Revealed

Team Ding has a total of two hundred students.

Among them were many people with profound auras.

"The quality of this year's civil and military examinations seems to be much better than in previous years."

Zhong Xuan thought to himself.

There's nothing we can do about it.

The competition for the military examinations was too fierce, and these ten years happened to be a golden age for talent in Yongning Prefecture. However, while the number of talented people increased, the number of students remained the same each year. With no hope in the military examinations, some knowledgeable martial arts students opted to take the civil service examinations as a second choice.

Zhong Xuan's gaze fell on a large wooden board in the center of the training ground.

These are the tools used for testing internal martial arts skills.

"The internal strength competition is to cover the wood with your palm, without using any moves or stances, and only use your internal strength to exert force. The depth of the palm print left on the wooden board is the standard for the score."

To know.

Without throwing a punch, even a strong man would have difficulty damaging the wooden board in the slightest, let alone a scholar.

Although he had participated in several martial arts trials before, Zhong Xuan had always thought that this test was about physical strength.

Now I understand that the real test was on my breathing technique.

This is equivalent to the imperial court setting up a hidden threshold, filtering out most people from poor families.

After all, those who can master breathing techniques must have excellent physical constitution and lineage.

Therefore, for children from farming families, they had to excel far in the four subjects of the civil service examination in order to have a chance to pass the imperial examination and obtain official rank.

"Number 135 (D) step forward!"

Upon hearing his number, Zhong Xuan took a deep breath and walked out.

We arrived at the large wooden plank.

Zhong Xuan slowly assumed a horse stance, focused his energy in his dantian, and circulated the Eagle Seven Breathing Technique seven times, inhaling and exhaling six times. After his blood and energy circulated throughout his body, they flowed from Yongquan (Kidney 1) to Fengmen (GV26) and into Zhongchong (Kidney 1) in his right palm.

With a low shout.

"open!"

The crisp sound of breaking wooden planks echoed in the training ground, and the right palm slightly embedded itself.

penetrating!

The soldier recording the event was startled when he saw that Zhong Xuan, an old man with gray hair, possessed such formidable internal strength.

After careful confirmation.

Only then did they loudly announce the results.

"Three points!"

"Otoshi!"

The commotion quickly attracted the attention of onlookers, mainly because Zhong Xuan's age was too conspicuous.

Old scholars are common, but an old scholar with superb internal skills is truly unheard of. The people of Yongning Prefecture, who love excitement, would not miss it, and a noisy discussion arose on the outskirts.

"Three points..."

in the crowd.

Ma Lei's gaze grew increasingly intense.

He was a direct disciple of the Benhu Martial Arts School, and he himself was a martial artist in the late stage of the Skin Refining stage.

Therefore, he knew very well that brute force alone could not achieve such penetrating power; only... breathing techniques could!

It was precisely because the master of Benhu Martial Arts School chose to pass on the breathing technique to his senior brother instead of him, leaving him with almost no chance to break through to the bone-strengthening stage in his lifetime, that he chose to return to Xiahe Village.

did not expect.

Zhong Xuan from the same village actually got it.

Ma Lei narrowed his eyes slightly, seemingly lost in thought.

And not far away.

The Zhang family members were all talking about it under the shed.

"This old man looks somewhat familiar."

The four plump grandmothers were speaking.

"Indeed, I feel like I've seen it somewhere before."

The five grandmothers chimed in, all of them noticing the incredibly perceptive old man. They felt a strange sense of familiarity about him, but couldn't quite place where they had seen him before.

At this time.

The steward of the Zhang family, who had come along, hesitated before speaking: "Master, Madam, this person seems to be Zhong Xuan, Mr. Zhong, who copies books for our household."

"A book copyist?"

"Yes, yes, I knew I'd seen him somewhere before. Isn't this the old gentleman from our family's library?"

Several women started talking amongst themselves.

Even the patriarch of the Zhang family became interested.

He came to watch, naturally because of his sons.

What frustrated him was that none of them were any good enough. Not to mention the written test, not a single one could even score more than two points in internal skills.

On the contrary, the old man who was copying books for his own family performed exceptionally well.

"Your name is Zhong Xuan, right?"

Upon hearing the master speak, the steward of the Zhang household immediately became obsequious: "Yes, sir, it was this old servant who invited Mr. Zhong to our residence."

"very good."

"Ah Fu, when we get back to the manor, please make arrangements. I'd like to meet with this Mr. Zhong."

"Yes, sir."

The steward of the Zhang residence nodded repeatedly.

Looking at Zhong Xuan again, her feelings became extremely complicated.

He was probably the person in the Zhang family who understood Zhong Xuan the most. Zhong Xuan did have some talent, but he had been held back by his lack of internal strength and swordsmanship. This time, he must have had some good fortune to develop his internal strength, and he was very likely to become a scholar.

Next time we meet, I'll have to call you "husband".

There was no jealousy.

The steward of the Zhang family only regretted that he should have befriended Zhong Xuan more in the first place.

"I'll find an opportunity to give them a gift..."

Two hours later.

The civil and military examinations, including the internal strength test, were completed in one subject.

Three people achieved the highest grade, and all of them were highly competitive experts in the martial arts examination.

We took a short break of 15 minutes.

It was exactly noon.

"Next subject: swordsmanship. The assessment begins!"

The burly commander shouted.

The soldiers once again led pairs of students into the training ground.

Zhong Xuan glanced around and saw that more than half of the people were not wearing swords.

These people, like him before, knew nothing about martial arts; they were just going to participate out of desperation to avoid being disqualified from the exam.

In total.

In reality, only about seventy people in the group truly understood martial arts, and even fewer had reached the level of skin-refining.

After all, this is a written test, not a martial arts test.

I could already tell seven or eight tenths of the depth of his internal energy just now.

On the high platform sat several figures with an aura as deep as an abyss. These were all martial arts masters from Yongning Prefecture, including sect elders, military experts, and martial arts school owners, all renowned Grand Masters of the Third Stage.

This demonstrates the importance the imperial court attached to the provincial examinations.

Seventy people stood in the huge, spacious training ground.

Zhong Xuan drew his long sword.

With a loud shout from the chief examiner, everyone began to practice their swordplay.

Out of the corner of Zhong Xuan's eye, he saw a young man from his team wielding a sword with such skill that it was like a screen, impenetrable even when water was poured on it. No one could find fault with him, which drew cheers from the sidelines.

"There really is a master."

He let out a long breath.

Zhong Xuan moved nimbly, unleashing the Eagle Style Sword Technique that he had long mastered.

at the same time.

On the high platform.

"Old Cui, there are quite a few promising talents with excellent martial arts skills in this year's written examination."

The prefect of Yongning was quite satisfied with the performance of the young students in the martial arts training ground, and anything that happened in Yongning Prefecture could be counted as his achievement.

An elderly man with ruddy complexion and white hair stroked his beard and laughed heartily:

"It's all thanks to the prefect's effective governance that we're all enjoying the benefits."

"Old Cui is teasing me again."

The prefect of Yongning chuckled.

Just as the two were talking.

But then they heard a gasp from the surrounding crowd.

The old man surnamed Cui looked down and saw a long sword being thrown dozens of feet away, like a divine rainbow, with the momentum to soar straight into the sky.

"Throwing a sword into the clouds?!"

The old man surnamed Cui's eyes lit up.

"He's a good candidate for swordsmanship."