Chapter 1 After the End of the First Day

After the first day, all the students rested in specially prepared rest areas. There were even local superhumans and temporary fortresses stationed at the entrance, enjoying the treatment of the highest-level leaders.

In the true sense of the word, the Holy Assembly Theocracy values grades and academic ability to distinguish class and future. It's not strange that they take this annual national exam so seriously.

During the break, there were no disturbances. Everyone quietly reviewed in their own rooms, preparing for tomorrow's Gewu (Investigation of Things) and comprehensive exams.

Su Zhou even enjoyed a special food supply – other people only got one portion of three meals a day, mostly consisting of noodles and buns, to avoid eating too much, too oily, or having allergic reactions that would cause physical discomfort and prevent them from getting good grades.

However, the local Hongcheng officials were very aware of Su Zhou's appetite and specially arranged for this, ensuring that he could eat his fill.

After all, he was first in the physical fitness test, and his world-class talent was personally appointed by Dao Sheng (Sage of the Way). If he underperformed because he was not full, they would have to apologize to the people of the whole country.

"Not bad." Su Zhou patted his stomach contentedly after finishing food for a dozen people: "I'm about six or seven percent full, there's no need to eat too much, it's bad for the brain."

On June 11, 2015, the Gewu (Investigation of Things) exam was held in the morning. It combined physics, chemistry, and biology, and was worth a full 300 points, the same as math and language combined.

Here, the questions became a little tricky – physics was fine, there was no major change, but chemistry obviously incorporated some knowledge of alchemy. Of course, this knowledge had already been taught in the recent year's chemistry class, and it was all very simple. For Su Zhou, he could have answered it seven years ago, let alone now?

However, biology was even more complex and tricky – what human acupoints, the essence of spiritual energy, the changes caused by cultivation to the body, etc., were all included in biology. These were tested more deeply, and if some people ignored the knowledge in spiritual energy class, they would definitely embarrass themselves in this area.

"It's not difficult either."

Spiritual energy knowledge was not difficult for Su Zhou either. On the contrary, he couldn't remember some of the normal biology knowledge, especially human muscle organs, etc. Recently, Su Zhou, who was reshaping his extraordinary organs, always had the feeling that he had written some strange data: "Is the organ structure of normal humans like this? Crap, how do pluripotent stem cells in human bone marrow differentiate? My mind is full of extraordinary bone marrow models now, how to differentiate them... these options all seem to be wrong!"

Only a few small questions might lose points, but Su Zhou didn't care much. He just felt a little emotional: "Being half a step ahead of the times is genius, I'm probably one and a half steps ahead with my extraordinary rank. It's normal that I can't remember this ordinary data all of a sudden... right?"

The comprehensive exam in the afternoon included politics, history, and geography. This was really not difficult at all, basically all free points, as long as you had a good memory.

The only drawback may be that the history questions were very novel, introducing some extraordinary historical perspectives – the original classic history, and the struggles hidden under the original classic history recorded by superhumans, both of which needed to be tested, and their corresponding relationships had to be written out. If the processes and results recorded by the two were different, the reasons for this and the results also had to be written out.

After being warned by the biology exam in the morning, Su Zhou specially reviewed history at noon, trying to prevent his history from being confused with the history of the Divine Wood World – just now he almost remembered the reason why King Li of the Zhou Dynasty oppressed the people at the end of the An Dynasty as 'pursuing immortality'. The correct answer to this question was that King Li wanted to use sacrifices and the power of heaven and earth to achieve transcendence before the era of spiritual energy recovery.

Although pursuing immortality wasn't wrong, it certainly wasn't the standard answer.

"It seems that the students a few years from now will have a hard time taking the exam. Looking at it this way, even all the textbooks will have to be changed in a year or two. But the teachers are also awesome. Many of the questions have been guessed these two days. As expected of veteran teachers from key high schools, their skills are extraordinary!"

After writing all the test papers, Su Zhou checked them several times again, making sure that most of them should be correct. After confirming that the remaining uncertain parts at least conformed to his own understanding, Su Zhou clicked his tongue twice, handed in the papers early, packed his things and left the examination hall.

He was probably the first student to leave the examination hall among all the Hongcheng Holy Examination candidates, so as soon as Su Zhou left the school gate, a local TV reporter stepped forward and interviewed him excitedly.

Su Zhou was not nervous about this at all, and spoke eloquently.

"Math? Math isn't difficult. I think everyone wrote it easily, so it shouldn't be difficult."

"Language is just like that, there's no saying whether it's difficult or not. Essay topic? It's change, 'the changes experienced in life'. It's probably to write an essay according to this topic, and it's not limited to yourself, it's very broad, I think I might have gone off topic a bit."

"Well, Gewu (Investigation of Things) and comprehensive were very unexpected, and may be a bit difficult. After all, a lot of extraordinary knowledge related to the recovery of spiritual energy has been added. If you haven't specifically reviewed it, it may have some impact."

Su Zhou didn't exaggerate, but pretended to be very serious, so that the parents and reporters next to him became serious, so that the papers of this year's session were very difficult – and at this time, other students were also leaving the examination hall sporadically, and their expressions did not look relaxed, which added a lot of persuasiveness to his words.

Since this was the case, the female reporter who interviewed him curiously asked: "So, student, which academy do you think you can get into?"

"Of course, I can get into whichever one I want." Su Zhou replied without hesitation.

Immediately, there was an uproar in the surrounding crowd, and the reporter seemed to be shocked by this answer, so much so that it took a long time before she weakly asked: "So, student, why are you so confident..."

"Uh, I'm a genius?"

At this moment, the surrounding students also began to communicate with their parents.

"Son, how did you feel about the exam this time?" The parents were quite worried.

"I feel okay." This candidate had inexplicable confidence: "I think it was a bit easy this time!"

"I knew you were bragging... never mind, let's go, let's go eat."

At this time, Su Zhou had also shaken off the reporter, humming a song as he walked away. He simply ran to a nearby snack bar, ordered a few kebabs and ate them, while waiting for Shao Qiming.

Soon after, Shao Qiming, who handed in his papers normally, also found this place through mobile phone positioning. He waved his mobile phone, and Su Zhou walked over, his expression calm, as if the Holy Examination was just an ordinary small exam, not worth mentioning.

"How was it?" Su Zhou handed over a grilled squid.

Taking the kebab, Shao Qiming smiled slightly: "I have a feeling that I might get full marks in everything except language."

"So amazing?" Biting into a mutton kebab, Su Zhou couldn't help but be surprised: "In that case, wouldn't that be about equal to full marks?"

Getting full marks on language essays depends on luck, and this is not Shao Qiming's strength.

"It's also thanks to your fruit."

At this time, the two could also see students walking out one after another, flipping through textbooks to confirm whether what they wrote was correct, their expressions sometimes happy and sometimes worried, or answering each other's questions, and then exhaling a long breath... In any case, for most candidates, the Holy Examination was over, and they could go home and wait for their results with peace of mind.

But for the cultivation candidates who passed the physical examination and were preparing for the actual spiritual energy test, it was not so early.

Soon after, Su Zhou and Shao Qiming returned to the examination hall to report, and then took an armored bus to the central stadium in the city center.

On the third day, June 12th, the highly anticipated, and even nationally broadcasted live, actual spiritual energy test was about to begin.

Today, the clouds were churning, and the feeling of sultriness remained, but for the people of Hongcheng, it was common to experience outdoor sauna in the summer. After all, this was a place where the temperature was over forty degrees Celsius, and you could fry eggs on the ground. People often accidentally touched the car cover under the sun and got burned. If there were clouds, at least there was no such danger.

So, a cloudy day was still very good!

On the morning of the spiritual energy test, the central stadium, which had been transformed into an examination hall, was open to the public. It was densely packed with the parents of the students, and the degree of defense was even better than the previous Holy Examination. There were even semi-transparent tempered glass panels separating the audience seats.

However, Su Zhou did not have the opportunity to play in the morning, because the morning test was music,術法 (Shu Fa - spells/techniques), and art – unimaginable, right?

But in reality, because the Dao (Way) of Danqing (traditional Chinese painting), and the Dao (Way) of music are also paths of extraordinary cultivation, these are also considered within the scope of the actual spiritual energy test.

At this time, Su Zhou was also sitting in the audience, watching a small number of candidates painting, writing, and playing music in the stadium... He basically couldn't see any clues other than the fact that there were indeed spiritual energy fluctuations in the first two, but the various sounds played later did have a real effect. They could mobilize spiritual energy and soothe people's hearts. After listening for a while, he felt much more relaxed and calm.

But this relaxing moment did not last long – because God knows who took out the Suona (Chinese oboe)!

The sound of this instrument was very loud and抢戏 (qiangxi - scene-stealing). Once the Suona came out, the sounds of other instruments in half of the stadium were suppressed. It was really a musical instrument hooligan and a solo king!

After the end of the morning test, the real spiritual energy test was in the afternoon.

At this time, almost all the audience began to leave the venue, because watching on the spot might be dangerous, and it was best to watch the TV broadcast at home. Those who really wanted to stay in place to watch their children's tests and were unwilling to leave could only be forcibly taken away by security guards or patrolling police officers, which was also unavoidable.

"Hello, audience friends, I'm Guo Jianshan."

"I'm He Tianlan."

"Next, we will broadcast to the national audience a selection of the national examination scenes from this year's Holy Examination, the actual spiritual energy test."

"The recovery of spiritual energy has brought about changes in the times, but what kind of changes can the power of transcendence bring to us humans and our human society? Let's wait and see."

A male and a female host sat in front of the broadcasting station, smiling and looking at the camera.

Both of them were people who had seen big storms, and even if the leaders repeatedly reiterated that this program was very important, they would not be nervous because of it.

The Central Television Station began to broadcast a national selection of national examinations, and major local television stations and the Internet naturally rebroadcast the local examination content. With the nationally unified time, the actual spiritual energy test began.

The most initial test content was ordinary basic physical fitness tests such as running and weightlifting.

Many viewers felt that this was not very interesting, after all, it was just running and weightlifting. Even if it was bigger than normal people, how much bigger could it be?

Geniuses are rare, and so are the people who can come into contact with geniuses. Most of the superhumans and cultivators that most people can encounter are not strong, so that within a year of the public recovery of spiritual energy, some people still doubt this aspect and have a certain degree of neglect.

However, who knew that from the first minute of the test, something shocking would happen.