After a moment of silence, the onlookers finally caught their breath and regained their composure.
“I… I’m not dreaming, am I? The stone tablet that can withstand a hundred thousand jin of force was actually shattered by one punch!”
“Are you sure he did it with just one punch? I swear I saw him merely tap it with his fist. Did I have an illusion?”
“This must be an illusion. It’s absolutely not real! We must be having a collective hallucination!”
“I think I’m dreaming. How about you slap me to check?”
For a moment, everyone was still in a state of self-doubt. What they had witnessed was so mind-boggling that it was hard to believe.
A common person with no cultivation had lightly tapped the stone tablet, and it was reduced to rubble.
What did this signify?
It meant that his seemingly casual tap already exceeded a force of a hundred thousand jin!
It was something that no one could easily believe.
Even some of the true martial realm experts on the scene might not be able to break the stone tablet in the same way. This man, who hadn’t even made it onto the rankings, had destroyed it so effortlessly.
“He didn’t control the force well,” Jiang Yuan looked at his own fist, and somewhat annoyed. He knew that his strength was too great, and using it could lead to devastating consequences.
Sometimes, having too much power was also a problem.
At the same time, not far away, a pair of cold eyes were fixed on Jiang Yuan. The owner of these eyes was the seemingly affable young man, Ye Xingchen, who had appeared when Jiang Yuan registered.
However, at this moment, his demeanor had turned cold, and a stark contrast to his earlier appearance.
“Master Ye,” a guard approached and stood behind Ye Xingchen.
“Have you investigated him?” Ye Xingchen didn’t turn around, and kept his gaze on Jiang Yuan.
The guard nodded, “This person’s origins are unclear, and his identity is a mystery. Miss Shen brought him back after a trip to Qingyun City. He seemed to appear out of thin air.”
“Regardless of who he is, as long as he dares to have any connection with my Hanbing, I will make sure he has no place to bury his body,” Ye Xingchen’s eyes narrowed into a thin line, revealing a barely concealed intent to kill.
He had already made up his mind. No matter the cost, he would take Jiang Yuan’s life.
Meanwhile, in the Zhongzhou of the Martial Arts Union, in the meeting hall for the Earth Rankings.
A table stretching ten meters long was placed at the center of the hall. A middle-aged man wearing a black gauze hat sat at the top of the table.
On the left side of the table were seven seats, and on the right side, there were eight seats. Together, there were fifteen seats, clearly meant for Earth Ranking members.
At this moment, only three members were present among the fifteen seats. The others remained empty.
One of the three members was Shen Hanbing.
Apart from Shen Hanbing, the other two members were the all-around martial artist whom Jiang Yuan had encountered before and a three-meter-tall muscular man.
“Currently, there are only the three of you remaining among the Earth Ranking members who are still in Zhongzhou. As you have all gathered, let’s get straight to the point,” the middle-aged man in the black gauze hat began. “According to the latest information from the Union, a middle-tier demon has appeared three hundred miles away in Qingshan City.”
“It poses a threat not only to Qingshan City but also to several surrounding cities, and we have classified it as a ‘Profound Level Disaster.'”
“Now, I order the three of you Earth Ranking members to quickly go to Qingshan City and deal with this Profound Level Disaster!”
While Shen Hanbing was on her way to Qingshan City, Jiang Yuan began the second phase of his assessment.
Several guards brought a circular stone plate to the assessment area’s center.
The stone plate was covered in spiral grooves and contained hundreds of stone beads, each the size of a pea.
Through the operation of a formation, all the stone beads were rolling in the grooves and forming a continuous gray stream.
The elderly examiner approached the stone plate and explained, “The second phase of the assessment evaluates your mental power.”
“A martial artist’s strength is not solely determined by their cultivation level, mental power is equally crucial. Your ability to use perception will determine the strength of your mental power, and this stone plate is specifically designed to assess it.”
He continued, “In the stone plate, there are a hundred stone beads with five slightly smaller ones. The difference is incredibly subtle, and the naked eye can hardly distinguish them. They flow continuously in the grooves due to the formation’s operation.”
After introducing the stone plate, the examiner explained the assessment rules. “The rules of this assessment are simple: in five minutes, you need to pick out the five slightly smaller stone beads. If you correctly identify four out of the five, you will pass this stage.”
“Those who pass will proceed directly to the final assessment, while those who fail will be eliminated.”
After hearing the examiner’s explanation, the onlookers were all in awe. The difficulty of this assessment was many times higher than the previous strength assessment. To pick out the slightly smaller beads from the moving hundred beads was akin to finding a needle in a haystack.
Only those who can skillfully utilize their perception and concentrate their mental power at a high level have a chance to pick out those few slightly smaller stones from among the hundred flowing stone beads.
The old-man examiner paused for a moment and then continued, “In the second phase of the assessment, there’s no specific order, and you don’t have to follow the order of registration. Anyone can begin whenever they choose.”
“However, I must remind you that you should prepare adequately before starting the second phase of the assessment.”
“Only by highly concentrating your mental power and enhancing your perception do you have a better chance of passing this stage.”
“You have only one opportunity, so if you haven’t reached a high level of mental focus, it’s better not to rush into the assessment.”
“Now, who would like to start?”
After the examiner’s words, the entire area fell into silence. No participant stepped forward for the assessment.
Everyone chose to sit down and use meditation techniques to concentrate their mental power.
Observing this, the examiner wasn’t surprised because he knew that to achieve the ideal state for this assessment, they would need at least the time it takes for an incense stick to burn during meditation. For those with weaker mental power, it might take several hours to reach the optimal state.
Not undergoing meditation before the assessment was something the elder hadn’t witnessed in his two decades.
“I want to take the test.”
Just as the elder was about to find a place to sit and wait for a stick of incense to burn before questioning, an emotionless voice suddenly echoed.
In an instant, everyone turned to look. They saw a disheveled man in black clothes strolling up to the elder.
Without a doubt, this man was none other than Jiang Yuan.
“Isn’t this the guy who blew up the stone monument earlier?”
“Why did he skip the meditation preparation and go for the assessment directly?”
“Who knows? He probably got a big ego after the earlier display of strength!”
“He’s really clueless about the difficulty of this perception test. To pass this, you need strong mental power. No matter how powerful you are physically, it won’t help much.”
“The Martial Arts Union has been around for so long, and there has never been anyone who went straight into the second stage of the assessment without meditation. He’s the first of his kind, haha.”
For a moment, everyone looked down on Jiang Yuan as if they were viewing a fool.
