Star Martial Soaring Cloud

The examinations at Jixia Academy are truly unique.

Counting crabs, climbing ladders, and playing mahjong – every level is full of surprises.

Wang Xiao was quite moved. After all, it was the top martial arts holy land in Kyushu, yet none of these assessment items had anything to do with the word "holy".

But all the participating disciples were completely convinced.

The Jixia Academy's assessment was fair and objective, minimizing the role of luck and controversy.

After the second round of assessments concluded, Wang Xiao had assumed that the 500 finalists would gather again to await the next stage.

Not so.

Whether it was because they were about to compete for the final 100 spots and meeting at this moment would only increase their psychological pressure, or for some other reason, the assessment scene changed abruptly, and everyone stepped into the final trial.

One second, Wang Xiao was in a pure white space filled with the aroma of tea, facing three stone sculptures in pairs; the next second, he was standing on a golden beach.

Under a clear blue sky with drifting clouds, the air was refreshing and pleasant, as if someone had condensed the entire romantic spring day into this small world.

Before my eyes was an endless expanse of blue sea, and under my feet was fine, powdery gold sand. Each step left only a faint trace, so gentle and delicate.

But this ocean is strange in every way.

Wang Xiao took a deep breath, trying to smell the familiar scent of the sea, but to no avail.

There was no salty sea breeze, no damp air, and not even a trace of the sea could be found.

He squatted down, raised his hand and scooped up a handful of fine sand, feeling its real warmth.

The sand grains were dry and loose, slipping smoothly through my fingers, neither sticky nor damp, purely clean.

He looked up at the sea.

There was no wind or waves between heaven and earth. The sea was as smooth as a perfectly polished mirror, without any surging waves or ripples. It was so still and lifeless that it seemed unreal.

The entire sea area seemed to be completely frozen by an invisible force, or like a beautiful scroll unfolding, waiting for someone to break this ancient tranquility.

A brand-new wooden boat is moored on the shallow beach.

The wooden boat is small, only accommodating three or four people at a time.

Wang Xiao looked around, and all he could see was the blue sea, the golden beach, and the lone boat; there was nothing else.

A gentle and steady voice announced the rules slowly, unhurriedly: "This is the Divine Sense Boat. It is propelled by divine sense. When the divine sense is exhausted, the boat will stop automatically. The final ranking will be determined by the distance traveled. The top one hundred will successfully advance."

The rules are simple and straightforward, and the evaluation results remain objective and quantifiable.

There are no subjective assumptions, no vague impressions or performance scores; everything is based on merit.

The stronger your spiritual sense, the farther the boat can travel; the longer your spiritual sense can last, the higher your ranking will be.

Simple, crude, but absolutely fair.

But the difficulty of this last level far exceeds that of the first two.

The Crab Counting Challenge tests the breadth of one's spiritual sense; only with a wide enough range of spiritual sense can one count the number of crabs. The Spiritual Sense Ladder Challenge tests the depth of one's spiritual sense; only by withstanding the pressure of the four seasons and the temptations of the five flavors can one ascend the nine jade steps. The Mahjong Game Challenge tests the clash and strategy of spiritual sense; only by using spiritual sense to confuse and deceive the enemy can one achieve victory.

The Divine Sense Boat tests one's ability to use and sustain one's divine sense effectively.

With the same level of spiritual energy, only by maintaining a steady mind and controlling the small boat to travel straight can the maximum travel distance be maximized.

In addition, it tests a cultivator's ability to control their divine sense. The key to victory lies in how to conserve energy, finely regulate it, and extend the duration of one's divine sense.

This is like a battle of supernatural powers between cultivators. One can only last for a quarter of an hour, while the other can fight for an hour. The outcome is self-evident.

Now, the small boat is that supernatural power.

Wang Xiao gazed at the small wooden boat on the sea, already having made up his mind.

"Strange." He suddenly frowned, looked around, and murmured to himself with a hint of relief, "Why don't I see that conspicuous yet ugly stone sculpture? Could it be that the Jixia Academy has finally had a change of heart and is no longer bothering us with this eyesore?"

His gaze swept across the beach, the sea, and the sky, searching carefully. The whole world was clean and tidy, without even a single pebble in sight.

"Hmm?" Suddenly, Wang Xiao's gaze fixed on the distant sea.

A blurry outline, lifted by an invisible force, drifted steadily and swiftly toward the shore.

Wang Xiao squinted, trying hard to make out the outline of the thing.

"A stone sculpture?" He raised his hand to cover his face, shook his head, and smiled bitterly. "Is it ultimately unavoidable?"

The figure rapidly approached, its outline becoming increasingly clear.

His white hair was flowing, his white beard hung down, his wide robes swayed gently in the wind, and there was that face he knew so well, flushed with a deep, intoxicating red.

Wang Xiao sighed inwardly, thinking to himself: I only hope that after enrolling in school, I will never see this statue again. Looking at it every day is really affecting my state of mind for cultivation.

The stone sculpture drifted to the near sea, only a few feet from the shore.

Wang Xiao was about to look away when she suddenly froze.

His full head of white hair floated gently, his white beard swayed slightly, and the hem of his wide robes danced in the wind.

Stone sculptures are inanimate objects, so how can they have such a realistic sense of movement?

"No!" Wang Xiao's pupils contracted sharply, her heart pounding. "It's a real person!"

Before he could finish speaking, the white-clad figure leaped from the sea, carrying an aura of fierce dominance and unmatched power, and pounced towards him!

Its speed was so fast that it was like a white thunderbolt sweeping across the sea, so fast that even its afterimage could not be left behind.

"What's going on? Has the Jixia Academy been invaded by foreign enemies?"

Wang Xiao was shocked, but his body reacted quickly. He used the Seven Star Rain Steps in an instant, and his body drifted to the left like a ghost. He was certain that he could avoid the attack.

But this time, he miscalculated.

"Bang!"

The fist, which he thought he would dodge, landed squarely on his nose.

Wang Xiao saw stars before her eyes and almost cried from the pain.

A sharp pain exploded from the bridge of his nose, spreading along his meridians throughout his body, as if someone had set off a string of firecrackers on his face, burning and stinging.

His body had undergone three rounds of physical tempering, making it comparable to having skin of copper and bones of iron. Ordinary swords and blades could hardly leave even a white mark when slashed.

But this seemingly ordinary punch easily broke through all his physical defenses, and even his protective divine power "Clear River Hidden Water" was not activated in time.

The power of that punch was terrifying.

What puzzled Wang Xiao even more was that such severe pain should have caused his nose to bleed profusely and his skin to swell, but when he raised his hand to touch it, his nose bridge was completely intact, without any bloodstains, swelling, or even a trace of injury.

The pain was real and excruciating, yet the body remained completely unharmed—it was truly bizarre.

Before Wang Xiao could delve into the reasons, the old man opposite him pounced again.

"Ugly, isn't it? I'll hit you!"

A fierce gust of wind swept in, and the second punch slammed into Wang Xiao's face again.

Wang Xiao dodged quickly to the side, the fist grazing his earlobe, the sharp wind making his ear burn with pain.

This punch was a feint. The old man's left hand quietly circled to his side and slammed his palm heavily on his shoulder, the immense force sending him flying three feet to the side.

"It's an eyesore, isn't it? I'll hit you again!"

The third punch landed precisely on Wang Xiao's chest.

Wang Xiao felt a violent shock in his chest, as if he had been struck head-on by an ancient ferocious beast, his internal organs churning.

He activated the Hidden Water of Qingchuan with all his might, and the invisible water curtain that had just appeared on his body was shattered by the domineering fist force.

He retreated several steps, his feet carving two deep furrows in the soft sand.

"It'll interfere with your cultivation, huh? Fine, I'll fight! Fight! Fight!"

The old man's punches grew faster and faster, the shadows of his fists raining down like a dense, continuous barrage.

Wang Xiao hastily parried, struggling to defend himself, looking utterly disheveled and completely powerless to retaliate.

"You think you're so smart? You think you're so eloquent? I'll beat you up!"

Wang Xiao was furious and felt extremely aggrieved after being beaten.

I was beaten up for no reason. The other party was unreasonable, disregarded rules, and didn't even give me a warning before starting the fight.

He was a cultivator at the Dragon Gate Divine Realm, how could he have ever suffered such humiliation?

"Again?" Wang Xiao roared angrily, activating the Qingchuan Hidden Water technique to its fullest extent. A layer of condensed, invisible water curtain covered his entire body. At the same time, he clenched his fist to gather strength and fiercely met the attack.

"You dare fight back? Don't you know how to respect your elders? I'll hit you again!"

"Bang bang bang bang——"

A series of rapid punches rang out.

Under the old man's onslaught, Qingchuan Yinshui was rendered useless, as if made of paper, and was easily pierced by a single punch.

Wang Xiao's counterattacks, unleashed with all his might, all missed their mark.

The old man was right in front of him, his flushed face clearly visible, yet all his attacks inexplicably missed their mark.

The other party neither dodged nor evaded, so where did my fist land?

How did he do that?

Wang Xiao was both surprised and suspicious, and a storm was raging in her heart.

The old man's boxing style seemed chaotic and disorderly, like a street brawl, but every move was precise, with each punch landing precisely on his weakest point.

His prized physical body, refined through cultivation, was as fragile as paper in front of the old man, easily punctured.

"Senior!" Wang Xiao finally faced reality.

He can't beat him.

This person was clearly not there to take his life, and being in the assessment secret realm meant he must be an examiner from Jixia Academy, or even a high-ranking member of the academy.

At this moment, a head-on confrontation is pointless; yielding is the best course of action.

Whether it was Wang Xiao's yielding that worked, or the old man finally had enough, the rain of punches finally stopped.

The old man folded his fists and put his hands behind his back, looking down at him with a condescending gaze. The flush on his face was particularly striking in the bright sunlight.

Only then was Wang Xiao able to see the old man's full appearance.

The old man's hair and beard were all white, fluffy and messy, as if he hadn't combed his hair in the morning and was lazy and carefree.

He wore a wide, green robe, wrinkled and worn, as if it had been casually pulled out of a pickle jar.

What's most jarring is his flushed face, so bright and glaringly red that he looks like a freshly boiled shrimp, his vibrant color jarringly out of place.

Green robe and red face!

Wang Xiao couldn't bear to look directly at it and didn't want to look at it a second time. He quickly lowered his head and subconsciously thought: "Senior, have you not heard the saying 'Red and green together are so ugly it's unbearable'?"

The thought had barely formed when a sharp, piercing gaze suddenly locked onto him, like two blades hanging between his neck, chilling him to the bone.

Wang Xiao froze, his survival instincts kicking in instantly. He frantically changed his story, secretly defending himself: This is the demeanor of an immortal, a powerful figure among mortals! This green robe on an ordinary person would be like pickled vegetables, but on a senior like this, it is a robe untouched by the mortal world! This rosy complexion is the glory of reaching the pinnacle of cultivation and being at the peak of one's vitality!

The piercing gaze slowly withdrew.

"You recognize me?" the old man asked, his voice steady and authoritative, exuding an intimidating aura.

Wang Xiao quickly bowed and greeted the examiner: "Greetings, Your Excellency."

"I'll hit you!"

The old man raised his hand and delivered another punch.

Wang Xiao squatted down, clutching her forehead, looking aggrieved and both amused and exasperated: "Senior, what's wrong now?"

The old man folded his fists behind his back, slightly raised his chin, and expressionlessly uttered a single sentence:

"You should call me Dean."

"What?!"

Wang Xiao was stunned. She looked up abruptly, her mouth agape, wide enough to fit an egg.

Dean?

The dean of Jixia Academy?

The legendary dean of Jixia Academy, who is rarely seen even by the heads of major sects and leaders of powerful forces.

The Dean who once joined forces with Senior Brother Li Guang to personally take away the survivors of Demon Island?