Chapter 4309 — Wang Xinyan!

"He's in for a rough time now." Huang Xiaotao smiled as well. Truly formidable people all understood that keeping a low profile was king; it was fools like the braided man, with their modest abilities, who, at the slightest hint of promise, wanted to cock their tails higher than the heavens themselves. That such a person had survived this long was a miracle in itself.

Time trickled by, and one candidate after another stepped forward to be tested. Every one of them went up brimming with ambition and eager to prove themselves—yet a short while later, when they emerged again, each and every one without exception wore a face of utter dejection.

Counting the numbers, several hundred people had taken part in the selection within a single hour, and yet not a single one had been chosen!

A pass rate of zero—it was so absurdly low as to be outrageous. But on second thought, no one found it all that surprising. Morning Star Academy was one of the few Yellow-Rank cultivator academies in the Eastern Continent; a place of such renown would hardly admit just anyone who came along.

If any stray cat or dog could pass the selection, it would be a disgrace to Morning Star Academy's reputation. Genius was always relative: among the crowds here, many might well count as rare talents in their own corners of the world, but in the eyes of Morning Star Academy, they were nothing at all.

At this rate, just how many of the nearly ten thousand cultivators present would ultimately pass was very much up in the air. It was not even out of the question that every last one of them would be eliminated.

The selection continued. Wei Zhao, Huang Xiaotao, and the other cultivators seated toward the rear were also approached early on by staff members, who handed them test tokens.

Wei Zhao had no intention of taking part and had not meant to accept a token at all, but the staff had long since assumed that everyone present was there to compete. Before Wei Zhao or Huang Xiaotao could even open their mouths to explain, the man tossed the tokens down in front of them and moved on.

"Never mind. We may as well take them—we simply won't go up when the time comes." Wei Zhao exchanged a resigned look with Huang Xiaotao. He could not be bothered to chase the man down over such a trifle; it hardly mattered.

Just as Wei Zhao and Huang Xiaotao were shaking their heads at each other, a graceful figure appeared. Unlike everyone else, who dutifully clutched their test tokens and joined the selection, she walked straight through the crowd and past the guards of Morning Star Academy, stepping directly onto the raised platform.

"Whoa! A fairy descended to earth!" Gazing at that figure from afar, the crowd below craned their necks and stared wide-eyed. Such bearing and such beauty were truly rare in this world.

Most of those present were seasoned folk who would not be left rooted to the spot by the mere sight of a pretty face—yet the slender, elegant figure upon the platform, and above all that fresh, otherworldly air about her, made them swallow hard and sigh inwardly: was there really such beauty under heaven?

Had the woman merely been stunning to look at, that would have been one thing. But her next move left nearly ten thousand people in the plaza dumbstruck: she actually seated herself in the empty seat beside those three Initiator Stage experts!

For a long moment everyone was frozen. Then the whole plaza erupted into an uproar, and everyone cried out in astonishment—who on earth was this woman?

Judging by her looks, she seemed to be around twenty, though her true age was impossible to tell. Of one thing, at least, one could be certain: her strength was nowhere near enough to justify sitting shoulder to shoulder with Initiator Stage experts.

The woman made no effort to conceal her aura; her cultivation was plain for all to see—only the early Nascent Soul Stage. Such strength was more than enough beside the many Golden Core Stage experts present, but up on that platform, she was unquestionably the weakest of them all.

After all, given Morning Star Academy's deep foundations, even an ordinary guard nearby was a Nascent Soul Stage expert. With mere early Nascent Soul Stage cultivation, she would not even have been qualified to sit at the very edge of the platform—let alone where she was sitting now.

That seat was one even experts of the Mystic Ascension Stage had to yield; so why, then, was a mere early Nascent Soul cultivator able to sit in such an important and conspicuous place before everyone's eyes? Who on earth was this woman?

Because of that single simple gesture, nearly ten thousand cultivators were struck dumb on the spot, great question marks written plainly across every face.

And at this moment, even Wei Zhao was so stunned that for a long while he could not speak, staring blankly at the platform without moving.

Seeing this, Huang Xiaotao gave him a gentle tug, but found that he did not respond at all. Puzzled, she looked back at the platform, then turned to look at Wei Zhao again.

Apart from her peerless beauty and that startling seat she had taken, there was nothing particularly remarkable about the woman, was there? Huang Xiaotao muttered to herself, a faint sourness rising in her heart. She had known Wei Zhao for so long, yet she had never seen him lose his composure like this—and over a woman he had never even met.

What Huang Xiaotao did not know was that the reason for Wei Zhao's shock was entirely different from everyone else's: the woman on the platform was someone he knew all too well.

For this person was none other than the one who had never left his thoughts, the confidante he had been pining after all this time—Wang Xinyan!

Never in his wildest dreams would Wei Zhao have imagined seeing Wang Xinyan in such a place, on such an occasion—and that she should now command such astonishing standing and strength!

Since female cultivators were generally concentrated on the Western Island, Wei Zhao had always assumed that Wang Xinyan had most likely gone there, and had even asked Ning Xuefei to help search for her.

Although it was by no means impossible that Wang Xinyan had been transported to one of the other islands besides the Northern Island where he himself was and the Southern Island of the spirit beast clan, once he learned that the Eastern Island was in fact the Eastern Continent, Wei Zhao felt he could basically rule out the Eastern Island.

For if the Eastern Island was such a transcendent place, where Nascent Soul cultivators walked the streets and Golden Core cultivators were lower than dogs, how could there be any room for newcomers from the mundane world?

With strength at best at the peak of the Heaven Rank and not even having reached Foundation Establishment, anyone sent to the Eastern Continent would likely be swatted to death by the first passerby they met—would being transported there not be a near-certain death sentence?

Besides, when even the many Golden Core Stage experts present—who would batter down walls with their heads for the chance—could not get to the Eastern Continent, how could such a precious quota be given to nobodies from the mundane world? That would not only place those mundane-world newcomers in mortal danger, but would plainly be unfair to cultivators from the other Cloud-Rank islands as well. (To be continued) R655