Mountain Sitting Immortal

Unfortunately, Thompson isn't of much use to him anymore. What is left of Thompson is their childhood friendship.

So he only felt that Thompson would be missed and that it was a pity that he died so young. He didn't feel more than that at all.

Despite the shallow impact of Thompson's death on him, he is probably the only one on this ship, apart from his students and Geltra, who feels something about his death.

He is sure that Lady Delie and his mother don't feel anything about Thompson's death. If Lady Vena, of all people, who knew Thompson didn't feel much and used Thompson's death as a teaching opportunity for her son, then no one else in the Dyson family will care that the son of her servant died in the exam.

He thought to himself darkly as he glanced at Geltra and Lady Vena, "I wonder what Mother will feel if Geltra dies."

He chuckled inwardly after thinking that.

He wasn't the only one in the mood to be amused despite witnessing the death of someone they knew. Tyson was still full of excitement.

The boy didn't even feign sorrow and sadness. He simply switched the viewing card to the point of view of another person in the family and continued watching the show.

Arthur thought to himself when he saw this, "Thompson died, but the world will move on without a pause."

He was right about that. The test was still going on. The fate of many people was still hanging in the balance. Thompson's death was just one of many.

Many people died on the first day of the test. Many children of the family and many of his students from the dojo perished. The total count was more than five hundred thousand. That's 10% on the first day.

Both the strong and the weak died in equal proportion. It made Arthur wonder if the danger to the examinees was relative at all.

This much death in a single day caused the ranking list to change many times. Some names rose up the list, while some fell. Most times that someone's name fell, the name disappeared completely from the list.

It happened, but it was rare that someone's name fell in the ranking list without them dying. Death was rampant on that first day.

Fortunately, after the first day, the number of deaths began to shrink. It is because the examinees have formed groups. They gained strength in numbers and were able to resist the rampaging beasts.

The death toll on the second day fell from 10% to 9%. Then it fell to 8% on the third day.

The death toll continued to reduce because the unlucky and weak had already been killed. The groups were also growing larger while the population of beasts was shrinking.

Even so, 7% of the total 5.2 million examinees still died on the fourth day. Then 6%, 5%, and finally 4% on the seventh day. In total, the death toll was 49%.

49% of 5.2 million is 2.55 million. 2.55 million out of the 4.2 million people who participated in the test died. That's 60.7% of the participants of the fourth test.

So more than half of those who participated in the fourth test died. Nearly two-thirds of them died. It was a massive loss.

The loss was so great that many of the people who abstained from the fourth test rose in ranking. But those who survived the test also gained a lot.

Arthur's position as number one with performance points of 24,155 remained untouched. The person in the second position acquired 5,792 performance points. The difference between the first and second positions was still large.

Actually, someone had gained more than 10,000 performance points at some point. But that person didn't survive long. They died and were replaced by someone who performed worse.

This marked the end of the regional sect examination. The first 50,000 was set. Most of these 50,000 people were at the tenth transformation. Only a lucky few with weaker transformations made it to the top 50,000.

According to tradition, the first 50,000 will surely get admission to a sect. All of them will be invited by one sect or the other. But the quality of the sect that will invite them and the type of invitation will be different.

Ranking is not all that is needed to be invited into a sect. Ranking will only grant some certainty. Talent can also help someone to be invited.

Even if someone is not in the top 50,000, as long as they possess a special talent that the sects want, they will be invited too. But ranking is still the most important because it will grant assurance of admission.

The people didn't disperse after the regional sect examination ended. They had to wait a day for the invitations to be sent out and for the library to open.

The library is for those who don't receive any invitation. These unfortunate many can use their performance points to exchange for techniques.

Everyone who participated in the fourth test will also be granted one free technique if they didn't get invited. This is a reward for the risk they took.

These two rewards make it so that no one will feel like they wasted their time and risked their lives in vain for the sect examination. So many people will still come to try their luck after five years.

The techniques in the library are the consolation prizes. The real prize is the invitations.

There are four grades of invitations. They are the S, A, B, and C grades.

The S-grade invitation is for special people. Ranking doesn't have any effect on getting this invitation. Only special and extraordinary talent is needed to acquire this invitation.

The people given S-grade have to be beyond normal either in terms of mana affinity, willpower, luck, temperament, fighting skill, physique, bloodline, etc. They are people that the sects want regardless of their current cultivation.