The comprehensive assessment covered a wide range of disciplines, but at their core everything came back to martial arts.
Just as Tang Hong had said, this basic assessment was essentially free points — the difficulty really wasn't that high.
The tasks Jiang Chen drew were all straightforward. Whether it involved formations or artifact refining, he handled everything with practiced ease and claimed his twenty-five points without trouble.
Unsurprisingly, Tang Hong ran into no difficulties either.
The two met up outside the hall, and Tang Hong flashed a wide grin. "Heading to the alchemy section?"
"Of course. Why wouldn't I?" Jiang Chen laughed.
Tang Hong felt most confident in the mental strength and alchemy domains. Between the two, though, he considered alchemy his strongest suit.
Many of those who came to the alchemy section were Treasure Tree Sect disciples.
Fortunately, they didn't run into that killjoy Tie Dazhi this time.
"I'm applying for a First-Rank task," Tang Hong said directly.
"I'm applying for a Second-Rank task." Jiang Chen felt a First-Rank task would pose absolutely no challenge, so he went straight for the Second-Rank.
The examiner — a different person from the day before — was visibly startled when someone applied for a Second-Rank task right off the bat.
Generally speaking, martial artists who applied for advanced tasks were very cautious. Most would start with a First-Rank and gradually increase the difficulty.
It wasn't unheard of to apply for Second-Rank from the start, but those who did were invariably among the absolute peak performers of the four great sects — the strongest of the strong.
For those kinds of people, Second-Rank tasks were indeed well within reach.
Still, there were no restrictions on which level you applied for initially, so despite his surprise, the examiner checked Jiang Chen's competition token, verified that it granted eligibility for Second-Rank tasks, and then nodded, handing over a task token.
"Task Assessment Room 32, Second-Rank task. Go on. Once you've completed it, come back here to retrieve your competition token."
Jiang Chen took the token and gave Tang Hong a wave. "Good luck, brother."
Tang Hong stared with those big round eyes, muttering under his breath, "What a beast. Applying for Second-Rank right from the start — you really are my kind of boss, Tang Hong."
He tossed his own task token in the air and headed off to his assessment room.
Jiang Chen arrived at Task Assessment Room 32 and handed his token to the examiner.
"Go on in. The task is inside — read the instructions yourself. Complete it within the time limit and you pass. Fail to finish within the time limit, and it's a failure."
Jiang Chen nodded and walked inside.
This Second-Rank task was somewhat unusual.
It presented an incomplete alchemy formula. Most of the raw ingredients were already listed, but several were missing. The examinee was required to deduce what the missing ingredients were based on the remaining materials in the formula.
This task was genuinely no walk in the park.
Unlike actual pill refining, where you had a complete formula to work from, this required filling in the gaps — completing an incomplete recipe from scratch. Without a deep understanding of alchemy formulas, it would be nearly impossible to get it right.
But for Jiang Chen, a formula at this level was child's play. With a brief analysis, he could arrive at the correct answer.
He had never seen this particular formula before and didn't recognize it.
But the underlying principles of alchemy formulas were largely universal. Especially for lower-tier ones — they were simply extensions of fundamental theory.
After a few moments of study, Jiang Chen grasped the general principle.
The formula was missing three spiritual ingredients. Moreover, the selection of each wasn't limited to a single option — each one could be replaced by a similar ingredient of comparable quality.
Jiang Chen wrote down all the details thoroughly and included his reasoning.
It wasn't that he liked showing off, but without an explanation, he feared some incompetent examiner might not understand the logic and mark his task as incomplete. That would be frustrating.
The entire process took roughly a quarter of an hour.
After verifying everything was correct, Jiang Chen walked out of the room. The examiner was startled. "You can't leave during the task period. Get back in!"
Jiang Chen smiled wryly. "I've completed the task and I still can't leave?"
"What? You finished?" The examiner froze. How was that possible? The time limit for this Second-Rank task was two full hours.
How much time had even passed? Could he really have finished already?
Maybe he had seen how hard the task was and just gave up? The examiner walked inside with a heavy dose of skepticism.
But the moment he looked at Jiang Chen's answer, he was stunned.
The response was remarkably thorough, with explanations that were detailed and meticulous. It was immediately clear and easy to follow, yet also offered fresh insights.
Anyone qualified to serve as an examiner in the alchemy section naturally possessed a deep foundation in the subject. Seeing the incomplete formula transformed so cleanly and completely into a fully coherent recipe, the examiner was struck by how obvious and elegant the solution was.