Yue Yang and Young Lord Mingzhu hurried to the venue.

The assessment ceremony was declared open.

Because the storming of the puppet factories during the assessment had killed over a hundred and gravely wounded dozens more, of the hundred-odd students who remained able to take part, no small number bore wounds of their own; the whole venue was steeped in a pall of grief and gloom.

Only after the memorial rites, presided over in person by the Heavenly Pride Chairman, did this heartbreaking session’s assessment ceremony at last formally begin.

“By the unanimous evaluation, over many days, of thirty-six Heavenly Pride members and thirty-six specially appointed assessors, among the entries of this session’s students—Jinji, Yangping, Hauge, Tiange, Silver-Eyes, Phantom, Blood Shave, Golden Bones, and the rest—one work has been singled out for particular distinction: the newcomer from Silver Maple City, the student Titan, whose Work One, the ‘Sacred-Grade Quill Pen,’ Work Two, the ‘Original Rune Array Diagram,’ and Work Three, the ‘Original Battle Construct,’ are jointly judged this session’s foremost in creation and creativity. He is hereby awarded the honor of champion, together with the Ring of Creativity that symbolizes that title, as his reward! We hope the student Titan, having won this champion’s honor, will press on to greater heights still—and we hope, too, that every newcomer will take him as a model to learn from and better themselves… Now, will the student Titan please come to the stage to receive the champion’s honor. Let us all applaud in congratulation!” The Heavenly Pride Chairman personally conferred upon Yue Yang a golden scroll denoting the championship, along with a gold-grade champion’s Ring of Creativity.

“My deepest thanks to the Heavenly Pride Chairman and to all the honored instructors for recognizing my work. Titan will redouble his efforts, and progress together with every student here below the stage.” Yue Yang delivered an acceptance speech that was brief and dutifully, utterly free of any novelty.

“What a lazybones!” Down below, Young Lord Mingzhu wasn’t quite satisfied. In his view, when Yue Yang gave his speech he ought to have thanked a few of the people who’d supported him—himself, for instance.

Here he’d finally, against all odds, taken a championship, and he mumbled two rote lines and came straight back down.

Not a word even for the people who’d helped him, not a single thanks.

What did you call that?

Of course, Mingzhu knew perfectly well that Yue Yang was no ingrate. He was simply too lazy—too lazy even to linger a moment longer on that award stage.

The honored Principal was flushed with color. On the surface he seemed perfectly composed, quite unlike Instructor Oumon and the others cheering in their excitement—but step a little closer and you could see it: the emotion in the Principal’s eyes, which no effort could quite hide.

Chimu clapped with all his might, all the while ignoring the provoking glares Jinji and Yangping shot over from not far off.

The Chimu of now felt Jinji and Yangping were simply too low a tier. He no longer deigned to count them as rivals.

Indeed, even Young Lord Yangquan—once numbered alongside him among the Four Young Lords of the Light Alliance—Chimu now felt he himself had pulled well ahead of…

That the laurel for creation and creativity should go to Yue Yang, a rookie who’d invented a “Sacred-Grade Quill Pen,” took few by surprise.

Even Jinji, Yangping, and the others who loathed Yue Yang to the marrow only nursed their resentment in secret. None raised any objection to whose laurel it was.

When this result came out, a handful of uncomprehending students who’d harbored doubts were at first quite unable to work it out: why hadn’t the grand prize for creation and creativity gone to Jinji, inventor of the Strong Magnetic Battle Construct? But once they’d heard the name “Sacred-Grade Quill Pen” and gotten the relevant rumors from acquaintances nearby, every one of them fell silent, shook their heads with a sigh, and abandoned any deeper inquiry. Sacred-grade? Within Human Valley, that was a gulf to make a man despair. The Strong Magnetic Battle Construct was fine and good, but it was only gold-grade—and how immeasurably far gold-grade fell short of sacred-grade! Had this rookie, little Titan, who’d so idly invented a sacred-grade quill pen, poured his attention not into a quill but into battle constructs, then even Ji Wuri, master of the Vengeful Prince, would likely have been left in the shade.

Of course, not one of them knew the true reason Yue Yang had taken the laurels in both creation and creativity—and it was not merely the Sacred-Grade Quill Pen.

More important still was that he had invented the Flying Battle Construct.

For the sake of protecting him, and at the Principal’s special request, the Heavenly Pride Chairman just now, in conferring the award, hadn’t said outright that it was a flying construct, using the phrase “Original Battle Construct” in its place. Otherwise the students below the stage—and the instructors, scholars, and noble representatives sent from every region to take part in the ceremony—would surely have been so stunned they’d not have known how to react.

“Hmph. If you’ve got it in you, take the next few awards too.” As Yue Yang stepped down from the stage to return, Jinji shot a cold snort at him.

“Envy is the mark of the weak.” Yue Yang brushed it off with a laugh, not so much as glancing at the man.

As though Jinji—once the loudest-tipped favorite for the crown—were nothing but a maggot.

To spare him even a look—

—would only soil the eyes.

Such humiliation had Jinji grinding his steel molars to shards in his hatred. Several times he nearly lunged forward to demand a decisive duel of Yue Yang, but with the Heavenly Pride Chairman and so many instructors present and watching, he clamped down on it for dear life, to preserve his eligibility for the assessments still to come.

Yangping and a few friends hurried to talk Jinji down. “Don’t take it to heart. The assessment’s only just begun—there’s no way this brat stays smug for long!”

By the ceremony’s custom, the champion decided on the first day was creation and creativity.

Because of the appearance of a monstrous item like the “Sacred-Grade Quill Pen,” Jinji and his lot had long since braced themselves for Yue Yang taking this crown. But in the assessments to come, they were confident they’d beat Yue Yang and seize the final overall championship.

The overall championship, of course, was no easy thing to take.

The championship.

The assessment ceremony was divided into five great categories.

Creativity and creation was one, its physical champion’s honor being the “Ring of Creativity”—a gold-grade ring, the very thing now on Yue Yang’s hand.

Next came the championship for research and invention. This crown was no easier to win than the creativity one; in past assessments, the evaluations in these two categories had often ended with the “better vacant than unworthy” outcome of no award at all. That is, if a given session’s student entries fell short of the mark, the Heavenly Pride Academy would sooner give no prize than hastily crown some substandard work. The Ring of Creativity of creation and creativity, and “Divine Craftsmanship”—the champion’s honored treasure of research and invention—were together reckoned the two hardest champion’s honors to win in the whole ceremony.

Generally, works that could take the Ring of Creativity were entries unrelated to battle constructs—art, fine cuisine, architecture, or works in some other field.

Research and invention was just the opposite: almost uniformly battle-construct works.

Last session’s Ji Wuri had stolen all the thunder. His platinum-grade Vengeful Prince was beyond anyone’s match—yet even so he hadn’t won the creativity crown, taking only the grand prize for research and invention.

“Junior City Lord, your Strong Magnetic Battle Construct can sweep the field. There’s no need to trade momentary tempers with that fool from Silver Maple City who invented a sacred-grade quill pen—the research and invention grand prize to come is bound to be yours.” Jinji’s attendants flattered him for all they were worth. And little wonder they had such confidence: in the storming of the puppet factories the students had suffered heavy losses—some dead outright, some whose constructs were shattered and who’d barely made it back whole; even a figure like Ji Wuri had returned in defeat—whereas Jinji had preserved his own strength splendidly. How could he not be riding high? How could his followers not raise their caps in celebration?

“What I want is the overall championship!” Jinji glared fixedly toward Yue Yang, grinding his back teeth, and gave a hateful snort.

To win the overall championship, one had to do as last session’s Ji Wuri had done: take three or more category championships.

An overall title claimed on just two category crowns, or fewer, carried no conviction.

And so the assessment ceremony’s overall championship was frequently vacant. When ordinary students bragged of being “champions,” what they meant was that they’d taken one of the ceremony’s five category crowns—not the overall title Ji Wuri had won.

Of the five category crowns, creativity and creation, and research and invention—these two were the hardest to take.

After them came the category crowns for “Cultivation and Etiquette” and for “Knowledge and Scholarship,” which were the easiest to win; no session’s evaluation ever lacked for candidates in them. Last of all was “Tactics and Strategy,” decided through a collective grand martial contest of the students, high and low sorted out to determine whose the crown would be. This key Tactics and Strategy category was certain to produce a champion each session—and it was the one category Jinji was most confident of taking… If he couldn’t get this crown into his hands, then he could forget dreaming of the overall title!

Whatever Jinji had in mind, Yue Yang and Young Lord Mingzhu simply ignored it.

Even Chimu knew one outcome for certain: that in the research and invention grand prize to be conferred next, it was fair to say nothing would slip out of Yue Yang’s grasp either.

After all, however impressive anyone else’s construct, it could never stand comparison with the “Flying Battle Construct”—which opened a new era and birthed a whole new mode of warfare. Only, unlike the creation and creativity prize, this research and invention grand prize could be won by a team jointly. That is, the ones to receive it would not be the student alone, but would also include the Principal, Instructor Oumon, and the other participants who’d developed the flying construct.

After the award, custom dictated a collective grand martial contest of the students.

Jinji craved a bout with Yue Yang more than anything—to trample this detestable enemy underfoot before all the world.

Alas, in a contest fought by drawn lots, there was no such possibility at all. After Jinji beat his opponent with imposing majesty, he could only watch, wide-eyed, as Yue Yang breezed through his own round with nothing but a single silver war-wolf.

Let’s see how long you can keep smiling! Jinji had now set the great stone in his heart fully at ease. Little Titan wasn’t using a sacred-grade construct, nor a platinum one, nor even a gold one—merely a silver wolf. That being so, however lucky he got in the rounds, come the semifinals and final there was no way he could win. And even if he scraped through by some fluke and reached the grand final, Jinji’s own gold-grade Strong Magnetic Battle Construct could utterly crush that silver wolf!

“Congratulations, Junior City Lord—you’ve got this in the bag.” The people around Jinji laid on the flattery thick.

“Victory’s ours!” Yangping clenched his fists too. If it was a silver-grade construct, then he too stood a chance of beating this insufferably cocky Titan.

“What idiots…” Chimu shook his head and sighed, all the while spitefully imagining: if Jinji, Yangping, and that lot actually ran into Yue Yang, would little Titan’s invented constructs scare them into wetting their pants on the spot? Perhaps they’d get this fellow Titan to torment them to tears, alive and kicking!

“How dull!” Young Lord Mingzhu gave a yawn. Days without a worthy opponent really were lonely! Only Ji Wuri counted as a good rival—beating the likes of Jinji and Yangping brought no sense of accomplishment at all. Were it not for the crisis of the evil god’s impending return, which still weighed on Mingzhu’s mood, then a battle of this caliber would have Mingzhu dozing off in his seat.

Yue Yang and Young Lord Mingzhu were about to head back for a lazy nap when Chimu suddenly came running over, gasping for breath, and cried out, “This is bad—there’s trouble! Some fellow named Hauge has squared off against Ranfeng, on the Western Peak battlefield. They’re fighting fit to shatter heaven and split earth, locked in a brawl with no end in sight… This Hauge, who had no reputation whatsoever before this, actually possesses two gold battle constructs—next to Jinji, who was crowing about being first and dead set on the crown, Hauge would likely beat the crap out of him. But here’s the truly unbelievable part: Hauge, with his two gold constructs, is actually being pinned down and hunted by Ranfeng! That’s impossible. There’s no way Ranfeng is that strong—even if he preserved his strength in the assessment, there’s no way he’d possess a platinum construct on par with Ji Wuri’s Vengeful Prince!”

Young Lord Mingzhu blinked, startled. “A platinum construct? Ranfeng has a platinum construct? Not his gold-grade Raging Flame Construct?”

Yue Yang caught on at once.

It was an evil god’s bargain!

Otherwise, there was no way Ranfeng could possess a platinum construct, and no way he could pin down and pummel Hauge—who wielded two gold constructs—like this… Now, at last, the headache had arrived. If this was an evil god’s bargain, then how many more secrets did Ranfeng carry on him, how many more platinum constructs? Ranfeng had come away from his bargain with the evil god holding a platinum construct—so what of Ji Wuri, the very first to enter the Tower Beyond the Tower to bargain with the god that night?

(End of Chapter)