"You go first." He pointed to the nearest man to the crystal.
"Yes, sir!" The man nodded furiously, prepared to take on the task.
He walked toward the crystal.
"Okay, you will begin as soon as the crystal is activated."
The examiner pressed the button, causing the crystal to light up.
Auric could see the energy appearing in the crystal ball. There were only two elements—plant and wind—so Auric assumed that this man’s element was an earth element.
Their job was just to make the entangled strands straight. It looked simple, but the patterns on the strands of energy were actually much more complicated than the ones on the college test.
Then again, there were close to no gold-grade evolution masters at the university level, so it was only natural to have a much harder test.
The man was putting everything he had into controlling the energy strands in the crystal and finally untangled both strands before looking at the screen behind him.
"8.31 seconds."
"Yes!" The man pumped his fists.
The others felt a bit pressured. They needed to make sure they did it in under ten seconds.
"All right. Next person... is you." The examiner pushed one person toward the crystal.
The second person nodded with a serious expression. The moment the crystal shone, he immediately channeled his power.
"Haaaa!" The man gritted his teeth as he was having a little hard time, but he eventually succeeded. "I did it."
"No, you don’t." The examiner pointed to the screen. "10.98 seconds."
"What?" The man looked at the screen and turned pale. "But sir... I’m still 10 seconds!"
"You are almost a second too late. If you’re trying to take care of the patient, one second can cause their element to drop by another percent. You bastard, are you trying to kill the patient?" The examiner glared at him.
The man dropped to his butt, scared. However, he could only hang his head low, unable to refute his words.
"The test is always fair. If you have any problems with it, you can take it up directly with the chief, assuming the chief’s secretary doesn’t throw everything out. If you want to become a gold-grade evolution master, you’d better pass the test. Don’t make any excuses! Now, get lost."
"Hiiii!" The guy shrieked and hurriedly ran away.
Auric was amused. This examiner looked much more menacing than the other examiners.
"All right! Next!" The examiner pointed to another person.
The test continued. Fortunately, it looked like the only one who failed was the second person. Most of them managed to finish within seven to nine seconds.
However, the last person before Auric actually scored 4 seconds.
"Whoa!" The other participants looked impressed.
Even the examiner nodded in approval. "It looks like we’ve got someone quite remarkable today."
The guy who got such a score had a smug smile on his face.
Meanwhile, the examiner turned to Auric. "You are the last one."
Auric nodded and placed his hand on the crystal.
The examiner pressed the button, but the timer stopped as soon as it started.
"!!!" Everyone couldn’t help but open their eyes wide in shock. Even the examiner couldn’t contain his shock. The guy who looked so smug earlier dropped his jaw.
After all, Auric’s time was 0.68 seconds. It was less than a second.
"That’s impossible! It’s not possible to do it in under a second." Someone couldn’t help but protest.
The examiner frowned and said, "It looks like you’re done, but your result... it’s something that has never happened before to the point where even I find it unbelievable. Do you mind if you retry it?"
Auric casually nodded. "Okay."
"Okay. Thank you and sorry." The examiner didn’t even remember Auric was the one in front of him. He simply gestured with his finger as if pressing the button.
As soon as the crystal turned on, the timer stopped again, but this time it wasn’t 0.68 seconds. It was 0.45 seconds.
This time, everyone was dumbfounded.
"He... becomes faster?!"
"What the—!"
Even the examiner couldn’t believe the result, but the fact that he could actually go faster meant that he wasn’t cheating.
’Is this really not cheating?’ The examiner gulped, looking at Auric. ’Right? There are two more tests. I can use the remaining tests to prove whether he’s cheating or not.’
The examiner gestured toward the second test. "How about you start the second test first?"
"Sure." Auric casually nodded.
"All you need to do is touch the crystal on the opposite side with your magical energy, but try to control your energy so that it doesn’t touch any of the walls."
"Understood." Auric had been thinking whether he should hold back or not, but he knew he shouldn’t hold back in this matter. He wasn’t too worried he would expose himself.
After all, he registered under a new element. People would think he was just someone else.
Auric pointed his palm forward.
"You may begin. No need to worry about your time because it’s not related."
Auric nodded. To extend his energy all the way to the opposite side, he definitely needed to release a certain amount of magical energy.
If he didn’t release enough, he would end up stopping midway as he wouldn’t be able to extend his energy strand further.
But this was perfect. He already had the ability to finish this test before the National Selection, but Mr. Green’s lesson actually helped him a lot.
He released his energy, carefully controlling it so that he could shape it into a snake. The snake continued to expand, avoiding all kinds of walls and passing through all the gaps.
To everyone’s surprise, Auric hadn’t let his energy touch any of the walls at all.
The magical energy counter remained at zero.
Auric could see the particles, so he made sure that not a single particle actually touched any of the walls.
This way, he could get a full score.
Even the examiner couldn’t believe what he saw because Auric actually lit up the crystal on the other side, and he did it in less than five seconds.
"What? He did it?"
"No way, the walls must have malfunctioned. How come it’s still zero?"
The examiner waved his hand, sending his own energy into the walls. Suddenly, the counter jumped to 500 points.
"It’s not broken. His control is so perfect that his energy doesn’t touch any of the walls." The examiner dispelled everyone’s doubts.
They simply couldn’t believe it. Auric actually managed to get a perfect score.
"You... You must be an old master who is trying to go undercover so that you can show us up!" One of them couldn’t help but accuse Auric due to the big difference in their skills. He simply couldn’t believe that Auric was able to achieve all this when he was attempting to become a gold-grade evolution master at such a young age.
’An old master? Me?’ Auric was a bit dumbfounded by the accusation.
"You? Old? Well, that’s new." Lindwurm laughed.
"I am not an old master." Auric shook his head.
"He is not an old master." The examiner confirmed.
"No way. If not, he can’t possibly get this kind of score. He is hiding his face because it will be revealed that he’s already old enough to be a grandfather."
Auric was speechless. He briefly lowered his mask, showing the burning wounds that looked so real that people would never think they were just makeup.
They were startled when they saw the horrible burn wounds on his face.
Auric immediately covered his face again while saying, "I don’t want to show you my face because I’m afraid of disturbing you. It has been confirmed that I’m allowed to wear a mask because of my condition as well."
The other participants couldn’t help but fall silent after seeing such a horrible burn wound.
One of them couldn’t help but look at the one accusing Auric. "Dude... uncool."
They couldn’t say anything else after seeing Auric’s face. In the end, one by one, they continued with the test, trying their best to avoid getting distracted by what they had seen on Auric’s face.
Fortunately, all of them passed the second test, but the one who accused him earlier almost failed with a score of 987 points. He was a bit distracted because of the guilt he felt after accusing Auric.
Then, the last test began, as they were supposed to form the shapes according to the images shown on the screen.
This was basically the essence of Mr. Green’s lesson, so it wasn’t much of a problem for Auric. He could even draw them with multiple colors if they allowed him to.
Still, since he had to hide his identity, he only used his dark energy to form all the shapes.
Normally, people would have slight defects in their shapes, but the evolution masters would understand them as long as the basic shape was right.
After all, this was a test for the Extreme Bridge Management.
Even if there were a defect, as long as the shape was sealed properly, the technique would still work.
However, Auric not only got all the shapes right, but he even created a slight depth in each shape, leaving the examiner speechless.
The examiner graded everyone’s performances, but when he saw Auric’s scores, he couldn’t help but think, ’What kind of monster did Chief Lucas actually bring with him this time? So, the rumors about him were actually true?’
The examiner realized that he originally wanted to make sure Auric received a fair judgment, but Auric had aced all the exams, showing no gaps in his results.
That was why the examiner put another green label on it, writing, "No matter how weird his score is, don’t doubt it. I doubted it and I paid the price—Master Scales."
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