He looked at the examiner and answered truthfully “I can easily kill a low monster, which would earn me the points necessary to advance, but it wouldn’t be a good report and my next application for an early examination might be denied based on that.
A middle-rank one would be stronger than me, but still below my strength. It would be counted as me having at least some experience in killing enemies, and I could display my strength a bit, but based on the cultivation rank, it wouldn’t be impressive.
Overlooking high rank, if I chose top rank, then I am sure I could succeed. But that would be a situation where I would have to use all my power to show my full strength, which might truly end the enemy, but it might as well just weaken them a tick too few and end me in a real situation.
So, considering this is a test on whether I would do well as a eunuch and not whether I had the strength to compete with a Peak Essence Awakening Stage beast, then I should take high and proceed to get a good grade, showcasing my ability and courage while also my smarts and cautiousness.”
The examiner nodded at that and ended the small talk “Step back twenty steps and then scream ‘Ready’ when you are, we will be releasing a high-rank beast.”
The examiner didn’t doubt Ji Li’s ability to kill a peak beast, but that would truly be unrealistic and unpractical thing to do in the real world, it would be wiser to leave and retreat if they found such a beast at the low cultivation rank.
He liked eunuchs that weren’t pretentious, of whom he had seen plenty. Although the situation in the Eunuch Palace was good, it didn’t mean there was no in fighting at all, it was just done in different ways that would not harm the Eunuch Palace farther than a certain extent.
Ji Li was someone who was staying realistic to the point of nearly offending a higher ranked eunuch with his nonchalant display of calculated thinking. But every higher ranked eunuch would have thought of why Ji Li acted the way he thought, no one would blame him. At most, he wouldn’t be the kind their would associate with, but that wasn’t bad.
Following the command of the man of unknown rank, Ji Li stepped back twenty steps and prepared himself. He pulled a few seeds from his sleeve, waiting for the demon beast to come out. While looking at the gate, he already took a seed and placed it between his fingers, putting in some essence and letting it sprout slowly.
Soon, Ji Li saw the demon beast. It was a large one, seemingly around three meters. From what Ji Li could tell, it was a feline beast that seemed to be a jaguar. Ji Li had a wide range of knowledge and knew the speciality of jaguars – they were very good biters.
If he let the head of the Jaguar come even close to him, he might very well lose his head. Of course, he knew that he was relatively save during the competition, but he would still have to recover and possible fail the exam, which was something he couldn’t do at all.
So, he let the seed he had pulled early grow even faster and soon bloomed, it was a hibiscus flower. The variety that Ji Li had, had very large petals, unlike the usual ones. The Hibiscus flower is known for its healing effect, so when it bloomed, it gave off an herbal feeling.
Ji Li didn’t stop until the large petals were at the peak. Then, the expected happened, and the flower froze. The large petals grew in a circular formation, making them seem like a shield. The roots of the flower wounded around Ji Li’s glove, fully stable.
Feeling the weight of a shield that was a meter long, Ji Li felt very secure. Combined with it’s natural healing effect, the frozen pink hibiscus flower became a protective gear that made one full of energy.
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
Then, Ji Li took a different seed that he had prior and threw it in front of him. He had already placed a lot of essence into the seed before throwing, so when it landed, it’s roots spread around the platform, as it wasn’t able to pierce the ground.
The roots formed a semi-circular wall around five meters long around Ji Li, barely a few centimetres above ground, which seemed very small in comparison to its length. Then, thorns grew on the roots and a flower sprouted in the middle of the roots, rising as high as two meters.
It was a flower that Ji Li had used before, a Dahlia. Its beautiful appearance made one look at it. Truthfully, it had another ability besides having long roots with thorns – it could entwine people into its beauty and slow their thinking ability. So, people would think slowly and not properly try to defend when they were being restricted by its roots.
Ji Li was stronger than before, so naturally he found out something about his Talent – Winter Blossom, it could not only bloom the flowers to their peak, but it could also decide where their peak was truly, based on the amount of essence put it. Of course, there was a strong limitation of this, but he could currently at least change certain physical appearances of the flowers, like elongating them.
After having placed his two defensive seeds, Ji Li took out two other seeds, at this point the gate had already opened, and the jaguar was agitated and wanted to jump on Ji Li but was confused shortly by the flowers on the field.
Ji Li put in large amounts of essence he pulled from the tree beads of his gloves and threw the flowers left and right of each end of the Dahlia flower’s roots. This time, it was an offensive plant that he had been gifted by his elder brothers after he told them he had awakened the wood aspect.
Although they didn’t know his Talent and didn’t ask either, they could still guess that since it was a wooden aspect, it would have something to do with seeds, which wasn’t wrong. Lastly, as the two seeds were sprouting, Ji Li had already pulled another seed.
This seed was a special one, as it grew in Ji Li’s right hand too. Soon, purple flowers came to be, they were very small, and from a single seed, several sprouted. They swayed in the light breeze. They were called Windflowers, because they had the ability to call forth wind.
It was better to say that they were very light, and wind naturally flowed through them, but when the wind flowed just a bit more than usual, they would start spinning and re-using the energy of the wind that they experienced.
Ji Li stopped them from growing after their peak, then plucked them. He looked at the two sides of the Dahlia, the other flowers also grew to their peak and were about to freeze, to which Ji Li only reacted after the tip of the flowers froze.
These flowers were Shooting Stars, another purple flower which grew into several buds. The buds sprouted with the flowers to the back, looking like a badminton ball, ready to be shot. The flowers would become dry and light at their peak, exploding and flying at the slightest touch.
Then, Ji Li looked at the jaguar that was slowly going around the arena in the back, moving in a zigzag but not leaving the area, looking attentively between Ji Li and the Dahlia, still enthralled. Ji Li didn’t want to waste the moment and threw the plucked Windflower at the right Shooting Star.
The Windflower started spinning in the air until it finally formed a gust of air that flew and touched the Shooting Star, to which the buds fell of and flew widely into the direction of the Jaguar, which was surprised and dodged.
There were many shooting stars, and with their tips frozen, a single one pierced the Jaguar that reacted badly due to it’s focus being somewhere else. After being it, it felt a slight sting but didn’t think much of it, still, it became wary and solely focused on Ji Li, approaching him.
Ji Li used some essence from his standing point, twenty steps away from the gate, having not moved a single step away. He pushed the essence towards the Shooting Stars stem, which had grown a meter in height. The stem then froze, obviously not having any other seeds, it became a frozen stick.
Then, Ji Li plucked some more Windflowers and threw them all together at the Shooting Star, together with a lot of essence, the buds flew all and some of them nearly the jaguar, as they were supported by additional Windflowers, but still didn’t land and only became a breeze that flew by the jaguar’s body. It was now annoyed and stopped playing.
The Jaguar rushed forward with its tall body, directly biting onto the Dahlia, which was very harmless besides that it confused someone’s mind. The jaguar was careful of not stepping on the thorns, so he went around the semi-circle to the right, where the frozen stem of the Shooting Star was.
Apparently to make sure that Ji Li didn’t use it as a weapon, it rammed its body against it, and smashed the stick after putting in some strength, apparently stronger than it looked like. The jaguar now had a smug face.