Fakes as far as the eye can see

Bai Yun spend the entire day creating fake identities. All in all, he created thirteen fake identities. Each of the fake identities had different ages, cultivation, personalities and looks. He even gave some different cultivation systems.

In order to do all of this, he had gone all over the city buying up various clothes, all in various identities. In order to not be tracked, a habit he picked up during the Assassin God's inheritance, he used various strange places to change his identity. Once he changed in the middle of a store, inside a restroom, and even in the middle of a jam packed bus.

Of course, all of these weren't for nothing. Among all the identities that he had created, he had two that he was intending to use often. One was the identity of an aspiring alchemist. Since he had already decided to take the alchemy path in this life, he had no choice but to create an identity for this. He might be able to say that his main identity was also an alchemist, but it was better to have a back up just in case.

The other main identity that he created was to use in the underworld. He knew that it was impossible to avoid the underworld if he wanted to improve quickly. Also as an assassin, it was where his skills would shine the most. And under no conditions could he use his main identity in the underworld. Of course, due to the nature of the underworld, he had taken multiple identities that would be used in the underworld for various purposes.

But most of the identities that he had was backup in case something happened.

Bai Yun also vowed to make a few more identities. It was not good that all of his identities were focused on only one city and created on the same day. As he traveled, he had to make more fake identities from multiple places. He could also try and acquire some old identities if possible.

But this wasn't the end. Bai Yun was planning to create one final identity. This would be the main identity he would use when dealing with the hunter union. Since there were some things he wanted to do as soon as he got the identity, he was forced to put it off until now.

Bai Yun walked into a hunter union registration office. He was wearing an unassuming black set of clothes. On his back was a rather decent sword he had bought earlier. It had cost him more than half of all the money he had. He looked just like any other cultivator, except that his face was a little more handsome than usual.

"Name." The person in charge of registration asked.

"Long Tian." He replied with a smile. It was time for this name to shine once again.

The worker took down his name and other details quickly. He created the card and transferred it to Bai Yun as fast as he could.

As he looked at the card that held a familiar name, Bai Yun felt nostalgic. But he shook it off quickly, and turned to the registration officer.

"Excuse me." He said.

"Yes." The man clearly looked annoyed at having his work increased.

"I would like to challenge the gold test please." Bai Yun said, surprising the officer.

The gold test challenge was a special test that could be taken only once by a card holder. It allowed one to raise their card to the gold star level without any other contribution. Not only that, it would keep the card at the gold level until the fifth star level whenever the authority of the card increased. It required one to take part in a grueling competition for the prize.

The officer wasn't surprised that there was someone who wanted to attempt the gold test. After all almost all veteran hunters have attempted the gold test at one point or other. But only the most skilled of hunters or cultivators would attempt the gold test. It was almost impossible to see a no name person attempt the test. To see how difficult it was, there were only three people in the entire Bai clan who passed the gold test in the qi step, even less than the number of princes.

His father was the one who told him to get the gold card. He himself was a gold card holder and wanted Bai Yun to be one too. Of course, he meant that Bai Yun should get the test much later. But he decided to take it for his alternate identity as soon as possible in order to get as much discount as possible. Even if he failed, he had could try as many times as he wanted anyway.

The officer was surprised for a moment, but he approved it anyway once Bai Yun paid the necessary registration fees. It didn't matter to him what happened to others.

Once he got the approval, Bai Yun was shown the way to the gold test area. The gold test did not happen here, but rather in the main headquarters. But the test would happen for different cultivation stages at different places.

But before he went for the test he went and sold the corpse of the grey rock python. Since by now the night had fallen, the queue at the counter had reduced by a little. And thankfully no one came to annoy him this time. But there were still a few problems. The appraiser did not know what the snake was, and tried to pass it on as a regular animal. It was only after Bai Yun pointed out the mistake, and a senior appraiser was called in and confirmed the species of the snake that the sale went through. Since situations like these happened every now then due to the large number of species of demonic beasts in the evergreen hills, with the volume as well as the location of the hunter union, it did not raise much commotion.

In order to reduce traffic, there were transportation portals between the various buildings of the hunter union. Bai Yun went through one of the portals, and upon reaching the main headquarters, was directed to the testing area for the gold test for the qi condensation stage.

Once he reached there, his card and storage ring was taken from him and kept for temporary storage. The only thing he was allowed to keep was his sword. In exchange, he was given a ring that contained some potions and some space to keep the items he would acquire during the test.

Bai Yun was directed to wait in a hall by the receptionist who took his items. The test would begin once the necessary number of people had arrived. When Bai Yun entered the hall there were only a little over ten people waiting there. As he stood in a corner of the hall, another habit from the Assassin God's teachings, he saw many people enter one by one. About half of them came here as a team, while the rest seemed to be lone hunters. Even then it seemed as if most of them knew each other, or were interested in making teams. Many people moved around to socialize. Of course, no one bothered to socialize with Bai Yun after seeing his I'll kill you if you get near me aura.

Once two hundred people arrived in the hall, it was closed. Soon after a woman with a clipboard appeared and confirmed the names of everyone on the list. After this, they were asked to follow her to the testing grounds.

"I am sure that everyone knows that the gold test is split into three parts. For people who do not know of the test, I shall explain the rules of the test." Bai Yun had heard about the rules of the test from his father before, but he listened to the rules once again.

"The test is divided into three parts. The first part eliminates a hundred people to leave only a hundred participants. The second part eliminates sixty eight people to get thirty two people. The final thirty two people are the only ones who are eligible for the gold card and will participate in a knock out tournament."

"One important thing to note is that your entire test will be evaluated. The number of gold cards given is not fixed. But it is only given to the people who have reached the final round. There are many times when no gold card is given to anyone, even the champion of the test. Also, there was a time all thirty two finalists got the gold card also. It is also possible that qualified people can lose out by not making it into the final round by bad luck. That is also a criterion of the test."

"But that doesn't mean that you should not try hard in the final test. There is a lot of weightage given to your performance in the test. Also, you can get special prices if you win top positions." She finished.

Saying so the woman led them to a large area.

"This is the region for the first test, Survival." Saying so she passed around a set of tokens for each of the participants. Each of these tokens contained a small button on them, along with their hunter card registration number.

"Keep these token with you. These tokens are essential to your survival in the first test. If you think that you can no longer hold on, you can simply press the button on the token, and you will be teleported here. Of course, once you do so, you will have considered to have lost."

"To a hunter the most important thing is survival. Only by surviving can one start to get stronger or earn a living. If you die then everything else ends. Thus the most important mission in the first step is to simply survive."

"In the first test, each of you will be teleported into a random location in the field. In the field other than each of you, there are also many demonic beasts from the first to third circles of the qi step. Your objective in the first test is to survive."

"During the first test, the enemies will not only be the beasts, but also the other hunters. The only objective for the first test is that the number of deaths is kept to the number required. We do not care how you are eliminated. So note that other hunter might be trying to kill you too."

"By deaths we mean that you are kicked out. It is suggested that each and every one of you immediately use the token as soon as it gets dangerous so that you do not die. The button of the token can even be pressed by others in order to help someone leave. We will also forcefully eject someone if we find someone who is in imminent peril but is unable to defend himself. Also please note that if we find someone who is purposefully killing people off, without allowing their opponent to press the button, that person will also be eliminated."

"That said we know that accidental deaths are understandable, and won't be punished."

"So good luck to all of you." She said, and all of the participants were immediately covered with a white glow.

A moment later Bai Yun found himself in the middle of a grassland.

The first test had begun.