Is It Too Late to Leave the Chat Group?

“Ahem! Since you asked sincerely, I’ll generously share this with you. Jixia Academy’s admissions this time are a bit different from previous years, as it might open up additional slots for those newly emerging ability users, but of course, they must have exceptional talent. As you know, there has been a surge in new ability users because of the recent Spiritual Energy Resurgence events in the past two years. You’ve noticed, right?”

“Indeed, ever since that Spiritual Energy Resurgence thing, you can encounter one or two ability users just by stepping out of the door, although the quality of their abilities varies greatly,” Chen Heng replied. He hadn’t gone out in the last couple of days, but he did go out last night. While eating barbecue skewers with Yang Yan, he had observed passersby and noticed an increase in the number of ability users.

In the past, ability users were like a needle in a haystack, one among hundreds of thousands of people, extremely rare. However, since the Spiritual Energy Resurgence, the proportion had become more like one among tens of thousands.

However, for some reason, be it hasty production or other factors, most of these newly awakened ability users had a tremendous gap between the lower and upper limits of their abilities. Furthermore, the abilities of most newly awakened ability users were quite peculiar.

According to the records of the Special Affairs Bureau, the previous generations of ability users were known as golden ability users. Their abilities were stronger and more practical than those of silver ability users, who had awakened after the Spiritual Energy Resurgence. However, the sheer number of silver ability users overshadowed the golden ones.

Golden ability users also had a limitation on their potential, but later on, the silver ability users had this limit removed. In other words, their upper limits were now higher. To be honest, this irritated all the golden ability users, including Chen Heng. But the good news was that the golden ability users also enjoyed this benefit.

Still, it was irritating.

“However, since you have an invitation, Little Heng, you don’t need to apply yourself. You can go directly for the interview and then participate in the admission competition. Speaking of which, let me tell you about this admission competition. This time, the Jixia Academy’s admission competition is different from previous years, but Jixia Academy hasn’t disclosed the specifics yet.

“But, well, who is your third elder sister? I naturally have inside information.” Xuanyuan Yiyao patted her chest to emphasize how impressive she was. (In short, she wanted Chen Heng to praise her.)

“Third Elder Sister, you’re truly amazing. You know things that others don’t, even such confidential information. Beautiful, kind, generous, and gentle ladies like you are becoming rarer.”

Yes, truly rare, indeed. Chen Heng glanced at his Third Elder Sister’s still bouncing bosom as he nodded involuntarily in agreement.

“Erm…I feel like there’s something strange going on here. Never mind. On account of your accurate comments earlier, I’ll give you a little hint. The admission competition this time is…”

After listening to his third elder sister’s description, Chen Heng summarized the main points.

First, the competition would take place in a vast independent world.

This independent world was discovered by a former chancellor, also a former dean of Jixia Academy, Zhuge Ming, hundreds of years ago. It was originally an independent world created by a powerful immortal thousands of years ago. After this being fell in an accident, the independent world roamed the universe until that dean stumbled upon it during interstellar travel.

This independent world had undergone multiple explorations by Jixia Academy teachers, and the major dangers had been eliminated. Only some relatively minor spirit beasts remained. Later, based on some clever suggestion, this independent world was repurposed to become the venue for every Jixia Academy admission competition.

The first half was the same as the previous admission cycles. Jixia Academy’s teachers would plant some precious materials, spiritual weapons, medicinal pills, or technique manuals in the independent world. Simultaneously, they would introduce some ferocious beasts to serve as experiential training for the participants.

Every student would receive a medallion unique to them before being allowed to explore the independent world freely. The students would get to keep everything they found, but there was a special stipulation: everything had to be stored in the school’s medallion.

The medallion would track the value of these items and tabulate them. The competition would end after ten days, and the total points would be the student’s credits.

Here was the important part: the medallion could be snatched away. Furthermore, it could not be placed in any spatial storage. Once it was snatched away or was more than 20 meters from the student for over ten seconds, the student would be ejected from the independent world and their points reset to zero. The collected points and items would then belong to the person who snatched the medallion.

Simply put, the loser gets nothing, and the winner takes all.

However, the situation this year was different. The admission competition this cycle included not only the freshmen (the newly admitted students) but also students from the second quad (from the previous admission four years ago), who would be allowed in five days later.

[TL Note: As Jixia Academy follows an unusual enrollment cycle of every four years, I’m calling each batch a quad (short for quadrennium) in place of year, as they would have been there for four years. The usage will parallel first years, second years, third years, etc. with first quads, second quads, third quads, etc. Of course, the freshmen are first quads.]

However, there was good news. If the freshmen had their medallions snatched away by the second quads, they would only lose four-fifths of the content within, keeping one-fifth of the points and items as a consolation.

Yes, this was very humane.

Of course, if one was strong enough, one could try to snatch the medallions of the second quads. The second quads required 1,000 credits to enter. (Points were exchanged for credits at a one-to-one ratio.)

The freshmen could give up if they wanted. They just needed to activate the medallion with the energy of whatever power system they used (including but not limited to Will Energy, Spiritual Energy, Mana, and Vital Energy). Then, they would be ejected from the independent world with one-fifth of their points and items.

The medallions would remain at the original spot. Hence, someone could get lucky and pick up the medallion, obtaining all the items it contained.

The top ten freshmen in points would even get a mystery gift.

“This is ridiculous. What are those freshmen with support-type abilities supposed to do?”

“What else can they do? Look for a backer. Support-type new students are quite popular at Jixia Academy. It’s like having a nurse suddenly appear in a group of rough men. By the way, Little Heng, what kind of student do you plan to be at Jixia Academy?” Xuanyuan Yiyao’s throat felt a bit dry after her explanation, so she picked up a glass of water to moisten her throat.

“Research-type.”

Pfft! The water in Xuanyuan Yiyao’s mouth came spewing out at Chen Heng when she heard his answer. However, he had expected this and raised an attraction barrier to block the water. “Cough! Cough! What did you say? Say that again? I did not hear you clearly. Cough! Cough!”

Coughing, Xuanyuan Yiyao patted her chest, trying to clear her throat.

“Third Elder Sister, you look surprised,” Chen Heng said, patting her back and handing her a tissue.

“Can I—Cough! Cough!—not be shocked?” Xuanyuan Yiyao finally caught her breath after a while.

“Third Elder Sister, to be honest with you, my true identity is an alchemist.”

“Alchemist? You mean those unfortunate folks in the West who are always trying to turn lead into gold and creating stitched-up monsters with various monster body parts?”

Chen Heng’s world had alchemists, too, but they were different from the kind of alchemist he was.

In his world, alchemists generally focused on trying to transmute various things into gold, creating stitched-up monsters with various parts of magical beasts, and making all sorts of strange but impractical potions. They were somewhat similar to Western wizards. However, Western alchemy had risen only recently, leading to an incomplete system and varying skill levels.

Chen Heng’s alchemy was different. He could not only create various amplifying and restorative potions but also understand, break down, and reconstruct materials based on the principle of equivalent exchange. (Much like the one in Full Metal Alchemist.)

“No, it’s different. My kind of alchemy...”

“No, no matter how different your alchemy is, it can’t be your primary occupation. Our Xuanyuan Clan can’t afford that. At most, it can be a hobby,” Xuanyuan Yiyao replied firmly, rejecting Chen Heng’s thought of joining Jixia Academy as an alchemist.

In fact, Xuanyuan Yiyao’s opposition didn’t come as a surprise to Chen Heng. Due to cultural differences between the Eastern and Western hidden worlds, they often looked down on each other.

The Easterners believed that the Westerners relied on external objects and were worthless without those items and divine beings. Both the light and dark factions had significant weaknesses and were easily targeted.

The Western hidden world, on the other hand, believed that the Easterners were too rigid, never making use of the conveniences of objects and being overly fixated on cultivation, lacking “freedom.”

In any case, they had mutual disdain.

“Alright, alright.” To maintain the clan’s reputation, Chen Heng gave up the idea.

Suddenly, Xuanyuan Yiyao leaned in and mysteriously whispered into Chen Heng’s ear, “By the way, Little Heng, everything else does not matter, but there is one thing you must accomplish. You’d better get into Class A.”

“No.”

“Yup. As long as you agree… What did you say?”

“I said, ‘No!’” Chen Heng repeated and even made an X by crossing his hands in front of his chest. Are you kidding me? Do you really think I don’t know why you came this time?

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