As their gazes met, an invisible duel was instantly completed in the void.
A destined confrontation!
At this moment, both were filled with a sense of sudden clarity.
Long Juxue was instantly certain: this mortal martial artist could only be Jiang Chen.
And Jiang Chen was equally certain: Long Juxue had recognized him.
Killing intent surged from Long Juxue, while Jiang Chen’s aura remained serene.
This destined clash flashed by without a clear victor. For a moment, both hearts were churned by turbulent waves.
In Long Juxue’s mind, astonishment surged: “What kind of encounter has this beast had? My gaze carries an invisible Azure Phoenix pressure, yet it fails to stir any disturbance in his Dao Heart. How can this beast’s mental power realm be this strong?”
Jiang Chen was similarly moved: “This viper of a woman. She must really be valued at the Purple Sun Sect. Not even two or three years have passed, and she’s already at the peak of the Earth Spirit Realm! This speed of advancement is faster than my own!”
Though surprised, Jiang Chen knew it wasn’t extraordinary. His only advantage over Long Juxue was the experience from his past life.
Long Juxue’s advantages were equally clear. The Innate Constitution granted her a head start; in the Myriad Heavens Planes, that talent was considered quite respectable.
Her second advantage was resources. Looking at her now, she was likely the most valued among the younger generation of the entire Purple Sun Sect. Resources would be prioritized for her, all kinds of supplements would be directed her way first. The entire upper echelon of the sect would probably be involved in tailoring cultivation plans specifically for her.
With this, Long Juxue’s strength was bound to skyrocket.
“I had no idea. I always thought her cultivation level should be similar to mine. To think the Purple Sun Sect would be willing to invest such immense resources. This is definitely the result of resource stacking. Moreover, she has been cultivating in the Heavenly Spirit Area for six months—an advantage I simply cannot match. It seems I need to accelerate my pace and catch up.”
Encountering Long Juxue again and seeing her true cultivation level filled Jiang Chen with a stronger sense of urgency.
But urgency was one thing; Jiang Chen felt no fear.
Putting extraneous thoughts aside, Jiang Chen stood amidst the crowd, listening to the examiner’s instructions.
“The basic assessment remains divided into four fields: Martial Arts, Mental Power, Alchemy, and General Knowledge. Each field contains five assessment items. Each item has a base score of five points. Pass an item, gain five points. Fail, and no points are deducted.”
“Alright, the assessment begins now.”
The selection for the four great sects focused heavily on the Heavenly Spirit Area. The number of examiners stationed here surpassed the number of examinees.
For a hundred candidates, there were three to four hundred examiners waiting to serve them.
Furthermore, assessments in the Heavenly Spirit Area were special; there was no need for rotations.
All martial artists could participate in the basic assessment simultaneously.
“It seems martial artists in the Heavenly Spirit Area are truly valued. Each candidate can take the assessment immediately upon arrival, with no need to waste time on tedious waiting.”
This setup for the Heavenly Spirit Area earned Jiang Chen’s approval.
Martial Arts, Mental Power, Alchemy, General Knowledge.
Looking at these four fields for the basic assessment, Jiang Chen roughly understood the four great sects’ cultivation direction.
This was completely oriented toward nurturing candidates for the Yuan Spirit Realm. It seemed the four great sects were already under significant pressure.
From the structure of this basic assessment, Jiang Chen could see it was entirely geared toward cultivating Yuan Spirit Realm powerhouses.
Mental Power assessment wasn’t typically emphasized in standard martial arts cultivation.
However, for those aspiring to the Yuan Spirit Realm, mental power was particularly important.
Mental Power cultivation wasn’t very beneficial within the Spirit Realm stages because the methods were scarce and the difficulty was high, so many martial artists preferred not to spend their prime years on it. They pursued the forging of their Qi sea and the refinement of martial techniques instead.
A Yuan Spirit Realm master must first be a master of mental power, a master of martial arts, and possess comprehensive development across all fields.
Otherwise, any deficiency could become a limiting factor.
Among the four fields, General Knowledge was all-encompassing, including skills like weapon crafting, talisman arts, beast taming, formation arrays, mechanical arts…
While Martial Arts seemed straightforward, its depths were truly vast and boundless.
However, such a setup was undoubtedly good news for Jiang Chen.
In the Heavenly Spirit Area, Jiang Chen’s cultivation realm might be the lowest. But when it came to knowledge in other areas, no one here could claim superiority over him.
His low cultivation realm wasn’t his fault. It was due to his late start. These sect geniuses had all received various forms of cultivation support since birth; they were born with silver spoons in their mouths.
Cultivation realm could be caught up through hard work later. Now, having reached the Heavenly Spirit Area, Jiang Chen felt like a dragon returning to the ocean, a tiger roaring from the mountain.
Jiang Chen decided to participate in the basic assessment in Martial Arts first. He wanted to gauge the difficulty level of this martial arts assessment.
The basic Martial Arts assessment was indeed challenging.
However, while difficult, its baseline was still aimed at cultivators around the fifth level of the Spirit Realm. For Jiang Chen at his current level, this basic assessment didn’t pose a major hurdle.
Soon, he completed two assessments. These were similar to the practical combat rounds of the preliminary test—one involved fighting a mechanical puppet, the other a fifth-grade Spirit Beast.
For Jiang Chen, the tests weren’t particularly testing.
The third and fourth assessments were consecutive tests on martial arts theory, and in this area, Jiang Chen excelled even more.
However, Jiang Chen didn’t overperform. He progressed steadily, completing each item one by one.