Chapter 50: Top-Tier Difficulty, Just This? Are You Sure Your Disciple Is a Summoner?

Lu Zheng's strength and status were plain to see, and none of these people dared to make a fool of themselves before him, so they let him serve as the first reference student.

After checking his exam admission ticket and entering his information, Lu Zheng entered the instance.

【You have entered the custom instance 'Undead Wasteland.' Assessment mission begins.】

【Mission: After the countdown ends, LV. 30 ordinary-quality Skeleton Swordsmen ×100 and one LV. 45 boss-quality Skeleton Knight will spawn before you. You must kill the Skeleton Knight in the shortest time possible or hold out for thirty minutes. Countdown begins: 29, 28, 27…】

Lu Zheng was stunned for a moment upon hearing this. Top-tier difficulty, just this? A LV. 100 boss-quality Dread Knight had been one-shot by a single move of his; a mere LV. 45 Skeleton Knight—Lu Zheng truly couldn't be bothered to summon his spirit pet.

However, on reflection, this was quite reasonable.

After all, this was only a city-level exam, and the assessment was merely meant to distinguish the outstanding from the mediocre. For those ordinary gold-badge students, facing a siege of one hundred LV. 30 monsters was already extremely dangerous, and adding a LV. 45 boss-quality mini-BOSS on top of that made it even harder.

If nothing else, Yang Dong would not have an easy time passing. As a fragile mage, if he could not quickly eliminate the target, these minor monsters could very well wear him down to death.

Lu Zheng swept his gaze around and selected the most suitable one from among his many skills.

The countdown ended, the protective light screen vanished, and he raised his hand. In an instant, a massive electric net enveloped all the undead. Thunder flashed, and the soul fire of the one hundred Skeleton Swordsmen and that Skeleton Knight was extinguished in the blink of an eye; even their skeletal frames were blasted into fragments.

This was the feedback skill 'Thunder Electric Net' from the two-star rare beast companion Thunder-patterned Demon Tiger. With a massive infusion of mana, the lightning strike damage dealt instantly blasted all the undead into fragments. This should originally have been an 'area control' skill with a paralysis effect, focused on sustained damage.

But clearly, the gap in level and strength was too great. The paralysis effect had no chance to take effect before all the undead were reduced to fragments.

【Congratulations on completing the assessment mission. Total mission time: 1 second.】

【Assessment complete. Your score is: 10000.】

The actual time used was definitely less than one second, but this instance's detection mechanism had a minimum timing standard of one second. As long as the time was under thirty seconds, it was a perfect score; beyond thirty seconds, points were deducted on a sliding scale.

Some people could score ten thousand because the maximum score was only ten thousand.

At the instance entrance, Lu Zheng's figure appeared.

This left Yang Dong and the others utterly astonished.

"Boss, it's only been half a minute—how are you already out? Did the instance malfunction?!"

Wang Jun asked in confusion.

He would never think Lu Zheng had failed the assessment. He had absolute confidence in Lu Zheng's strength, but the man had come out right after going in—something must have gone wrong somewhere.

Lu Zheng was about to answer when the score broadcast appeared on the large screen.

【Examinee: Lu Zheng】

【Mission time: 1 second】

【Score: 10000】

Yang Dong immediately shouted excitedly upon seeing this:

"Boss, you're badass! Completing the mission in one second—as expected of you!"

The surrounding students all revealed looks of shock. Was this the strength of a second-tier class change? To clear a top-tier difficulty assessment instance so effortlessly, completing the mission in one second—it was simply terrifying. At this moment, Fang Xuanbin and the others had only just arrived in the observation hall.

Looking at the score broadcast on the large screen, Chen Dongming smiled and said, "If the Lord Mayor wishes to see Lu Zheng's performance, it seems he'll have to wait until this afternoon. Completing the mission in one second—there wasn't even a chance to watch the battle."

Fu Cangli also said, "A mere city-level exam reveals nothing. It's nowhere near enough to let my disciple display even one percent of his strength."

Fang Xuanbin waved to the proctor and said, "Sigh, you can still glean something at least. Can't have come for nothing. Open the combat recording of Lu Zheng just now."

Custom instances had a recording function, specifically to facilitate scoring students' performances.

Every examinee's combat recording would be saved. All recordings, before the final overall scores were announced, would undergo a second review and be uploaded to the Alliance Education Bureau for archiving.

The large screen in the observation hall displayed footage of Lu Zheng's battle. When they saw him raise his hand and release a thunder electric net that permeated the entire instance, Fang Xuanbin looked at Fu Cangli in puzzlement.

"Master Fu, are you certain your disciple is a summoner? The quality of this lightning-type spell—at the very least, one would need to be a rare-grade lightning-type mage to master it, wouldn't they?"

Fu Cangli was actually not very clear about the abilities and summoned beasts Lu Zheng possessed, but that did not stop him from continuing to be proud.

"He is indeed a summoner. It's simply that a dungeon of this level clearly isn't worth his deploying a summoned beast. Who decreed that a summoner can't use lightning-type spells? Not just lightning-type spells—my disciple has many more skills. Perhaps even the afternoon's prefectural exam won't be worth his deploying a single summoned beast."

The tone of those words was plainly saying that the city exam and prefectural exam were both trash, not even worthy of making his disciple deploy a summoned beast. That smugness was something everyone present could sense.

But everyone also felt there was nothing wrong with what he said. Judging by the power of that one spell just now, none of those present could necessarily have taken it unscathed.

A mere second-tier summoner, yet the lightning spell he unleashed was so immensely powerful—so formidable that it left everyone deeply shaken.

"Haha, I'm very much looking forward to his performance! It's just a pity that the afternoon's prefectural exam will be held around Tianyang City in the First District, so I can't go. But this battle—I must watch it in real time! Let the genius under the jurisdiction of Fengdu City deliver another shock to those outsiders!"

Fang Xuanbin said with a loud laugh.

The last time Fengdu City had made such a splash was forty-seven years ago, when Fu Cangli burst onto the scene. Since then, no genius sufficient to awe the Alliance had emerged, until today—finally, it was Fengdu City's time to shine again.

Having such a genius appear within his own term of office was also a reflection of his political achievements, and Fang Xuanbin was extremely pleased.

The city-level exam concluded entirely in one morning. There was more than one assessment instance; the lower-level instances were greater in number and could accommodate many people simultaneously. Even the top-tier instances could actually admit ten people at once. With the exam starting at nine o'clock, one morning was enough for all the gold-badge students to complete their assessments.

The entirety of Fengdu City had sixty-two middle schools, yet only fifty-six gold-badge students. Many Level Four or Level Five war-readiness cities didn't have a single gold-badge student. A quarter of the gold-badge students all came from middle schools in the main city.

Resources in small places were very limited, and resources for those at the bottom were even more so.

Among these gold-badge students, over eighty percent came from prominent families in various cities. Taking the people Lu Zheng knew, for instance—Mu Yunlan, Dongfang Niaoniao, and Wang Jun—all came from prominent families. And even Lu Zheng himself had a Sage as his master; Yang Dong had only reached his current realm by riding on his coattails.

After lunch, the city-level exam score cutoffs were already out. Only students with an assessment score of 876 or above were eligible to proceed to the prefectural exam.

This score requirement directly eliminated ninety percent of the white-badge students—that is, ordinary students below LV. 15.

They wouldn't even get another chance to prove themselves.

At one o'clock in the afternoon, all examinees proceeding to the second assessment entered the teleportation array and arrived within the prefectural city of Tianyang City. Everyone's information was verified and registered once more. Compared to the simple and blunt single-instance assessment of the city exam, the prefectural exam would be far stricter! Thank you for your support! Please vote for recommendation tickets! Please follow and read! Please vote for monthly tickets!

(End of this chapter)