You Ziping watched Shi Feng, who had been silent for some time, and felt his nerves tighten even further.
He knew Lü Xiu's level inside and out.
Yet after spending barely any time at Zero Wing Studio, the strength Lü Xiu displayed was like night and day compared to before.
If he told the people at White Tiger Dojo about this, not a single one of them would believe it.
Still, he was now absolutely convinced that training at Zero Wing Studio would allow him to undergo a transformation before the National Youth Tournament's preliminary rounds—securing his ticket to the national competition. If the improvement was substantial enough, he might even put up a respectable showing. He wouldn't be Xie Qiwen's match, of course, but with his youth as an advantage, Master Jiang would at least give him some consideration.
"If you join Zero Wing Studio, we'll certainly teach you everything you need to know—but it depends on whether you can pass the studio's test. Furthermore, your test results will determine which tier you're placed in and what kind of contract you sign," Shi Feng explained at an unhurried pace. "Lü Xiu, for example, tested quite well. He's already been made a Preliminary Core Member of the studio and will receive focused cultivation. Beyond that, there's an even higher tier—Preliminary Main Member slots. Those who earn them will be given top-priority training, and the resources poured into them will be beyond anything you can imagine. It all comes down to your test performance. But the higher the tier, the stricter the studio's requirements."
"If you become a Preliminary Main Member, you'll have to leave White Tiger Dojo and devote yourself entirely to the studio."
You Ziping nodded. He wasn't the least bit surprised by this.
He wasn't gunning for Preliminary Main Member—just landing a Preliminary Core Member slot would be enough. That way, it wouldn't interfere with his development at White Tiger Dojo.
Shi Feng then had Hei Zi take You Ziping to undergo the basic test.
The studio's test was straightforward. It measured reaction speed, observation ability, judgment, and similar skills. Players who excelled in these areas could do well even without guild support, and with systematic guild training, they would quickly become experts capable of clearing the fourth floor of the Trial Tower.
Shi Feng had always championed an elite strategy, which was why the studio was extremely strict about recruiting internal members.
Test evaluations were divided into five tiers: D, C, B, A, and S.
This evaluation system had been compiled and standardized across major guilds in his previous life. It was essentially the gold standard for assessment. D represented the baseline for an ordinary person. Generally, major guilds only recruited internal members who reached C—meaning they needed to exceed the average person in every area. This made the investment in training them into powerhouses worthwhile.
Super guilds, on the other hand, required an overall evaluation of at least B for internal recruitment. Though it was only one tier higher, two players at the same level, with the same gear and the same combat experience, could produce drastically different outcomes—one would easily dominate the other.
It was like the barrel theory: how much water a barrel could hold depended not on its tallest stave, but on its shortest. A B-tier weakness, when measured against C-tier standards, would actually rank as a strength—so the resulting gap in combat power was enormous.
This was why countless people strove every year to become internal members of super guilds, yet only a vanishingly small number actually made the cut.
Zero Wing's internal recruitment was split into two tiers. Core Members needed to rank in the upper echelon of C, while Main Members had to reach at least B. As for A-tier individuals, they were incredibly rare—encountering one was pure luck. Even top-tier and super guilds were desperate for that caliber of talent.
Once the test was complete, Hei Zi hurriedly brought You Ziping's results to Shi Feng.
"Brother Feng, this You Ziping is really something! He's got the highest scores I've seen by a mile recently. Based on your evaluation standards, he's actually A-tier—and in the upper range of A at that. His observation ability even hit S-tier!" Hei Zi exclaimed excitedly.
"It looks like his talent for Divine Realm should be quite good. But how far he ultimately goes will depend on him," Shi Feng said with a smile, looking at the data the system had produced.
He wasn't the least bit surprised. After all, You Ziping had been a peak Tier 5 Berserker. At his prime, he'd ranked somewhere in the fifties on the Stormwinds Expert Rankings. People didn't realize that ranking in the fifties back then was an entirely different matter from today—the qualification standard was far more demanding. Divine Realm had long since become humanity's second world, with an endless tide of experts flooding in to compete. Cracking the top fifty-plus on the Stormwinds rankings had been several times, even more than ten times, harder than it was now.