Archean Eon Art

Chapter 80: Third Assessment

Meng Chuan and the others calmly watched this scene. After all, there were still a total of 275 people in the examination! Ultimately, there were only 20 spots up for grabs. The truly brutal fight had yet to begin.

According to the books, to become a Godfiend, one needs to enter the Godfiend Blood Pool and undergo the Life-and-Death juncture. Every Godfiend requires a lot of the Godfiend Blood Pool’s powers. Archean Mountain disciples have to be 100% certain before they are allowed to undergo the Life-and-Death juncture. Those who fail to enter Archean Mountain have to accumulate credits and exchange them for a chance to enter the Godfiend Blood Pool. Meng Chuan sighed.

The Godfiend Blood Pool was too precious. Only Archean Mountain, Black Sand Grotto-Heaven, and Two World Island had control of it. The three supreme sects recruited very few disciples every year.

...

The cyan-clothed woman turned her head and walked towards the Godfiends. She sat down and whispered to King East River, “Elder, I’ll leave the rest to you.”

“Alright.” King East River nodded slightly before standing up. The moment he stood up, the entire world rumbled, and the sky darkened.

“Don’t look.”

Meng Chuan, the geniuses, and the spectators didn’t dare look at King East River. It was just like how mortals found it difficult to look straight at the sun! Even the newly-advanced Godfiends among the spectators couldn’t look straight at King East River. King East River no longer restrained his aura, instead, it began to emanate from him in waves. His aura caused one’s lifeblood to turn chaotic. It was normal to meet a violent death if they were exposed to the aura for too long.

This was a Regis Godfiend that stood at the pinnacle of the human world! The mere mention of them could change the expressions of demon monarchs.

King East River and King Calm Sea were both at the same level.

Meng Chuan and the others didn’t dare to look at him directly, but they could hear his voice.

“We’ll now begin the third segment. I’ll preside over it.” King East River’s voice was calm but had an invisible and oppressive weight to it. “In a life-and-death battle, every move can spell the difference between life and death. If you act a little slower, you might die a violent death. Therefore, your reaction speed must be fast.

“The third assessment tests your reaction speed. The faster, the better,” said King East River.

Meng Chuan agreed when he heard that. He had heard from his grandaunt that Jadesun Palace Lord didn’t give the three demon monarchs a chance to attack when he faced them. This was what experts were like. They didn’t give their opponents chances to attack them.

Just like how he cultivated the Saber Drawing Stance. Speed was one aspect to the Saber Drawing Stance. Another aspect was to use psychological tactics. The opponent would be caught off guard when facing this strike! If the opponent was caught off guard, one’s reaction speed would mean the difference between life and death. It wasn’t easy for Archean Mountain to nurture Godfiends; therefore, they had extremely strict requirements concerning Godfiend reaction speeds.

“Huh?”Meng Chuan suddenly felt an irresistible force envelop him before lifting him up. He saw all the geniuses fly up as well. All of them were somewhat astonished.

275 people flew up into the air and were scattered forcefully. They landed in the palace compound, about twenty feet away from each other. They stood on top of a stone slab—a circle ten feet wide was carved on the stone slab.

“All of you are in your respective circles. None of you can exit the circle in any way,” continued King East River. “There will be hail falling from the sky. You need to avoid every piece! As long as you get hit by the hail—be it your body or your weapons—it will be considered as failing. Leaving the circle also counts as a failure. If you don’t survive the first two rounds of hail, you will also fail. The longer you can dodge everything, the better.”

Meng Chuan and company looked up.

In the dim sky, countless fluttering snowflakes began to gather suddenly. They gathered in midair, forming a dense cluster of icy hail particles that were as large as fingers. The hailstone shards were only 150 feet above them. This was the height of the tallest building in Archean City.

All the geniuses nervously watched the hailstones cover the sky.

They didn’t dare look at King East River, but they could stare at the hail.

“Begin.” As soon as King East River finished speaking, the hailstones shot down.

Swish! Swish! Swish!

Each hailstone was comparable to an arrow shot by experts at the Seamless realm. They were extremely fast. However, Meng Chuan was used to such things.

For years, he had trained with volleys of arrows flying at him for an hour every day. As his strength and speed increased, he had his guards draw closer and closer to him to put himself under more pressure! Therefore, Meng Chuan forced himself to push his movement technique, reaction speed, and saber techniques to their limits, refining and improving them step-by-step.

But in this assessment, movement techniques were not important! In a circle that was only ten feet wide, as long as one could react quickly, they would be able to avoid the hailstones. The key was to react in time! If they didn’t react in time, they would be hit.

Saber techniques were not important either! Having the weapon hit spelled failure as well. The test was for reaction speed! He had to react in time.

Swish! Swish! Swish! Hailstones flew towards him. Instantly, three hailstones fell towards Meng Chuan’s circle. Then, there were two more, followed by three more...

Meng Chuan was relaxed. The hail isn’t launched all at once but split into batches. There are only two to three hailstones in each batch.

Meng Chuan didn’t know how much his reaction speed had improved since he had started his training regime. He pushed his limits every day! He pushed himself to the limits of what he could endure.

To him, it was currently a stroll in the park. With a simple movement, two hailstones shot past him, smashed into the ground, and were reduced to powder.

Not only was his reaction speed swift, but he also had his 100 foot wide perception domain—that resulted from his soul—aiding him. In the hundred-foot domain, the hail was extremely clear, allowing him to avoid them easily.

...

The spectators watched from a distance nervously.

They didn’t dare to look at King East River. They could only stare at the geniuses and the countless hailstones in the sky. Snowflakes began fluttering in the air with increasing intensity, affecting their vision.

“It’s the third assessment.”

“There are only three segments to the preliminaries. The rankings will be decided after the preliminaries.”

“You must hold on.” Many people watched nervously. They stared at their family clan’s pride and hope.

Meng Chuan was the Meng family’s hope; likewise, many geniuses here were their family’s hope.

...

King East River controlled everything expressionlessly. The hail continued for quite some time before it came to an abrupt stop.

“Next up is the second round,” King East River said calmly.

The hail only stopped for a few seconds before it rained down again.

It’s a lot faster now. Outside his 100 foot wide perception domain, Meng Chuan could use his Force domain to determine the hailstones’ vague trajectories. When they entered his 100 foot wide domain, he could clearly sense the hailstones! He easily determined that the hailstones’ speed had increased by 20%. Although it was only a 20% increase, the difficulty of dodging the hailstones increased tremendously.

Pfft. Pfft. Pfft.

Meng Chuan could sense people around him being hit one after another! They couldn’t react in time, thus, their bodies, weapons, or clothes were hit!

“No...” A genius held a huge hammer in his hand in despair. The hammer had just been hit by a hailstone when an invisible force wrapped around him and lifted him up. It wasn’t only him, the other geniuses who had failed the second round were also lifted up and sent off into the distance.

“You can’t even withstand the second round of hail. This reaction speed is really too slow.” King East River’s icy voice rang out in every geniuses’ ears. “If you were to engage in a life-and-death battle, you would die easily.”

When the second round of hail ended, a total of thirty-six geniuses had been “lifted” up and thrown far away.

Archean Mountain had set the second round as the demarcating line because this condition could stop many geniuses in their tracks.

This made the remaining geniuses heave sighs of relief. At the very least, I managed to hold out for the second round, reaching the minimum requirement. Many geniuses who had narrow escapes felt fortunate that they still had hope.

Whoosh~

After a slight pause, the countless hailstones floating in the sky began to rain down a third time. Archean Mountain wanted to select the truly outstanding geniuses—they weren’t just looking for people who could meet the minimum requirements.