The First Test
Zheng-Fu followed the blue-robed Elder into the building to where the test took place. It was at the same time that Sue-Wu was walking out of the building. When he saw that Zheng-Fu was walking after the Elder, he crinkled his eyebrows because he was curious why…
“That’s Zheng-Fu. Where is he going? How come he is with the Elder of the alchemist association?”
The blue-robed Elder was actually the Elder of the Association of the Alchemists in In-See City. Sue-Wu tried to follow the two of them, but they had disappeared from his sight…
In the building of the Association of the Alchemists…
Zheng-Fu continued to follow the blue-robe Elder. There were a lot of people who stood around within the building too. They flocked in front of the doors that led to different test rooms. The people who saw Zheng-Fu walk in felt strange to see him there…
“What’s that kid doing here?”
“Is he coming to apply for a place in the association?”
“It's impossible. He might be some guy’s nephew who wants to tack along.”
Everyone thought that Zheng-Fu was probably a boy who came to look for his relative. No one thought that Zheng-Fu wanted to take the tests too…
“Alright, wait here. These are the rules and details about the tests. Just read them and understand them.”
“Thank you, Elder!”
The blue-robe Elder then walked inside the room, letting Zheng-Fu stand in front of the room, waiting to get in like the others. After that, many people were talking left and right.
“He’s here to take the tests! Still so young!”
“How is it possible? He’s still young! How come they let that kid apply in the first place?”
Everyone started to suspect and question what they saw. They went ahead to look down and make fun of Zheng-Fu, but Zheng-Fu did not pay attention to their words. He just managed to read the details that he got quietly. Not long after that, a good-looking man wearing a grey robe like what Sue-Wu wore walked towards him. Then he said,…
“Hey, kid! It’s your turn!”
“Yes, sir!”
Zheng-Fu looked at the man and agreed to follow the man to the test room that the man came from…
“Alright, I believe that you have gone over every detail about the test, so I don’t need to explain much. There will be three tests altogether. The first test will be about the fundamental knowledge of herbal plants. If you pass this test, you will be sent to the next one.” The grey-robed man told Zheng-Fu the details without paying attention to him that much. He kind of sent a gesture of looking down at Zheng-Fu. He thought that a kid like Zheng-Fu would do nothing but waste his time. If it was not the order of the Elder of the association, he would have chased the boy away since the beginning…
When Zheng-Fu got into the room, he saw a table with a writing brush, ink, and a big pile of papers on it…
“Why did you let this young kid take the exam? What do you want to prove, Elder Ming-Wang?” An Elder asked the blue-robed Elder out of curiosity…
“Yeah! And why did you ask us to see this boy taking a test? Is he an overnight genius?” Another Elder asked the blue-robed man another question while giving a delicious laugh…
“Hahaha!”
The three Elders were the Elders of the Association of the Alchemists in In-See City. They were in an important position and only answered to the Director and the Head of the association…
“I’m not sure about that, but I think this boy could be someone that our association has been waiting for. I could sense some kind of energy from him.” Ming-Wang answered the questions while stroking his long beard. He never left his eyes off Zheng-Fu since Zheng-Fu entered the room…
“That boy!? How could you tell? I don’t see that he is any different from any other kids. Can he go through this test at all because he must write down at least a thousand names of herbal plants? And we are going to time him too.”
“That’s right. I wouldn’t expect to see him write down a thousand names of herbal plants. Can he even write?”
Zheng-Fu walked up to the table, while the three Elders were talking about him. He knew that the first test was to test the knowledge of herbal plants. He himself could remember about 36,000 types of herbal plants well, so he did not wait any longer and started to write them down instantaneously…
“Look! He’s started to write!”
“What! Well, if you insist on us to see him take the test, then we will stay and see him with you. We don’t have anywhere to go anyway, so it wouldn’t hurt…”
The two Elders still had low expectations for Zheng-Fu because they could only see Zheng-Fu as a boy who did not have what it took to pass this test… Zheng-Fu did not hear all these harsh words because they were separated by a mirror wall behind him. It was soundproof…
It did not take long for Zheng-Fu to finish the first page. He started to gradually finish the second, third, fourth, and fifth pages. He was doing it so quickly. The man who took him to the test room got excited by his speedy writing pace. The boy could finish the whole five pages within no time. The man was wondering what exactly Zheng-Fu wrote down on those papers…
All applicants could sit in the first test for three shichens (six hours). Everyone seemed to sit through three shichens, but not a lot of applicants could pass the test…
Ming-Wang felt pleased to see that Zheng-Fu could finish up to five pages now, so he smiled at what he saw. Even though he did not know yet what Zheng-Fu wrote down, he was already impressed with Zheng-Fu’s writing skill…
“Tsk!”
“He probably wrote something funny in there.” The Elder on the left side of the blue-robe Elder released some sarcastic wind off his mouth to look down at Zheng-Fu when he saw the satisfied smile on the blue-robe Elder’s face. Then the same Elder ordered the young grey-robed man to fetch Zheng-Fu’s test answer paper to him because he wanted to check. Zheng-Fu himself continued to write more names of herbal plants without paying attention to anyone. Everything that he wrote down looked exactly like what he learned from the Fundamental Book of Herbal Plants…
“That’s crazy! How could it be?” The face of the Elder who looked down on Zheng-Fu earlier turned twisted with amazement the minute he read Zheng-Fu’s answer paper. The boy’s handwriting was so eminent and solid. The information about the herbal plants that he wrote about was perfect as if he copied everything down from the book…
“See! I told you!” Wang-Ming saw the shock, so he used the opportunity to reinforce his belief about Zheng-Fu instantly…
With everything that happened, Zheng-Fu continued to write down more knowledge about herbal plants without the sign of stopping. He now used up to 50 pages, which meant that he could cover up to five thousand kinds of herbal plants (1 page equals 100 herbal plants, so 50 pages equal to 5 thousand).
*What does this boy’s brain make of? How come he has such an exceptional memory?* The man who took Zheng-Fu to this exam room was bedazzled by Zheng-Fu’s ability on the test. Zheng-Fu kept writing the names of the herbal plants without wanting to stop. The man who used to look at Zheng-Fu in a demeaning way started to change his mind because he had a chance to read what Zheng-Fu wrote when he took his answer papers to the three Elders…
When he read Zheng-Fu’s answers, he realized that Zheng-Fu was not fooling around. They were the names of real herbal plants that were exactly from the Fundamental Book of Herbal Plants. It was like Zheng-Fu’s answer papers were the exact duplicates of the pages from the Fundamental Book of Herbal Plants…
A shichen had passed and Zheng-Fu was still writing. By now, there were about a hundred answer pages on his table. This meant that he wrote more than half of the names of the herbal plants that were presented in the Fundamental Book of Herbal Plants…
“Hasn’t he stopped writing? How much do you think he has covered now?”
“What does that boy’s brain make of? I guess his parents gave him some kind of fish oil or something so he has such an extraordinary memory like this.”
Now the three Elders were in an astonishing state of mind. Their eyes could pop out of the sockets because, for the past years, most applicants could only write up to one or two thousand kinds of herbal plants. But right now, they were witnessing an 8-year-old boy covering probably more than a thousand herbal plants’ names. The boy’s writing pace was speedy too. The whole thing could not keep the three Elders still in their seats…
Time kept moving forward and Zheng-Fu continued to write further, without any sign of stopping. While Zheng-Fu was writing down all the answers, he started to feel as if the more he wrote down the answers, the better his understanding of the knowledge about all those herbal plants he got. It was like he could differentiate the characteristics and qualities of those plants more evidently. He could see clearly the differences among some herbal plants that look completely similar to one another. Now he could differentiate their characteristics and qualities thoroughly…
Not only he felt a deeper understanding of the herbal plants’ knowledge, but he, all of a sudden, could also visualize tons of herbal medicine formulas in his mind. These were the formulas that he had never seen before, but he could memorize every single formula within a short period of time, thanks to his wonderful memorizing skill…
Two shichens had passed…
Clonk!
“Look! He’s stopped! Or…?”
“Brother! I’m done!” Zheng-Fu finally stopped writing down the answers. He then turned to the young alchemist to tell him that he had finished the test…
“Done!?”
The young alchemist’s face turned fascinated for a while until one of the Elders ordered him to go get all of Zheng-Fu’s test papers to the table to check…
“Here they are, Elder!” The young alchemist who took Zheng-Fu to the test room handed all of Zheng-Fu’s test papers to the three Elders to check. The young man could not help but try to glance at the answers because he was curious if they were correct…
“You can leave now. Tell the boy to go wait outside too.”
“Yes, sir!”
After the young alchemist took the order, he accompanied Zheng-Fu out of the test room. When everyone outside the test room saw Zheng-Fu, they fixated their gazes on him and gave a long exhale…
“Look at that boy! He’d been in there for a long time! But he didn’t use up the test time, eh?”
“He probably couldn’t make it, I guess!”
The gossips from those applicants got so loud that Zheng-Fu could hear, but he did not pay attention to them. He only sat down to wait for the result quietly. He thought that there was no need to pay attention to the gossips anyway…
“Get out of the way! Get out of the way!”
All of a sudden, a white-robed man with another two men walked into the building, towards Zheng-Fu’s direction. The two men were the very admission guys at the table in front of the building that Zheng-Fu met earlier…
“Hey, kid!”
“Hey!”
That white-robed guy stopped in front of Zheng-Fu and shouted to get Zheng-Fu’s attention. Zheng-Fu, however, intended to not give the guy his attention. He was sitting still and kept his head down to think only about his test result…
“Hey! Boy! Don’t you hear that the boss called you!?” The two admission men who stood behind the white-robed man started to show off. When they saw that Zheng-Fu tried to ignore them, they acted like a bully and one of them started to put his foot on the bench next to Zheng-Fu…
Bam! (a sound of a foot resting on the bench next to Zheng-Fu)
“Me!?”
“Yeah! You! Who else around here we are talking with!? The first admission guy spoke…
“Well, what do you want from me, handsome brother?” Zheng-Fu made a curious face and asked the white-robed guy…
“What does he want from you? It’s because you came to take the test, boy! You…”
But before the guy who placed his foot on the bench could speak further, the white-robed guy held his hand up to hush him and then said, “Do you know what this place is, boy?” Then he smiled like a cocky villain would normally do…
“It’s the Association of the Alchemists, handsome Brother!” Zheng-Fu answered and made an innocent face at the man…
“That’s right. It’s the Association of the Alchemists. That’s why this is not a place for a kid like you to come in and play. I think you’d better leave, kid.” The white-robed man continued to make a point…
“But I didn’t come here to play. I intended to take the test.”
The white-robed guy had to crinkle his eyebrows when he heard Zheng-Fu’s answer. Mainly it was because of the way Zheng-Fu carried himself when he spoke back to him. He did not seem to be afraid and appeared to be confident with his answer…
“Taking the test!? How well do you think a kid like you would know about herbal plants? How old are you by the way?”
“Eight years old, brother!” Zheng-Fu answered with an innocent smile on his face again…
“Eight years old!?”