Chapter 64: Fire Energy Hunting Competition

The new students glanced at the bottomless mountain stream at their feet and looked around again.

Finding nothing but an endless expanse of vegetation, let alone an Inner Academy, there wasn't a single person in sight.

"What's going on?"

Jia Yun and the other people looked at each other uncertainly, all with puzzled faces.

"Landing!"

The radiance in his eyes gradually faded, and the strong aura that had previously emerged from Hu Gan's body also silently retracted into his body.

He waved his hand with a smile, and the ten griffins spread their wings and slowly descended toward the opposite side of the mountain stream.

The griffins raised great gusts of wind and landed safely on the ground.

Seeing Hu Gan's gesture to signal them, the students jumped off the griffins one after another, landing wobbly in the open space, looking around with puzzled faces.

"Where is this, could it be that the Inner Academy is here?"

After landing on the ground, many people continued to press and ask questions.

"The Inner Academy, it's not that easy to enter."

Hu Gan smiled indifferently, then, under the gaze of the crowd, he slowly walked about ten steps to the front, before he stopped in his steps and waved his palm, an energy shot out violently from his hand, and finally shot into the space in front of him.

Immediately after, a strange scene emerged, only to see that when the energy shot through a certain empty space, it caused a wave of water-like ripples.

These ripples fluctuated rapidly, and finally, a silver door, two to three meters high, appeared out of nowhere.

Looking at the strange silver door, everyone was startled.

Obviously, none of them had expected this seemingly ordinary place to hide such a mystery.

The silver door, under the gaze of the crowd, slowly opened with a crisp sound, and the scene behind it was the same dense forest as before, seemingly no different from the dense forest they saw before.

"Come with me."

With a wave of his hand, Hu Gan took the lead and marched toward the silver door.

Behind him, dozens of students followed closely behind with curious faces.

Everyone who entered through the silver door disappeared into thin air as if they had entered a different dimension.

When everyone, including the ten griffins, entered the door, it slowly closed tightly.

A final wave of silver energy spread out, and the silver door gradually dissipated and finally disappeared completely, transforming the area into an extremely ordinary forest.

When his feet stepped through the silver gate, Xiao Ming only felt his spirit move away and then his feet touched the ground again.

When he moved forward with his gaze, he discovered that the scene in front of him was still the same as the scene in the forest before.

However, at the entrance to the forest two old men and several middle-aged men had appeared at some point.

Behind them, there were about twenty young men standing, and Xiao Ming swept his eyes past them and discovered that, on their chests, they all wore a badge with a tower-like pattern engraved on it.

"Elder Hu, you are always very punctual at all times, how are the new students this year?"

At that moment, one of the two elders, looking at the large group of people who had entered, smiled and addressed the leader, Hu Gan.

"Somewhat similar to previous years, I guess." Hu Gan smiled.

"Come here, you five."

He gestured to Xiao Ming and the others, and after seeing them come to his side, Hu Gan pointed to the two elders and said.

"These two are the elders of the Inner Academy, this is Elder Su and the other is Elder Qing, you can look for them if you need anything from now on in the Inner Academy."

Knowing that the five people in front of them were the top five this time, the two elders swept their eyes over the five people and finally landed on Xiao Ming, sucking in a breath of cold air in shock as they said, "Hiss~, you entered the Inner Academy at such an age? And even finished in the top five? Is this what you told us that was similar to the previous years?"

"Generally speaking, it's about the same as previous years." Hu Gan explained with a smile, "He is Xiao Ming, Elder Huo's disciple, I think you must have heard of him."

"This kid is very young, it seems that the Inner Academy is about to become interesting again."

After Xiao Ming came out, the young men standing behind the few middle-aged men were also surprised and became boisterous.

"Shut up, whoever speaks again, I will deduct five days of tower cultivation time!" Elder Su turned around and rebuked, and the crowd quieted down.

Only then did he turn around and say, "Xiao Ming, that first genius of Jia Nan Academy? Indeed, I have heard of him, and I am afraid that, if Old Huo had not snatched him in the first place, the First Elder would not have been able to resist rushing to the outer academy to take him as a disciple."

"Only that he is so young, is Elder Huo willing to let him compete with others in that fierce environment of the Inner Academy?"

"Hehe, don't underestimate him, he just returned from a solo adventure in the Black-Corner Region." Hu Gan smiled and spoke.

"Hiss, that's really something." The two elders, Su and Qing, were really surprised this time, going to the Black-Corner Region for an adventure was not an easy task, moreover, Xiao Ming was still so young.

Back then, when they were Xiao Ming's age, they only knew how to play.

Xiao Ming being so powerful, it was no wonder that Old Huo let him enter the Inner Academy.

Listening to their conversation, Xiao Ming, who was the one they were talking about, did not have any emotional ups and downs inside.

He had experienced this kind of situation too many times.

"Unfortunately, without further ado, although you have passed the Qualifying Competition and obtained the qualification to enter the Inner Academy, that is not the end..."

Elder Su raised his palm towards the new students, and a large black token appeared in his hand.

With a toss of his hand, several blades shot out and hovered in front of everyone as if they had eyes, Xiao Ming and the others reached out to take them.

When the leaf was in his hand, Xiao Ming immediately felt a strange heat coming from it.

After looking down and taking a good look, he discovered that on the top of the blade was a transparent crystal, and on this crystal was a large red number printed: 'Five'!

'The level of technology in Dou Qi Continent is just barely good, if I were to strive to develop it, I could really reach the level of my previous world, although it cannot be exactly the same system, still, it is no problem to create a unique system that is suitable for Dou Qi Continent, similar to magic technology, but unfortunately, the terror of personal strength limits the development of technology.'

Looking at the Fire Crystal Card in his hand, Xiao Ming reflected inwardly.

The civilization of the Dou Qi continent had an unknown number of hundreds of thousands of years of history, and the population had an unknown number of billions.

For technology to barely develop to this level, rather than calling it slow, a turtle crawled faster than it.

Shaking off the thoughts in his mind, Xiao Ming looked up and saw the group of young people standing behind the middle-aged man, At this moment, their eyes were heatedly looking at the black-colored card in the hands of him and the others, and there was undisguised greed in those eyes.

"Due to some reason, it is very troublesome to explain, so you will naturally understand later, but you only need to know one thing now, and that is to hold the card in your hands as if it were your life, and when you enter the Inner Academy, you will understand how important it is to you! Of course, you can understand a little bit by looking into the eyes of these guys." At the end of his speech, Elder Su pointed his finger at the group of young people and laughed.

"Next, you will have to enter the forest and then successfully reach the Inner Academy at the end of the forest." Elder Su's finger was still resting on the group of youths and he said indifferently, "And when you travel through this forest, be careful of them... According to the rules of the Inner Academy, in this forest, they can do whatever they want at will, which means they can attack you. "

Xiao Ming smiled and carefully observed the strength of those young men before finally showing a somewhat gentle-looking smile.

Well, there was no danger.

"Remember, that number on the top of the card in your hands has a great temptation for them, so they will use all means except killing to obtain the... 'Fire Energy' on the top of your card... this word, it will feel very familiar and charming later... and now, you don't need to defeat them, just avoiding them is enough, as long as you don't get caught by them and reach the Inner Academy successfully, then, you will have the ultimate reward, the sooner you get there, the better the reward will be."

Elder Su continued speaking, his fingers suddenly moving towards the dark forest behind him, "For this forest chase, we, the Inner Academy, call it the Fire Energy Hunting Competition..."

"Now, I declare that this year's Fire Energy Hunting Competition officially begins! Students, start running!"

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A/N:

Extra chapter to celebrate that this story reached over 100k words.