Chapter 33 I just took a small shot, which is already the limit of this stage.
The fifth day of the twelfth lunar month, early in the morning.
Xu Ke got up to wash up, fed Ziyunque some Lingmi, then met Fangzheng Liu Yongtian and went to have breakfast together.
This house is a guild hall set up by the Temple of Si Nong, and it is used to accommodate various customers who come to the Hall of Si Nong to do business and need accommodation. It can be regarded as a "guest house" of the Hall of Si Nong.
At this moment, in this guild hall, except for a few merchants who came to buy, the others are Fangzheng from various workshops and disciples participating in the promotion assessment.
When Liu Yongtian led Xu Ke into the dining hall, he ran into an acquaintance head-on.
This is Fangzheng from Xishanfang next door.
"Huh? Old Liu?"
Xishanfang was seeing Liu Yongtian, and asked in surprise, "You haven't gone back yet?"
"Nope!"
Liu Yongtian replied in a flat tone, and then pointed to Xu Ke, "Isn't there a kid in the workshop who wants to participate in the promotion assessment? He can't leave. He can only leave after the assessment is over."
"Huh? Has someone from Hedong Fang participated in the promotion assessment?"
Xishanfang couldn't help but exclaimed.
It's no wonder he exclaimed, the name of the "elderly workshop" in Hedongfang has long been known.
Xishanfangzheng's exclamation made other people in the dining hall look over in surprise.
Even the broken Hedong Fang can produce a disciple for promotion assessment?
What the hell... Can salted fish turn over?
Seeing the gazes of the crowd, the corners of Xu Ke's mouth trembled slightly, feeling a little awkward.
The reputation of our Hedong Fang as being broken and rotten is really well known.
Actually, it is no wonder that Liu Yongtian, the founder of Hedong Fang, became like this.
I don’t know what Si Nong Dian thinks about, all those "senior brothers" are arranged in Hedongfang, and only after the senior brothers retire and return to their hometowns will there be vacant places for new disciples.
This has led to the piles of "senior brothers" in Hedong Fang, and the pitiful few newcomers, making Hedong Fang a veritable old-age workshop. The entire Hedong Fang has become full of depression, and there have been no disciples who participated in the promotion assessment for many years.
So, even if there was a promoted disciple like Xu Ke, the others didn't take it seriously.
Hedong Fang is so rotten, even if it can produce a promoted disciple, how capable is it? I'm afraid it's just a breakthrough in cultivation. In order to take care of Hedongfang, Sinongdian gave him a chance to participate in the promotion assessment without investigating in detail.
After breakfast, everyone left the hall one after another, and went to the examination department of the Sinong Hall in front to participate in the promotion assessment.
Xu Ke noticed for a moment that there were forty or fifty disciples participating in the promotion assessment. I don't know if there is a quota limit for the promotion assessment of the Hall of Sinong. If there is a quota limit, the competition will be more intense.
All the way there was nothing to say, everyone hurried to the examination department of Sinong Hall.
Came to the Kaogong Division again, this time it was not Zhang Lingfeng who came forward, but a deacon.
Originally, on such an important occasion, the "all-management" department of examination merit had to come forward. I don't know why, but this term's meritorious service department "takes care of everything" and didn't show up at all.
"Meet Deacon Wang!"
After the deacon wearing a blue Taoist robe appeared, everyone hurried forward to salute.
"Don't be too polite!"
The deacon Wang bowed back to everyone in a serious way, and then said: "Fang Zheng, please rest in the tea room. All disciples participating in the assessment, come with me!"
"yes!"
Everyone bowed and took orders.
Afterwards, Fangzheng went to the tea room to rest, and the disciples who participated in the assessment followed the deacon to the assessment location.
The examination room for this promotion assessment is set in the garden in the backyard of Kao Gongsi.
Entering the garden, there are two long tables on the ground in front of them. Deacon Wang and another white-haired old man just sat on the futon behind the long table.
Beside the two of them, there are four desks each, and a total of eight practicing disciples who act as "staff" are sitting behind the desks.
On the lawn in the middle of the garden, there are also futons. These futons are the seats for the disciples participating in the assessment.
Entering the examination room, under the command of an executive disciple, everyone sat cross-legged in their respective positions.
This assessment seemed to be presided over by Deacon Wang. The white-haired old man sitting next to him kept his eyes closed and did not move.
With the sound of "Dang", the assessment began.
"Sinong Hall executive disciple promotion assessment requirements: four levels of qi training, proficiency in mobilization, corruption, rain, and sharpness."
Deacon Wang glanced at the disciples sitting below him, and said, "It's clear at a glance how to practice qi, and there is no need for additional assessment. This time, you will mainly assess your spells. Next, we will conduct the first round, the assessment of the provocation technique."
After finishing speaking, Deacon Wang waved his hand, and several executive disciples next to him picked up the tray containing the seeds, came to the venue, and distributed the seeds needed for the assessment of the mobilization technique to everyone.
Each person has a small bag, which contains nine paper bags, and inside the paper bags are three seeds.
There are nine different seeds in total, and there are three of each seed.
It seems that nine different seeds represent different difficulties. Three seeds of each kind, that is to say, can only fail three times.
Xu Ke took a look at these seeds, and the only ones he could recognize were the lowest-difficulty silver-leaf jute and thousand-bell millet seeds, and he had never seen any of the latter seeds.
"Each person has nine different seeds, numbers from one to nine are written on the paper bag, and the difficulty ranges from one to nine."
After distributing the seeds, Deacon Wang said again: "Take out the seeds and sow them on the grass in front of you. If you fail three times, the assessment is over. If the time is exceeded, the assessment is over. Now, the assessment begins!"
Following Deacon Wang's order, the disciples participating in the assessment took action one after another.
Silver leaf jute and Qianzhong millet, which are level 1 difficulty, are easy for everyone to solve.
Xu Ke intentionally maintained the same speed as the others to urge the seeds. On the grass in front of him, a thousand-bell millet and a silver-leaf jute seedling quickly grew.
Just when Xu Ke was about to stop, he suddenly noticed that some of the seedlings urged by some disciples were taller and stronger than others.
Thus, Xu Ke added a little more wood-type spiritual power to make the seedlings he stimulated bigger and stronger.
To get the first place without any dispute, it is natural to lead everywhere.
Even if the seedlings are taller and stronger, there will be no bonus points, Xu Ke still did this.
Xu Ke's actions caused the white-haired old man who had been closing his eyes to rest and ignore foreign affairs to slightly open his closed eyes. After glancing at Xu Ke, he closed his eyes again.
In the second and third rounds that followed, Xu Ke maintained a speed similar to that of others, but also maintained the spurred seedlings, which were taller and stronger than others.
Wait until the fourth round and start to widen the gap.
Someone failed to urge once, but succeeded the second or third time.
Xu Ke still maintained the speed of the first echelon, maintaining a taller and stronger posture.
In the fifth round, some people began to fail three consecutive reminders, and the assessment ended.
In the sixth round, even more people fell behind. More than half of the people finished the assessment in this round.
By the seventh round, only two of them were able to successfully activate the trigger technique three times. One is Xu Ke, and the other is a young man in his twenties who seems to be from Xishanfang.
In the eighth round, Xu Ke successfully completed the reminder, but the young man from Xishanfang failed three consecutive reminders and ended the assessment.
So far, the provocative skill assessment has ended, and Xu Ke has undoubtedly won the first place.
This wins? I haven't even exerted my strength yet!
Sure enough... I just took a small shot, which is already the limit at this stage.
It’s still the same sentence, that year, I had my hands in my pockets, and I didn’t know what an opponent was!
(end of this chapter)