Chapter 0093 – Who Is The First
Only a little bit of time had passed, when some people after reading hundreds of pages, immediately fainted. With this much of information that flashed across in just a few seconds, trying to commit this to their memory without using their Spiritual Sense really was simply impossible.
Even if one had a powerful memory, if they used it continuously for a few hours with high intensity, even they would find it extremely hard to commit such dense information to their memory.
After an hour passed by, people fainting were already a common sight, moreover there were even a few cultivators participating in the written exam who even coughed up blood on the scene because of overusing their brains.
But at this point of time Ning Cheng had already sunk into a trancelike state as he gobbled up the information in front of him, although the contents of the exam did indeed put some pressure on him, but the pressure was not so great. Every time he had gone to write an exam back on Earth, he would only start to read the materials just 1-2 hours before the exam. This kind of memory was also a great strength, especially at this particular moment, because he already had a lot of time before the actual test, moreover he also did not need to score a 100 points, he simply kept committing the information that flashed past him to his mind.
Although it took 5 seconds to flash through to the next page, but for Ning Cheng it was still within affordable range. Ning Cheng knew, that regardless of any place, this really was a very special ability.
In the Yi Xing Mainland where the main focus was on cultivation, although this special ability was amazing, but it was not as outrageous as it would have been back on Earth.
At the beginning, after Ning Cheng read both sides of the page, the page on the Array Formation would immediately refresh to a new page. But going forward, Ning Cheng could read the entire page and still have time to spare. Although he could only spare half a second of time, but it enabled Ning Cheng’s brain to rest for a while as he sorted out the information.
Arriving at the end, Ning Cheng felt that regardless of the test or not, he felt that reading these things would be extremely beneficial to him.
The content contained the various details of the Spiritual Grasses including their shape, grade, colour, odour and other recognizable characteristics, including the various growing environments of the Spiritual Grasses and the special effects due to the various combinations with other Spiritual Grasses, which could then be used to refine pills. These things Ning Cheng deeply imprinted them on his mind, as he believed that these things would definitely be useful for him in the future.
Even though An Yi had given him the foundation book of the Spiritual Grasses, but it did not contain even a tenth of the information that he had before him.
For Ning Cheng, these three hours truly went by in a flash, when he found that the projection on the table in front of him disappeared, only then did he grudgingly lifted up his head with the expression of wanting more on his face. Looking at the still standing beautiful woman on the stage, Ning Cheng felt a surge of goodwill for this beautiful woman in his heart, counting the three hours that flashed by, by the end of the test she would have been standing in that place for almost a full 4 hours, he could feel that this teacher was truly very competent.
Ning Cheng could also see that this woman also had the cultivation of at least Essence Building Realm, or probably even surpassed the Essence Building Realm.
All the participants who were attending the preliminary written test also looked up after the projection ended, and once again refocused their gazes on the beautiful woman.
That young woman once again spoke with a warm voice, “There is still a half an hour period remaining, we will now give everybody the time it takes for half an incense stick to burn, to sort out the things in your mind.”
The entire examination hall was completely silent, and just as the time it takes for an incense stick to burn finished, that young woman once again continued, “Before we begin the written exam, all the participants are requested to please write your name on the topmost square on the blank sheet.”
After waiting for a moment, guessing that everybody would have already written their names, this beautiful young woman then said, “Now for the questions, everyone please look at the front of your table where the questions would once again be projected in front of you for the written test. On the white paper in front of you, you will have to write the various characteristics and the properties of 10 random Spiritual Grasses that would be shown, remember to keep it as detailed as possible, the level of detail, will show the degree of comprehension that you gained from this Spiritual Grass article. Of these ten questions, each question has 10 points, with a total of 100 points.”
Ning Cheng sighed, these kinds of questions really did not pose any challenge for him as he had thought. He had just memorized all the Spiritual Grass articles that was shown to him, so as long as the subject of the questions were about those Spiritual Grasses, he would certainly be able to write it down.
Ning Cheng once again looked at the questions, just to see if it really was from the Spiritual Grass Articles that was just shown. If he had not seen the Spiritual Grass Article a moment ago, then if he wanted to attempt those questions, he would not have been able to, because he had never seen any other books.
But when Ning Cheng saw the tenth question he was suddenly dumbfounded, ‘Please write the name of the first Spiritual Grass on page 2932 along with its introduction as well as its various characteristics.’
It was not that he did not know about it, he had memorized not only all the contents of the pages but he even memorized the serial number of each page. The key problem in answering that, would mean exposing his extremely powerful memory. If he did not attempt this problem, then at least he could pretend that he had never seen this Spiritual Grass in the article provided.
Ning Cheng knew that even if he did not attempt this question, he could definitely enter any of the 5 Star Academies. If that person with 76 points could enter, then if he got 90 points and was not able to enter the Academy, it really would be a strange event.
If he attempted this question, he would really have stolen the show, and would not be of much advantage to him. At best, he would be ranked first rather than second, and then would have to enter the second round with the identity of the First Ranker, moreover he would also not have any real reward.
Regarding exposing his memory capabilities in this place, Ning Cheng was not particularly worried about it as Yi Xing Mainland and the Earth were two completely different places, as here more importance was given to cultivation rather than memory. There were all kinds of strange people here, so having a strong memory was not much of an issue. If one had a strong Spiritual Sense in the future, then one’s memory would become just a secondary characteristic.
Ning Cheng saw that there were no substantial rewards, and even if there was a reward, he did not want to go out in the limelight. After all his body also had the Mysterious Yellow Bead inside, since the Mysterious Yellow Origin had helped him remould his Meridians, it had already completely fused with him. Although Ning Cheng believed that an ordinary person would not be able to sense the Mysterious Yellow Bead in him, but it would always be better to be careful, since he had already reached his goal, then why should he be in the limelight?
The nine questions were soon finished by Ning Cheng, while he left the 10th question blank.
Seeing that half an hour had already passed, this middle aged beautiful woman suddenly said, “In this written examination, other than the common questions, also contains one more bonus question, this question is also for 10 points but you all will get 10 minutes to answer this question. Moreover, this bonus question would not be projected onto the screen but rather would be spoken out by me, so please listen to the question carefully.”
Ning Cheng then understood, that the original perfect score was 110 points, if this bonus question was something that he could do, he would definitely do it, as long as it was not especially noticeable, he would not continue to pretend to not be able to do it.
Seeing all of the participants ready with their pen and paper, this middle aged beautiful woman spoke in a slow voice, “We all have looked at the foundation article on the Spiritual Grasses, and now the bonus question is the simplest of all the questions about the Spiritual Grasses that you have attempted till now. The question is as follows, there are ten different Spiritual Grasses, if you need to choose 6 Spiritual Grasses to refine batch of pills, then all together how many selection methods could you perform?”
This question really sounded simple, and some of the people enthusiastically started to scribble the answer on the blank sheet of paper in front of them.
Ning Cheng was shocked, was this actually a problem of permutations and combinations? He only needed three seconds to work out the solution of this problem, and the result was 210. But to think that this question was this simple was a big mistake. As to list out the various 210 combinations was a very difficult task to do in just a few minutes.
Sure enough, the participants who had already begun to write them out started to know about the difficulty of the problem, this was simply not a problem of listing out a dozen or even several dozens of combinations.
Finally, the time soon came to an end, in the end the only people who were able to compute the result along with Ning Cheng were very few.
“Time is up, please keep your own Jade Card on top of your answer sheets, as after 5 breaths, your responses will be directly transferred to us.”
After hearing that after 5 breaths, the answer sheets would be transferred away, those participants who were still writing the Spiritual Grasses selection methods, quickly wrote a casual figure, and pressed their own Jade Cards onto their answer sheets.
Ning Cheng who had already finished answering, after his examination paper was transferred, followed the huge crowd of participants out of the examination room.
Ning Cheng had just come out, when Ji Luo Fei who was already waiting for him outside came running to him and anxiously asked, “How much did you score in the written exam?”
“Getting on the list should not be any problem, the list will be out in a few moments, let’s go out near the big screen and wait there.” Ning Cheng said as he took Ji Luo Fei out of the crowd.
……
The area in front of the six huge Projection Array Formation screens in the Mo Ze Plaza, was already packed with people. All of them were waiting for the test results to come out.
Because now that the 5 preliminary rounds of the written exam were over, all the people were now starting to talk about the topics, hearing that the participants in the 5th round had to remember nearly 5000 pages of the fundamentals of the Spiritual Grasses within 3 hours, and that too without Spiritual Sense, everybody suddenly became speechless with admiration. Immediately some people in the front also spoke that they had to memorise 4000 pages of foundation materials. Those people who hadn’t participated in the preliminary rounds, absolutely did not have any idea about this kind of exam.
“Brother Yi Yang would certainly be the first, I estimate that after his score of 94 came out, even the teachers who examined the test papers would not have believed it.” Ning Cheng heard this from a young girl in pink dress who was standing not far away from him, as she spoke with a chuckle.
“It goes without saying, you can see that even Brother Leng who scored 76 points and in the third round is too far off.” The people besides the young girl immediately spoke up.
A man dressed in a white robe immediately spoke up with a condescending voice, “The results of the 5th round are still not out, so saying who would be first at this time would be too early.”
“Brother Yi Yang, you will absolutely be first. I think that the only person with a Pure Spiritual Root participating in this preliminary examination, is only you Brother Yi Yang.” The girl did not agree with the words of that man and spoke up.
“That certainly is one’s real strength. If others had a Pure Spiritual Root, then why would they participate in the preliminary round. What is the purpose of this round? Isn’t it to be selected by the 5 Star Academy? Brother Leng had a Pure Wooden Spiritual Root, which one of the 5 Star Academies would not want him.” Some of the nearby people echoed from the side.
“I heard that the representative of the Thunder 5 Star Academy is Ling Naixin who also has a Pure Spiritual Root, she could easily become the core disciple of the Thunder Academy, but she is also the same as Brother Leng, and wanted to take part in the preliminary rounds of the written test.” A grey robed youth said out loud, and also refuted that pink robed girl.
“Ling Naixin? Wasn’t she the one from the 3rd written exam, who was placed first with a score of 85 in the exam?” Someone asked in surprise. Apparently he did not think that two of the high scores would be scored by two different people with Pure Spiritual Roots.
“Even if that Ling Naixin has Pure Spiritual Roots, she only scored 85 points, so in the overall ranking she would only be placed 2nd, and Brother Yi Yang would still be first.” That pink dressed girl still supported this Brother Yi Yang of her.
More and more people were now joining in the discussion, as that white robed man cupped his fists in front of him while appearing to be modest, but the pride in his eyes showed that he had already taken being first as granted.
Ning Cheng also understood, that this person should be the one who scored 94 points in the preliminary round, and should be the one called Leng Yi Yang. But at the moment he was thinking about Shui Yu who had jumped down from the restaurant, who was also wearing a white robe, and could not help but muttering the phrase, “Sure enough to demand respect, one has to be dressed in white.”
“Why would one have to dress in white to demand respect?”
Ji Luo Fei had just asked the question, when they heard someone cry out, “The 5th Array Formation Screen has lit up, the 5th written exam results are about to come out.”