Outside the exam area, Mei Hongyi sat at the front of the scoreboard, his face calm and still as he waited for the trial to end. Complaints and quiet grumbles of anger buzzed all around him, but he ignored them. Over twelve hundred of the two thousand participants had already been teleported out due to deep wounds.
The disciples from the Alchemy Center worked without rest to heal the injured. Though the students complained loudly about how hard the exam was, they didn't do anything more. Everyone had signed up knowing that the Peacock School's entrance exam was famous for being tough. Still, no one had expected it to be this soul-crushing.
On the glowing scoreboard behind Hongyi, fewer than eighty people had managed to gain any points. The rest, even those still inside the site, stayed at zero—including Feng Luotian. At the very top, Mei Hongli led with 760 points, followed by Ying Lizhua with 410 points. In third place, Mei Yue'er and Sun Wuji were tied with 395 points each.
Even though they had beaten more clones than Lizhua, Yue'er and Wuji had to split their points because they were in a party. Also, unlike Hongli, who had focused on weak clones in a safe zone, they fought random targets, which made the gap between their scores wider.
Suddenly, a bright flash of light showed another student being kicked out of the exam site. The person who appeared caught Hongyi's attention—it was Cai Lang, one of Hongli's men. His face was bloody and swollen so much that he was hard to recognize, but Hongyi knew it was him by his Theríon and his presence.
Hongyi's face turned hard as he jumped down from the stage. He pulled Cai Lang away from the crowd, treating the man's wounds himself. After a minute of healing, Cai Lang's eyes opened. His mind was still cloudy, but when he saw Hongyi, he immediately dropped to his knees.
"Cai Lang, what happened?" Hongyi asked in a low, threatening voice. "The area I gave you shouldn't have had any clones strong enough to beat you."
Cai Lang stayed silent, not knowing how to explain. Even he had a hard time believing what had happened. Hongyi's patience ran out, and he barked, "Speak up! If you have something to say, say it now!"
"It wasn't a clone, milord. It was… someone. A person," Cai Lang finally said, his voice shaking.
Hongyi frowned deeply. "A person? Who? Is there someone strong enough to beat you that I don't know about? I made sure the strongest people were sent to other areas—not the west."
Cai Lang's voice shook as he answered. "Milord, it was… Feng Luotian."
Hongyi froze for a second before his face twisted with shock. "Luotian?" he repeated. Then, without warning…
Pah!
He slapped Cai Lang so hard that fresh blood leaked from his face.
"You think I'm a fool?!" Hongyi roared, his voice full of rage.
Even in his beaten state, Cai Lang tried to explain. "I swear, milord! It looked exactly like him!"
"You!" Hongyi's anger only grew. He raised his hand for another slap, but he stopped when two disciples from the Alchemy Center came running, their faces full of worry.
They carried two more bloody men—Cai Long and Cai Hu.
"Cai Long? Cai Hu?" Hongyi whispered, moving fast to heal them. Once they were awake, he asked the same question. Both brothers knelt next to Cai Lang, their faces white and their voices trembling.
"Milord, it was someone who looked exactly like Feng Luotian," Cai Long said.
"Yes, milord," Cai Hu added. "We don't dare lie to you. There were nine witnesses when it happened. You can ask them when they're out."
Their accounts matched. Hongyi frowned, growing more uneasy as he tried to explain how all three brothers could have mistaken the same person for Feng Luotian.
Over the next fifteen minutes, the rest of Mei Hongli's group were sent out one after another. Every single one of them said the same thing: Feng Luotian had completely crushed them.
Faced with this consistent testimony, Mei Hongyi could no longer dismiss it as lies or coincidences. There was indeed someone with frightening power in the exam site—someone who looked exactly like Feng Luotian. His face darkened as he flew back onto the stage, his eyes scanning the scoreboard.
====================
1st Rank – Mei Hongli [920 points]
2nd Rank – Ying Lizhua [500 points]
3rd Rank – Mei Yue'er / Sun Wuji [470 points]
…
74th Rank – Feng Luotian [0 points]
…
====================
Mei Hongyi sat on the stage, his mind racing as he tried to make sense of the situation. His sharp eyes narrowed as he pondered the mysterious figure. If he truly were Feng Luotian, he wouldn't remain at zero points for this long—especially with nearly half the exam time elapsed. No, this must be an imposter. But why? What motive could someone have for assuming such a guise?
He thought over the possibilities, his feelings becoming darker with each passing second. Was this some sort of plan to ruin Mei Hongli's chances? Or an unknown rival attempting to mess with the balance of power within Divine Bird City?
Before he could reach a conclusion, the murmurs and gasps of those around him broke his focus.
"Milord! Please, look at the scoreboard!" one of the disciples from the Alchemy Center stammered, their voice shaking with urgency.
Hongyi frowned in irritation, his focus interrupted. He was about to scold the disciple for disturbing his thoughts when he noticed the fear rippling through the crowd. Every spectator was staring at the scoreboard, their faces pale with shock.
"What are you all riled up for?" Hongyi snapped, his tone sharp with annoyance as he turned his gaze toward the display.
And then, he saw it.
Amid the stagnant scores that had barely shifted in the past fifteen minutes, a single name stood out.
Feng Luotian's score had shot up from zero, carrying his name through the rankings faster than anyone had seen before. With every increase, he climbed farther from the bottom and closer to the leading candidates.
====================
10th Rank – Feng Luotian [150 points]
====================
Hongyi's jaw dropped as he stared at the scoreboard. Luotian's score kept climbing with each passing second. Around the stage, the crowd broke into excited chatter as people began to grasp what they were seeing.
"So that guy really is Feng Luotian?"
"Wait, isn't he supposed to be a cripple?"
"Maybe he leeched off someone else's party?"
"Idiot! If he was leeching, then why didn't anyone else's score increase?"
The group of ten, who had previously been bullied by the Cai brothers, had also been kicked out of the exam site. After losing their leader to Cai Long, their strongest remaining member was only a Three Fangs Fighter. They had managed to take down just one more Five Fangs clone before being ambushed and wiped out. Despite their failure, they had earned a respectable 15th place on the scoreboard as a group, while their leader held the 24th spot.
Though they hadn't passed the exam, the group was far from sad. Instead, they were full of excitement. They had seen firsthand what they now believed to be the "first rise of God's Son." Filled with pride, they began bragging loudly to the crowd.
"That's his real strength!" one of them declared.
"We saw him take down three Five Fangs Fighters in a row!"
"And he did it in under a minute—without even using Theríon!" another declared excitedly.
"Yeah, we saw it all with our own eyes!"
"He sent a Five Fangs Fighter flying with just one punch and one kick!"
The group's boasting grew louder and more dramatic, as if they were trying to take part of the credit for Luotian's feats.
The crowd gasped as the words sank in, the sound like a sudden rush of wind through the stands. "What?! That's impossible!" one man cried out, his voice cracking with disbelief.
"He was just a commoner a month ago! I saw him walking the streets with my own eyes," another added, shaking his head.
"Are you sure?" a young woman asked, her eyes wide as she stared at the scoreboard. "Maybe he's been hiding his power with some kind of rare treasure all this time, fooling every single one of us."
"No way," a man interjected, leaning forward with a look of total certainty. "My big brother works as a city guard. A month ago, he was on duty at the gate and saw God's Son return from the Warland Thicket with Goddess Mei and Sun Wuji. They were drenched in blood, looking like they had crawled out of a nightmare. Later, he overheard the city guard captain discussing the incident report. It came straight from the city lord's office—there is no way it was made up. He was definitely a commoner back then. No power at all."
"Really?"
"That's insane! How could someone grow so strong in just a single month?"
"Well... he is God's Son, after all," a voice whispered, and the title seemed to hang in the air, heavier and more meaningful than it had ever been before.
The crowd's doubt began to give way to awe. The claim that Luotian had gained such strength in a month seemed impossible, yet the reports and his rising score were hard to dismiss. Now the spectators watched with anticipation, waiting to see what God's Son would do next.
Meanwhile, Mei Hongyi's unease only deepened, a cold sweat breaking out across his forehead. The murmurs of the crowd were nothing but a dull, annoying buzz in his ears now. His heart hammered against his ribs as he hastily reached out, his hands moving fast to swap the middle projection on the display. He searched frantically through the shifting scenes for an image of his son, Mei Hongli.
The cold logic of the situation was starting to bite: if Luotian had systematically hunted down and removed every single one of Mei Hongli's men, it was clear that the boy's next target would be the young master himself.
When the desired projection finally flickered into life on the screen, Hongyi's heart sank into the pit of his stomach. The blood drained from his face, leaving him looking pale and old.
The image confirmed his worst fears. He could only watch from the stage as the situation he had dreaded unfolded before him, with no way to intervene.
* * *
A minute ago, Mei Hongli was still lost in his own world, blissfully unaware of the storm gathering around him. He continued his slow hunt for clones, the heavy scent of crushed grass and sweat filling the air as he relished each new addition to his growing score.
He had no idea that all of his men had been systematically hunted down and removed from the exam site, sent out one by one into the cold reality of the scoreboard without their young master ever noticing their disappearance.
With a thunderous bam that echoed through the trees, he drove his fist through another Four Fangs clone, watching with a dull satisfaction as the illusion shattered into glowing light particles. "Ninety-two," he muttered smugly to himself, a complacent grin spreading across his face as he kept track of the kills.
His current score sat at 920 points, a massive lead by any standard, yet a deep greed and burning ambition still flared in his chest. "This isn't enough. I need at least 1,500 points to secure the top position and make sure no one can even come close," he said, his eyes darting across the rugged terrain, searching for his next easy target.
He soon spotted a cluster of fifteen clones perched atop the crumbling stone of an ancient ruin about a quarter-mile away. Each one was at the Four Fangs level, and the sight of so many points in one place made his grin widen even further. "Another one-fifty points for me to take!" he exclaimed, his heart racing with excitement as he began to run toward his next "easy" prey. He could already imagine the crowd's cheers as his lead grew even larger.
But as he closed the distance, his boots pounding against the hard earth, a sudden streak of golden lightning flashed past the ruins with a sharp, crackling sound. The light was so bright it felt like a needle to his eyes, blinding him for a painful split second and filling the air with the stinging smell of ozone.
When his vision finally cleared and the spots stopped dancing before his eyes, he froze in his tracks, his breath hitching in his throat. The entire group of fifteen clones had already fallen.
Their forms were already scattering into useless light particles, vanishing into the wind before he had even covered half the distance to the ruin. The "easy" points he had been so sure of were gone, snatched away by something so fast he hadn't even seen it move.