The Selection

Raven leisurely admired the villages on the way which belonged to small hunter families.

They should be called small cities instead because there was everything available from brothels to hotels of good quality.

Raven decided to live life of luxury so he naturally did not hesitate to spend money . He visited three villages in total and stayed inside the most expensive inns there .

The rooms he chose were extremely spacious and the food was only the best delicacies . Raven looked no different from a regular 16 year old thus nobody stopped him from getting drunk . He enjoyed wine and ale of the best quality available and spent more than ten low grade spirit stones on alcohol alone .

The villages seldom greeted such great guests thus Raven became a little celebrity in the villages . Countless girls tried to seduce him sadly for them Raven had no immediate plans to find a girlfriend thus he did not even give them a proper glance .

Other than luxury the rest of the journey was uneventful as he encountered no bandits or small gangs . Raven wanted to play with them but was disappointed in the end .

The small forest inside which the entrance to Heavenly Element Sect was located , had no particular name . The forest was only few kilometers long and no beasts dared to live there because the entrance was always being guarded by two or three disciples of the Sect who came here for the mission to guard the entrance for specific amounts of time .

There were more than ten sects in the continent but the two Heavenly Element and Thousand Sword Sects were the largest and most popular ones . They were famous for the highest difficulty of selection tests and even the most normal disciple was an elite .

Raven was greeted by the huge entrance to the dense forest and thousands of youths camping here and there . Raven knew that the number was good because it was the day when the selection begins and this was only one of the entrances.

Raven could not guess their strength accurately but from their demeanor they all looked strong and proud . Raven was not interested in the youths who wore expensive clothing and had air of arrogance because they definitely reached the strength mostly through personal guidance of experts and pills . Raven wanted to befriend someone who came from humble origins and relied solely on talent and hard work till now . He may belong to nobility in this life but Raven had never thought himself as a noble . In the past life he lived more than thirty years as a common man and was not used to the ethics of the rich .

Sadly though he could not find even one person who came from common origin . All of them wore extremely expensive silk clothes so even the commoners must be from the families like rich merchants. Raven was only a little disappointed because he knew that it was truly difficult for commoners to reach the requirements of Heavenly Element Sect . Even Dustin who had resources was not able to reach the requirements after all .

" Attention brats , it's time to commence the selection tests ! There will be a total of three tests . Element Affinity , Cultivation and Battle. This time no more than 200 new disciples will be chosen from you all . So the ones with best score will be chosen at the end . But ! If you have better Element Affinity than 100 then you will be selected on the spot and there will be no need to take other tests. " The youths were alerted by the sudden shout and announcement but could not find the origin of the voice.

Raven also tried but to no avail . He thought that maybe there were some Sect authorities watching everything in secret so it was best that he behaves normally and do not get into any fights .

" Take this token and wait in the line ! " A young man wearing black robes came and handed a token to Raven .

Raven saw that everyone else also received similar tokens but all had different numbers inscribed on them . There were Five rows for each basic element . Raven entered the first row which was announced as the row for applicants who want to join the Flame Hall.

Raven definitely would join the row because he could only cultivate Flame Element. Raven's number was 600 so he waited patiently for his turn and saw the situation of youngsters who were lined up ahead of him.

They all were placing hand on a basketball sized transparent crystal lying on a wooden podium. Raven could not see what was happening inside the crystal but could guess its purpose as some failed the test and others went inside the next gate for the second assessment. Raven knew that he cultivated pure Flame Qi of Flame Elephant Art and wanted to know the number he would get in this assessment.