As the final candidate of the hour was dragged off on a stretcher, coughing up blood and muttering nonsense, the first stage of the Heaven Sword Sect's assessment test finally came to a close.
Of the tens of thousands who entered, only a handful had passed.
And of those few, Lin Xuan stood out the most—not because he was the strongest, but because he was the most unexpected.
A nobody. A former handyman.
Yet now? He was one step away from becoming an outer disciple of one of the top sects in the Desolate Heaven Empire.
Everyone else who passed could be hailed as a genius anywhere they went, with their names already spreading like wildfire.
Of course, in the Heaven Sword Sect—where monsters walked the earth in human skin—those same geniuses barely counted for shit.
"All first-stage qualifiers, proceed to the central platform for the Combat Trial!"
A deep voice echoed from the clouds above.
