"It’s over just like that?" Wang Teng scratched his head.

This midterm exam was so strange.

Everything was going fine, then a spatial rift suddenly opened, and a Four-star Chaos Demon Scorpion, reeking of a foul aura, burst through.

After that, they encountered a Five-star Level Tree of Evil in the valley’s medicinal garden.

For any other student, this experience would have been a legendary tale. It was a major incident, the likes of which had never occurred in any midterm exam in history.

For Gu Ming’s trio to run into two consecutive Demon Fiend invasions, the odds were about the same as winning the lottery.

Lu You quietly sighed in relief. To be honest, she hadn’t been sure about her score.

But now that it was ending with such a high team rank, her contribution percentage meant that even if she didn’t make the provincial top three, she at least had a shot at the top one hundred.

After all, Gu Ming’s team was miles ahead of everyone else in total points. Even when divided by contribution, she was guaranteed a decent minimum share.

’After all,’ Lu You thought, ’I was diligent and thorough with the herb-seeking tasks for my Sunflower Seed-eating Hamster. I didn’t slack off at all.’

Gu Ming said, "Demon Fiend invasions are far more complicated than you imagine.

"Didn’t the teachers tell you? We lost all contact with the outside world. It was only just restored. The world outside is probably in an uproar."

With such a major incident, the authorities must have been furious from the get-go and would be holding the relevant personnel accountable.

Of course, these matters had nothing to do with Gu Ming. But in the outside world, many parents were indeed already raising a fuss.

At a time like this, they couldn’t possibly let the students continue their exam in the Golden-Eyed Dragon Gate’s world fragment. They had to get them back to school and to their families, so they could report their safety and set everyone’s minds at ease.

Besides, the exam was halfway through, and the general rankings had already been more or less decided.

The students who still had a chance to catch up were few and far between.

The capable people had already distinguished themselves early on.

Any protests about the scores would be a secondary concern.

Right now, the internal investigation was imminent and the top priority.

No one, after losing contact with the world fragment, could possibly be nonchalant enough to let students continue an exam on a world fragment hiding a "ticking time bomb."

They had only removed the three Array Hubs that had the Five-star Tree of Evil at their core.

They still hadn’t investigated the other places where the root system had spread.

If any trouble broke out there, there’s no telling what might happen. That’s why the exam was brought to a hasty end.

When Gu Ming returned to the main gate on the Thousand-eyed Wind Bird’s back, he saw that the Dragon Gate was already open.

Many teachers and High-star Level Pet Beasts had appeared, and the auras they exuded made all the Pet Beasts on site tremble in fear.

After Gu Ming returned to school, Teacher Ling happily announced, "For this exam, Gu Ming’s team has placed first in the province! Let’s congratulate them!"

A burst of applause broke out on the scene.

More parents had also arrived at the school, embracing their children who had survived.

Speaking of which, in this battle against the Demon Fiend invasion, only three students from Yangyang High School and their Pet Beasts had perished in that valley’s medicinal garden. The rest of the students had mostly survived. This was the sole tragedy of the event.

Gu Ming was slightly taken aback when he heard that information.

’We’d even made a deal with that team,’ he thought. ’How quickly things can change.’

「Back to the present.」

Gu Ming had returned to school, and so there was another matter he had to face.

That was the upcoming international competition.

Competitions like these had a very tight schedule, primarily running from the end of April through the entire month of May.

It was an extended forty-day examination period, and right after the competition ended, it would be time for the college entrance exams.

From the provincial qualifiers to the national stage, and then to the international stage, there were three phases in total.

Each phase had a different assessment focus.

After Gu Ming returned, Teacher Zhang had already received the notice from the higher-ups to prepare for the preliminary round of the competition.

He learned that the first round, the provincial screening test, was about creating Cultivation Techniques.

This was a huge hurdle that would filter out a lot of students.

Coincidentally, Gu Ming’s specialty was Cultivation Technique Study.

So, for the next few days, Cyan Treasure was able to reduce its training time on the Earth Shifting Technique, while Gu Ming also allocated more time to studying Cultivation Techniques.

On the third day after Gu Ming’s return, Teacher Zhang gave him a list of strong contenders from within the province.

Gu Ming looked at the list, a bit confused.

Teacher Zhang said, "This is the provincial competition. Although it hasn’t started yet, team formation has already begun.

"You need to find your teammates first. After all, Cultivation Technique Study isn’t something one student can easily finish in a mere week. You’ll need a team.

"Before that happens, the key to building this team will be finding teammates and getting in sync on Cultivation Technique creation."

The competition allowed contestants to team up with students from other schools, as long as they were also registered.

Within Qing Lake High School, there were also a few students with a little experience in creating Cultivation Techniques.

Gu Ming first looked over the list. After a rough scan, he found some familiar names on it.

These were the genius students that Teacher Ling Jun had pointed out during the midterms.

’I never ran into them during the midterms, but here their names were on the provincial competition list.’

However, the Cultivation Techniques Gu Ming created were obtained from his system, so he didn’t need to share the credit for these techniques with others.

He just needed to find some people to test the Cultivation Techniques, and that would be enough.

After all, whether a Cultivation Technique was good or not depended on the actual results of practicing it.

At this very moment, Gu Ming thought of Lu You, the one with severe social anxiety.

Lu You didn’t plan to participate in the competition, but it wouldn’t be fair to say she hadn’t studied Cultivation Techniques at all.

After all, when Gu Ming was discussing the Array for the Earth Shifting Technique with her, she had offered quite a few valuable suggestions.

If he was just looking for someone to test a Cultivation Technique, he didn’t really need to go asking the geniuses on that list.

They might not even agree, and they’d be tight-fisted about authorship rights.

Others would definitely want primary authorship credit.

As for Gu Ming, he just wanted to hold on tight to those authorship rights. After all, with his system, there was no need for him to share the pie with others.

When Gu Ming explained his idea, Teacher Zhang was a bit surprised. "Lu You?" 𝒻𝑟ℯℯ𝑤𝑒𝑏𝑛𝘰𝓋𝑒𝓁.𝒸𝑜𝘮

The situation felt somewhat familiar, reminiscent of when he had sought out Gu Ming for private tutoring a few months prior.

Teacher Zhang said,

"I’ll go talk to her, then, if you don’t want to work with those geniuses."

Teacher Zhang mused for a moment. ’For Lu You, this invitation is, frankly, quite tempting.’

After all, with her foundation, getting into a second-tier university through the college entrance exams was already a sure thing.

Now, with the huge advantage of the Foundation Establishment Platform, getting a score high enough for a first-tier university was also very possible.

But the college entrance exams were full of geniuses, and it wasn’t out of the question that she could have a major screw-up.

But latching onto a powerhouse like Gu Ming was a surefire way to get a piece of the pie.