Dual Cultivation: Birth of Legend

19 First Talent Assessemen

After elder Zheng calmed down, he went back to his seat and forced a cough to gather everyone's attention. Then he began.

"As I have already told you the function of the token that I gave you, I advice you that you pay attention to collecting all the information on basics from the first three floors of the sect library first, then proceed on to the next floor and begin to slowly accumulate the information available on those floors. But be sure to not proceed to further floors without completely ingraining all the information's, and the best way to completely ingrain those all information's is by visiting the halls where you can gain practical experience and probably gain insights this way you'll deepen and broaden your knowledge.

For now we'd like for you to complete accumulating all the basic information and pay visit to the halls where you can broaden your knowledge and gain insights.

But first let's visit all the halls where you can test your knowledge and make it a part of you.

But before we get going, disciple Astra do you have any first choice where you want to begin your test from that you want to have as your main field of expertise?" [Elder Zheng]

"Yes elder, I do have a priority. I would like to take the Apothecary exam first and am thinking of taking it as my major field of expertise for the future." [Astra]

Saying and hearing this much, elder Zheng stood up from his seat and nodded at the other elders and told Astra and Nanea to follow them, more precisely the apothecary elder Chen, to the test ground of apothecary hall where the tests for the student aiming for increasing their experience in Apothecary take tests.

After the group followed Elder Chen for around 5 minutes, they arrived at the Apothecary hall. The hall was located in the back part of the Heavenly Sword Sect cause concocting any kind of pill of elixir required a calm and quite environment.

Astra and Nanea had this awed look on their faces, it was not much for Nanea as she had been here before but it was too much for Astra to take. He was in a daze as he had never seen anything like this before neither in his old world nor here. He could see a garden filled with multiple colors of multiple kind of herbs. And on looking closer he could identify some of the herbs which he had learned about during his stay in the Sect Library. The garden added an inexplicable charm and beauty to the environment. All in all the scene was so serene that anyone who gazed at it would feel their mind and sould calm down, and this state would be really important for cultivators as the state of mind they attain would be real beneficial for their cultivation.

Looking at the dazed Astra all the Elders and Nanea smiled at him as at this moment Astra seemed like kid who had just left the wings of his mother and had stepped in the world.

But the smile that Nanea had was not that simple as it also carried the complicated emotion that she had since a day before. But no one had noticed it and all of them began following Elder Chen to the test grounds, where the basic attainment in the field of apothecary are practiced and tested.

When the group of elders walked in along with two disciples, it attracted a lot of attention. All the disciples gathered there looking at the group trying to figure out why all the elders including the Head Elder was here and what was the identity of the two disciples that were following them.

The disciples began to whisper among themselves asking each other what their identity was. At that moment one of the disciple who had seen and heard of Nanea a couple of times spoke. "Ah.. Isn't that the Inner Sect Disciple who goes by the name Nanea". When he spoke those words all of them looked at him and after hearing his words some other disciples that had seen her also confirmed his words. After confirming one of the duo disciples identity, they began asking around who the second one could be.

Neglecting what others talked about, the duo kept following the elders, till they reached a section where the test and practice in the attainment in the basic knowledge of apothecary were carried out.

When the instructor who was responsible for that section saw the elders heading his way, the instructor went to the elders and greeted them.

All the elders nodded at him them, then Elder Zheng nodded at Elder Chen, after which Elder Chen spoke to the Instructor.

"I need you to conduct a test of highest level in the attainment of basic insights on the field of apothecary for that boy over there. Oh.. and rather than conducting the concoction test, I need you to conduct the another test as this disciple has never even seen how pills and elixirs are concocted. You get what I mean right? And as for the consequence of the standard test, just ignore it for this once since it is not a formal test and we just want to test his attainment and nothing more." [Elder Chen]

Elder Chen spoke pointing at Astra.

The instructor was shocked with what he heard. Firstly the cause of his shock was that, the elders themselves came in order to conduct a disciple test, and another cause was that the test they had to conduct instead of concoction test, which was the most difficult of all the tests which even veteran apothecary are scared of.

All the instructors that heard was Elder Chen was speaking about they all had the same look on their faces. And the disciples who were seeing this they could understand shock as the elders themselves were supervising that disciple's test but what they couldn't understand was the actual cause that made all the instructors shocked like that as they should have seen many more shocking things than this when their whole life experience were to be accounted. But only the instructors knew what they felt couldn't be understood, the test they were asked to conduct was rarely heard to be conducted in the outside world.

"This instructor understands what he has to do. Now, if you will excuse me I'll go and begin making preparation for the test." [The instructor to whom Elder Chen Spoke]

Saying this,the instructor bowed and hurriedly leave from there and after some time came with a few instructors behind him and also carried a few paper in his hand, which seemed like a stack of question papers.

While the instructor had been gone to prepare for the test, Elder Chen turned to Astra and began explaining the method in which the test would be conducted.

The test that would be conducted would be in the same process in which the former test which Astra took to be accepted as a disciple of the Heavenly Sword Sect, the only difference was that in the former test Elder Chen was the only one who conducted the second part of the test by asking 10 questions, but now the same test would be conducted by 10 instructors questioning Astra on the most troublesome problems that are faced when only practicing in the basic insights in Apothecary.

After the instructors came, they discussed something among themselves and then nodded at Elder Chen that they were ready to conduct the test whenever ready.

Looking at them nod, Elder Chen again turned to Astra ans spoke.

"The instructors are ready to conduct the test whenever you are ready." [Elder Chen]

"Elder this disciple is ready to take the test." [Astra]

Saying this he began walking towards the instructors and bowed to them and spoke.

"Disciple Astra is prepared to take the test!" [Astra]

Looking at Astra all the instructors had a satisfied smile which for them meant that 'despite being favoured by all the elders he doesn't have a speck of arrogance or disdain in him' and later were shocked to fell how solid of a foundation he had in his cultivation. They knew that it took a lot of time for one to reach the cultivation level that he showed probably 20 - 30 years but the in front of them seemed no more than 16 years. Only now did they understand why the elders favoured him. If he were to be groomed properly then who knows what height would he reach in the future.

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As soon as the instructor had finished explaining about the rules and the test that he will be taking, the instructor asked Astra if he had any questions regarding the rules and the test, to which Astra said he didn't, after which the instructor walked to his colleges and sorted out the question sheets and handed it to Astra, and pointed at the table and said that the test had begun and he can go to the table where he can begin taking his test. He had a total of 1 hour and 30 minutes of time to complete the test.

Astra received the question sheets and walked to the table and began taking his test. While he was taking the test some guards came with a tray full of various kinds of herbs which amounted up to 10 herbs and placed it on the table. After scribbling around for 30 minutes Astra reached the second part of the test where he had to name the herbs along with their characteristics and the method to concoct them into either pills or elixirs. It took him quite a long time almost half of the remaining time to identify all the herbs as there were a lot of herbs that have similarities so he had to check every minute details in order to identify the perfectly matching herb from his accumulated knowledge. After he was done with identifying the herbs, the rest was all easy he took the herbs one by one and sorted them in the same order on the tray in which he had written their name, characteristics, and method of concoction of the particular herbs. He took all the remaining time to write the details about the respective herbs, rechecking them again and again and correcting any errors that he found. He was done with the test just before couple of minutes before the actual ending time of the test.

Astra walked to the instructor and handed the answer sheets to the instructor. Once the instructor was handed the test papers he along with his other colleges began checking the answers while the instructors were doing that, Astra went towards his group and sat down in the position of meditation,

If Astra wanted to he could have broken through to the next realm of his cultivation path, that is, the ?True Spirit Realm? which makes him one step closer to his first goal of meeting Leilana and spending time with her. But Astra didn't rush it as it was mandatory to build a stable foundation so that he won't be facing any obstacles in his future cultivation path due to his unstable foundation.

For others the meditation stance of Astra's might seem as though he was cultivating and recovering the spirit energy he used up in the last part of the first test, but in actuality he was talking with Leilana.