Chapter 9: Passing through the Wooden Man Lane

  As time went by, there were fewer and fewer people in the wooden alley, and more and more were eliminated.

  At the end of the Wooden Man Corridor, two young men were rushing towards the gate. Both were at the mid-fourth layer of the Post-Heaven Realm. They looked very similar, with a nine-out-of-ten resemblance. Their eyebrows had a slight yellow tint, and they had round faces. Neither was particularly tall. They were twins from the Liu family's Black Iron clan, one named Liu Liangmu and the other Liu Lianghuo. Growing up together, their coordination was naturally excellent. The older brother swung his sword at the wooden man behind his younger brother, who rolled to the side and used his shield to block the attack of another wooden man from behind his older brother. The twins' cooperation was unusually tacit.

  They were originally a team of four, but now only the two brothers are left, relying on their tacit understanding and support for each other to move forward, while the other two have been eliminated.

  "How much longer is this Wooden Man Corridor?" asked the tenth brother who was currently in the middle of the corridor.

  "Who knows, anyway we've walked over eight hundred feet already." said his ninth-ranked younger brother.

  They charged for a very long time, advancing a considerable distance, but the Wooden Dummy Alley still couldn't see the end. In fact, the Wooden Dummy Alley doesn't have to be as long as imagined, but the Tai Shan Pai assessment deliberately didn't provide a map or reveal how long the alley was, so when people don't know how long it is, they will feel that there is endless length and endless wooden dummies ahead, which will increase the pressure.

  "I don't know if we can make it to the end of Mugen no Kanata." Brother Ryūfū swung his long sword, trying to find some confidence.

  "I don't know either." His younger brother, Liu Liuhuo, held up his shield in a somewhat numb manner to resist the wooden man's attack. In the endless corridor of wooden men, he too had lost all hope.

  Guchao was running against the wind, Guchao didn't recognize what the two twins from a black iron-level family looked like, nor did he pay attention to them. He only had one thing to do, which was to run as fast as possible. Running quickly, he surpassed the two of them, and Guchao is now in ninth place. However, the wooden armor on his left shoulder has been completely shattered, having been hit by the Wooden Man so many times it's no wonder it broke. The wooden armor on other parts of his body is also close to shattering, and he only has a few stones left.

  Run! Run! Run!

  Take advantage of the passion burning to go for a run.

  What if the wooden armor on his body is broken in many places?

  What if there were only a few stones left to attract the wooden man's firepower?

  What's the point of being tired now?

  Run, it should be close to the end!

  Finally, the last stone on his back was thrown away, and there were no more stones to distract the wooden men. At this time, Gu Chao had already seen the original eighth person. The eighth-ranked person seemed to have been injured in the leg, half-kneeling on the ground with a pair of strange claws in hand, responding to the attacks of the surrounding wooden men. This person was actually from the Black Iron-level family, Yin's family, who were good at using claws as weapons and had a famous Eagle Claw technique. The young man surnamed Yin originally formed a team with others, but the other three were eliminated, and he alone rushed to the front, unexpectedly getting injured in the leg just now, which was very fatal in the Wooden Man Lane.

  He is now barely holding on, but he won't last long. It's a pity for this young man with the surname Yin, if his leg hadn't been injured, he might have made it to the end.

  This young man with the surname Yin was kneeling on one knee, surrounded by wooden men and couldn't see Gu Chao at all.

  Beyond the surname Yin's claw youth, Gu Chao was already in eighth place, still running non-stop. The wooden man attacked with his right hand, and on top of that, he had wooden armor on his right hand. He used all his spirit to run.

  Ancient super running non-stop! Blocking while running.

  Crack! The wooden armor on his right hand also shattered.

  At that moment, Gu Chao finally saw the finish line. There was a white line at the end, and behind the white line, there seemed to be several people standing, and not a single wooden person.

  The whistling wind was still blowing against the trend in the wooden alley.

  Against the last wind, Gu Chao rushed to the finish line and crossed the white line.

  After rushing past the white line, Gu Chao was panting heavily and suddenly sat on the ground, feeling that his broken armor was as heavy as Mount Tai, his feet were soft, and the place where he was hit by the wooden man was sore.

  However, such efforts are not without reward. I finally passed this assessment and can become an outer disciple of the Taishan Sect...

  Success!

  Yes, I did it myself!

  This is a great start, the first thing I wanted to do in this world has been successful, well done. Gu Chao secretly gave himself a boost of confidence and took off the worn-out wooden puppet armor that had been on his body for a long time, it was extremely easy to take off as it was already badly damaged.

  Looking around, I found that at the end of the road stood six boys and a girl. These six boys and one girl, including the white-clothed boy Murong Ying, were all somewhat disheveled, with more or less injuries on each of them. Murong Ying appeared to be unscathed on the surface, but his white clothes also had quite a few dust marks. Next to these seven people was a copper stove with a lampshade, and inside the copper stove was a stick of Longevity Incense that was about to burn out.

  Among these six young men were Murong Ying, Fang Yin, Lin Yuan and three other young men. The girl had a melon-shaped face, wore her hair in a bun, and was dressed in a yellow skirt. She was only twelve years old but already showed some signs of being a beautiful woman. Her surname was Liu and her name was Ya. She had the strength of the fourth layer of the Late Heaven Realm and was skilled in footwork. She came from the Liu family. The Liu family was not just one family, but several families. The Liu family that Liu Ya came from was different from the Liu family that Liu Liangmu and Liu Lianghuo came from.

  Six young men and a girl all sized up the last arrival, Gu Chao. Their internal strength was higher and more brilliant, so they could naturally see that Gu Chao only had a cultivation base of Postnatal Realm Second Layer. Moreover, when combined with Gu Chao's wooden puppet armor from earlier, many people thought that Gu Chao simply wore some wooden puppet armor. Of course, they didn't know that Gu Chao also observed the wind and stones, gathering all sorts of observations together.

  Murong Ying, this extremely arrogant young man, also showed a rare look of surprise in his eyes as he looked at Gu Chao. This young man had passed the assessment with only the internal power of the second layer of the acquired realm, which was somewhat impressive. At least he was stronger than those who failed to pass the assessment with internal powers of the third and fourth layers of the acquired realm. Of course, it was absolutely impossible for him to be his own opponent, Murong Ying had absolute confidence in himself.

  The other six young men and women looked at Gu Chao with some curiosity, this should be a clever person, especially the beautiful girl Liu Ya, who was sizing up Gu Chao with a pair of curious eyes, showing great interest in him.

  。。。。。。

  On the horizontal beam high up in this Wooden Man Corridor, there were five men dressed in black. These five men dressed in black were all top-notch experts within the Mount Tai Sect. The purpose of these five men dressed in black coming here was only one - to prevent anyone from suffering too severe injuries or losing their lives under the Wooden Man's hands. This was merely an assessment, not a life-or-death battle, and they had to avoid casualties. Once any examinee participating in the assessment received considerable injury, these men dressed in black would appear.

  Actually, at the beginning, the blue-clothed youth Gu Chao didn't attract the attention of the black-clothed people at all. They all went to rescue other boys in danger. Even one of the black-clothed men thought that this blue-clothed boy might be afraid of getting hurt, so he didn't dare to rush into the wooden alley, and his courage was too small.

  As a result, when there were fewer and fewer people in the back of the wooden alley, this blue-clothed young man finally started to venture into the wooden alley.

  Moreover, this charge was quite unexpected. Originally, the blue-clothed youth was at the very back of the pack, and no one expected him to suddenly surge forward with such incredible speed, overtaking so many people in an instant. This naturally caught the attention of the five black-clothed men, who immediately discovered the problem.

  The young man took off his blue clothes and put stones in them. This means that the young man discovered that the wooden man was triggered to attack by vibrations on the ground.

  This young man runs when the wind rises and stops when there is no wind. In other words, this young man has discovered that when the wind rises, the wooden man's movements slow down.

  The young man was wearing the remains of a wooden puppet, which means that the young man found the remains of the wooden puppet to be quite hard and just right for use.

  This young man is really good at observing, and his observation skills are very sharp. He has observed all three points. Moreover, he is still calm within the time limit of one hour, and his observations are not hasty or simple. Furthermore, it's not just a matter of observation skills, but after observing these three points, he can combine them to come up with such an ingenious way to break through, truly remarkable wisdom! The five black-clothed men couldn't help but applaud.

  This test was originally meant to assess individual strength, teamwork ability, observation skills and wisdom. Although this young man's strength wasn't that great, he had such excellent observation skills and such strong wisdom, so it naturally counts as passing the level.

  "What a clever young man." A black-clad person praised, this was indeed too clever.

  "In this chaotic world, strength is revered, and this saying is naturally not false. However, it's really common for someone with great strength to be clueless about using their brain and end up being schemed against. It often happens. Take the White Silver Rank sect of the Great Qi Empire, the Mengshan Sect's Hengchong, for example. This person has incredible strength and talent, known as a rare prodigy in the Mengshan Sect that appears only once in a hundred years. However, he recklessly charges forward without thinking, and ultimately gets ambushed and killed at the Seven Extremes Valley." A man in black clothing said.

  "Yes, being clever is very important. Qing Yizhen, the Clear and True Person of the Cui Shan Sect, a White Silver level sect, has ordinary talent and strength, but he's very intelligent. He's been doing extremely well in the Da Qi Empire, gaining a lot of spoils every time there's a conflict. Now, he's also one of the Grandmasters of the Da Qi Empire. The title of Grandmaster is only given to those who have reached an extremely high level in martial arts. Our own Tai Shan Sect doesn't have many Grandmasters either." Another black-clad person nodded in agreement.

  "A person's comprehensive quality includes personal martial arts ability, teamwork, wisdom, observation, calmness, patience and so on. Among them, personal martial arts ability is the first and most important in comprehensive quality, but others are also very important. This is why this time Tai Shan Pai's assessment not only tests strength but also teamwork, observation and wisdom." An old voice said from a black-clothed man, who seemed to have great prestige, as others nodded immediately when he spoke.

  "This blue-clothed young man, who remains calm in the face of events, has observational skills and considerable wisdom. These are all factors that can lead to a person's success. It doesn't matter if his current abilities are somewhat lacking."

  "I remember now, Lin Yuanwang, who is currently ranked seventh among the inner disciples of our Tai Shan sect, also encountered this test at that time. At that time, his method of passing through the Wooden Dummy Alley was not much different from that of this young man. Lin Yuanwang is already one of the most powerful figures among the inner disciples, and he is also one of the most outstanding ones in this generation. The future of this young man may also be quite promising."

  "I'm looking forward to this young man's future." A black-clad man said with his hands behind his back.

  "I'm expecting the same." Another black-clad man nodded in agreement.

  "I agree too," said another man in black, and several men in black exchanged glances and smiled, just as heroes see things similarly.

  The first update is delivered, this chapter is longer than usual, and it was revised after completion, so it's released a bit later than usual. A heads up: the second update will be posted around 12 midnight.