Xu Wuyi slowly retracted his fist and stood still.
The fierce aura around him quickly receded, and he returned to his usual calm deanor, as if the earth-shattering punch he had just thrown had nothing to do with him.
"The match is over. Xu Wuyi wins."
Chen Mingyuan calmly announced the result as the AI simultaneously recorded the combat data.
Guo Yu stood up straight with a wry smile and cupped his fists at Xu Wuyi again. This ti, he was completely convinced. "Thank you for the lesson, Mr. Xu... I’m impressed."
’I’d been holding onto a sliver of hope, but now I know just how vast the difference in our strength is.’
’He was on the defensive the entire ti. The one ti he took the initiative, he easily dismantled my strongest attack. It was like a teacher giving a student a practice lesson.’
’It just goes to show that despite my advantage in Life Energy Level, my attacks were utterly incapable of posing a threat.’
Xu Wuyi nodded. "Thank you for the match."
The three proctoring teachers exchanged a look, seeing the sa understanding in each other’s eyes.
Liu Hui said in a low voice, "He was holding back. He wasn’t even going all out."
Li Liangcai clicked his tongue. "This kid is definitely hiding a lot more. He dealt with a 14.3-level opponent using just the Basic Body Refining Technique... I really wonder what he looks like when he unleashes his full power."
Chen Mingyuan looked at Xu Wuyi, who was waiting for instructions, and said, "You may leave. Confirm by tonight whether you will continue to compete."
"If you confirm, your subsequent match schedule will be sent via the candidate system."
"Yes. Thank you, teachers."
The entrance exam was different from regular exams. The results and scores for each match weren’t announced. Instead, candidates had to decide for themselves whether to fight in the next round.
The final rankings would only be announced after the three-day combat exam was completely over.
First battle, a victory.
Stepping out of the examination area, the sunlight was a bit dazzling.
The other candidates in the waiting area watched him with complicated expressions—so curious, so scrutinizing.
Xu Wuyi paid no mind to their gazes and walked straight out of the examination hall.
Wang Wenhai and Zhou Yun were already waiting outside. When they saw Xu Wuyi erge, relaxed smiles appeared on their faces.
There was no need to ask. From Xu Wuyi’s calm expression and the complete absence of any dishevelnt, they could guess the result.
Wang Wenhai stepped forward and patted his shoulder. "You win?"
"Yeah. My opponent was pretty strong, Life Energy Level 14.3," Xu Wuyi answered truthfully, his tone flat. "It was a relatively smooth win."
"Smooth is good." Zhou Yun nodded, her eyes filled with approval. "Conserve your energy and get yourself back in top condition. The next two days will be the real tough battles."
Xu Wuyi nodded in agreent.
He took out his candidate terminal and, without the slightest hesitation, his fingertips flew across the light screen.
He first confird the button to continue participating in tomorrow’s matches, then checked the option to "Agree to Public Release of Match Recording."
For the last two rounds of the entrance exam’s combat test, recordings could be shown to the public, but only if both contestants agreed. Therefore, only a portion of them were ever released.
Typically, the top star candidates would agree, as it was beneficial for building their own fa.
Xu Wuyi, however, was doing it for another benefit—the match recordings of S-class candidates weren’t free. They were charged on a subscription basis, and the candidates received a cut of the revenue.
Xu Wuyi figured that with his dark horse-like debut, soone would be willing to pay to watch his matches regardless of the final outco.
A "Confirmation Successful" notification popped up on the screen.
Xu Wuyi breathed a sigh of relief. ’This first match was just a warm-up. My real goal lies ahead.’
...
In the evening, the sky over Linjiang City was stained orange-red by the setting sun.
The hotel restaurant where the candidates were staying, along with the nearby recreational areas, had beco the liveliest places for exchanging information.
After a day of fierce battles, whether they had won or lost, the young people needed an outlet to vent their emotions and trade intel.
This was also the only legal channel through which information about the candidates could be leaked.
The proctors couldn’t leak it, and the AI certainly wouldn’t. But your opponent would always have your information, and the Federation couldn’t control who they decided to share it with.
Xu Wuyi and his classmates gathered in a corner of the restaurant. The atmosphere was a bit delicate; the winners were inevitably filled with a bit of relief and excitent, while the losers were mostly dejected.
Although they could console themselves that losing didn’t necessarily an a low score, defeat was still hard to swallow.
A stream of voices constantly drifted into his ears.
"I won, I won! I totally countered my opponent. He was Life Energy Level 11.1, and I’m 11.4. I played it safe and secured the win!" a boy exclaid, excitedly waving his fork.
"I won too. My opponent was Level 12.0. I gave it my all and barely won in the end. My score should be pretty high," another student said with a weary smile on his face.
"Sigh, I lost. Ran into a tough one. His Life Energy Level was 1.2 higher than mine, strong on both offense and defense. I lasted three minutes before he knocked flat..."
A student hung his head in despair but was soon comforted by a companion patting his shoulder.
"..."
"How did everyone do on the first day?" Xu Wuyi asked, picking up his glass of water and turning to Zeng Bonan beside him.
Zeng Bonan pushed up his glasses. He’d had a relatively easy win today. "Overall, it’s about a fifty-fifty split between wins and losses. It’s mainly due to the matchmaking system. You rarely see evenly matched life-or-death struggles on the first day; the power gaps are usually pretty obvious."
"This lets the students get a baseline score first. Evenly matched fights can easily result in mutual destruction, affecting later performance. So might even get knocked out in the first round."
Hu Haobo nodded from the side. He had gotten lucky; his opponent’s Life Energy Level was slightly lower than his, and he had secured the victory with a burst of brute force.
"Most of us top students from Red River won today. People like Su Yueling and Zhao Ding didn’t run into much trouble."
As his words fell, the atmosphere instantly grew a few degrees colder.
Everyone’s gazes subconsciously shifted to Li Mo, who was sitting in the corner and hadn’t said much.
Li Mo’s massive fra looked sowhat cramped in the chair. He kept his head down, having barely touched the food in front of him.
Feeling everyone’s eyes on him, he spoke in a low, muffled voice thick with a nasal tone, "I lost."
Xu Wuyi looked at him.
Li Mo sighed. "I got matched with soone from Lijiang First High School. His Life Energy Level was even higher than mine."
"His Martial Arts are weird, and his Body Technique is incredibly slippery. I couldn’t land a solid hit, and he just wore down my stamina..."
Li Mo’s greatest advantage was his Life Energy Level. Among those at the Sa Ability Level, his Martial Arts had always been on the weaker side.
Zeng Bonan clapped him on his thick shoulder reassuringly. "Don’t take it to heart. The first day is always like this; wide skill gaps are the norm. You just had bad luck and ran into a tough opponent. The next two days are what really matter for racking up points."
Although Li Mo was from Silver Port, they all knew each other well from the previous three-school joint exam, and their relationships were good.
Li Mo grunted in acknowledgnt and said no more. His tense shoulders relaxed slightly.
As for Xu Wuyi’s situation, no one even bothered to ask. Everyone just assud he would win.
...
At almost the sa ti, the internal chat group for the Lijiang First High School candidates was already exploding.
"Who got matched with that Xu Wuyi today? Speak up!"
"Sa question! How was it? Is he really as freaky as they say?"
"@everyone!"
"I’ve asked in a few other groups, and no one got him. The odds are highest for soone from our school!"
After more than ten ssages flew by, soone with the ID "Guo Yu" finally appeared and posted a crying-face emoji.
"It was ..."
The group fell silent for a split second before a flood of follow-up questions poured in.
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