Chapter 338 First Round Rankings
The situation was dangerous to the extreme.
This was a dead-end. If the snake rushed in, no, as long as it casually spat out poison mist, Li Fen and Chu Jian would turn into corpses.
“Let’s kill our way out!”
Chu Jian gritted his teeth, preparing to fight for his life.
Yet, Li Fen was fearfully attacking the wall, wanting to open up a tunnel. “Ugly snake, over here!” Li Ziqi shouted loudly and tore a flame explosion spirit rune paper.
Embers were formed and then concentrated into a fireball the size of a coconut. It blasted toward the large snake.
BOOM!
The fireball exploded when it came in contact with the snake, causing a huge impact.
Si~
The snake screeched. Its tail whipped over and smashed into a wall.
Bang!
The powerful force caused the cave to shake violently like there was an earthquake. There were even loose stones falling down.
The snake seemed to have been angered. It ignored Li Fen and Chu Jian and began to speed toward Li Ziqi.
“Li Ziqi, run quickly!”
Chu Jian roared as he lunged toward the snake. If his life had to be exchanged for a girl’s life, he would never be happy again no matter how long he lived.
Li Ziqi knew she wouldn’t be able to escape, hence, she simply stopped running. She watched the large snake slithering over as she shouted, “Judge, you have exposed yourself!”
“Have you gone mad?”
Chu Jian was badly shocked. He didn’t understand what Li Ziqi was doing.
In his eyes, the snake only needed a few breaths of time to reach Li Ziqi. But at this moment, its bloody maw paused when it reached the head of the little sunny egg.
Pitter patter! The snake’s saliva dripped down. “Ah?”
n
Chu Jian was stunned. What situation was this? But he also stopped because he was worried that any movements on his part might stimulate the snake, causing it to do something harmful to Li Ziqi.
“Are you someone from the judging panel or purely a staff?”
Li Ziqi stared at the snake’s maw as she asked.
The little sunny egg smiled. At the start, she wasn’t too sure, but now, she could confirm it.
Si! Si!
Other than the slithering sounds of the snake, the cave was silent. However, a voice rang out a moment later.
“How did you discover it?”
“Ah? It was an act?”
Chu Jian’s eyes turned around as he swept the surroundings frantically, wanting to find who was speaking “Firstly, the movements of the snake. Hmm, how should I put it? It didn’t have a sense of ‘wildness’. When it moved, it didn’t bang into the surrounding walls at all. In such a nervous and high-speed chase, that seemed a little unusual.”
“Continue!”
That voice spoke.
“And after that, I discovered that this snake actually didn’t perform any substantial attacks. All its actions were to scare people. It spat out poisonous mist a few times, but it only did so after waiting for a certain amount of distance each time. This shouldn’t be the case. Given the intelligence of such a mysterious species of darkness, since it could survive up until now, it should understand how it should attack to gain the greatest advantage.”
Li Ziqi sat down, she was very tired.
“Naturally, the most important point was that it is too clean. Don’t you feel it’s strange that a gigantic snake that lives in a dark and wet cave throughout the year would be so clean?”
Li Ziqi smiled, there were too many mistakes.
“Maybe it loves to be clean?”
That voice disputed.
“Hehe, there aren’t even any fragments of food near the snake’s teeth. You might say that it swallows its prey whole, but for a wild beast like that, its breath would surely stink. However, its breath today doesn’t stink at all. Evidently, someone has cleaned its teeth with great care.” Li Ziqi glanced at the snake and waved her hand in greeting. “Do you need me to continue?”
“No need!”
The voice sounded impressed. “One last question, what is your name?”
“Li Ziqi!”
Li Ziqi stood up again. “A student from the Central Province Academy, I’m a personal student of Teacher Sun Mo!”
“Very good, I will remember you. Please pass through then.”
After that voice spoke, it let out a sharp whistle. The snake immediately left them and rapidly slithered away, vanishing into the depths of the cave.
“Li Ziqi”
Chu Jian rushed over and stared at the location where the giant snake vanished with wariness. He still felt a little frightened. But after that, shock appeared on his face.
This trial was actually fake?
The content of Saint Gate’s tests was truly impossible to be predicted. However, Li Ziqi was truly impressive. She had discovered so many details in such a dangerous situation. Was this still something humans could accomplish? “Go check on Li Fen!”
Li Ziqi instructed.
Li Fen’s legs had already gone soft. Although she knew that she was fine now, she temporarily wasn’t able to stand up as she was still trembling After three minutes passed, Tantai Yutang led the others over. One couldn’t help but say that the tracking ability of this sickly invalid was truly impressive.
“Is everything fine now?”
Xuanyuan Po gazed at the surroundings. “Where is the giant snake?”
“Let me tell you guys, the Saint Gate is too much. They actually use a mysterious species of darkness to scare us!”
Li Fen sobbed while complaining.
Earlier, she was truly frightened.
“The courage when you rush over has truly impressed me!”
Tantai Yutang praised and then stretched out his hand toward Li Ziqi.
Pak!
Li Ziqi hit away the hand and stood up herself.
“Did you discover it?”
The little sunny egg asked, while staring at Tantai Yutang’s eyes.
“I only felt that the snake’s movements were a little weird, but before I can clearly think about the reason, the situation occurred.”
The sickly invalid shrugged. “I’ll believe you this time!”
After Li Ziqi ascertained that everyone else was fine, she continued to urge them to hasten their journey.
In one of the caves in the Ten Thousand Snakes Cave, the observer was monitoring everything about the Central Province’s student group through a crystal board. “Li Ziqi is so impressive!”
Fan Yao was completely shocked. Honestly speaking, even he failed to realize that the giant boa was actually a spiritual beast.
“She is more suitable to be the group leader than Zhang Yanzong!” Song Ren praised. Upon hearing this, Gu Xiuxun’s lips twitched. However, she also admitted that Li Ziqi was truly very meticulous. Besides, the courage she displayed at the end was simply dazzling from the perspective that she was a young girl.
“Speaking of which, she truly worships you. Even when the judge was questioning her, she didn’t forget to mention your name.”
Fan Yao was envious as he poked Sun Mo’s shoulder.
All of this would be recorded down. After that, the major characters of Saint Gate would read through them.
The more outstanding Li Ziqi’s group was, as her personal teacher, Sun Mo’s fame would naturally be greater. At that time, there would be a chance for him to be employed by the Saint Gate.
This opportunity was only given to the most outstanding great teachers.
Sun Mo was very satisfied with Li Ziqi’s performance.
“Let’s go!”
The observer closed the crystal board and cast a deep glance at Sun Mo before he went to follow the student group.
Next, there were no more major trials. Given the strength of the Central Province Academy’s new student group, it was only a matter of time before they reached the endpoint.
Outside the Ten Thousand Snakes Cave, an hour had passed.
“Why are they not coming out?” Old Xiao frowned as he stared at the entrance. “Did they succeed in charging through?”
“Has your brain gone rusty? Can those people from the lousy school pass through the Ten Thousand Snakes Cave? I think they are most probably crying and screaming while fleeing
now!”
“That’s true. We weren’t able to pass this trial despite being so impressive. There’s no need to mention the Central Province Academy’s student group.”
“That giant snake is a mysterious species of darkness and isn’t easy to handle. They might have sought help from their teachers.”
The students discussed. Some were mocking the Central Province’s student group, while some were trying their best to think of a solution to pass this trial.
Liao Wenbing sat on a huge rock and stared in the cave’s direction. He had an unsightly look on his face.
(Damn!)
He missed the chance to leave the Ten Thousand Snakes Cave!
(What do you mean by them fleeing? Given the amount of time, the snake must have already attacked. Even if the Central Province’s student group failed, there would be survivors coming out. Since there were none, it meant that they had successfully left this place.)
The purpose of this tournament was to test the students and the teaching abilities of each school. It wasn’t for the sake of killing these students.
This was especially so for the new student competition. A single human-faced canyon to instill fear was enough. Honestly speaking, when many student groups saw the red words, indicating the danger level of the Ten Thousand Snakes Cave, they would immediately choose to go via another way. Although the distance was far, it was much safer.
sa
The Central Province Academy’s students rode their spiders and continued rushing. When one of the mounts got tired, they changed to another one.
The only troublesome thing was that Lu Zhiruo had to constantly placate the broodmother and control the large spiders with violent tempers through it.
On the second day’s afternoon, a large swath of wetlands finally appeared in everyone’s vision. Li Ziqi inclined her head and glanced over. She could see groups of honglu birds occasionally flying across the skies, filling the place with their chirps.
Everyone was extremely excited. They were about to arrive at the endpoint.
“Ziqi, you were correct!”
Zhang Yanzong felt extremely rueful. This time around, if Li Ziqi wasn’t here, no, if Lu Zhiruo, Tantai Yutang, and Li Ziqi weren’t here, they would have failed. These three were the absolute crucial reason why they succeeded.
Without them, they would definitely exceed the time limit of five days and get directly eliminated.
A small campsite was already constructed on Honglu Island. The judge group, logistics group, medical group, and a few headmasters and representatives were all already waiting here.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
Three signal bullets rose into the air. This indicated that another student group had arrived.
Many people walked out from their mushroom-like tents. They gathered at the line that marked the endpoint. The medical staff was also here in position, ready to treat the injured students.
“Good afternoon, Headmaster Zhang. I heard that you guys obtained second place this time around? How impressive, you guys surely have the chance to ascend to the ‘C’ grade this year,” greeted an old man.
This old man was the headmaster of the Mingshao Academy. His surname was Ming. “Old Ming, your students got first place. Are you making fun of me by saying this?”
The one who spoke was Headmaster Zhang of the Sky Orchid Academy. He hated jokes the most.
The new student group of their school had long since reached the endpoint this morning. However, this didn’t stop them from coming out to witness the journey of others as they collected information.
Basically, for the first ten teams to complete the first round, they could directly be treated as competitors.
“The ones arriving now should be the fifth place, right?”
“Who do you guys think it will be?”
“Most probably Haizhou? According to the strength level, it should be them!”
The headmasters discussed.
“Old Zhang, do you think it could be the Central Province Academy?”
Headmaster Ming glanced into the distance.
“Difficult!”
Headmaster Zhang shook his head. “That little lass An Xinhui is still passable when it comes to teaching. But being a headmaster? She is too inferior! It will be considered not bad if the Central Province Academy could maintain its ranking.”
“Old Ming, the Central Province Academy is already a thing of the past. You shouldn’t pay attention to them. Our eyes should look forward instead!”
Headmaster Wei of Haizhou laughed. When he heard the surrounding people mentioning his school’s name in their discussion, he was very happy.
This proved that Haizhou’s strength had already gained the approval of the headmasters of these famous schools.