Zhang Ye got out of the train station, opened the map in his phone and walked towards the Hunter Union.
Not long after, he arrived at the division. There were already so many people waiting around, it looked a massive crowd waiting for a rock concert to start at the entrance of the building!
Shenzhen is located in between Guangzhou and Hong Kong. It is a huge manufacturing center that has sprung up overnight. Feeding off the success of its neighbors, it is ranked fourth in China for industrial output, manufacturing higher technology products than Guangzhou in general, and with several of its own successful sunrise companies.. Perhaps there were tens of thousands of hunters around. Placing the hunters from the smaller footholds nearby, who were there to submit their missions, along with the ordinary people hustling about their day, the traffic in the area would have naturally been hectic.
After quite a struggle, Zhang Ye walked into the entrance of the division. Just when he entered, a young lady approached him.
The lady looked like she was in her 20s. She was dressed in the Hunter Association uniform. She greeted him with a wide smile, and said, "Hi sir, how may I help you today?"
"I'm here for the Hunter assessment," Zhang Ye answered.
"Alright, please follow me," The lady smiled at Zhang Ye again, and brought him to a meeting room. She then gestured, "You may go in."
"Thank you." Zhang Ye nodded and pushed open the door.
He was stunned as there were more than 100 people in the meeting room.
"So many people have registered today? Looking at the amount of people in attendance, it looks like there might be more than a thousand people by tomorrow," Zhang Ye wondered while he found himself a seat at the back.
Soon there were more people coming into the room. A fatty sat on his left with a vacant seat between them.
The fatty was very friendly. He then whispered to Zhang Ye with a smile,"It's awesome that you could pass the preliminary round when you're not to old to take the assesment, bro. Did you take a shortcut somewhere to get here?"
"Passed the preliminary round? Do you mean all of you have already registered?" Zhang Ye looked at the fatty in disbelief.
"Of course, or else how would we know that we have to be here today at 4 p.m. for the assessment content and rules from the examiner?"
The fatty thought the question Zhang Ye asked was strange. He then looked at him with suspicion in his eyes. "Don't tell me you're here without a registration?" he asked.
"Erm…" Before Zhang Ye could even answer him, a lady in her heels walked up to the podium.
The noisy meeting room suddenly fell silent as everyone's attention was stolen by the woman on the stage.
It was a lady with a strong aura about her. She had a ponytail with a short skirt that showed her long legs beautifully. She wore a pair of black stilettos that was nearly 20 centimeters high.
She was tall herself, at at least 1.7 meters, and with that pair of heels, she was almost two meters tall, and everyone in the meeting room was beneath her in comparison.
Although, what was most attractive about her was not her height, but her breasts that were hidden in her buttoned-up white shirt. Her breasts were not showing at all, but the jiggling they had when she walked was sufficient to seduce all the men in the meeting room.
This lady could have been described as a bombshell.
"Witch Dong Shanshan lives up to her reputation…" The fatty said, slurping up drool as he spoke.
Looking at his behavior, Zhang Ye sat quietly, inching more to his right to avoid any spit-fire from the fatty.
The lady looked over the crowd and stopped when her eyes landed on Zhang Ye as he was the only one in the room who dont have number tag applicant. She did not say anything, but instead, went on to introduce herself.
"Hi, I am Dong Shanshan, the main examiner of your assessment. In this assessment, there are 133 people who have passed the preliminary rounds. Now, the time that I had set, which was 4 p.m. in the afternoon has arrived, there are now 127 people here. The six people who are not here have been eliminated from the assessment," she said in a loud, stern voice.
"I will be telling you the rules of the assessment tomorrow. I will only say it once so please pay attention. Also, when I'm speaking, please keep quiet. If you have any questions, you can ask after I have finished speaking," she said.
"Tomorrow at 8 a.m., all of you will gather here in this meeting room. Those who are late will be eliminated. You are not allowed to bring any equipment that is more than Bronze-quality, no drugs and no other prohibited items in your storage space. Before the assessment starts, all the prohibited items will be temporarily confiscated by my authorities. If there's anything valuable which you do not trust us to keep an eye on, please keep them with someone else until you leave later on," she continued.
"The concrete content of the assessment won't be revealed at this moment. After everyone is gathered tomorrow, I will reveal that," she said to the anxious hall of eyes that stared at her. The messages from Dong Shanshan was short and sweet. After she was done, she looked at the crowd again and asked, "If you have any doubts, you can ask now."
Everyone in the room looked around at each other. None of them dared to say anything. At the back of the meeting room, a hand rose up slowly and… It was Zhang Ye.
"What questions do you have? Do tell me,"Dong Shanshan asked Zhang Ye with her chin up ready for his question.
"Erm… I haven't registered myself yet. Is it too late to register now?" Zhang Ye asked from the back of the room.
Over 100 people who were present in the room frowned when they heard what Zhang Ye said.
....
As it happened, the registration for the assessment was not an obstacle to Zhang Ye at all. It was just a preliminary screening of sorts to avoid too many participants in the Assessment stage.
Since Zhang Ye was already in the meeting room, to Dong Shanshan, his presence did not make a difference to the assessment. From the way he looked, she thought he would definitely be eliminated during the assessment anyway for his abilities were not going to save him. So, to avoid embarrassing him, she let his registration mess-up slide.
Zhang Ye did not even have the opportunity to show Dong Shanshan that he was an Initial Stage Magician and before he knew it, the registration was completed.
"Bro, you're so lucky! When you raised up your hand and said you haven't registered, I thought the f*cking witch would throw you out," the fatty laughed and got even friendlier than before as he shook Zhang Ye's hand. He then said, "Let's get to know each other. I'm Yin Hangyi, what about you?"
"Zhang Ye, pleased to meet you," Zhang Ye replied, as he could not avoid the guy's friendliness and he did not seem skeptical to it anyhow, so he shook his hand.
"You're to young and you're here for the assessment. Such audacity!" Yin Hangyi patted Zhang Ye's shoulder.
"Just trying my luck. Maybe I'll pass, you never know,"Zhang Ye answered with a smiled. He had no plans of revealing his identity as an Magician to the guy, of all people, so he kept quiet about it.
After chatting for awhile, Zhang Ye said goodbye to Yin Hangyi. If he did not leave, he might have had to talk to the fatty forever.
After dinner, Zhang Ye took a stroll at the night market to calm his thoughts. Then he went back to the hotel and slept early in preparation for the day to come.
The next morning, he went to the meeting room right after breakfast. The head examiner Dong Shanshan seemed to despise people who were late, so he did not want to lose his eligibility to the assessment because of tardiness.
As it turned out, the strict warning had everyone else on edge too. Nobody was late on the second day. The 127 people who joined the meeting on the first day were all there before 7:50 a.m.
At exactly 8 a.m., the Head Examiner Dong Shanshan arrived. This time, she wore a pair of long, black pants and a short sleeve white shirt. Her style was a little different from the first day but no matter how hard she tried to cover up her voluptuous body, her curves could still be seen.
All the male members present were young and horny at the sight of her. Most of their eyes followed her movements, but they did not focus on her face. Instead, their stares were centered on her breasts.
Dong Shanshan walked to the podium, looked at the crowd and started to speak.
"Everybody is here. That's great! Now I will talk about the syllabus of the assessment today," she started.
"The theme of the assessment is - Survival. As a professional hunter, we will always encounter horrible environments and powerful monsters. Thus, survival is a topic that all professional hunters should master. One who does not master this will surely die tragically in the end," she warned.
"The location of assessment is a wilderness 330 kilometers away from the Base No.7C87 - Pure Gold Desert. The objective of the assessment is simple. All you guys have to do is enter Door A to the Pure Gold Desert, walk across the desert that is 1,500 kilometers long and within 15 days, you must arrive at Base No.7D121 or be eliminated," she said. As Dong Shanshan spoke, she projected a 3D map showing the location of the starting and ending points.
"You are not allowed to bring food and water during this assessment. You would have to obtain them in the desert," she continued.
Everyone was stunned at what she said at the end. Even Zhang Ye was upset. He had prepared a ton of water and snacks yesterday for the assessment.
"Later, each and every one of you will be given an emergency communication device once we have inspected your storage spaces. If any of you cannot handle the challenge, press the rescue button to give up the assessment and you will be saved, and subsequently eliminated. Of course, if you're not able to arrive at your destination Base No.7D121 within 15 days, that will be considered as failing the assessment," she explained.
"That's all for the assessment briefing. If you have any questions, please ask now." Dong Shanshan asked with a sinister grin on her lips.
"Miss examiner, looking at the terrain of the 3D map that you showed us, our destination No.7D121 isn't connected directly to the Pure Gold Desert. Instead, it's blocked. That means, the area of the assessment isn't only a desert, but it will also include climbing the mountain. Am I right?" A man in glasses asked.
"You're very observant, yes, climbing the mountain is part of the challenge and you have to do it with your bare hands. The equipment for climbing in your storage space will be confiscated later," Dong Shanshan said, as her smile widened at the thought.
The crowd groaned again. Yin Hangyi who sat next to Zhang Ye was getting more and more upset.
"Do they plan to fail each and every one of us?" The fatty mumbled.
"Are there any more questions?" Dong Shanshan asked. She seemed to be satisfied with the briefing of the assessment that she had presented.
"Miss examiner, I've done some research on the mountains. It's called the Snowy Goddess Mountain, located right behind Base No.7D121. It's a level-12 wild zone. Based on records of the area, Elite-level monsters have been sighted there. In such a wild zone, isn't it unsafe to carry out the assessment... there?" A voice at the back of the room asked. As it turned out, it was Zhang Ye who asked the question.
Everyone was shocked when they heard the fact.
Dong Shanshan was stunned. She frowned and said, "The entire zone of the mountain is in fact, a level-12 wild zone. However, there's one mountain around there that's without Elite-level monsters. So that place is considered a level-1 or 9 wild zone. All of you should climb that mountain instead. I'll get someone to mark it down on the trail," she answered.
As it seemed, she had intentionally left out the information to increase the difficulty of the assessment and decrease the passing rate. She did not expect Zhang Ye to point it out, but now she had to mark the safer trail for everyone to use. If she did not do that and insisted everyone to take the assessment as it was, the results of the assessment would be invalid if an incident was brought up to the management of the Hunter Association. A level-12 wild zone was prohibited as an assessment field.
As for Zhang Ye he never care of the level of the wild zone he is already Magician with lot of explosive skill so elite monster is not a problem.
"Are there any more questions? Please do not hesitate to ask. If not, we're ready to go." Just when Dong Shanshan was done speaking, a few of them raised their hands but their questions were irrelevant.
Meanwhile, Zhang Ye was scratching his head thinking about how whill he climb that cliff.
"The lack of food and water would be the biggest issue. As we go, we still have look for a source of water. Moreover, in the desert, there are many deadly monsters that we should be aware of. Above all, people are the most dangerous beings that we should watch out for. There will be many of them who will try to steal our food and water. By my calculations, the 1,500-kilometer desert trail can be completed in 13 days. Climbing with your bare hands would take more than a day, I might need to reserve two days for that…" Zhang Ye said, in discussion with Yin Hangyi.
"It's now 8:20 a.m. Let me bring you to the assessment point," Dong Shanshan said and waved into the air. Suddenly, a green wooden door appeared. She then pushed open the door.
"Please queue up. After you passed through the door, please wait and don't move around the place!" she warned.
"Ooo! A Dimensional Magic tools!" the fatty Yin Hangyi exclaimed when he saw the door.