The fifth day of the twelfth lunar month, early in the morning.
Xu Ke got up, washed up, fed Ziyunque some spiritual rice, and then met up with Liu Yongtian, the official, to have breakfast together.
This house is a guild hall set up by Sinong Palace. It is used to house various customers who come to Sinong Palace for business and need accommodation. It can be regarded as a "guest house" of Sinong Palace.
At this moment, in this guild hall, except for a few merchants who came to make purchases, the others were all Fangzheng from various workshops and disciples participating in the promotion assessment.
When Liu Yongtian took Xu Ke into the dining hall, they met an acquaintance.
This is Fangzheng of Xishanfang next door.
"Eh? Lao Liu?"
When Xishanfang saw Liu Yongtian, he asked with surprise: "You haven't gone back yet?"
"Nope!"
Liu Yongtian replied in a calm tone, and then pointed at Xu Ke, "Isn't there a boy in the shop who wants to take the promotion test? He still can't leave, so we can only wait until he finishes the test."
"Ah? Someone from Hedongfang also participated in the promotion assessment?"
Xishanfang couldn't help but exclaimed.
No wonder he exclaimed, the name of the "nursing home" in Hedongfang has long been known to everyone.
Xishan Fangzheng's exclamation also made everyone else in the dining hall look over in surprise.
After bringing down the ruined Hedongfang, can he still produce a disciple who can be promoted to the examination?
What the hell... can a salted fish turn over?
Seeing everyone's gazes on him like this, Xu Ke's mouth trembled slightly and he felt a little awkward.
We, Hedongfang, have a reputation for being a failure.
In fact, it is no wonder that Liu Yongtian, the leader of Hedongfang, is like this.
I don’t know what Sinong Palace’s plan was to place all the “senior brothers” in Hedongfang. Only after the senior fellow apprentices retire and return to their hometowns, will the quotas become available for new disciples.
This resulted in a large number of "senior brothers" in Hedongfang and very few newcomers, turning Hedongfang into a veritable nursing home. The entire Hedongfang has become very depressed, and there have not been any disciples participating in the promotion assessment for many years.
Therefore, even if a promoted disciple like Xu Ke appeared, no one else would take it seriously.
If Hedongfang is in such a bad state, even if it can produce a promoted disciple, how capable will it be? I'm afraid that because his cultivation level was about to reach a breakthrough, Sinongdian, in order to take care of Hedongfang, gave him a chance to participate in the promotion assessment without conducting a detailed investigation.
After breakfast, everyone left the guild hall one after another and went to the Sinong Palace Examination Department to participate in the promotion assessment.
Xu Ke noticed that there were forty or fifty disciples participating in the promotion assessment. I don't know if there is a quota limit for the promotion assessment of Sinong Palace. If there is a quota limit, the competition will be fierce.
There was no words to say all the way, and everyone hurried to the Sinong Hall to take the merit examination.
I came to the Examination Department again, and this time it was not Zhang Lingfeng who came forward, but a deacon.
Originally, on such an important occasion, the examination department had to be in charge. I don't know why, but this term's merit examination department "is in charge" and didn't show up at all.
"Meet Deacon Wang!"
After the deacon, who was wearing a green robe, appeared, everyone quickly came forward to pay their respects.
"No need to be polite!"
Deacon Wang bowed to everyone in a very strict manner, and then said: "Fellow gentlemen, please rest in the tea room. Disciples who are participating in the assessment, follow me!"
"yes!"
Everyone bowed to accept the order.
Afterwards, the monks went to the teahouse to rest, while the disciples taking the assessment followed the deacon to the assessment location.
Xu Ke handed the purple skylark parked on his shoulder to Fangzheng Liu Yongtian for temporary care, and followed everyone into the "examination room".
The examination room for this promotion assessment was set up in the garden in the backyard of the Merit Examination Department.
Entering the garden, there were two long tables placed on the ground in front of them. Deacon Wang and another white-haired old man just now were sitting on the futon behind the long tables.
Beside the two people, there are four desks placed on each side. A total of eight serving disciples acting as "staff" are sitting behind the desks.
There are also futons placed on the lawn in the middle of the garden. These futons are the seats for the disciples participating in the assessment.
Entering the examination room, under the command of an executive disciple, everyone sat down in their respective positions.
This assessment seemed to be presided over by Deacon Wang. The white-haired old man sitting next to him had his eyes closed and did not make any move.
The chime sounded "dang" and the assessment began.
"The promotion assessment requirements for the serving disciples of the Sinong Palace are: fourth level of Qi training, proficient in the activation technique, corruption technique, rainfall technique and sharpness technique."
Deacon Wang glanced at the disciples sitting down below and said: "The Qi training level is clear at a glance, no additional assessment is needed. This time we will mainly assess your spells. Now we will conduct the first assessment of the activation technique."
After speaking, Deacon Wang waved his hand, and several of the deacon disciples nearby picked up the trays containing the seeds, came to the field, and distributed the seeds required for the assessment of the hair growth technique to everyone.
Each person has a small bag containing nine paper packets. In the paper packets are three seeds.
There are nine different seeds in total, with a total of three of each type.
It seems that the nine different seeds represent different levels of difficulty. There are three seeds of each type, which means you can only fail three times.
Xu Ke took a look at these seeds, and the only ones he could recognize were the Silver Leaf Jute and Thousand Bell Millet seeds, which were the lowest difficulty. He had never seen any of the following seeds.
"Each person has nine different seeds. Numbers from one to nine are written on the paper packet, and the difficulty ranges from level one to level nine."
After the seeds were distributed, Deacon Wang said: "Take out the seeds and sow them on the grass in front of you to encourage them to sprout. If you fail three times, the assessment is over. If the time is exceeded, the assessment is over. Now, the assessment begins!"
Following Deacon Wang's order, the disciples participating in the assessment took action one after another.
Everyone can easily solve the first level difficulty of Silver Leaf Jute and Qianzhong Millet.
Xu Ke deliberately kept the same speed as others to promote the germination of seeds. On the grass in front of him, a thousand-bell millet and a silver-leaf jute seedling quickly grew.
Just when Xu Ke was about to stop, he suddenly noticed that the seedlings promoted by some disciples were taller and stronger than others.
So, Xu Ke added a little more wood spiritual power to make the seedlings he promoted taller and stronger.
If you want to get the undisputed first place, you naturally have to lead in every aspect.
Even if the seedlings were taller and stronger, there would be no bonus points, so Xu Ke did it anyway.
Xu Ke's actions made the white-haired old man, who had been keeping his eyes closed and paying no attention to external affairs, slightly opened his closed eyes. After glancing at Xu Ke, he closed his eyes again.
In the second and third rounds, Xu Ke maintained the same speed as others, but he also maintained the growth of seedlings, which were taller and stronger than others.
By the fourth round, the gap began to widen.
Some people failed to trigger the trigger once, but succeeded only the second and third times.
Xu Ke still maintained the speed of the first echelon and kept the seedlings taller and stronger.
In the fifth round, some people started to fail to trigger three times in a row, and the assessment ended.
In the sixth round, there were even more laggards. Most of the people finished the assessment in this round.
By the seventh round, only two were left who could successfully activate the activation technique three times. One is Xu Ke, and the other is a young man in his twenties, who seems to be from Xishanfang.
In the eighth round, Xu Ke successfully completed the push, but the young man from Xishanfang failed to push three times in a row, ending the assessment.
At this point, the test on the activation technique has ended, and Xu Ke undoubtedly won the first place.
Is this a win? I haven't even exerted my strength yet!
Sure enough... I only made a slight move, and it was already the limit at this stage.
Again, that year, I had my hands in my pockets and didn’t know what an opponent was!
