Chapter 42.2

Did You Do the Same Back Then? (2)

When everyone saw Ji Qingzhou advancing gradually and entrenching herself at every step while commanding her Profound Frost Beast to break the third piece, an elder opened his mouth and whispered to Shen Rongyu.

“Rongyu, it took you exactly two hours to complete the four tests back then, right?” One of the elders asked Shen Rongyu.

“Yeah.” Shen Rongyu nodded, his tone muted.

When he participated in the assessment that year, the spirit beast he worked with wasn’t a Profound Frost Beast, but a spirit beast of other species. The assessment items were different, but the difficulty of it was exactly the same as Ji Qingzhou was facing now.

He completed all the tests in two hours back then, leaving the other disciples who partook in the test so far behind him that all they saw was the dust he left. The excessive time gap directly led to the extremely low scores of the disciples below him in the Beast Mastery Class, which also caused a sensation in Xuanyun Sect at the time.

But now, Ji Qingzhou, who was admitted to the Xuanyun Sect as a mortal, seemed to be close to his achievements.

“Rongyu, do you think she can be as fast as you were back then?” the elder continued to ask.

At this juncture, it was hard for Shen Rongyu to conclude. If Ji Qingzhou played normally later on, the time she would spend should be on par with his performance back then.

Shen Rongyu had long expected Ji Qingzhou to play well. After all, on White Water Island that night, he hugged her and fought off the Soul Seeking Nails together. It was a pleasure to work with her.

Her calculation skills were so surpassing that she didn’t seem like a real mortal, but more like a calm machine.

If she were some kind of programmed doll, she would blush, her fingertips would tremble when she was nervous, and when she was close to him, her breathing would turn light and soft, beautiful and real.

Shen Rongyu’s thoughts were pulled back. He just nodded and said, “She should be able to.”

As soon as he finished speaking, Ji Qingzhou led Bingshuang to break the last purple piece. One cultivator took the initiative to draw the route she passed on a light screen he unfolded with magic.

Starting from the route that Ji Qingzhou took to the long way she followed to get to the red piece, it formed a circle on the outside. Ji Qingzhou did not retrace any of the paths. Except for the dead ends, the route she followed fit together perfectly and filled the whole circumference of the circle, leaving only a gap for exit.

Along the only way out, Ji Qingzhou and Bingshuang left hand in hand. Meanwhile, Meng Yaolan, who came to the Lotus Pond, was able to calculate the route — perhaps not the optimal solution.

The rest was almost Ji Qingzhou’s one-man show. She tested the ability of a Profound Frost Beast to detect objects by smell, and she also directed Bingshuang to complete everything with ease.

Until she arrived at the Snow Lake. On the frozen ice, Elder Qu Ting smiled at Ji Qingzhou: “Profound Frost Beasts are highly adept at producing ice. In many cases, they are artists of ice and snow, so please direct your blindfolded beast to reproduce this ice sculpture.”

This last assessment turned out to be this one. Just then… a phantom appeared in front of Elder Qu Ting’s fingertips, Bingshuang’s image.

Ultimately, the ice sculpture to be sculpted by the cultivators and the Profound Frost Beasts was the figure of the beast that partnered with them…

Ji Qingzhou looked at the ultimate shadow and froze. She suddenly realized an unavoidable fact, that after the end of this assessment, she would be separated from Bingshuang.

In Snow Lake, the dazzling sunlight near noon was reflected by the ice surface and fell on her face. Ji Qingzhou opened her lips, but no words came out.

The blindfolded Bingshuang didn’t know what was happening, so she turned her head and rubbed it against Ji Qingzhou’s palm, urging her to make haste.

This Profound Frost Beast was eager to perform well in everything, so Ji Qingzhou thought she could not humiliate her.

Thereupon, her eyes skimmed over Bingshuang’s figure, and she began to command her to summon snow, which turned into ice, and gradually sculpted the figure of a Profound Frost Beast.

Other cultivators might have thought of sculpting the statue by pinching out the general outline first, and then slowly polishing out the details, but the cooperation between Ji Qingzhou and Bingshuang was obviously not the case.

From foot to head, she and Bingshuang piled up the ice layer by layer, shaping it one at a time, and directly transformed the ice into a Profound Frost Beast sculpture without foundation.

Ji Qingzhou commanded Bingshuang calmly. She even communicated the pattern of each strand of hair to Bingshuang — In fact, the criteria of passing this test wasn’t so strict.

After passing the test all the way, she and Bingshuang’s magic power had bottomed out. Although Bingshuang was a high-level spirit beast, it couldn’t bear such a stressful test. At the end of the carving, the wind and snow she summoned was much smaller, and her speed of condensing ice was much slower.

At this stage, there was only one last bit to do to complete the statue of the Profound Frost Beast, but Bingshuang ran out of strength. The beast hung her head low and began to gasp. She rested for a while and was going to raise her head to continue condensing ice, but Ji Qingzhou carressed her head.

She stepped forward, lowered her head and picked up some snow left on the Snow Lake, and then piled it on top of the statue of the beast.

The snow was freezing cold, and the tingling sensation made her palms numb, but Ji Qingzhou still filled in the last bit of Bingshuang seriously. Her hands moved clumsily, and the way she stacked it up wasn’t at all pretty. It was as if Bingshuang was wearing a crooked little hat.

“All done,” Ji Qingzhou said.

Elder Qu Ting also confirmed that her work was okay. After the cultivators finished all the tests, they were to return the Profound Frost Beasts to him and walk to the end by themselves.

At this time, the cultivators on the disc were all holding their breaths, because Ji Qingzhou had spent nearly two hours now — This was also the record held by Shen Rongyu back then.

Now it seemed that if she didn’t slip down on the Snow Lake, she could run to the finish line immediately and break the record set by Shen Rongyu.

However, when Ji Qingzhou saw Bingshuang being led away by Elder Qu Ting, her feet still moved.

She ran towards Bingshuang and gave her one last hug.

Bingshuang turned her head, seemed to realize something, and bit her cuff gently.

Ji Qingzhou pulled back her sleeve and whispered to her, “Goodbye.”

Only then did she run to the finish line. Because of this, by the time she reached the finish line, it was already past two hours, which was a little more than Shen Rongyu’s.

“Rongyu, were you so reluctant back then?” the elder beside Shen Rongyu suddenly asked.

“Mine has its own owner.” Shen Rongyu replied with a smile. “Of course I left immediately, and I was able to complete a minute faster than her.”

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