stonecrandall Chapter 59 Internal Test Paper
Chapter 59 Internal Test Paper
Five days later, one afternoon, a young cultivator rode a flying sword and knocked on the protective array of Huaguo Mountain, heading straight to the abbot's office.
Within half an incense stick's time, Teacher Yue and Fang Yingyue arrived at the office one after the other.
After another incense stick's time, the two teachers in charge of the "Introduction to Morality" and "Four Arts of Cultivation" for the top-level class also rushed over.
"Controlling eight formations simultaneously, that's fucking outrageous..."
The teacher who taught the four arts of cultivation was bald. He slapped a jade slip on his forehead and was already muttering to himself after only reading the beginning.
The jade slip contained the most recent internal test of a major sect.
The Four Arts of Cultivation is the only subject without exam questions; it tests practical skills, so it requires recording on jade slips or videos.
An hour later, the bald man finally finished reading. He wiped the sweat from his brow and sighed, "I've learned something new. The major sects are truly... amazing! Our Four Arts are far inferior!"
Before he could finish a sentence, he was patted hard on the shoulder. When he turned around, he saw the skinny man who taught "Introduction to Morality". Just as he was about to ask him how difficult "Introduction to Morality" was, he saw the skinny man put one finger to his mouth and pointed in another direction with the other finger.
The bald man was usually a chatterbox, but when he looked in the direction the skinny man was pointing, he involuntarily fell silent.
In a corner of the office, Fang Yingyue was working on a problem with paper and pen. Judging from her furrowed brows and focused expression, it was clear that she was having a hard time solving the problem.
Two Foundation Establishment cultivators sat beside her.
The elderly dean, with a full head of white hair, rested one hand on the wooden table and the other on several pages of paper, his brows furrowed and his gaze focused.
On the right, Teacher Yue was restless. She kept flipping through the test paper in her hand and occasionally craning her neck to look at Fang Yingyue's problem-solving. She kept looking at it for a long time.
No one spoke; after the bald man shut his mouth, the office was filled with silence.
In the silence, the sound of Fang Yingyue's brush tracing the lines of the writing board could be clearly heard.
"What's wrong?" the bald man mouthed to the skinny man beside him.
The skinny guy just shook his head, put the test paper on the table, and then quietly walked behind Fang Yingyue. Not daring to get too close, he stood a meter away from Fang Yingyue and watched from a distance.
Before them lay a divination test, a standard immigration selection exam.
The test paper has 20 questions, each worth 5 points, for a total of 100 points. Almost two hours have passed, and Fang Yingyue still has one question left to answer.
The exam paper has four pages in total. Fang Yingyue is holding the last page, while the first three pages are with the dean.
Seeing the thin man approach, the old dean handed him the first two pages of paper, pointed to a chair in the distance, and gestured for him to go and look at them.
The skinny man took the test paper and walked to a distance to look at it with the bald man. They saw that the test paper read "**Internal Selection Numerology Test Paper**", with the first few words crossed out. The test date was June 1st, and the test time was two hours.
The paper, measuring two feet long and one foot wide, contained only six questions. Each question had a very long stem, and it took the two cultivators quite a while to finish reading the first question. They looked at each other in bewilderment.
Question 1: As we all know, the best alchemy formation for all nine attributes is the "Nine Heavens and Ten Earths" formation. This formation was invented by Nuwa and perfected by Laozi, and has 131,681,894,400 variations. Now, a person possesses all nine attributes, with Earth as the sole elemental root (30%), Metal, Wood, Water, and Fire each accounting for 15%, Wind and Thunder each accounting for 4%, and the remaining 1% equally divided between the Nether and Void elements. Considering the interactions of the five elements and the mutual reinforcement of the nine elements, how many feasible variations of the Nine Heavens and Ten Earths alchemy formation can this person achieve?
"Isn't the first question supposed to be a calculation? Why did they put this kind of challenging question up here?" the bald man muttered.
Confused, the two quickly glanced at the remaining eleven questions on the two test papers, and became increasingly alarmed as they read on—the six questions on the first page were of similar difficulty, while the six questions on the second page were even more difficult!
"How could they give us an exam like this?" the bald man exclaimed in disbelief, lowering his voice. "How many people will hand in blank papers? What's the point of releasing an exam like this? Is it just to undermine everyone's confidence?"
"There is such a saying that this divination will be very difficult, but it's not this difficult..." The skinny man was also speechless. He glanced at the group over there, who were still maintaining the same posture. However, the hourglass on the table showed that there was only a quarter of an hour left to answer the questions.
"Come on, let's test our divination skills." The skinny man pointed to the first question. "This one, I think it was the final question from which year? It looks familiar."
"The year of the Blissful World," the bald old teacher said. Although he wasn't a numerology teacher, he was very familiar with this kind of challenging question. "The number one spiritual root that year was wind. This one is earth, which is even more difficult than that year."
Solving this problem was no easy task, so the two stopped wasting time and took out paper and pen to start writing.
After about the time it takes to drink a cup of tea, the bald man was the first to stop writing. He glanced at the skinny man, who was also just finishing his last few strokes. After a quick glance, he chuckled, "Our answers are completely different, by a full 100%. Someone got the first question wrong!"
Uh……
Upon hearing this, the skinny man quickly checked his work, and after a moment chuckled softly, "I forgot to consider 'Wind and Thunder complementing each other,' haha, even I got it wrong, how many people do you think can get points!"
At this moment, Fang Yingyue finally stopped writing, looked at the hourglass with only a few drops of sand left, and said to the old dean with a wry smile, "At this speed—there's no time to check. Have I made any mistakes?"
"Yes, all correct."
With the old dean's words, Teacher Yue finally breathed a sigh of relief.
The young assistant had already told them about the major sect's exam results—more than 230 people took the exam, with an average score of only 11 points in divination. More than 40 people failed completely, and most of the remaining people scored in the 30s or 40s. Fewer than 70 people passed, making it a truly dismal exam.
But geniuses always exist. Amidst the chaos, two perfect scores and five 90s still emerged.
So it would be quite embarrassing for Fang Yingyue if she didn't get a perfect score—the test was difficult, but the students taught by others all got perfect scores, and if you couldn't even beat their students, it would be very shameful.
"They are teachers invited from the Grand Divination Bureau of the Nine Heavens," Guo Lichan said, his brow furrowed ever since he saw the exam paper, his voice filled with anxiety. "Teacher Fang, how many of us can get points on this exam? How many of us can pass?"
Fang Yingyue secretly breathed a sigh of relief—the people from the Divination Bureau? Then losing isn't shameful.
Seeing everyone staring at her, Fang Yingyue calmed herself down, thought for a moment, and replied, "This level of difficulty... most people would be stunned if they encountered it all at once. However, most students in the top-tier class can still get some points. As for passing... there are eight or nine in the top-tier class, two or three in the bottom-tier class, and I don't know about the remaining two classes."
Guo Lichan was surprised: "Two or three students in the Earth-level class?" Seeing Fang Yingyue nod, he relaxed his brows slightly, "A dozen or so promising talents is not bad."
"Let's take a test with this set of papers and see," Teacher Yue said, clarifying her thinking. "In the end, we still have to look at the total score. Being good at numerology doesn't necessarily mean you'll succeed. We need to take a test to see who has a chance, and then we can focus on helping those few in the coming months."
"Okay, but this set of test papers can't be used directly; it needs to be modified," Guo Lichan said to the group. "They're conducting closed training, and anyone who leaks the questions is guilty, especially in divination; they're very strict about it. So this set of test papers can't leave this room. You can modify the questions here, and I'll destroy the original ones immediately after you're done."
This is the obvious answer to the question. The teachers are all veteran educators and know the importance of this matter, so they all agreed without question.
Everyone worked through the night, and the cultivators, being full of energy, managed to revise all the questions after a single night's work.
"The test is scheduled for fifteen days from now. During these fifteen days, everyone can receive targeted guidance, especially in divination. Teacher Yue and Teacher Fang should give them a reminder so that they won't be completely confused when they receive the results."
In the early hours of the morning, Guo Lichan saw everyone off and set a time for the exam before leaving.
The others said their goodbyes and left, but Teacher Duyue stayed behind.
"Elder Guo, there are experts from the Imperial Divination Bureau over there. Could you perhaps..." Teacher Yue didn't finish her sentence, only looking at the old dean with hopeful eyes.
"No way." Guo Lichan shook his head and admitted frankly, "I already owe a huge favor from this trip. I got the information from Wan Song; she asked for 5, so I just paid her."
"Okay, fine."
Since that's the case, Teacher Yue had no choice but to compromise. After thinking for a moment, he said, "Wansong's questions are indeed difficult, but they don't quite match this exam paper. I suspect their approach is a bit off. How about we send this corrected exam paper over to that girl as well? I heard she's one of the top students there. If she does well, it means their teaching is decent, and the materials are worth 5. If she doesn't do well, we'll have to negotiate the price down."
"Alright." Guo Lichan nodded in agreement, took out a revised divination exam paper from his Qiankun bag, and a few spirit tickets, handing them to the assistant standing beside him. He instructed him, "Go ask Teacher Fang for an answer key. Grade it on the spot. If the score is good, don't hesitate to pay him directly. We don't have much time."
The assistant nodded in agreement and immediately set off for Wansong Gate.
After seven days of flying through the air, the assistant named Guo Xiqin returned to Aolai with a score of 95 on his answer sheet, along with a thick stack of documents.