"Is the gap between having Divine Sense and not having it really that big?"

Wang Teng was green with envy. He desperately wished he was the one who had mastered Divine Sense, so he could rake in the MVP bonus points.

Meanwhile, Lu You began to ponder how she could accumulate enough Spiritual Energy to coalesce her own Divine Sense before starting university.

But the more she thought about it, the more difficult it seemed.

Back at the command center, many teachers who weren’t invited to the high-level, closed-door meeting were still at their posts, monitoring the candidates’ actions.

It wasn’t until the Thousand-eyed Wind Bird’s score rankings refreshed that the teachers noticed something was off about Gu Ming’s team’s score.

While other teams had scores in the dozens or low hundreds, Gu Ming’s team had suddenly jumped by more than five hundred points, creating a massive gap as they shot to the top.

The second-place team’s score was stuck at 156 points, a stark contrast between the two.

Their homeroom teacher, Teacher Ling, was also at the command center. As the teacher in charge of leading Qing Lake High School for the midterm exam, she hadn’t left the Dragon Gate.

She stared at the scoreboard, stunned for a long moment.

When a teacher next to her came over to ask what was going on, she could only spread her hands, unable to make heads or tails of it.

"You’re asking me? I have no idea either."

Teacher Ling put on an innocent expression and held up her palms, but the grin threatening to break out was harder to suppress than an AK-47.

Her happiness, however, was short-lived.

The high-level, closed-door meeting concluded, and the teachers began to file out. An alarming piece of news spread along with them.

"What? The exam site’s Space-Time Passage has been hijacked?!" she exclaimed, looking at another teacher in shock.

"Everyone, this information must not be revealed to the students, or it will cause a panic.

"We will dispatch a unit of Five- and Six-star Pet Beasts into the void to investigate and locate the source of the Demon Fiends.

"For now, maintain order for the exam and do not leak any information.

"As for Gu Ming’s team, have a teacher on-site give him a special briefing. Emphasize the need for secrecy. We will re-establish contact with the outside world within three days."

The teacher who came out to lead the discussion appeared relatively calm.

His claim of re-establishing contact within three days was a conservative estimate.

The Golden-Eyed Dragon Gate was an extremely valuable asset to Tian Nan City. The city’s higher-ups would never stand by and watch it be lost to the outside world.

Therefore, they just needed to maintain order, guard against a Demon Fiend invasion, and wait a day or two for the situation to become clear.

Of course, they couldn’t just sit on their hands, either.

The strongest combatant, Teacher Feng Gu, and his Dragon Pet, the King of Stopping Wind, would remain to guard the exam site. The rest of the high-level combatants and Five-star Pet Beasts were all dispatched to search for the Demon Fiends in the void beyond their world.

When Ling Jun heard that it was Gu Ming’s team who had discovered the situation, it all clicked into place.

’No wonder Gu Ming’s team’s score increased so drastically.’

’So he was the first one to discover the Demon Fiend invasion and the hijacked Space-Time Passage.’

***

"So, the current situation is that the exam will continue, and we have to keep this a secret," Gu Ming said, looking at the teacher who had suddenly rushed over to brief him on the situation back at command.

This was a major departure from the System’s description of the midterm exam being suspended. The two didn’t match up. 𝕗𝗿𝕖𝐞𝐰𝗲𝕓𝐧𝕠𝕧𝗲𝐥.𝚌𝐨𝚖

’This is good, though.’

’It’s precisely because reality and the System don’t align that it’s easier to trigger a BUG.’

"Our team has 580 points right now. Eighty of those are bonus points from dealing with the Yin Marrow Fire. We still need to grind out another two thousand points to secure a spot in the top three," Gu Ming said.

Team points were one thing, but in the end, the exam scores would surely be converted back into individual scores.

If Gu Ming continued to operate as a team for the entire exam, the Thousand-eyed Wind Bird and the proctors would eventually divide the points based on each member’s contribution.

He currently estimated his personal share at around two hundred points, with his teammates close to the same figure.

Although this was far ahead of the other candidates, it was no time to get complacent.

The three of them set off again.

Because they had spent too much time in the Reed Garden, there were hardly any treatable Pet Beasts left in the areas ahead.

The few students they saw were either caught up in chaotic battles or rushing onward.

Gu Ming had Wang Teng take the lead, using his Dumb Flower for long-range detection.

The Dumb Flower could sense the auras of plants and living creatures hundreds of meters away. Beyond a kilometer, its Perception of details grew weaker.

Two kilometers was its absolute limit. At that distance, it was almost like being blind; there was no concrete visual Perception, only a judgment based on pure inspiration, which could sometimes be wrong.

However, since they were trying to catch up to the main group of students, having a sense of direction was good enough.

The trio traveled for several hours. It wasn’t until dusk that they sensed an increase in the number of people two kilometers away.

"We must have caught up to the main group," Wang Teng said.

They had crossed two high mountains, three small plains, and a forest.

Ahead of them now was a low valley where the Dumb Flower sensed the highest concentration of people—two or three times more than anywhere else.

Gu Ming had no intention of fighting a large group for scarce resources, but it was getting late and wasn’t convenient to travel. He figured they might as well check out the commotion where everyone was gathered and see what they were fighting over.

「Ten minutes later.」

The three soon discovered what the other students were fighting over: a natural Spirit Medicine Garden.

It was a rare Spirit Medicine Treasure Land. A vast cloud of green Spiritual Qi floated above it, shrouding the small valley in mist and making it look like a celestial paradise.

Several small, glowing trees flickered in the evening mist, suffusing it with a multi-colored radiance and giving the garden within the valley a dreamlike quality.

With just a brief scan, the Dumb Flower sensed thousands of high-quality medicinal herbs clustered together in that single garden.

"No wonder so many people are fighting over it. This is a key strategic location," Wang Teng exclaimed.

Treating Spirit Beasts required Spirit Medicine resources, but Spirit Medicines didn’t just grow anywhere. They had specific growing environments, and some high-quality herbs even required fertile Spiritual Soil and a high concentration of plant-based energy to thrive.

A garden like this one contained nearly ninety percent of the herbs needed for Low-star Pet Beasts.

Controlling this garden would solve eighty to ninety percent of the cultivation and healing challenges within the exam site.

When the students from the Cultivation Element learned of this place, how could they not go crazy? They all formed factions and plunged into a chaotic free-for-all.

Gu Ming could already see many three-person teams, organized by their respective schools, attacking other squads.

In the fight to control the resources, some people had already thrown away all shame.

If not for the Thousand-eyed Wind Bird’s warning from above—forbidding three-person teams from expanding into entire school-wide groups to bully others—Yangyang High School would have probably been dominating the entire field.

Seeing that nearly half the combatants below were already injured, Wang Teng prepared to jump into the fray and get a piece of the pie.

He had just taken a step forward when Gu Ming reached out and stopped him.

Wang Teng looked back in confusion. Gu Ming shook his head, signaling for him to be patient, and pulled him back to higher ground to watch the chaos unfold from a safe distance.

The reason he stopped Wang Teng was because the System had suddenly triggered a BUG. In reality, more than two hundred Pet Beasts were locked in a chaotic battle, yet the System displayed:

[Exam suspended. Candidates are idle, setting up stalls to sell Spirit Medicine on the spot.]

[You have arrived at this location to browse various Spirit Medicines, but your empty pockets limit your choices.]

Looking at the System’s tranquil description of "peaceful times" and then at the flashing blades before him,

Gu Ming became even more certain that this was a perfect opportunity to trigger a BUG.

He stayed put, wanting to see how the System would "correct" this twisted future storyline.