Urban Extraordinary Immortal Doctor-Chapter 1013: Ranking

Ren Jingbo’s speech was brief, yet it resonated deeply.

Thousands of disciples in the square, after listening to Ren Jingbo, burst into deafening applause and cheers, each feeling profoundly inspired and eager to immediately enter seclusion to cultivate, enhancing their own strength to serve the Dean and bring glory to the Martial Academy.

Ren Jingbo, twirling his beard, exchanged meaningful glances with the high-ranking officials of the Martial Academy beside him, all revealing satisfied smiles in their eyes.

Following this, Elder Situ Min, in charge of the Reception Hall, tallied the casualty figures of the disciples during the mountain cultivation exercise, and then reported to Ren Jingbo.

When Ren Jingbo heard that hundreds of disciples had fallen, including Ouyang Jian, the top-ranked direct disciple in combat prowess, the corners of his mouth twitched involuntarily, and his expression turned somewhat grim as he sighed, "The number of disciples lost this year has increased significantly compared to previous years! Could it be that the Spirit Beasts in the Bitao Mountain Range have become more numerous and ferocious?"

He asked a few direct disciples and learned that many cultivation teams had suffered fierce attacks from the spirit beasts in the Nether River during their crossing, resulting in numerous casualties. Ouyang Jian seemed to have fallen in the Nether River area.

"I will go to the Nether River immediately, slaughter the spirit beasts in the river, and avenge those fallen disciples!"

Elder Lei Li, who managed the Classics Hall, exclaimed, deeply agitated upon hearing of Ouyang Jian’s demise.

The Classics Hall, just like the Elixir Hall, was an important part of the Bitao Martial Academy, strictly off-limits to outsiders and casual visitors.

Lei Li’s strength ranked second among the four great elders, only behind Ge Feng, the elder of Elixir Hall.

There were ten direct disciples in Bitao Martial Academy, each taught by four elders.

Lei Li had three direct disciples under his tutelage, and Ouyang Jian was the most talented and strongest among them. He had a great chance to progress to the Desolate Level Realm within ten years and join the high echelon of the Martial Academy, but unexpectedly, he perished in the mountains during this cultivation exercise, which infuriated Lei Li.

Seeing Lei Li preparing to leave, Ren Jingbo hastily stopped him, forcing a bitter smile, "Elder Lei, do not be rash! Do not be rash! The Nether River is teeming with countless spirit beasts; how could you possibly kill them all? Ah, I too am deeply pained by Ouyang Jian’s death, but throughout history, many Martial Dao geniuses have met their ends prematurely! Ouyang Jian’s death was his destiny."

"A promising young disciple is gone just like that, those spirit beasts are truly detestable!"

Lei Li stomped his foot and cried out in grief.

In truth, Lei Li didn’t genuinely intend to go and slay the spirit beasts to avenge Ouyang Jian; as Ouyang Jian’s master, he only had to put on a show for the other disciples, otherwise, it would appear as though he lacked compassion and loyalty. With Ren Jingbo’s persuasion, he conveniently stayed.

Ouyang Jian had been attacked and killed by thousands of blood-sucking giant bats summoned by Fang Bai, and later his remains were carried off by spirit beasts of the mountains to somewhere unknown, making it a rather tragic death.

However, Fang Bai’s involvement was kept extremely secretive, and aside from himself, no one else knew about Ouyang Jian’s death.

After tallying the casualty statistics from the cultivation exercise, Ren Jingbo announced on the spot that injured parties would receive certain consolations.

The consolation included receiving a sum of cultivation resources and the opportunity to listen to a Martial Dao lecture by high-ranking officials of the Martial Academy once a month.

As for the deceased who fell in the mountains, if their bones could be recovered, they would be buried thickly on the back mountain, and a stone tablet would be inscribed to memorialize them.

If the bones could not be found, then in the "Life Soul Hall" of the Martial Academy, a wooden tablet bearing the deceased’s name would be erected as a tribute, proving that they had once been a member of the Bitao Martial Academy.

This treatment was common among many sects in the True Martial Realm and was also a form of respect for the deceased.

After Situ Min, it was Ge Feng’s turn to step forward.

Ge Feng, the Elder in charge of the "Elixir Hall", ranked first among the four Great Elders, second only to Dean Ren Jingbo and the two Vice Deans, truly standing below three and above thousands.

Ge Feng did not waste words; he immediately began to check the Cultivation Resources harvested by the various Cultivation Teams and ranked them according to the amount of resources they had gathered.

With the assistance of the eight Stewards of the Martial Academy, the Cultivation Teams led by Direct Disciples with the harvested resources took the stage first to undergo scrutiny by Ge Feng and others.

As expected, the team led by a Direct Disciple with Shen Yulin gathered the most resources, followed by Yang Gang’s team...

Although the Direct Disciple’s foremost representative, Ouyang Jian had perished, his team’s harvested resources still ranked third among those led by Direct Disciples, to the delight of Gao Shuxian and others.

After the top ten Direct Disciples were the teams led by the top ten Core Disciples, followed by the teams of the Inner Court Disciples, External Courtyard Disciples, and Menial Servant Disciples.

In past training sessions, teams ranking in the top ten were solely from Direct and Core Disciple teams, with no suspense.

However, what left thousands of attendees astonished this time was the emergence of two "dark horses" from the Inner Court Disciple Teams, which effectively pushed back the rankings of the Direct and Core Disciple Teams.

The first dark horse was the team led by Tu Hu, who had harvested two low-level Spirit Beasts with three hundred years of beast age, dozens of low-grade Spiritual Medicines, and one mid-grade Spiritual Medicine aged about five hundred years. With these results, they "surpassed all rivals" and ranked eighth.

The second dark horse was the team led by Huang Miao. They harvested two low-level Spirit Beasts with three hundred years of beast age, dozens of low-grade Spiritual Medicines, and two mid-grade Spiritual Medicines of five hundred years, along with dozens of pairs of antlers from Antlered Silver Lions.

Without the antlers of the Antlered Silver Lions, Huang Miao’s team’s resources would have been similar to those of Tu Hu’s team. However, with the addition of dozens of pairs of antlers, their achievements soared to third place, surpassing many Direct Disciple teams.

When Ge Feng recited the names of the five members of Huang Miao’s team, they excitedly walked up to the Stone Platform with their harvested Cultivation Resources, receiving praise and commendation from the Martial Academy authorities under everyone’s gaze, significantly standing out.

In comparison, the teams of Shen Yulin, who won first place, and Yang Gang, who took second, ended up being overshadowed and stood somewhat awkwardly.

If Fang Bai had not been aiming for a low profile, by merely producing two more mid-grade Spiritual Medicines, he would have been the undisputed first place in this mountain entering training.

But for Fang Bai, the difference between first place and third place was merely nominal, the main difference being a slightly larger gain in Cultivation Resources.

Within Fang Bai’s Spatial Ring, the dozens of "Tears of Crystal" could be exchanged for Cultivation Resources at the Martial Artists Trading Market in an amount many times over what they currently received as rewards, hence Fang Bai had little interest in the first place.

Moreover, as the saying goes, ’the nail that sticks out gets hammered’, and Fang Bai certainly did not wish to be that nail.