Chapter 121 — The Final Ranking Battle Begins

"Have you seen Shi Jin?"

In the stands inside the arena, Zheng Yan, first among the Seven Heroes of Archaeology, asked.

Though spectator slots for the professional assessment were by internal invitation and they had no right to be there, who could blame them for treating Director Li to a meal?

The arena was huge anyway, so they had successfully slipped in along with the Ancient Capital University recruitment team.

That meal had not been wasted...

"I get it—social death. If it were me, I'd have fled Blue Star overnight and gone to live on the moon," senior Lin Yu'er said with a snicker.

She was dying to know how Shi Jin had suddenly slipped away from the research institute... far too practiced at it!

"He says he's already at the venue."

Sister Xiong Qi looked at the message on her phone and said, "He's probably in the prep room."

"As long as he's alive, that's fine. I thought our junior here might have done himself in," the Seven Heroes and the others said with a nod.

If he could still make it to the final assessment, then the problem couldn't be too serious.

A young man who never goes through a chuuni phase has wasted his youth. We all went through it—I get it, I get it.

With that said, everyone turned to look at the surrounding spectator seats, where they spotted quite a few big names.

Although the ranking battle of the professional assessment was essentially a competition, the atmosphere on-site was nothing like a formal tournament.

There were no specially invited guests, no commentators—only the candidates participating in the matches, along with the examiners and referees.

The spectators, regardless of identity, background, or strength, all found their own spots to watch the battles.

Whether they were admissions tutors from the Nine Great Academies, representatives of the five major consortia, or officers of the Beast-Taming Corps, members of all these factions sat obediently in their own seats, gazing at the main hall's big screen.

Among those who had come from the Nine Great Academies, the spectators from Ancient Capital University carried the most weight.

After all, Ancient Capital City was Ancient Capital University's home turf. Beast masters who came to the city to take the professional assessment mostly made Ancient Capital University or local related enterprises their first choice.

The admissions tutors who had come from the other academies were purely there to probe for intelligence, to see if they could find some gap to exploit and poach talent.

Over on the Ancient Capital University seats, Admissions Office Director Lu Dongsheng had arrived along with a host of admissions tutors. Besides these regulars of the professional assessment, Director Li of the Archaeology Department, Tutor Ding, and a group of members from the Battle Club's school team led by the beast-eared girl Bai Xi had also come along to join the fun.

Lu Dongsheng looked at this crowd with a helpless expression, fully aware of why they had come.

"Haha, Student Shi Jin is already earmarked by our Archaeology Department. Director Lu, you don't need to help the other departments poach him—I know you're on good terms with Old He from the Battle Department," Director Li said with a chuckle.

Lu Dongsheng's mouth twitched. The Battle Department had indeed asked him to help recruit Shi Jin if he got the chance—though the odds were truly slim.

Shi Jin's achievement in discovering the evolved form of the iron-eating beast during the archaeological dig was no longer a secret among certain leaders at Ancient Capital University.

"I know, I know."

Director Lu shook his head with a smile, having no intention of putting effort into this matter. The task of the admissions office was not to serve any single department or target any one person—it was to have them all, to strive to invite every one of this year's seven hundred–plus newly certified professional beast masters to pursue further study at Ancient Capital University.

Only with sufficiently outstanding incoming students—outstanding students—could these top-tier academies obtain more education funding, then grow stronger across the board, and ultimately attract even more excellent beast masters. This was a virtuous cycle, and no year could afford to fall behind.

"Boss, is it really okay to slack off on training and come watch the assessment?"

Over on the Ancient Capital University seats, besides the Seven Heroes of Archaeology, some members of the Battle Club had also come.

Faced with the questions from the other members, the beast-eared girl Bai Xi rolled her eyes and said, "Who told you all to tag along? Training will be doubled when we get back."

Everyone: ???

"We've got to figure out a way to hoodwink Shi Jin into joining the Battle Club." Bai Xi looked back at the screen. That day, after seeing Shi Ying's performance in the video, she had fallen silent for a long time.

As expected of someone she had trained—his combat style carried her true legacy. He was a talent worth molding.

Bai Xi felt an impulse to drag Shi Jin off to competitions all over the place once he enrolled.

During university, there wouldn't be that many ruins for Shi Jin to explore anyway, so they might as well cultivate his strength first and have him follow them to competitions.

Mm, only by cultivating Shi Jin's combat ability well could Shi Jin better serve as a tool for Lu Yan. No problem there.

Besides these people who had come to the venue, there were also quite a few heavyweight family members of the candidates.

For instance, Yu Shu's mother—a top-tier dragon-taming master—sat quietly in the tunnel, smoking a cigarette and waiting for the assessment to begin.

And Yin Legend, who paid the utmost attention to his son, stood calmly with an old friend on an unnoticed high terrace of the venue, quietly watching from above.

Every candidate had a separate preparation room.

At this moment, Shi Jin, having overcome hurdle after hurdle, finally reached his preparation room and felt a wave of exhaustion.

It had been too hard.

Did anyone know what he had been through along the way? Having to guard against passersby and the media was one thing, but why did even the assessment staff get worked up when they saw him?

And then there was the "You're my eight-year-old daughter's idol—my daughter thinks you're so handsome." That line had directly granted Shi Jin the Earth Escape skill; he'd nearly dug an underground dungeon with his toes.

Shi Zhuo gave a faint sigh and looked at the preparation room filled with supplements, medicines, and nutritional products, then shook his head and finally turned to the crucial little television.

The information on his assessment opponents still hadn't updated...

The other thirty-one candidates were probably all waiting outside right now, watching the big screen out there. Shi Jin, however, didn't fit in—to avoid trouble, he had holed up in the preparation room to wait.

...

Eight in the morning.

In the main hall, as the assessment drew near, Qu Lishi, the chief examiner of this professional assessment, appeared once again.

His appearance signaled that the assessment was about to begin. The thousands of spectators present turned their eyes to the big screen in the hall.

At that moment, the screen was looping a highlight reel of the sixteen advancing candidates' brilliant battles from the previous ranking rounds.

These sixteen were all outstanding as well, hardly much inferior to the seeded candidates.

What they might have lacked in not being chosen as seeded candidates was perhaps a bit of luck—such as the luck of being singled out for emphasis in the Sky Eye's editing...

After three days of screening, 752 candidates had secured a rough sense of where they stood in this professional assessment.

Today was the final day of the assessment. The sixteen candidates who had broken through from the original field of 768 would face the sixteen seeded candidates in the ultimate ranking battle.