Chapter Seven: Start of the Trial

  Outside the wooden shed, a two-foot-long longevity incense in the copper furnace has been burning for nearly half, three quarters of an hour have passed, and there are still five quarters of an hour before it reaches one o'clock.

  Mu Rongying, the head of the Mu Rong family, was still at the forefront, panting heavily as he charged forward. His internal energy consumption was not small, but his expression remained stern and unchanged, his long knife slashing rapidly as he continued to charge forward. The Wooden Man Passage had suffered heavy casualties, with over 20 people already eliminated, leaving only around 20 people remaining who were still persisting in the passage. These people were all striving to charge forward, fighting desperately.

  Among them, the one who rushed in the latest and was at the very back was naturally the blue-clothed youth Gu Chao.

  Although he was at the back and nearly half of the time had passed, Gu Chao wasn't anxious at all. He remained calm and continued to observe quietly.

  No need to rush, nor should you rush. In countless exams and assessments in past lives, I have tempered my ability to remain calm and composed under pressure.

  The sun is slowly setting, the red glow fills the sky, Gu Chao stands in the middle of the wooden alley looking at the sun. The sun should not be one of the key factors, because each group of candidates faces a different sun, some are in the morning, and some are in the evening. If the sun has an impact on the assessment, it would be unfair to the candidates, so the possibility of the sun being a key condition is very small.

  The stone in the wooden alley is a key to passing through, and the gusts of wind in the wooden alley are also crucial. The sun shouldn't be, what else did I forget to observe?

  Wait! A flash of inspiration has just struck me.

  I have been paying attention to observing the environment all along, but I forgot to observe the wooden man itself.

  Observation is not just about observing the wind, or stones, but also about observing the remnants of a wooden man.

  In front of the Wooden Man Alley, there were not a few wooden man remnants. This was the starting point of the Wooden Man Alley. At first, everyone set off from here, and group after group of teams smashed many wooden men here, leaving behind remnants. Relatively speaking, there were extremely few wooden men here. Gu Chao raised his long knife and rushed into the midst, and before a wooden man could react, he had already dragged back a relatively intact wooden man remnant.

  The wooden man's remains were not as heavy as imagined, weighing only about thirty pounds. However, this strange red wood was extremely hard despite its light weight. When cultivators of the third and fourth layers of the Later Heaven Realm attacked it with long knives, they only left a faint mark. Gu Chao took out his own high-quality steel knife and struck again, leaving another faint mark. It was indeed unusually hard. In addition to this, there was a green crystal on the wooden man's head, with threads connected to its hands and feet. It seemed that the green crystal controlled the wooden man's movements, while the threads transmitted the actions.

  This world is truly wonderful, martial arts, wooden puppets, are all things that cannot be explained by science at all.

  But it's precisely this that makes the world so interesting.

  When Gu Chao was playing with the wooden man's remains, he found that the wooden man's hands and feet were one or two sizes larger than his own. He couldn't help but think to himself, if he wore the relatively intact parts of the wooden man's remains on his body, his defensive power would greatly increase. For example, if he put the wooden man's hand over his own hand, his hand's defensive power would naturally increase.

  Wearing wooden puppet remnants on one's body can increase their defensive power, which is the third piece of intel that Gu Chao observed.

  So far, Gu Chao has observed three points: Firstly, the wooden man relies on ground vibrations to launch attacks. Secondly, in the face of howling winds, the wooden man's attacks will be delayed. Thirdly, the wooden man's remains can enhance its own defense capabilities. These three points combined, a hint of insight flashed through his mind like a gleam of light.

  Unconsciously munching on peanuts, Gu Chao suddenly thought of a way through the wooden man lane.

  First, you can bring many fist-sized stones with you when you set out. When you get to a place, throw out three or four, or four or five stones. This way, you can scatter the attention of the wooden men, and there will be four or five targets that need to be attacked at the same time. The attacks on Gu Yu will naturally become much weaker.

  Is that so? It's possible to set off when the strong wind blows in Mugenkan, and once the strong wind blows in Mugenkan, the attack power of the wooden men will be delayed for a while. If the strong wind in Mugenkan stops, you can also stop advancing temporarily. After all, the wooden men are judged by the vibration of the ground, so if you don't move, the wooden men won't attack you. This has been verified with stones.

  The third point is also a key point, in order to avoid being attacked by other wooden men and getting hurt too badly, so you need to wear a layer of wooden armor all over your body. This means that once you are attacked, you can use this layer of wooden armor to defend against many attacks. The so-called wooden armor is naturally made by wearing some wooden debris on one's own body.

  Let's make a simple analogy. If you need to be hit by the wooden man 100 times to pass through the wooden man alley, then with the first point of throwing stones to disperse the wooden man's attack, four stones and one self, that is to say, the wooden man's target is five, and the attack received can be reduced from 100 to around 20. And if you take advantage of the strong wind period to run, you can reduce the 20 attacks to around 10, plus the third point of the wooden man's armor defense is extremely high, even if you are hit by 10 attacks, but with the defense of the wooden man's armor, it can be reduced to only 2 or 3 attacks.

  One hundred to two or one hundred to three.

  The gap between them is naturally huge and extreme.

  You would have knocked down one hundred people in a row, but if you were to withstand the wooden man's two or three hits, it wouldn't be that easy to knock him down.

  By combining these three methods, the wooden man's attack can be reduced to such a weak state, and in this way, Gu Chao thought that it would not be difficult at all to pass through the wooden man alley. This was indeed a good method, and Gu Chao no longer had any hesitation, stood up and started taking action.

  Time is running out!

  Sharpening a knife doesn't delay chopping firewood; once the knife is sharpened, of course you start chopping.

  。。。。。。

  There wasn't a package available to hold fist-sized stones, so Gu Chao simply took off his blue upper garment, revealing a slightly weak upper body. Gu Chao was somewhat dissatisfied with his non-muscular upper body and thought that he must work out to build muscles later. After taking off the blue upper garment, Gu Chao turned it into a package-like form and filled it with small fist-sized stones. This time, he managed to pack dozens of small fist-sized stones, which was slightly heavy. Actually, the size of the fists wasn't too big, after all, they were just those of a twelve-year-old boy, so he could pack quite a few at once.

  Immediately, Gu Chao also dragged back a few wooden man stumps. These wooden man stumps were all damaged in some way. Gu Chao first found two intact red wooden man legs for himself and put them on his feet. Then he walked around, but soon discovered that something was off. The soles of the shoes had an extra layer of wooden feet that didn't adapt well. So Gu Chao used a long knife to continuously chop away at the bottom layer of the wooden feet. This way, his own shoes were still on the ground and adapted much better. After fixing his legs, he put on the wooden man torso, which was quite heavy.

  Then the two hands, the left hand puts a wooden arm on the outside of the right hand, and the right hand puts a wooden arm on the outside of the left hand. Similarly, it feels like there is a wooden palm at the palm that is too inflexible, so just protect the wooden arm without affecting the flexibility of your own hands.

  In the end, he put on a square wooden skull for himself. The wooden skull was slightly stuffy but not too much of an impact. His eyes looked out from within the wooden skull and found that his field of vision was still quite wide and had not been affected.

  Here is the translation:

  With this, Gu Chao had put on the wooden armor and moved around a bit to adjust the parts that didn't fit quite right. After moving around for a bit, he got used to wearing the wooden armor. In his heart, Gu Chao thought to himself, "Wearing this wooden armor really makes me look like some kind of transforming robot from my past life, haha, it's actually pretty interesting."

  Immediately, the blue cloth-wrapped stone was slung over his back with his left hand, and the long knife he carried with him was secured on his back with a knife clip. The weight on his body was somewhat heavy now, the wooden man's remains weighed around twenty kilograms or so, and the stones also weighed around twenty to thirty kilograms or so. Fortunately, he had practiced martial arts before, so he could still carry it.

  Everything is ready, now just wait for the right moment to set off.

  Whoosh! The howling wind started up, from afar to near, flying against the wind, and Gu Chao also sprang into action, starting his adventure through the wooden man alley.

  At this time, half of the assessment time had passed, and Gu Chao had just set off.

  (Today was supposed to be an early update, but after seeing the new cover given by Starting Point, I was heartbroken and tearful, so it's a late update instead.)