We both woke up from our dreams after being enthralled for a while by the spectacular palatial surroundings.
"Wow, every time I gaze upon this palace, I'm left in awe. I can only imagine how splendid the interior of the royal palace must be, especially since this Royal Hunter Academy is merely a fragment of it."Angun said.
I was similarly taken aback by it and wondered about the artist's identity.
Hunter Academy makes a lot of money by selling the parts of the beasts, such as their horns, scales or skin, teeth, and most significant of all, the cores of the beasts, which are extremely precious.
It was common to be taken aback by the academy's appearance because only hunters were permitted to reside there, with no room for their descendants.
Despite our disbelief, we had to start sprinting for admittance because we were late; the gatekeeper scanned our badges and let us in.
This place had very stringent restrictions as not all people were allowed to visit this place, if you were found to be moving here without a badge, you would not be fined but rather be killed by the guards for trespassing. Following an inquiry from a worker, we quickly discovered the location where the genius test was conducted, this test was a compulsory test for all candidates for the expedition.
Although we were guaranteed entrance into the expedition, we still had to assess our cultivation level, so that we could be grouped appropriately. We lined up ourselves in the line formed at the entrance of a dark chamber and there were 48 other participants ahead of us.
"Hey, aren't those two Delvin and Angun." One of the participants in front of us said.
"Yeah, and particularly that Delvin is a son of an ex-general, Dravyn Cadieux, who was given the title of 'GENERAL OF WAR'." Other candidate said.
"Sshh, stay quiet if you don't know, both of you ought to have been commoners so you don't know everything. Do you notice that the tall and handsome person at the front of the line is also a son of newly promoted general Lamius Werner, named David Werner. General Lamius has some kind of feud with ex-general Cadieux, so don't get too excited about anyone, or else u will upset either side even before the genius test". Another candidate remarked.
After hearing this news, both commoner candidates stared at each other and then at David, obliviously afraid of him.
Obviously, where there were individuals there are gossips, yet it is true that General Lamius had a feud with the ex-general Cadieux due to some political issues.
Meanwhile, David stood firm at his position like a rock, unfazed by any remarks; he is a very arrogant guy and perceives everyone beneath him as ants to be crushed at any time, therefore he chose not to reply.
"Clang". The black door opened and an instructor with a stern face emerged out of it.
"Hello everyone, my name is Rong Hai, and I'll be your examiner for this test. Before we begin the test, I will be giving you a brief overview of the cultivation stages.
"There are only three cultivation stages for martial arts in this world, mainly:- [Genesis Stage], [Visceral Stage] and [Bone Condensation Stage], each having 9 levels, these levels are grouped into three groups- Mortal realm consisting of first three levels, Earth realm consisting of middle three levels and Sky realm consisting of last three levels.
The Genesis stage begins with the absorption of natural energy, which is subsequently infused into our body cells, remoulding them.
Although natural energies are constantly delivered to your body, cells can only absorb a minute fraction of this energy due to their size.
However, once this natural energy is finally absorbed by your cell, it begins to dominate your cells for its accommodation and then changes the structure of cells by moulting them and giving birth to new cells, so that cells can absorb more natural energy and store it as refined energy.
This stored natural energy is known as refined natural energy which determines the quality of your natural energies.
You can obviously feel natural energy as dense air enters your body but you cannot feel refined natural energies, only a crystal made of natural energies can detect the refined natural energy.
Refined natural energy changes its quality after each moulting of cells.
1st level genesis stage is obtained by 1st moulting of our body cells, 2nd moulting of our body cells obtains 2nd level of the genesis stage, likewise, further moulting of cells obtains higher levels till the 9th moulting of cells obtains 9th level genesis stage.
After the Genesis stage comes the Visceral stage which is obtained by the remoulding of muscles, after the Visceral stage is the Bone Condensation stage which is obtained through the remoulding of bones."
"There are also several perks that you receive through each advance in cultivation stages. Each advance in cultivation levels grants you 5 human force and an extra ten years of life expectancy, so when you reach the Visceral stage, you can live for 200 years.
Apart from that, because your body cells are moulting, your body matures ten times faster than that of normal humans. This means if your age is ten years, your body has already reached its age of twenty years."
In short, he only intended to convey that they were able to drink and engage in mating behaviors.
"1 human force is the max punch force that a normal human without any cultivation could generate. While a cultivator in 1st level of genesis is able to generate a max amount of 5 human force by a punch. With every advance in genesis level of cultivation, the cultivator received an additional 5 human force of punch power, so the cultivator of 9th level of genesis realm contained 50 human force of power."
"Lastly, as you all are cultivators you would surely know that the refined natural energy stored in your body can also be easily oozed out of your body with just a thought like moving your hand, but after it has separated from your body, you can't control it unless u generate a consciousness. As for what is consciousness, leave it for another time, you will receive another lecture after returning from your mission."
After giving a long lecture about cultivation and its stages he paused at this point to let them ask any question if there were any.
After no one asked a question for a minute he nodded at them and said
"Now let the test begin. Firstly you will have to step in the room one by one and imbue your refine natural energy onto the spherical crystal kept on the table, which was obtained from natural spring and it changes colour depending on refined energy. As you all know that refined energy in your body is colourless so each level in the genesis stage can be only identified through this crystal which is available only in our academy and in the royal palace. As you all are between 10-11 years of age it makes it easier to classify which among you is genius. Also, you may feel that you have already broken through different levels but in reality, you may have been struck at just 1st level and only natural energy quantity is increasing in your body rather than the moulding and quality of refined energy. That's why this test is important."
"1st level genesis stage is shown by crystal as violet colour, 2nd level shows indigo colour, 3rd level shows blue colour, 4th level shows green, 5th level shows yellow, 6th level shows orange, 7th level shows red, 8th level shows bronze and 9th level shows silver colour." Instructor said
To obtain Lieutenant rank, one should be at the 7th level of the Genesis stage, that is entering the sky realm of the Genesis stage.
"Candidate no. 1 David Werner enter inside the room and place your hand above the crystal so that your oozed-out refined energy can fall onto the crystal," the instructor said.
David stepped into the room and started to imbue his refined Qi in crystal. As soon as refined Qi was imbued on the crystal it started to react by changing its colour, it first turned into violet colour then dark violet, then turned dark indigo, then dark blue and finally stopped at dark green colour, no matter how much more refined Qi was imbued on it after it never changed its colour.
"Excellent genius you have already reached peak of 4th level genesis at just 10 years of age", The examiner said with an impressed smile on his face after waiting for a minute.
"He is really worthy of being a son of general, A son of lion will always be a lion," One of the candidates said.
"No wonder he was so confident, he is worthy to be confident on himself", another candidate said.