Having announced the start of the examination, the old man who had made the announcement vanished, suddenly reappearing beside the steps that led up to the stage, holding the small table and chair at which he had been seated.

  "You may refer to me as Elder Guo. I am one of the elders of the Glass Cloud Sect, and if you pass this examination, I will be your instructor, teacher, and supervisor as well.

  As the old man placed his table down next to the stairs, Jun Li tried to understand how he had appeared so suddenly. 'Qinggong? No, it doesn't matter how light you make yourself, you shouldn't be able to move like that...'

  As Jun Li pondered what methods could allow for such a sudden and silent appearance, the old master seated himself at his table.

  "I will be serving as the examiner for potential disciples this year, and I've prepared three simple tests to determine your suitability."

  As Elder Guo looked out at the crowd of spectators, he couldn't help but let out a breath of irritation. 'What a spectacle they make of all this, so pointless...'

  "Now then, let's begin the first test." As he spoke, the dozens of sixteen-year-old examinees crowded together to make their way to the examiner, excluding most of the noble children who were aware there was no rush, and who were quite unwilling to huddle together with the masses.

  "The first test is simple, I'll just need to make sure you are exactly sixteen years of age. Line up now, once I confirm your age, just head up onto the stage."

  Having spoken, Elder Guo waited for each child to approach his table in turn. At the same time, Jun Li found her mind racing pointlessly, trying to figure out if there was some sort of trick or second layer to the test.

  A few minutes passed, and dozens of children had gone through the test, each and every one having been sent to stand on stage, having apparently passed.

  In the end, she was unable to sense anything amiss with the simple test and approached in the hopes of passing without issue.

  Jun Li approached the table, and when her turn came, the old master spoke up. "Just hold out your arm and I'll be done in seconds." Jun Li did as she was asked and waited for the inspection to conclude.

  Yet the moment he touched her arm, Jun Li felt an invasive force seep into her body, and instinctively, she flooded Qi through her arm as fast as she could.

  When she raised her eyes to look at the old man, he was looking back at her with an expression she couldn't quite decipher.

  Embarrassed by her hasty response, Jun Li tried to calm down and allow the old master to finish the test, yet before she withdrew her crude, instinctive defense, the old master released her arm with a brief nod of his head. "Very good."

  Jun Li had gone stiff and couldn't process the meaning of his words until he elaborated. "Now, head on up to the stage to wait for the second test."

  When Jun Li understood she had passed, she felt she could finally breathe again. "T-thank you." She bowed as she stumbled over her words, embarrassed, before making her way up to the stage.

  On the stage, Jun Li could do little but watch the last few children pass through the first test while she tried to quell her embarrassment.

  At this point, she noticed how the noble children had stayed far back at first, seemingly having waited for others to test the waters before they followed through, now quickly passing through the first test.

  As the last child rose to the stage, Jun Li looked to the examiner, still seated at the base of the stairs, waiting to see what the next test was.

  As she looked down towards him, she heard a soft clattering behind her. As she turned to see what it was, she again found the old man setting down his table and chair on the stage.

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  Spinning around, the space at the base of the stairs was vacant. 'How could I have heard him set the table down before I saw him pick up the table…?'

  Despite being thoroughly baffled by the old master's unnatural movement, she could do nothing but wait for the next test.

  Once the old master had comfortably seated himself, he looked down, past the back of the stage. "Now then, the second test is going to be much more difficult. Look down into the pit below us."

  The old master gestured down to a pit below the stage, filled to the brim with stones of uneven shapes and sizes.

  "For this test, you must find one of the stones in this pit that I have infused with Qi and present it to me before you run out of time. We will begin in a moment." Jun Li looked down into the pit, trying to sense any Qi from where she stood.

  'Ah, I think I feel something...?' Before Jun Li was able to figure out where the Qi she sensed was coming from, however, her thoughts were interrupted.

  "The second test will now begin. Enter the pit and find one of the infused stones before time runs out." The old master had declared the start of the test, and Jun Li felt she had no choice but to hurry.

  Jun Li and a dozen other children jumped down into the shallow pit the moment the test began and began searching for one of the infused stones.

  Jun Li was shocked. The moment she entered the pit, she could quite easily sense that a number of stones containing Qi were very close to her, the vague emanations brushing against her like warmth from a dozen small flames.

  Jun Li looked down at the pile of stones and began to shift them around. After only a moment, she found a stone that clearly radiated a small amount of Qi, like rising steam. As she picked it up, she couldn't help but start thinking there was more to the test.

  'This feels too easy, am I missing something? Maybe something about the way the examiner worded the objective of the test? Damn, I can't remember what he said...'

  Despite her doubts, Jun Li eventually decided she hadn't done anything wrong and that she couldn't keep waiting around trying to figure it out. 'I suppose it's just a test to see if you can properly sense Qi? I had plenty of practice with that at the waterfall, so I should be fine.'

  She quickly turned back to the stage and jumped up to hand her stone in, trying to avoid running out of time by a wide margin.

  "Here, this is correct, right?" Offering the stone to the old master, Jun Li waited anxiously for a response.

  After a moment, the old master took the stone and gave Jun Li a short nod and a genuine smile. "Perfect, feel free to sit and wait while everyone else finishes." Jun Li was confused for a moment by his phrasing.

  "Everyone else?" Jun Li had been so immersed in her test that she had neglected to observe her peers.

  Looking about, Jun Li found that she was totally alone on the stage, and that everyone, including those young nobles, was down on their knees sifting through the stones in the pit.

  Seeing this, Jun Li's first instinct was to doubt herself, but no matter how she thought about it, she had done everything correctly and received a favorable response from the examiner.

  'I think I did fine.' Jun Li finally felt calm for the first time since the entrance test started.

  'Actually, I'm... probably better than fine?' Even after her waiting and thinking, only now were the other Examinees starting to approach the stage to hand in the stones they picked out.

  At this point, Jun Li concluded that she was likely a few steps ahead of her peers, at the very least when it came to her sensory ability.

  While she was thinking about this, the old master looked out over the testing grounds, it seemed nobody in the pit was coming up to hand in their stones anymore, and the prospective disciples that caught his eye had already handed in most of the infused stones.

  The old master looked to the small pile of stones on his table, over a dozen, most being completely mundane.

  Sifting through them, he collected all the infused stones he was given, numbering only nine, stood up from his table, and projected his voice evenly across the stage.

  "The second test has finished." As he said this, he began to hand out the infused stones to some of the examinees, including Jun Li. "To those whom I have returned a stone, well done, you've passed the second test."

  Jun Li let out a sigh, having had her doubts finally and fully cleared.

  The old man took a deep breath and looked out over the stage. "To the rest of you, however, you have failed the test. But this needn't be the end of your Cultivation, there are more ways to cultivate than just what the Glass Cloud Sect teaches, and with some luck, you may find them."

  Looking around at the slowly clearing crowd of children on the stage, Jun Li found herself sticking out more than she would have liked, standing out like a patch of rot in an otherwise homogeneous flowerbed.

  Jun Li was quite obviously the only commoner among the remaining examinees.