Chapter 39: First Look at the Male Lead

During the time Ye Yong was chatting with Qin Shi Meng, quite a few cultivators had climbed up the mountain, and some of them didn't look very well. It was obvious from how they looked that climbing up the mountain wasn't an easy task.

As someone who had read the novel, Ye Yong knew the contents of the assessment. Hundreds of thousands of people participated, and only a few tens of thousands would pass the first test. Less than 10,000 of them would be able to pass all the assessments.

The Heavenly Luo Sect only accepted elites and talented people. As one of the best sects, they didn't have to worry about not getting enough disciples as many cultivators wanted to join their sect. They instead had to worry about whether the disciples that they got were actually talented or just trash cannon fodder.

As the rogue cultivators and the cultivators from the small cultivation families started to arrive, Qin Shi Meng put on her veil. She wasn't pretending to be cold or hard-to-get or anything- she just didn't want to make the less mentally strong cultivators do worse on the test.

The majority of the young cultivators in the big cultivation families had seen her face, but it was not so for the rogue cultivators or cultivators in small or medium cultivation families. Qin Shi Meng wasn't conceited, but she was fully aware of how beautiful she was and how much someone could be affected by her beauty.

Ye Yong also wasn't in the mood to talk with Qin Shi Meng anymore. He was currently scanning the crowd, trying to find a normal-looking guy who just made people want to trouble him for no particular reason.

Yep, Ye Yong was talking about the male lead, Long Tian.

According to the plot of the novel, Ye Yong had targetted Long Tian during the assessment date and had called a few cultivators to kill Long Tian, causing him to just barely arrive in time and be nearly disqualified.

However, Ye Yong hadn't called anyone to trouble Long Tian, so logically, Long Tian should have arrived long ago. And yet, Ye Yong didn't find anyone that he really felt like bothering after scanning the whole crowd.

Bruh, so even if nobody troubles the male lead, he still has to be the last to arrive? Ye Yong couldn't understand why.

As soon as Ye Yong thought that, the person that he was thinking about appeared. Ye Yong soon saw a slightly panting young man wearing a set of clean clothes walk into the assessment area. He was still in pretty good shape.

Even if it was the first time that Ye Yong had seen him, he was still able to recognize the person at a glance- male lead Long Tian!

Unlike the novel, Long Tian didn't arrive in the nick of time, but he still spent a bit of time dealing with some troubles on his way up- he had been pestered by a small sect. As it turned out, the robbers that he had killed were the members of the small sect. The sect tried to kill Long Tian, so Long Tian had to avoid the members from the sect while avoiding the traps when he went up the mountain.

Luckily for Long Tian, the sect was small, and their strongest member was just at the 10th layer of the Foundation Establishment Realm, which Long Tian could deal with. If a Crystallization Realm cultivator had pestered him, Long Tian felt that he would actually be late.

Feeling that someone was looking at him, Long Tian turned around and saw an elegant and handsome young man staring at him from the gazebo of an airship. Long Tian had never seen the guy before, so he was confused as to why the guy was staring at him. He didn't really stand out from the other cultivators that came to participate in the assessment, either.

Ye Yong didn't expect to be caught by Long Tian even though he was so far away. The male lead is the male lead, after all, Ye Yong thought, giving Long Tian a smile and then looking away. Well, now I know what the male lead looks like. It's just like what the novel said- average and plain, yet giving people an impulse to cause trouble for him.

If Ye Yong remembered correctly, then no one from the Ye Family would come into contact with Long Tian during the time of the assessment. After the assessment, however, things would change. Ye Mao went up against Long Tian in a battle, and after losing, harbored a grudge against Long Tian. The petty Ye Yong also happened to want to deal with Long Tian, so they teamed up and plotted together on how to assassinate Long Tian.

Then there was Ye Gou, who also joined the Sword Pavilion Hall. Although the current Ye Yong would not order Ye Gou to assassinate Long Tian, Long Tian's trouble-magnet passive would very likely attract Ye Gou to target him. As such, Ye Yong planned to talk to Ye Gou and warn him to not provoke Long Tian.

Qing Shi Meng would also join the Sword Pavilion Hall. However, unlike Long Tian, who would become an ordinary disciple, or Ye Mao and Ye Gou, who would become first-class disciples, Qin Shi Meng would immediately become a true disciple. Due to these differences in status, none of them would have contact with each other for a short while.

Ye Yong had also joined the Sword Pavilion Hall in the novel. However, the current Ye Yong was planning to go join another hall to go after another heroine, so he wouldn't go to join the Sword Pavilion Hall.

Well, only Ye Mao was a problem for Ye Yong. Ye Yong could just simply warn Ye Gou, and while he could also warn Ye Mao, Ye Mao would lose to Long Tian in the hall duel that would happen later, which would make him hold a grudge against Long Tian. He wouldn't be able to accept the defeat as he was a young master of the Ye Family, while Long Tian was just a rogue cultivator. With his personality, Ye Mao would definitely try to target Long Tian and create trouble for him.

Ye Yong's head hurt just thinking about it. Ye Yong rubbed his temples. Whatever, I'll just cripple Ye Mao when it's necessary. This way, Ye Family and Long Tian won't become enemies, Ye Mao won't have to die, and Ye Family will be saved.

After reaching a conclusion, Ye Yong looked at Ye Mao as if he was looking at a cripple.

Ye Mao, who had been secretly looking at Qin Shi Meng, felt Ye Yong looking at him dangerously, causing him to jolt. He might be 2 years older than Ye Yong, but he was less talented and had lower cultivation than Ye Yong, so he was still pretty scared of Ye Yong. Qin Shi Meng isn't your lover or something, so what's wrong with me looking at her? Why are you staring at me like that? Everyone else is looking at her too, so why are you just staring at me and not at them? Ye Mao felt that Ye Yong was targeting him.

…

Heavenly Luo Sect's entrance exam officially began.

For the first part of the exam, the cultivators had to attack a stone without using any spiritual energy. They would get 3 tries, and as long as they could knock the stone down within those 3 tries, they would pass the first part of the exam.

Tens of thousands of people were separated into hundreds of groups based on their cultivation levels. Even though everyone was given 3 chances to knock down the stone, some people only needed 1 hit to do so, so this part of the exam didn't actually take that much time. The purpose of this was to test the cultivators' physical body and strength, and this part alone eliminated a third of the people that had come to take the exam. This was because many cultivators relied solely on spiritual energy to overpower and bully others, causing them to negate their physical body and strength.

The 2nd part of the exam was very similar to the first part of the exam, except that this time, the cultivators were allowed to use spiritual energy to knock down the stone. Of course, the stone used for this was different from the previous one.

The cultivators could easily pass this as long as they were of the 3rd layer of the Foundation Establishment Realm.

As for the cultivators that weren't even at the 3rd layer of the Foundation Establishment Realm? Go out and turn right, the River Snail Sect¹ is also recruiting.

As for cultivators in the Qi Refinement Realm, the Heavenly Luo Sect had prepared stones used to test energy qi.

The 3rd part of the exam was assessing spiritual roots.

This part was great for people to show off- just imagine all the faces of admiration and jealousy that would appear when one revealed their extreme rank spiritual roots. Of course, conversely, if a person's spiritual root was too low in rank or too horrible, they would make a horrible fool out of themselves in front of tens of thousands of people.

After these first 3 parts of the exam, only 10 thousand cultivators would remain, and most of them would be able to get accepted into the Heavenly Luo Sect. However, there was still the last part²- assessing cultivation level.

Not only does this assess a cultivator's real cultivation level, but it can also test a cultivator's foundation- whether it was steady and stable or rushed. At this point, many members of the large cultivation families all looked at Qin Shi Meng.

Whether she was a real phoenix or just a chicken with phoenix feathers pretending to be a phoenix, the truth was about to be revealed.

Translator's Notes:

¹ Heavenly Luo is 天洛, which sounds like 田螺, a type of snail. The joke is that the cultivators that didn't qualify for the Tian Luo Sect (Heavenly Luo Sect) can still join a "Tian Luo Sect" (River Snail Sect).

² The author put cultivation and spiritual root assessment as parts 3 and 4, but they were done together.