Forbidden Zone of the Human Race

Chapter 5 Examination

The next day, Xiang Ning woke at daybreak, then put on the uniform he received from the school after brushing his teeth. The white school uniform showed off his fit figure. Standing before the mirror, Xiang Ning suddenly felt like something was off, but he couldn’t quite put his finger on it. After smoothing his clothes, he cooked a pot of porridge in time for Xiang Xiaoyu to come downstairs. 

Xiang Xiaoyu brightened the moment she laid eyes on Xiang Ning’s new clothes. Since the uniform was brand new, it was clean, the black lines on the sides clearly standing out from the white. It was a good look. 

“It suits you!” Xiang Xiaoyu praised with a grin. 

When he saw his sister, who was wearing a pretty dress, he couldn’t help but smile. “I sure hope so. Alright, get yourself washed up, I’ll fry you an egg with breakfast.” 

Xiang Xiaoyu whooped and ran into the bathroom. When she came back out, she saw him bent over the pot, pouring some porridge into a bowl. After eyeing him from head to toe, she said, “I think you’ve grown again.” 

When he put down the pot, he replied with some uncertainty, “I don’t think so?” 

Xiang Xiaoyu grabbed his hand. “We’ll know when we measure you.” As she spoke, she pulled him to the wall by the bed and pushed him against it. After checking his height, she exclaimed in surprise, “You’ve really grown taller! About two or three centimeters!” 

“Really?” Xiang Ning was surprised too. That meant he was at least 1.7 meters tall now. Since they hadn’t grown up with adequate nutrition, they had always been a little shorter than the rest of the kids. Take Xiang Ning for example—when he arrived at school, most of the other students were taller than him by at least half a head. 

“How’d you even grow this much in a night?” Xiang Xiaoyu asked, eyeing him. Xiang Ning recalled the system he received and how he had consecutively broken through four stages. Did that have anything to do with his height? 

There was no other explanation for it. He looked at her and answered, “It’s probably because I practiced the advanced breathing techniques the school gave me. You should work harder, too, lower secondary is the time students truly begin their cultivation.” 

She nodded. “Mm! I’ll work hard!” 

The two siblings happily ate breakfast and walked to the bus stop together. Yesterday, Xiang Ning had gone to school alone for registration so he hadn’t taken the public transport, but since his little sister was going to study in the same area, he wouldn’t make her suffer like that. 

The bus ride from their house to the school gate was fifteen minutes long. However, this was the lower secondary section of Qiling High School and was separated from the upper secondary section by a lake. It wasn’t huge, but it took fifteen minutes to walk around its entire circumference, making for a total of twenty minutes to walk from the lower to the upper secondary area. Xiang Ning read on the online forums that this place held secrets. 

Although they were part of the same school, to prevent unnecessary conflict between the two forms, the school separated the students. 

Xiang Ning sent Xiaoyu to her classroom and left. On the way there, many guys—who in his eyes were just annoying kids—looked over, though they were obviously only looking at Xiang Xiaoyu. But he was used to that, and simply left after saying a few words of caution to Xiang Xiaoyu. 

It was no longer early out, so any delays would make him late for school. Being late on the second day of school would definitely leave a bad impression on the teachers. As he ran to class, he realized he felt energetic and didn’t need to slow down. A twenty-minute walk was cut to ten minutes and his breathing remained light. 

“This feels amazing. Is this the power of a Physical Tempering stage eight practitioner?” muttered Xiang Ning. He had been in a daze since he’d broken through and achieved stage eight the night before. He didn’t know what that mysterious system was; all he knew was that he couldn’t let anyone know or he might be caught and dissected for science! 

The bell rang just as he arrived at his class and walked to his seat. He felt much better seeing all of his classmates wearing the same uniform as him. 

Very soon, a lady with black-rimmed glasses and a stern look walked up to the rostrum. “Good morning everyone. I’m Ma Shujing, your culture subject teacher. I only have one request for my classes: do not disrupt my lectures. It’s your own business if you want to learn or sleep, but anyone who disrupts my class will suffer the consequences.” 

When she said ‘suffer the consequences’ and pushed up her glasses, the students shuddered. This teacher was not one to be messed with! 

Ever since the revolution three hundred years ago, the assortment of school subjects was grouped into two large subjects. The first was culture, where students learned about cultural subjects, and the second was combat, which was much easier to grasp. 

“Alright, we’ll begin the first advancement exam,” announced Ma Shujing calmly, causing the entire class to burst with conversation. 

“Miss Ma, what’s a ‘first advancement exam’?” 

“Didn’t your lower secondary teachers tell you about it? An exam is held for students who first enter upper secondary. The top three students will be named ‘stellar students’ and awarded a month’s worth of cultivation resources by the school.” 

Many pairs of eyes brightened the moment she spoke. Although there were many rich kids here, most of them were still middle- and upper middle-class citizens. It took considerable effort to send their children here, and that effort was mainly for the excellent cultivation resources. 

“Miss, could you give us some time to prepare?” a girl weakly asked. 

Miss Ma glared out of the corner of her eye, immediately silencing the student. She pressed a button on the rostrum and a hologram rose out of each table. Other than the glowing screen, the students couldn’t see anything else while seated. However, Ma Shujing watched them like a hawk, and any attempts to cheat would immediately be spotted. 

Despite the initial confusion, the students quickly settled and started completing the questions. They had experienced an exam like this two months earlier, anyway. 

In this era of cultivation, the human brain developed much faster. Therefore, the examination had an unlimited supply of questions covering many subtopics. The computer system immediately detected right and wrong answers throughout the exam. Theoretically, the more questions you answered, the more correct answers you would have because there were loopholes like the madman strategy of consistently choosing answer A. 

Perhaps the test was generally considered difficult but Xiang Ning didn’t have much difficulty with it. Although he wasn’t particularly talented at cultivation, he still studied hard. He could still easily find an administrative job in the future, though it might not be as lucrative as being a cultivator. 

The exam ended an hour and a half later. Ma Shujing transferred all of the data into the system on the rostrum, generating a list of results. 

“Zhang Cheng, four hundred and thirty-six completed questions, three hundred and one correct answers. Not bad,” announced Ma Shujing. 

“Haha, not bad dude! I busted my ass only to make it to the two hundreds. I’ll probably only get a hundred of those correct.”

Zhang Cheng chuckled. “It’s alright.” For some reason, he turned around and looked at Xiang Ning, who had a shocked expression. Zhang Cheng felt that Xiang Ning must have been surprised. 

“Liu Ruoxue, four hundred and ninety-one completed questions, three hundred and seventy-five correct answers. Very good.” Miss Ma’s expression visibly softened. 

As she carried on, the top three students were obvious now: Li Zimo, with five hundred and sixty completed questions, four hundred and twenty of them correct answers, as well as Liu Ruoxue and Zhang Cheng. 

“Li Zimo lives up to his reputation. When we were classmates in lower secondary, he was always ranked at the top in both culture and cultivation classes.” 

“Liu Ruoxue’s a genius too.” 

“They’re definitely the top three now.” 

Li Zimo was already far ahead of the rest, but when Miss Ma announced the last name, the entire class froze. 

“Xiang Ning, seven hundred and eighty completed questions, seven hundred and fifty-nine of them correct. Very good, this is commendable!” 

Everyone could feel the emotion in Ma Shujing’s voice and turned to look at Xiang Ning in the corner.