On the dueling platform, a storm of dust had been blown up. A gust of wind created by the clash of Spiritual Qi could be felt within the atmosphere.
When the dust cleared up, a young man held a sword in hand as he pointed it towards a middle-aged man who was on the ground. The middle-aged man's sword had been broken while he was down on all fours.
As for his expression, he showed a hint of shock and admiration at the same time. The young man in front of him had displayed both great power, speed, and strategy in order to defeat him who was of a higher cultivation stage.
The young man withdrew his sword and held it behind himself before offering the middle-aged man a hand. The man took upon his offer and got up before dusting his clothes.
"Good lad, you pass with flying colors, now go take the other tests. With just this test, you should have more than qualified already without taking the others, it's your choice." the middle-aged instructor told the young man.
The young man nodded his head, "En, thank you for your advice."
He then put the sword back in its original spot and jumped off the platform heading towards another test area. The young man who had done so was, of course, Wu Dong Yi.
He had brilliantly defeated someone of a higher cultivation base with the skills he had just learned. He was now familiar with the skills and felt his blood boiling after his very first ever battle.
He now knew what the characters that loved to battle felt as he too felt the same but only to a small extent. He now looked forward to his next battle in order to further improve his technique.
After that battle, Wu Dong Yi could tell that he was no longer able to contain his cultivation base from increasing to the Qi Condensation realm. At any point now, it would explode and forcibly level him up.
Now that he knew this, Wu Dong Yi wanted to hurry and perfect his foundation as much as he could before he leveled up. Naturally, his foundation could be perfected as he leveled up, however, he wanted to reach the limit of each cultivation realm before moving onto the next.
In this way, he could contend against figures of a much higher cultivation realm than himself.
A few moments later, he arrived at the archery venue. Not many people took the archery test since it was unpopular amongst the people of the kingdom. Each kingdom had its own archery regime, but his particular kingdom had an extremely weak one which would always lose out to the other kingdoms in skill.
In order to not fall behind, the other regimes had to be stronger than the other kingdoms' troops.
Since there weren't many people taking the test, Wu Dong Yi didn't need to wait long. A female instructor with a beautiful face and graceful body that could be seen under the armor was watching over the test takers.
When it was his turn, Wu Dong Yi picked up one of the bows as well as a quiver of arrows. Standing behind the line that was drawn on the ground, he faced the target that was 50 meters away.
With a bow in his right and an arrow in his left, he prepared to fire the arrow. Locking his sight on the target, he fired as it cut through the air and struck the target.
Looking ahead, he saw that he had gotten a bullseye and hit the dead center of the target.
"Hmm, archery isn't as hard as it looks," he muttered.
He then stood back and held three arrows at once. Holding the bow sideways, he looked at three targets that were dozens of meters away from each other before shooting.
Whoosh!
The three arrows fired in unison and all three hit their targets at the exact same time with no delay or intervals. Holding the bow back, he noticed that he got a bullseye with all three arrows.
"I guess my aim is okay." he thought as he went to take out the arrows he had shot out. After pulling them out and putting them back into the quiver, he put the bow and quiver of arrows down as the instructor spoke to him.
"You, have you done archery in the past?" she asked him.
"No, it's my first time, I didn't do too bad right? Archery is interesting," he replied to her.
"You did well." the instructor replied.
"I see, then I'll head to the next site," he said before leaving.
As for the instructor, she had thoughts of her own. "That bow had a problem and he still managed to do that? I don't think he even noticed, we need such a talent in our regime. Unfortunately, I saw his earlier duel, so it will be quite hard to grab him…"
Unwary of her thoughts, Wu Dong Yi went to the next test. This time, it was for spearmanship.
Rather than a duel, it seemed like the test would be to follow a specific spear art. With no such experience, Wu Dong Yi knew he wouldn't be able to do well in this test since he had never touched a spear before.
Lining up, he stood in a group with other testees.
"Grab a spear and stand five meters away from each other." the middle-aged instructor spoke. Judging from his aura, the instructor seemed to be higher than the Qi Condensation realm according to Wu Dong Yi's observation.
Of course, he wouldn't know exactly since he has never seen anyone with such a cultivation base besides the people he knew who had a much higher cultivation than himself where he couldn't even sense their cultivation base at all.
Wu Dong Yi grabbed a spear from one of the weapon racks and stood in the far corner toward the back of the group.
"Good, now watch this and do the same." the instructor said.
Holding his spear, the instructor slowly did a set of moves with his spear.
"Did you get it?" he asked.
"No, can you please do it one more time?" someone amongst the crowd asked.
"Okay, watch carefully this time," he said before slowly doing the same set of moves.
Wu Dong Yi watched from the back and slowly immersed himself in the movements he was being shown. After seeing it the first time, he had already memorized the entire set of moves. After seeing it for a second time, the intention behind the same set of moves was clearly understood by him.
He stood back further than instructed. Wu Dong Yi closed his eyes and detached himself from everything else around him. With a spear in his hand, he practiced the movements he had just seen even slower than the instructor had shown him.
Whoosh! Whoosh!
In his hands, the spear art displayed by Wu Dong Yi seemed like a piece of art, rather than a method used to kill. Even at a slow pace, the movements were clearly seen, while the intent behind it was fully displayed.
After repeating the movements once, he restarted from the beginning and practiced it over and over again. His movements became more profound than even the instructors after a few times.
While he was immersed in his own world, Wu Dong Yi didn't notice that all eyes were on him at this moment. The instructor, as well as all the other testees, had all stopped and watched him from afar.
Nobody wanted to disturb him from his practice. Everyone simply watched him in silence as if the world's time had stopped for everyone but himself.
Gongsun Zhong felt something in the atmosphere from his seat. He closed his eyes and searched around with his Divine Will as he noticed Wu Dong Yi repeating the same movements over and over again.
"This man, he has already started to develop Spear Intent. Did he really just do this from watching a simple spear art?" he wondered.
His thoughts ended there as he kept watching Wu Dong Yi.
With his own Spear Intent, Gongsun Zhong could tell that Wu Dong Yi was already touching the door to developing the intent. Normally, it would take someone over a decade of hard work and practice with the spear in order to reach this point.
Who knows what other thoughts he had in his mind before he opened his eyes and continued watching over his own tests that had still not ended yet.
*************
It wasn't until a full 20 minutes later, did Wu Dong Yi open his eyes. While he was practicing, he felt a strange sensation that grew increasingly stronger as he did so. He didn't know what it was exactly, but he could tell that his combat prowess would be much greater if he used a spear.
If he had known that he had developed Spear Intent, he would be surprised since he didn't develop any Sword Intent when he practiced the sword.
Looking around, Wu Dong Yi wondered why everyone was staring at him. "Why are they looking at me like they had just seen a ghost?"
"Erm, I think I got the moves down," he spoke.
The spear instructor looked at him, "En, you pass. I've lived for over 200 years but had never seen one such as you." he replied.
"???"
Wu Dong Yi was curious as he put the spear down. Seeing as he had pretty much passed all the combat tests, he went over to do horse riding instead.
There, he noticed the two female cultivators who had already passed through the Qi Condensation realm.
The two were already horseback and seemed to be racing one another. The course seemed to be roughly the size of two football stadiums.
Behind them, others were riding far behind in order to not get caught up in their race. Wu Dong Yi stood next to the instructor and shook his head.
"Childish.," he muttered softly.
"So you think so too? One is the daughter of a noble family, while the other crossdresses, kids these days are a handful." the instructor suddenly spoke.
"So I'm not the only one who noticed." Wu Dong Yi replied.
"En, with many veterans here there has to be at least a few who would notice, isn't that right?" the instructor said.
"En." Wu Dong Yi nodded.
Ten minutes later, the race ended in a draw. Neither side had an edge over the other, while the others who were on the track came back with minor injuries from trying to get out of the way.
"Take this one." the instructor said.
Wu Dong Yi turned around, in front of him, a white horse with a perfectly smooth mane and tail stared into his eyes. On its head, a large horn could be seen, while it also had wings on both sides of its torso.
"A pegasus?" he thought when he saw it.
"Hahaha, don't worry, though it's a Savage Beast, it's been tamed. It was the one who came here for you on its own in fact." the instructor told him.
Wu Dong Yi looked back into its eyes. The pegasus-like beast nodded and brought its head down up to the human in front of it.
Wu Dong Yi moved his hand to pat its head, he then removed his hand and jumped lightly on its back as he sat on the saddle. Holding the reins for the first time in his life, he remembered the movies he had seen in the past.
Besides him, other people who hadn't had their turn rid their horses next to him. Once every lane was filled up, the race would begin.