Mental Illusion

Chapter 39: Mental Illusion

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The first test turned out to be simpler than he initially expected.

He thought he would have trouble with the history questions, since while he did remember the main events, he didn't recall all the rest,

and how could he,

after all, it had been too many years since he'd studied them, and his mind had gradually discarded the less useful information for him.

That said, the questions had been surprisingly easy, with most of them asking in detail about the main points of a few important events that marked the birth of the empire and its main figures.

In the end, he ended up answering faster than he expected, and since there was still time left, he decided to take a nap.

Being a first stage cultivator, his resistance to sleep was higher than that of a normal person, but that didn't mean he didn't feel its effects.

He'd spent the last few days training and cultivating non stop, so he felt a bit of fatigue in his body,

and now that he had a chance to recover a little energy, he decided to take advantage of it.

It wasn't like it was against the rules, right?

The students didn't leave their seats while they waited for the next test to begin.

This one, unlike the first, would focus on the secondary subjects they had chosen to study, and it didn't involve any practical test,

it was purely theoretical.

But, unlike the previous one, this was a little more special.

Instructor Zi, who had now recovered, waited for everyone to pay attention and immediately began giving a basic explanation.

"Good, now that you've all finished the first part of the test, let's get right into the next one," she said while making a gesture, and a strange symbol lit up on the small desks of all the students.

Nobody was surprised when they appeared, since they were already used to it,

this part of the test was similar to what they'd done last year.

"Each of you will place your talisman on it when you see it light up, and you'll need to put your hand on top of it.

You'll feel some spiritual energy enter your body, so don't panic and just let it in.

The point of this is to let you take the second part of the test directly inside a mental simulation," she said while giving the signal to begin the test.

It might sound like a simple thing, but for experts of his level, a runic device like that, capable of carrying out mental images, wasn't something trivial.

He had created objects like that before, and he knew that even one of the lowest level would still require a certain mastery over mental runes, along with some particular materials that weren't easy to get.

He always had to go through several suppliers to get them, since they weren't sold openly on the market to just anyone, they were reserved for a few, and he was one of them.

With his status, it was easy to access limited resources like those.

After all, we're talking about a device that could influence someone's mind, and in the wrong hands, these kinds of tools could cause a lot of damage.

The academy had many experts in different professions, so it wasn't strange that they could afford objects like these.

As soon as he saw the start signal, he placed his talisman on the rune that had appeared in the middle of the table, and immediately, some engravings appeared on it.

He understood the talisman was active, and without wasting time, he put his hand on it.

Immediately, he felt energy flowing from his hand to his arm, and then directly toward his mind.

At this stage in the process, the students would normally already feel their minds a little hazy and start entering the simulation without realizing it.

Unfortunately for Zhu Rong, this wasn't the case, because even after more than a minute, he was still wide awake.

'Tch, to think there'd come a day when things like this would be too low level for me,' he thought, lowering his natural mental defenses and letting the illusion take hold.

With his reincarnation, he had lost all his cultivation, and only his knowledge had remained.

As for his mental resistance, that wasn't something he could lose just by being reborn, since it was tied directly to his soul.

He had already trained it for centuries, so even in this weak body, he still had mental energy much stronger than the average cultivator.

He had already closed his eyes as his mind slowly sank deeper and deeper, and soon he found himself in a bare, silent room, lit by a neutral light coming from above.

In front of him, lined up on long benches of dark stone, were several simple objects:

a chipped sword,

a spear with a blunt tip,

a hammer head with a crack in it,

and a knife blade with an unbalanced shape.

This was a forging simulation created by Qingyun Academy to test the basic skills of students enrolled in the Forging Arts course.

It wasn't about creating spiritual treasures or magical weapons, but about evaluating their grasp of fundamental techniques:

>Straightening a bent blade,

>Sharpening a dulled weapon,

>Sealing a crack without compromising the structure,

>Balancing the weight of a light weapon.

In front of each object was a note indicating the kind of work required and the suggested techniques.

Each student who had chosen this course had to pick which procedure to apply and finish it in the shortest time possible, while keeping precision and quality.

It was a test that highlighted one's observation skills, knowledge of metal properties, manual dexterity, and quick thinking under pressure.

In his past life, he already knew how to handle all four situations, but he only managed to work on two of them in the time he had.

He didn't even spend a moment thinking about what strategy to use or which weapon to start with.

He simply sat down at the spot, grabbed the first object in sight, and immediately got to work.

This was his profession, and trivial tests like this weren't a problem for him, since he had 60 minutes, even for this, he decided to finish quickly and take another short nap.