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The person that took over was none other than Aleksandr, who had an unimpressed look on his face. He took Mu Yang's position in the sky and it sparked quite a bit of noise.

With his proper and neat appearance, some girls were already talking about how handsome he looked and Ruo Chen was one of them, just that he was a boy and he kept it in his mind. He had always had a thing for blond hair and it really showed with how there was a sparkle in his eyes as he looked at Aleksandr. 

Ruo Chen did not act that way in the booth as it would be too obvious and he had hidden it perfectly from view, but now with so many people around, he thought that no one would focus on him so he stared as much as he wanted.

I really did a good job with this character. He's so cool!

Ruo Chen thought in his mind that was filled with admiration for himself. 

Ye Ran was pissed at how Ruo Chen looked at Aleksandr. He isn't even that good looking. But he soon erased that thought from his mind as Aleksandr was going to give out the instructions.

"This hunt will last for roughly 5 hours. During this time, you will hunt for the animals in the forest. Each animal is worth different amounts of points and a list will be give to you before you enter the grounds. The higher you score, the higher you rank and thus the more likely you will be accepted into this school." Aleksandr stated with a calm voice as he counted how many students were in the crowd.

"There are around 3500 of you here, those in the top 10% will have the highest chance of entering."

With that, Aleksandr flicked his fair hand and everyone was teleported to the middle of the forest.

Some people felt dizzy after this transition and vomited out their breakfast. Ruo Chen felt a bit nauseous and he held onto Ye Ran for support, thankfully Ye Ran did not move away as he would have immediately fell face flat into the mud.

"This is a solo trial and teaming is not suggested as your points earned will be split." Aleksandr announced as he saw people grouping up and said a few more notices.

"You may begin."

A loud horn was then blown and all the participants went their separate ways, the lesser people near them, the more prey and thus points they will have to themselves.

Ruo Chen was about to say his goodbyes to Ye Ran but all he saw was his diminishing figure. As he was one of the last few still at the start point, Aleksandr saw the familiar figure and felt a strange feeling of pity looking at this particularly handsome participant.

"First he has a tragically average core and his friend abandoned him, seems like good looks is all he has." Aleksandr mumbled as he stared at Ruo Chen.

Ruo Chen however, expected this and left without a word.

***

As Ruo Chen went deeper into the forest, a thick mist could be seen shrouding the forest and it was getting harder to breathe. There were also puddles of ink around the forest that made it hard to traverse on the ground. Seeing that there was no one near his vicinity, Ruo Chen used the binding ropes skill to swing from tree to tree.

This way, he would not have to bother about the puddles.

"Xiao Pang watch my back." Ruo Chen ordered and Xiao Pang transformed a black butterfly that flew behind him.

Ruo Chen's game plan was to get the 350th place on the dot so that he could make it into the school, or just as long as he did not break 300th. Just as he was going to plan on what animals he should try to hunt for, a blue screen suddenly appeared in front of him.

This screen held the rankings of each students and their points. One participant must have already hunted down an animal as Aleksandr had said that this screen would appear as soon as the first animal was hunted. This screen could appear and disappear at will and the trigger word was, "Appear" and "disappear".

He had already guessed who would be first and it was of course Ye Ran, who now had 10 points which meant he got the highest ranked animal as the max point per kill was 10. 

"Oh?" Ruo Chen hummed when he saw the second ranker.

"Ming Yue?" 

He did not know who this guy was but his name appeared almost immediately after Ye Ran got the kill.

"Looks like this time it won't be just total dominance." Ruo Chen commented with mirth in his eyes.

Ruo Chen felt that competition was always needed in order to spice things up and he felt that this Ming Yue might be actually capable of putting up a fight against Ye Ran in this trial.

Since there was only a few others who got some points, he decided to rest on top of the ink trees where the leaves were black instead of green, the branches were also thicker than ordinary trees which made it a good place to rest.

"I'll just rest my eyes for a bit." Ruo Chen mumbled as he closed his eyes.

Xiao Pang then landed on the tree branch beside him as he kept watch. He had a defeated look on his face when he saw that Ruo Chen had immediately knocked out.

***

After 3 hours...

Ruo Chen finally woke up from his 'little nap' and did a little stretch. 

"Appear." He mumbled, still groggy from sleep.

The blue screen appeared in front of him and he instantly felt awake. 

I slept for 3 hours?!

Panic surfaced on his face as he quickly scrolled to the 350th place.

"256 points!" Ruo Chen felt his soul leaving his body.

That was the amount of points he needed to get and that number was bound to get higher. 

"It's over." He said weakly as he slowly got down from the branch. 

Ruo Chen had to quickly start hunting down all the animals worth 10 points while also not exposing his real abilities. Unfortunately, instructors would be patrolling the hunting grounds so he had to watch out for them.

"Ding!" A notification sound came from the blue screen.

Ruo Chen quickly summoned the screen to see what the notification was about.

It read: 243, you still have 0 points, do you wish to trigger a scenario to help you? (this summons 10 10 points animals near you)

Ruo Chen wanted to rip the screen apart. How would this help me?! Wasn't that basically an immediate destruction of my plans?

He complained to the screen but it remained unmoving. Ruo Chen needed the points and he was sure he could tackle them all but what he really was worried about was the instructors.

If they saw him defeat all 10 max point animals solo, then he could not keep up the front of being a weak students. But seeing as how all the people at the top ranks had thousands of points with Ye Ran and Ming Yue fighting for first place, then this achievement would not seem so glorious.

So he would be considered mediocre as Ruo Chen suspected that those at the top could probably take on 100 at once. Since he needed to get at least top 10%, which means he only needs to be weak when compared to the ones at the top, and not compared to the lowest of the lowest.

"Then I can have some fun!" Ruo Chen said happily, he always loved when things went according to what he wanted.

Through this, he could tell that this ink forest was huge as to get thousands of point meant having an enormous amount of animals and he was quite pleasantly surprised with how much there were. This meant that students have plenty of opportunities to practice their skills.

He first prepared for an AOE attack before he pressed 'yes' on the screen.

After a few seconds, ten animals of different sizes soon surrounded Ruo Chen. One of them was a water type tiger that he had fought with before and another one was a black elephant. 

All of them let out their roar and it mixed into something that would chill even the bravest souls.

Ruo Chen did not falter at this and immediately leapt up into the air to unleash the attack he had been preparing. This was just a strong blast of dark energy blasted 360 degrees around him that distracted the animals for a moment.

This was enough for him as his next skill would not take a long time to prepare as he had practiced it until it was something natural to him.

"Xiao Pang, block the view from the top!" Ruo Chen commanded and Xiao Pang didn't need to be told twice.

A dense layer of fog suddenly exploded to fill the area above, preventing anyone more seeing what was going on underneath. This was because Ruo Chen was going to use Xiao Yuwei's skill, endless bind. This was a skill that although was not used much by Xiao Yuwei, was still famously known so it would rouse suspicions if a mere participant was able to replicate to such a degree as Xiao Yuwei has never thought anyone of the skill. In the novel, no one could figure how to perfectly replicate the move and even Mu Yang was stumped.

So it definitely would cause an uproar if they found Ruo Chen who could use this move almost picture perfect when compared to Xiao Yuwei. Ruo Chen knew how to use the move since he technically created it as the author but that was also something that could not be said.

The main reason why no one could perfect this move was because of the secret formula used to calculate the amount of energy in each rope was never disclosed by Xiao Yuwei and this move was heavily dependent on this formula and also the other reasons like due to the huge amount of mental power it took to control the move.

Right now, Ruo Chen could only control 6 ropes and he split it into both hands. Each rope had multiple dark energy bullets contained inside that would explode around the prey to kill it.

Ruo Chen first focused on the white tiger as he had dealt with it before and knew of its weakness. He commanded on of the ropes to pierce through its thick fur and made it lodge itself deep into the tiger's heart. Last time, his ropes could not pierce through things but after six months of hard works, he was able to strengthen it to this degree and this made killing much easier.

The moment the rope was in the heart, the tiger exploded from the inside out and instantly got blown into pieces with its innards flying everywhere. The other animals saw this and instead of backing down at this, they got more enraged and roared as they began charging up their own attacks.

Ruo Chen stared down at them with a smirk as he got ready to face them, his heart beating wildly against his chest.