The meeting room filled with talk, curiosity on every teacher's face.
"Level 20.1."
"That's the second Life Tier to reach Level 20 in this whole assessment, isn't it?" one teacher said thoughtfully.
Even at a martial arts university, a student just entering his fourth year with a Life Tier of Level 20 was in the minority — let alone at a martial junior college.
"Mm, there were two at the third-year finals as well. Both on the first recommendation list."
"Fang Yu, was it?"
"I've looked him up. At the third-year finals his Life Tier was 15.5." A teacher had already started pulling the earlier assessment results. "Not two months, and he's up nearly five levels?"
"That extreme?"
"He's awakened no Aspect. Is his family rich?"
"How have I no impression of him? I have an impression of every student in this school whose family has assets in the hundreds of millions."
"Could it be a breakthrough in skill?"
"Possible. His skill score was already high — most likely, yes."
"He's in Teacher Yan's class." The teachers talked it over, guessing, and while Fang Yu's sudden surge surprised them it did not astound them.
They were, after all, High-Rank Warriors of Level 30 and above.
Year after year they had seen tens of thousands of students, and in the transfer assessment there were often surges — sometimes a truly dazzling martial talent emerged.
Late bloomers were never just one.
Only Yan Fu felt a flicker of unease, and a great deal of hope with it. "His bodily skill has to be at Great Completion in Subtlety... If it really is nothing but a Level 20 Life Tier stacked up in the short term by buying treasures, with no Void Star Aspect awakened, the recommendation list is far from guaranteed."
Void Star Aspect, martial skill, Life Tier... Normally, one of the three being outstanding and the other two above average made a recommendation straightforward enough.
But if one of them was missing altogether, the demands on the other two rose enormously.
Yan Fu's class had not yet produced a student certain of a recommendation this year.
Time passed.
Under the watching teachers, Fang Yu worked through basic punch force, basic speed and the rest; and when the punch-force tester read 2,122 kilograms, half the weight came off Yan Fu's chest.
The earlier instruments measured across several dimensions — blood-qi signature, biological magnetic field and so on — and could go wrong, or be cheated.
Which was precisely why the punch-force and speed tests were added.
"Skill testing now."
"Great Completion in Subtlety or not." Every teacher was watching this closely; it decided whether Fang Yu had a recommendation locked down, and every one of their interests hung on it.
Soon.
Fang Yu's skill score displayed as 120 points — full marks — and the maximum punch-force tester showed the figure 3,866 kilograms.
Talk broke out across the office again.
"There it is! Great Completion in Subtlety!"
"He's locked it in!"
"Congratulations, Teacher Yan."
"Congratulations." Every teacher offered Yan Fu their congratulations. As martial form tutors, the three things that mattered most in this year's performance review were the Level 15 rate, the Subtlety rate, and the number of transfers.
"Ha. Luck," Yan Fu said, in an excellent mood.
At the very least, this year's transfer count would not be zero.
***
On the ninth floor of the same building there was another office, where six figures were watching the same monitor feed in silence: Fang Yu, taking his assessment.
At their head was a woman in a close-fitting grey martial uniform, striking and sharp, perhaps twenty-five by her face.
"Fang Yu?"
"Great Completion in Subtlety, Life Tier Level 20 — he should have a recommendation place," the woman said quietly. "Only, he hasn't awakened a Void Star Aspect. The hope of him awakening one is probably slim."
Not one of the six showed any surprise at Fang Yu's performance; they simply recorded it.
As teachers from Huguang Martial Arts University, they had seen a great many excellent students.
"Mm."
"The higher the Life Tier, the stronger the spirit, and the better the odds of sensing a sleeping Void Star Aspect." A middle-aged teacher of about forty nodded. "He's at Level 20 and still nothing. Either he's Aspectless... or his Void Star Aspect is so weak it's feeble even among Lower Aspects."
"If he could awaken a Void Star Aspect, even a Lower one, he'd count as a good seedling," another teacher put in. "He might even have a chance at the Earth Academy."
"A pity."
The others nodded too, with real regret.
Huguang Martial Arts University had certain very particular "academies" that concentrated more training resources and better martial teachers, and only a handful of outstanding students could enter them.
The Earth Academy was one of the famous ones.
The Earth Academy, as its name said, existed to produce Earth Warriors.
Test after test went by fast.
Soon.
On the monitor, Fang Yu had reached the final item — the combat assessment.
"Ninety points, presumably."
"With his body at Great Completion in Subtlety his control is extremely high, so his combat technique should be good." The Huguang teachers were thoroughly casual about it.
***
On the ground floor, in an assessment area of nearly a hundred square metres.
Fang Yu was armoured from head to foot, a war blade in his hand.
In the combat assessment even the weapons were unsharpened — but for students who had become warriors, a single motion carried a thousand kilograms of explosive force, and torn sinew and broken bone came easily.
Which was why full armour was mandatory.
"Ready," Fang Yu said clearly, watching the robot examiner opposite him. It was all but indistinguishable from a real person, and it held a war blade too.
The combat assessment.
Robots generally served as the examiners, to keep it relatively fair... With a live examiner it was far too easy for things to be falsified.
"Weapon selected: blade."
"Examiner form selected: humanoid." The humanoid martial arts robot conducting the assessment spoke coldly. "Prepare for combat."
Fang Yu waited quietly.
Boom!
The humanoid robot moved, fast as lightning, crossing six or seven metres almost instantly to be on top of him.
Swish! The long blade in its hand came down on Fang Yu at the same instant, quick as lightning; landed solidly, that stroke would carry a terrifying impact.
"Set to a Level 20 warrior, all right," Fang Yu thought.
This was the first time he had fought an opponent at the Mid-Rank Warrior level. The combat assessment tested technique above all... which was why the examiner robot's force output scaled with the candidate.
Hoo!
But Fang Yu might have known it in advance. Like a gust of wind, one step took him easily clear of that heavy, driving stroke.
His own blade came back the other way.
Boom! Hidden force surged inside him, blood and qi rolling, and his power output hit its ceiling in an instant.
Swish!
Like a bolt of lightning passing.
"Thump." With one dull sound the examiner robot went flying backwards like a thrown stone, seven or eight metres in an instant.
As a Mid-Rank Warrior whose bodily skill was at Great Completion in Subtlety, Fang Yu's instantaneous output could stand comparison with plenty of Level 22 warriors.
Most Mid-Rank Warriors, after all, had not brought their bodily skill to Great Completion either.
A moment later.
The examiner robot, recalibrated, came at Fang Yu with its war blade again... and this time it was faster still, its blade work more agile and more varied.
As a combat robot.
Even the most basic model was made of extremely tough material, cast from special metal mined on the Primordial Star. For a High-Rank Warrior to destroy one took repeated strikes before there was any chance of wrecking the key components inside.
"Clang!"
"Clang! Clang!" The rapid clash of war blades burst through the sealed assessment room, dragging shrill noises out of the air itself.
Fang Yu was a gust of wind still, sliding clear of attack after attack with ease.
At the same time, the force of every sinew and bone in him broke loose, and the war blade in his hand grew heavy as a mountain, wave upon wave like a rolling sea, like boulders coming down and nothing to stop them — the 《Thousand Mountains Blade》 he had trained for years.
Once again, he drove the recalibrated examiner robot back step by step.
"Stronger than me."
"Faster than me."
"But your blade work and your body technique are still only the peak of Basic. How are you going to stop me?" Fang Yu's blade raged while his mind stayed still; he had seen all of this coming.
Swish!
With the last stroke the examiner robot was sent flying again, and this time it did not get up.
Two seconds later.
"Combat assessment complete. Evaluation: full marks. Junior-College Consummate," the machine voice announced in the room.
***
Second floor.
The office that had been full of talk had gone dead silent; dozens of martial teachers stared at the monitor feed in shock.
Fang Yu.
He had beaten the examiner robot outright, at its maximum output.
It was a long moment before the talk burst out again.
"Full marks in the combat assessment? This!"
"How is that possible?"
"We haven't seen one of those in years!"
"Body technique at Subtlety I can understand. But his blade work... his blade work has absolutely reached Subtlety as well." Every one of those martial teachers had shock in his voice.