Chapter 4309 — Wang Xinyan!
The Blossom Guardian · Page 1 of 2
"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.