Chapter 30

A/N: Another double length chap.

"What do you mean?" Huang Yu asked with an inquisitive look on his face.

Although he knew what she was talking about, he wanted her to be the one to say it out. This was to make sure that they weren't misunderstanding one another. That way, he could know how to properly craft a lie to tell.

Gu Yue frowned. "Huang Yu, you know what I'm talking about."

Tsk, she was playing the opposite trick. She didn't want to outright say what she knew so that Huang Yu may potentially leak out more information than necessary.

'She's sharp.' Huang Yu thought. With this, Huang Yu realised that his suspicions of her were coming back. If she was this smart, then there was a possibility that she had noticed that he was being cautious with his words and actions around her.

But the problem was, how could a 10-year-old girl be this devious? Maybe it's like some of those Xianxia and she's some old grandma?

Nah, that's a bit too far-fetched. What were the chances that he, out of all people, would meet one of them?

Despite this, Huang Yu didn't outright discard the notion. He pushed it to the back of mind to bring it up again if he saw more conclusive evidence.

Now, he could push the initiative back to her by asking her another question, but then it would be clear that he was avoiding the question. This wouldn't matter if she was a normal 10-year-old girl, but Gu Yue was anything but one.

"To tell you the truth, that was a sword technique. I came up with the idea that maybe I could use the elements to bolster the power of my sword strike." Huang Yu said with full confidence.

The words he spoke weren't lies. They all contained the truth. All he did was conveniently leave out the fact that the King's Wisdom was required for it to work.

"Really?" she asked with skepticism on her face. Her control over the elements as the Silver Dragon King was supreme. Even if she was weakened at the moment, there shouldn't be anyone who could just steal control of the elements from her right under her nose like this.

"Yup, in fact, today was the first time I ever succeeded in using that attack! Before today, I never managed to do it on my own!"

It was true that the [Five Elements Sword] was the first time he had ever succeeded using that attack. Though, the reason for that was because he never attempted it before this day.

A thoughtful look appeared on Gu Yue's face. "Is that so?"

"Absolutely."

Gu Yue gently smiled. "In that case, let's practise together from now on. I'm interested in seeing the combos we can do together with that technique."

…

....

Although the reason for practising together was pretty normal, why did Huang Yu feel that she had a deeper motive behind it?

Oh well. If they really did find time to practise together, he would call today a stroke of luck. He would make 'mistakes' and to make sure that it didn't seem suspicious, he would put a few close calls.

With that, Huang Yu forced out his own smile. "Sure."

– – – –

Unexpectedly, the final section of the exam was not held on academy grounds. Wu Zhangkong led Huang Yu, Gu Yue, Xie Xie and Tang Wulin out of the academy and onto a soul bus that headed to the outskirts.

Unfortunately, Wang Jinxi and Zhou Yangzi chose to leave Eastsea Academy. Huang Yu didn't know the reason nor did he really care all that much. He never talked to them anyways.

However, as he admired the outskirts of the city, he saw something. A very familiar symbol that belonged to his cu- organisation. The symbol of Ω.

There were over a hundred people lining up to enter the building with the logo of Nox. All of them seemed to have a look of fanaticism on their face.

Well, Guang Biao did his job of getting fanatical followers well enough. It had only been around six months and they got this many already?

Nox's rate of growth was frighteningly quick.

Huang Yu sneaked a glance towards everyone else. Luckily for him, they were all asleep so they didn't see this gathering of people.

Soon, the soul bus arrived at its destination. After everyone else woke up and got off in the outskirts, Wu Zhangkong brought them to a park called Eastsea Spirit Technology Park.

The park was filled with greenery and buildings that had a variety of styles. Every single building had its own unique characteristics, but the majority of them were made of metal.

The park was huge, so they had to walk for a long time. It was only after half an hour did they reach their true destination for the day.

The building was dark blue, and its walls shimmered like a mirror, each wall seemingly cut from a block of glass. There was a bizarre sense of beauty to this reflective-like quality. Every angle refracted the light in a different way. It was breathtaking.

A blue light appeared. It projected an image that was accompanied by an amused voice. "Oh, long time no see! It's Eastsea's Little Zhangkong."

The moment those words entered Huang Yu's ears, he couldn't help but let out a snicker. He wasn't alone in that. Everyone else seemed to either be snickering themselves or trying to restrain their laughter.

Wu Zhangkong shot them a dirty glance before answering coldly, "Open the doors."

The voice answered back willy-nilly, "You're still so boring."

With a crisp ring, the doors wordlessly opened up.

Entering the door, they saw the same dark blue walls, but there was now a shining white floor and gentle fluorescent lights overhead. They came together to paint a scene of calm and order, further emphasising the lack of people. A circular metal platform holding four metal wristbands hovered over.

"Put them on," instructed Wu Zhangkong.

Tang Wulin curiously asked, "Teacher Wu, what does it do?"

Wu Zhangkong answered back, "It's to identify you. If you wear it, you won't be considered an enemy by the defense systems here."

Xie Xie gasped. "So high-tech!"

Without wasting anymore words, Wu Zhangkong led the four of them over to another dark blue glass door. A bright blue light swept out once more, but without the voice this time. After scanning them and taking note of their wristbands, it quieted down.

Suddenly, Huang Yu found himself in a dark blue space. Looking around, he saw that everyone else had been transported into this dark blue space as well.

'This is pretty cool.' Huang Yu thought. Naturally, he hadn't experienced something like this before so it was a new feeling for him.

Wu Zhangkong was leaning against a wall. A few moments later, some unknown mechanism seemed to have activated as one wall suddenly split open to reveal a large screen with a myriad of symbols on it. A keyboard popped up and Wu Zhangkong began typing.

"Identity confirmed. Eastsea's Little Zhangkong."

"Test Difficulty: medium, Participants: four. Commencing in ten seconds."

As the robotic voice slowly counted down, Huang Yu braced himself. He knew that the moment the countdown ended that he would have to fight.

"Three, two, one. Begin!"

Huang Yu was suddenly blinded by another bright blue flash. When his vision cleared, he found himself in an eerily familiar world.

'This was the world where the gates were…' Huang Yu thought. However, this time, there were no golden lights nor were there any gates.

Huang Yu was cut off from his ponderings as a robotic voice sounded again.

"Welcome to the Hall of Heroes. First trial, medium difficulty. Name: Huang Yu. Age: 10."

"Test objective for the first round: defeat the opponent or survive for thirty seconds."

Suddenly, a beam of light appeared in front of him, revealing a pretty girl. She had gentle eyes and wore a kind smile.

"Begin!"

The moment the words sounded, a yellow ring lit up behind the girl. However, before she could get an attack off, Huang Yu kicked the air.

With a sharp burst of air pressure, the eardrums of the girl instantly ruptured before she disappeared.

Huang Yu sighed when he saw this. Were his opponents going to be only around this level?

"Congratulations for passing the first trial. The second trial begins."

A spark of hope lit up in Huang Yu's ċhėst. She was quite a bit stronger now. By his calculations, if he beat her a few more times, she should become strong enough.

He punched out causing a loud roar in the surroundings as he did so. The poor simulation didn't even realise it when she had been defeated by Huang Yu.

"Advanced trial will begin now."

Oh? This was getting more interesting.

"Advanced test, first trial. Get ready. Begin"

A figure appeared with a flash of light. Surprisingly, it was no longer the same girl. In her place was a youth with blue eyes and short, black hair.

The youth charged at him with a strange footwork. At a glance, Huang Yu could tell it was the same footwork Wu Zhangkong used.

When the youth closed the distance between the two of them in a flash before striking out at Huang Yu's neck.

Huang Yu merely grabbed the offending limb by the wrist. Then, he gently poked the youth's ċhėst.

[Point of Instant Death]

"Advanced test, second trial. Get ready. Begin"

The youth appeared before him once again. This time, he was visibly older. Not only that, he had two rings behind him this time.

Huang Yu smiled. 'Let's see how strong the enemies can go.'

– – – –

"Advanced test, third trail…

"Advanced test, fourth trial…

"Advanced test, fifth trial…

– – – –

Huang Yu walked out of a flash of light. He looked quite a bit worse for wear, however, that was the extent of it.

Looking around, he saw Tang Wulin and Xie Xie with their faces green and purple from bruises. They truly made for a pitiful sight.

In contrast, Gu Yue was standing at the side with a pale face. She was very well off in comparison to the other two, but she was injured nonetheless.

Xie Xie took a look at Huang Yu before exclaiming, "How come you look absolutely fine?"

At that, everyone turned to look at him.

"Cause of good genetics." Huang Yu shamelessly replied with a smile.

"I mean, you're not wrong but that's not what I meant…"

Gu Yue spoke up at this moment, "How many trials did you pass?"

"I dunno. I stopped listening after the advanced test second trial. I fought some guy with Bluesilver Grass as his martial spirit."

Tang Wulin perked up when he heard that. "How many rings?"

"Five."

Everyone was stunned speechless.

At this moment, another bright flash occurred.

The four found themselves in an expansive office. It was at least 200 square metres in area, something Huang Yu thought to be unnecessarily extravagant. Off to one side, there was a white sofa.

"Take a seat. There are a few matters I need to discuss with you four." Wu Zhangkong made himself known to his students at this moment.

With a raised eyebrow, Huang Yu sat on the sofa with his three other classmates.

Wu Zhangkong took a seat across from each of them.

"Each of you must have felt that today's test was strange. You all had different opponents who, at some point in time, were all Spirit Masters that had lived on this continent. Unfortunately, only seventy percent of their true strength can be replicated by the simulation. How did you compare to your opponents?"

Huang Yu immediately gave his answer. "It was pretty easy to be honest."

Hearing that, Wu Zhangkong's cold expression nearly broke. It was a well-known fact that ancient Spirit Masters were far stronger than their modern counterparts. There were a few speculated reasons for this, but the most agreed upon reason was that they got their rings directly from spirit beasts while modern Spirit Masters got theirs from spirit souls.

Despite all this, Huang Yu thought it was easy?

"How far did you make it?"

Huang Yu merely repeated the same answer he gave to the others.

"The person you fought was most likely the leader of the Tang Sect, Tang San…" Wu Zhangkong said with shock in his voice

When the students of class zero heard this, they all froze from this revelation.

Who was Tang San? He was the Thousand Hands Douluo and a person who had ascended to Godhood.

Yet Huang Yu, who wasn't even a Spirit Elder could fight against him when he had five rings?

Even though they had told themselves that they would try and stop getting shocked by Huang Yu's feats, wasn't this too much? Tang San was a person who was known as the strongest Spirit Master of his era!

Unlike the others, Huang Yu was shocked for a different reason. He peeked a look at Tang Wulin. He noticed that Tang Wulin seemed to share some of Tang San's characteristics. Not only that, they both had Bluesilver Grass.

At this moment, Huang Yu knew that there was definitely a connection between the two of them and in turn, with Tang Wutong as well.

After everyone had recovered from their shock, Wu Zhangkong started speaking once more.

He gave a brief overview about what they had experienced. After that, he had told them that this test was actually unrelated to the final exam. In reality, what he wanted to do was to show-off some of the ȧssets of his own organisation to them.

At the end of it, he gave an offer for them to join his organisation. Which one?

It was the very same organisation that was created by the person he had fought: the Tang Sect.

Tang Wulin and Xie Xie immediately accepted the invitation. Gu Yue rejected because she was apparently already a member of the Spirit Pagoda.

Lastly, Wu Zhangkong turned to Huang Yu.

"Huang Yu, would you like to join the Tang Sect?"

With a smile, he answered...