"Director."
"What is it?"
"We've lost contact with the H District's martial artists."
In Bactria's education division, the director was stunned. "H District? I remember that the martial arts exam is open until the D District. Moreover, A District to D District was cleared in advance. Why would we lose contact with the patrolling martial artists in the exam?"
Humans divided Myriad Beast Mountain's secret realm into sixty regions named after Heavenly Stem. Under normal circumstances, the martial examination would be held in the four major regions, A, B, C, and D Districts. The regions after that were for higher-level martial artists or bounty martial artists to gain experience.
The subordinate was sweating profusely and said hurriedly, "We just found out that the zone numbers are different from the ones we cleared before..."
"What was the original zone for H District?" The director's face darkened.
"J-J District..." the subordinate answered weakly.
"J District?!"
The director stood up and raised his voice.
"How could there be such a big mistake? What the hell are you guys doing?!"
The director continued angrily, "Do you know what J District represents? Do you know how many students will die because of this mistake?"
"Director, w-we..."
The subordinate's back was drenched in cold sweat. "This isn't our fault. We did clean up the examination area before the start of the examination. However, the secret realm of Myriad Beast Mountain seemed to have had a very subtle large-scale geological movement after that, and the position of the mountainside and the foot of the mountain seemed to have reversed. By the time we found out, the exam had already started..."
"That's not what I wanted to hear!" The director's face darkened with fury. He mused, "If this matter isn't handled well, I might get fired. Most importantly, the lives of those children!"
"Why aren't you fixing the problem? What are you reporting to me for? Hurry up and send more people to Myriad Beast Mountain! Bring the students back and end the martial arts examination."
"But..."
The subordinate hesitated before saying, "The number of candidates..."
Indeed, the number of examinees taking the martial arts examination every time was as high as a million. It was not realistic to pick up all the students in a short period of time.
It was true that the martial arts examination was conducted through the secret realm's teleportation device. Under normal circumstances, they only needed to reactivate the teleportation device to simultaneously pull back all the examinees.
However, the secret realm teleportation device involved space-time, after all. The interval between the two activations was at least seven days, or it would suffer severe space-time damage.
It would be fine if it were a powerful martial artist, but not for martial arts examination students.
"You're still thinking about this at a time like this? The students' lives are most important!" The director was so infuriated that he began cursing. "Send more people and borrow martial artists above pulsing realm from the other departments. I want you to gather all the students as soon as possible. Forget it! I'll f*cking go there myself. Send a notice to the major schools, and then lead all martial artists above the pulsing realm in the division to Myriad Beast Mountain!"
The director did not even have time to take his coat. He smashed the large floor-to-ceiling window in the office and leaped from the eighteenth floor. Although the director was in the education field, he was still a powerful martial artist.
"I hope the rescue is timely. Otherwise, I'll be a sinner."
In a frantic, the director ran with all his might. At his level, general transportation was not as fast as him.
More importantly, there was no time to prepare a transportation tool.
Although humans controlled the secret realm of Myriad Beast Mountain, its actual area was incomparably wide. Humans controlled only 3 million square kilometers of land from the foot of the mountain to the mountainside.
The four big areas, A, B, C, and D Districts were indeed completely under control. However, the current problem was the geological changes in the secret realm of Myriad Beast Mountain that caused all the regions to be in chaos. Many secret realms had their own rules. For example, there were no fluctuations when geological changes occurred in the secret realm of Myriad Beast Mountain.
In the past, large-scale geological changes in Myriad Beast Mountain would occur once every fifty years, while ordinary geological changes would only appear on the mountaintop, not affecting the areas controlled by humans.
It had only been thirty-six years since the last large-scale geological change.
This was a situation that no one had anticipated.
There was a high chance that they would suffer heavy casualties in this martial arts examination if the situation was not dealt with in time.
In fact, the director of the education department was not even sure if the rescue operation could be carried out properly.
Due to the disordered magnetic field in the area, the signal of electronic equipment would not be able to be fully covered starting from E District.
The further the district was, the lower the coverage of electronic signals.
The geological changes of Myriad Beast Mountain would not only affect the position of the mountain, but also the magnetic field.
The emergency call for help equipment in the martial arts examination could be considered useless.
...
"Ji Ruo, when did you learn Iron Sand Palm?" Liang Shixian asked curiously while they were waiting.
They had completely relaxed.
At this moment, there were no demonic beasts in the area. In addition, Liu Neng and Zhang Quan activated their rescue devices. All they needed to do was to wait patiently for the inspecting martial artists to arrive.
"Last week." Ji Ruo waved the wooden stick and spoke truthfully.
Liang Shixian seemed to want to say something but held back. Finally, he snorted lightly and responded, "It's fine if you don't want to say it. Who are you fooling?"
He could tell that Ji Ruo's Iron Sand Palm was a higher proficiency than a beginner's, but it was a bit unrealistic to say that he had reached an advanced stage.
However, no matter what level his Iron Sand Palm was, it definitely required a lot of practice to be able to have palms like red iron. This process could not be fast, his hands would not be able to withstand the high-intensity training even with the help of the medicinal liquid.
Ji Ruo's hands would be crippled if he simply trained forcefully.
Therefore, Liang Shixian did not believe Ji Ruo at all when he said that he had only been practicing for a week.
However, he also did not say anything more.
Liang Shixian knew about Ji Ruo's family situation very well as the class president.
Although he was curious about how Ji Ruo had the money to buy medicinal liquid to cultivate Iron Sand Palm, it was not fitting for him to ask.
Liang Shixian thought, "After all, it will inevitably involve one's family circumstances when such a question is asked and Ji Ruo's family situation…"
As someone who had lived two lives, Ji Ruo could naturally tell what Liang Shixian was worried about. This made him feel heart warming.
The few of them chatted idly as they waited for the examining martial artists to arrive.
Ji Ruo waved the stick for a long time, but no achievement was prompted. He tied the stick to his waist and sat on the ground, thinking.
Soon, two hours passed.
The secret realm of Myriad Beast Mountain, which had no sun, gradually dimmed. Liang Shixian and Ji Ruo finally realized that something was wrong.
"Why are they taking so long to come?"
"Could it be that there was some kind of accident?"
The two of them looked at each other and stood up at the same time. "We have to go."
Zhang Quan and Liu Neng were stunned for a moment. "But the patrolling martial artist exam patroller hasn't arrived yet…"