crossbowmen.
• Su Mu laid the wall and platforms along the territory's borders, named them the Great Wall of Ten Thousand Li and beacon towers, and raised them to S-rank and A-rank respectively.
• Su Mu confirmed the construction, and the territory's one million troops began reorganizing, with one hundred thousand assigned to each new class.
• The three nomadic tribes held back during the first year, while the territory mustered and deployed its new heavy infantry and crossbowmen along the Great Wall.
• In the second year, three thousand Azure Wolf Tribe cavalry attacked from the northeast, destroyed a section of the wall, and slipped through.

The proctors questioned Su Mu’s decision to spend most of his Soul Power on a vast Great Wall and Beacon Towers, though Elder Xiu recognized the assessment’s resemblance to a real monster nest. When Azure Wolf Tribe cavalry broke through the wall and raided a village, Su Mu’s plan remained unclear.

• Su Mu spent nearly 800,000 Soul Power on F-rank walls and platforms, then named them the Great Wall of Ten Thousand Li and Beacon Towers, raising their ranks through the naming anchor effect.
• The teachers criticized Su Mu’s defenses and slow troops, comparing them unfavorably with Zhao Wuji’s Nine Nether Sword Formation and Lin Qingyin’s Zither Sound Bewildering Formation.
• Elder Xiu recognized that the assessment mirrored the monster nest where dungeon masters had struggled against mobile enemies and began wondering what Su Mu intended.
• In the second year, 3,000 horned-horse cavalry from the Azure Wolf Tribe breached the Great Wall’s eastern end and rode toward a nearby village.
• The cavalry raided the village, burning and looting while the villagers worked unaware of the danger.

Su Mu’s defenses trapped and defeated the Azure Wolf Tribe’s raiders using beacon towers, troops, and a self-repairing Great Wall. The teachers realized that his choices formed a carefully planned tactic to cut off enemy escape routes.

• Beacon fires relayed the attack, and five thousand heavy-armored infantry and three thousand heavy crossbowmen rushed toward the village.
• The heavy crossbowmen struck the Azure Wolf Tribe’s three thousand cavalrymen, while the infantry blocked their escape and left fewer than five hundred alive.
• The surviving cavalrymen fled toward the eastern gap but found that patrol soldiers had repaired it, trapping them between the wall, pursuing troops, and cliffs.
• The teachers realized Su Mu had chosen a self-repairing wall so patrols could seal gaps after raiders entered, trapping them inside the territory.
• The teachers concluded that Su Mu had planned the coordinated defenses in advance and already understood the tactics instinctively.

Su Mu’s Great Wall strategy wiped out the nomadic threat and allowed his territory to recover over the next century, ending his assessment. Elder Xiu then secured a million military merit points for Su Mu while keeping the reward and his dungeon design secret.

• Elder Xiu recognized that the Great Wall strategy could help trap the monsters in the Limu Nest and ordered the dungeon records concerning Su Mu sealed.
• The nomads repeatedly failed to break through the Great Wall, and in the thirty-fifth year three tribes lost more than eighty thousand cavalry in a final assault.
• Su Mu’s territory recovered to 176 million people by the hundredth year, when a beam of white light ended the assessment.
• Elder Xiu sent Su Mu’s design to the Limu Nest’s general command, which praised it and approved a reward of one million military merit points.
• Elder Xiu transferred the military merit points to Su Mu’s account and concealed the exchange from the proctors.

Su Mu completed the third-round territory defense with 176 million people remaining, earning enough points to keep his overall lead. As the rankings appeared, Zhao Wuji discovered that his forty-five-year result had only placed him thirteenth.

• Su Mu finished the hundred-year defense with 176 million people and earned 1,256,700 points, bringing his total above 2.67 million.
• Ye Qingxue told Su Mu she had lasted forty-three years and asked how long he had survived; he said he had completed all one hundred years.
• Zhao Wuji heard other examinees describe their struggles against the nomadic cavalry and felt confident that his forty-five years had put him ahead of them.
• Lin Qingyin said she had lasted forty-three years, and Zhao Wuji took pride in having outlasted her.
• The leaderboard refreshed, showing Su Mu in first place and Zhao Wuji in thirteenth.

After the first three rounds, Su Mu remained first overall with 2,678,159 points, nearly twenty-six times Ye Qingxue’s score. The top 1,065 candidates were selected for the final round, and the rankings were publicly displayed as the crowd turned its attention to Su Mu.

• The dungeon-design results placed Su Mu first and Zhao Wuji thirteenth, while Lin Qingyin recognized Su Mu’s skill from the previous year’s assessment.
• The overall rankings put Su Mu first, Zhao Wuji second, Lin Qingyin third, and Ye Qingxue ninth.
• The announcer declared that the top 1,065 candidates could enter the fourth round, Leaping over the Dragon Gate, and that their points would be fixed after it ended.
• Su Mu checked his total of 2,678,159 points and learned that Ye Qingxue had a little over 100,000.
• Beams of light marked the selected candidates’ rankings, and the giant screen displayed the top ten, prompting hundreds of thousands of candidates to look toward Su Mu.

Su Mu and the other top 1,065 examinees entered the fourth round, Leaping over the Dragon Gate, on an ancient battlefield above the clouds. After learning the trial could cause severe mental damage, none of the examinees withdrew, and the rules were about to be announced.

• The examinees discussed Su Mu's appearance and achievements as the pillars of light prepared to take them into the fourth round.
• Su Mu and Ye Qingxue exchanged a glance before the light transported the examinees away from the square.
• Su Mu arrived on a cloud platform with the other 1,064 examinees, including Lin Qingyin, Zhao Wuji, Zhou Zekai, and Ye Qingxue, and the Shadow Concealment Badge blocked attempts to Appraise him.
• A voice announced that the ancient battlefield trial tested how long examinees could endure and warned that a shattered core card could cause severe mental damage.
• The voice gave the examinees three minutes to withdraw, but none left; it then said it would announce the rules.