Days and months mattered not in the path to immortality. One day, Wei Yuan finally finished tempering his flesh and experienced a major leap in strength. It was just in time for the minor exam.

Originally, the minor exam applied to Wei Yuan’s term only and counted as a temporary exam. As it wasn’t very important, the rewards it gave out were pretty average as well, useful only to a handful of students such as Wei Yuan.

However, the Reform Party had been growing bolder and bolder as of late. Besides the centralized learning method, they were plotting to unify the recruitment of disciples as well. This involved revoking the authority of every Trueman belonging to a Hall to select their own disciples. Instead, the Palace of Absolute Beginning would be uniformly recruiting their disciples through the Immortal Sect Unified Examination before assigning them to each Hall. The Halls would only be able to pick their disciples from among those recruited by the Palace. Naturally, the True Lords would retain a limited number of discretionary slots, but they would be strictly limited.

The Traditional Party rejected the proposal fiercely as a matter of course, and conflicts between the two factions were only becoming more and more intense. With such matters going on behind the scene, the comparison between the first batch of centralized learning disciples and the Traditional Party disciples became extremely important. After all, the best way to determine which faction was superior was through the disciples they had spent three years nurturing.

Thus, the True Lords proposed to elevate the importance of this minor exam by a level and divide it into two parts. The first part was still a duel between the two factions, with the rankings determined through a tournament format. The second part involved combat against selected members of foreign races.

After three years of study, a small portion of disciples had successfully forged their Dao Foundations. Most of the rest had completed their body-tempering and were just waiting for the right timing and opportunity to forge their Dao Foundations as well. According to the Palace’s tradition, reaching the Dao Foundation stage signified the formal embarkation upon the path to immortality. It also meant that they would gain the right to wage battle against the foreign races.

The first day of the minor exam was the duel between the two factions. It was quite the interesting duel to say the least.

Xiao Yun’s immortal sword, The Sun, was the conclusion of the Great Sun Sword Holding Book. For centuries, countless people had practiced this cultivation method, but only one in a thousand disciples had successfully forged the Dao Foundation. Naturally, Xiao Yu crushed all of his opponents.

Bao Yun had finished tempering her spirit and was only one step away from the Dao Foundation stage. Although she wasn’t a Dao Foundation cultivator yet, her Dao techniques were exceptionally powerful, and she was armed to the teeth in powerful treasures. Every time she made a move, multiple gods and devils would appear above her head, all of them desperate to show their faces and lend her a helping hand. Naturally, she too crushed all of her opponents and beat up a good number of Traditional Party disciples who were in the Dao Foundation stage.

Cui Yu was slightly inferior compared to Bao Yun and Xiao Yu, but the Cui Clan was a clan boasting enormous wealth and accumulation. In terms of the quantity and quality of the treasures he brought to the battlefield, he wasn’t inferior to Bao Yun in the slightest. Besides that, that the boon the Founder had bestowed him was an immortal sword, meaning that his killing potency was only slightly inferior to his two peers. In the end, he singlehandedly took out four Traditional Party disciples—all of them people who had received a boon from the Founder—and stepped off the stage with a fair amount of grace.

Wei Yuan had finished tempering his flesh and now looked like a walking piece of jade. He didn’t just look good, he was as tough as it came. If Hsu Du tried to strike him with his mystic artifact again, the worst he would receive was a harmless gash. The dagger could not pierce him any longer.

Coincidentally or not, Wei Yuan’s very first opponent for the minor exam was Hsu Du. Naturally, they were very “happy” to meet one another. Setting Wei Yuan aside, Hsu Henshui had been harassing at every turn as of late. Every few days, the elders of the Hsu Clan would summon him and take turns yelling the shit out of him as well. As if that wasn’t enough, half of his cultivation resources had been seized by Hsu Henshui.

After many, many inquiries, Hsu Du’s parents finally found out that his assault on Wei Yuan had resulted in Hsu Henshui suffering a terrible humiliation at the hands of Zhang Sheng. That was why his older cousin had decided to take his wrath out on him.

Alas, not only was Hsu Henshui exceedingly talented in cultivation, he was also the direct descendant of their ancestor. Whatever he did, Hsu Du could only endure. As for a “debate”, Hsu Henshui was weak only compared to the likes of Zhang Sheng and Ji Liuli. There wasn’t a single member in the clan’s younger generation who could last ten moves against the man, and he could defeat most of them with a single slap to the face.

If Hsu Du was only green with envy before, now there was only black hatred.

Mystic artifacts were not allowed during the minor exam. The combatants could only fight with their Dao Foundation and Dao arts. As soon as the duel began, Hsu Du immediately flung a couple Dao spells at Wei Yuan. The next moment, Wei Yuan emerged from the barrage, unscathed, and nearly caught Hsu Du’s head with his bare hand. Caught off guard, the boy just barely leaned out of the way before running away.

At this point, he had entered the Dao Foundation stage for quite some time. His agility was nothing to scoff at. On the other hand, Wei Yuan’s speed was not much better than an ordinary mortal’s. Naturally, he couldn’t catch up to Hsu Du at all.

Luckily, it didn’t matter. Although he couldn’t catch up to his opponent, Hsu Du’s Dao spells couldn’t hurt him either. It wasn’t long before Hsu Du had completely run out of Dao energy, leaving him with no choice but to run rings around the battlefield. Unfortunately for him, Wei Yuan’s physical body was out of this world. Stamina wise, he was at least eight or nine times greater than a cultivation peer of the Bright King Hall, and more than ten times greater than his opponent. He just never stopped running as if exhaustion wasn’t a thing.

Wei Yuan chased Hsu Du up the slopes and down the flatlands. They must have circled around the battlefield at least hundreds of times. In the end, Hsu Du was literally puking as he ran. There were several times Wei Yuan was this close to catching him, but his opponent was able to give him the slip at the last second. It was such an annoying experience that he couldn’t stop sighing and making odd noises as he chased.

Hsu Du fared way worse. Wei Yuan never shut up, so he always felt as if the boy was right behind him. He didn’t even dare to look back and just kept sprinting ahead. In the end, he wore himself out and collapsed in a heap on the ground. When Wei Yuan caught up to him, he gently stepped on him not because he didn’t want to stomp him, but because he was afraid that the boy would puke on his foot.

Wei Yuan’s next opponent lost to him in more or less the same fashion except one difference—he did not say a word throughout the fight. As his opponent couldn’t tell how close Wei Yuan was, he could only sprint until he dropped.

That was it. Because his fights took so long, the Traditional Party had lost before he could fight a third opponent. When they first came together, they had agreed to take out four opponents each. Unfortunately, he had only managed to defeat two. Bao Yun had taken out the rest of his opponents for him.

It wasn’t until after the duel ended that Wei Yuan heard that Hsu Du was actually one of the people who received a boon from the Founder as well. However, no one remembered what the boon was.

The second part of the minor exam was combat against the foreign races. For this exam, the Palace of Absolute Beginning selected the Mountain People to be their opponent.

Standing at two zhang tall, a Mountain Dweller stepped into the battlefield. Suddenly, Wei Yuan recalled a question he had encountered during the literary test. He finally understood why it was considered a major victory for 8,1000 armored soldiers to battle against the Mountain Dwellers and slay only 273.

The Mountain Dweller in front of Wei Yuan was wearing a fur coat and carrying a tree trunk with his bare hands. Wei Yuan was quite tall for his age, but even he was a little taller than the Mountain Dweller’s knees. Looking down at Wei Yuan, the Mountain Dweller let out an earthshaking roar and brought the tree trunk down on his head!

Wei Yuan sidestepped the blow, and the tree trunk slammed into the ground with a thud. The flying gravel pelted his body with a sharp crackling sound and caused a surprising sting of pain. Enraged by his missed strike, the Mountain Dweller bent low and swept the trunk horizontally across the ground toward Wei Yuan.

Wei Yuan’s choice of weapon was the same as during the military test: the spear. It was really a Dao Foundation stage mystic artifact, but he hadn’t forged a Dao Foundation yet. Thus, he could only wield it like an ordinary weapon. The tree trunk swept toward him with overwhelming force, yet his response was to slam his spear into the ground and hold his ground!

A muffled bang ensued, and bits of wood flew everywhere. The tree trunk snapped in half from the terrific impact, and Wei Yuan skidded a few zhang backward. A pair of deep furrows appeared in front of him as his feet sank deep into the earth.

Wei Yuan’s entire face was beet red, and a hint of something metallic stirred behind his throat. Every muscle in his body was tensed up and twitching uncontrollably. It was brutal to say the least, but he had still taken the Mountain Dweller’s full-force blow head on!

The Mountain Dweller didn’t feel so good either. He swung his weapon arm a couple times as if to shake off the strain, but in the end, he had to switch the tree trunk to the other hand.

By now, Wei Yuan had recovered his strength. He strode forward and thrust his spear straight at the Mountain Dweller’s kneecap. The Mountain Dweller responded with a stomp, but Wei Yuan withdrew his spear and planted it on the ground instead. The foot came down, and the Mountain Dweller let out a bloodcurdling scream. The spear had pierced through the sole and emerged through the dorsum.

While the Mountain Dweller was lifting his foot in agony, Wei Yuan pulled out his spear and sprinted past his opponent from under his legs like a horse. At the same time, he swung his spear and successfully scored a massive wound in his inner thigh.

Having suffered multiple injuries in a row, the Mountain Dweller let out an enraged roar and crouched down to catch Wei Yuan. However, he easily slipped behind the Mountain Dweller and thrust his spear into the air as he crouched. As a result, the spear struck the front part of the Mountain Dweller’s groin at full force!

This time, the Mountain Dweller’s roar shook the entire exam area. Every male spectator be it Traditional Party or Reform Party subconsciously clenched their legs when they saw this.

What happened after that was simple. Wei Yuan smashed the Mountain Dweller’s ankle to bits and stabbed him in the throat, killing him on the spot. That said, it hadn’t been easy to execute. His spear strikes could easily shatter a boulder to pieces, but the Mountain Dweller was so physically tough that it still took him several tries to finally shatter his ankle. In fact, the rebound was so terrible that the corners of his lips were tinged with a bit of blood.

After killing the Mountain Dweller and relaxing, Wei Yuan immediately broke into a terrible sweat and realized that he was hurting from head to toe. At the same time, his vision darkened like he would faint at any moment. He would have if the supervising Daoist hadn’t fed him a pill in time.

The battle was short but incredibly intense. Countless minute wounds had appeared inside Wei Yuan’s body. If not for the pill, he would be throwing up blood already.