After two more hours the middle aged men closed their stalls and left. Registrations ended and the late arrivers could only blame themselves. You could even see some teens crying on the street because they missed their last chance.

The door of the institute slowly opened. Everyone quieted down while those who sat on the ground to wait rose up. Four men and one woman appeared and stopped before the participants.

The man in front had long grey hairs and a beard fluttering in the wind, his deep gaze analyzing the youths. He wore a large dark brown robe with golden outlines and a lifelike tiger head on the back. His aged face contrasted with his fit and muscular body. Although the robe was soft and loose, it looked like heavy-duty armor on him.

His name was Hong Li, the dean of the tiger martial institute. He was originally the second in command but the ancient dean left on an adventure 20 years ago after naming him for the post.

"Dean, what do you think of them?" Asked Wang Fei one of the teacher at his sides.

His shoulder-lenght silky black hairs and his handsome face attracted the attention of the young girls. He was the one in charge of the recruitment competition with the others helping. Hong Li only came to take a look.

"They're too many. Let's cut their numbers first."

Nodding Wang Fei stepped out and annouced how the competition will unfold.

"This year, a total of more than three thousand eight hundred individuals are participating. The competition will be separated in two parts.

The first part is about the survival of the fittest. The second one are battles in the arena.

Only through the first part can you access to the arena and have a chance to fight for the top twenty."

Wang Fei spoke softly but everyone could hear him clearly as if he was just beside them.

"Now let me explain the rules for the firts part. The venue it will take place is the jade forest. Many dangerous blood beast reside there.

Your mission is to survive for four days and hunt enough blood beast. Level two blood beasts and higher have been cleared out in the outer parts but level one high or peak tiers are still here and could kill most of you easily. To pass the test you have to bring either the core of a blood beast or the token of another participant."

The youths were flustered by the rules and started talking about the test with each others.

"How are we meant to hunt all theses blood beast although they have no wisdom, their body is too strong!"

"Under normal circumstances you need three or more persons at the same level as the beast to kill it"

"The stronger the blood beast the higher the chances it has a core but there is no way we could go against high tier ones. Without talking about killing them just surviving would be great."

"It's obvious they want to make us fight each other, we need to join groups if we want to survive."

Most of them started to team up or strike alliances with each other.

Ye Mo in a corner was pondering.

'They want to eliminate the majority of the participants before proceeding to the battles. It seems easier to take the tokens of others but now that they are forming groups it's not really the case anymore though it's not a problem for me. The most important is that although they told us to hunt beasts they didn't say we couldn't steal the cores from others.'

Ye Mo knew blood cores were worth a lot of money. He needed as much as he could to prepare for his future needs in cultivation. He was expressionless but killing intent was slowly growing inside him.

He was still planning his next courses of action when a smiling blond boy approached him.

"Hey, i can see you're alone. How about joining my group, it would be easier to pass the test this way."

Ye Mo took a look at the members of his team staring at him a distance away.

It was composed of four boys and two girls. Four of them were just common teens that trained a bit and thought they might have a chance entering the top twenty. The other two, a boy and a girl were both in the beginning ranks of the qi gathering realm.

The lad who invited him looked like the leader but he didn't even seem as strong as Liu Hualing.

"Piss off." Ye Mo didn't plan to join a team in the first place but even if he did he would join one of the best not these weaklings who would only die or depend on him for the whole trial.

"Y-you, what did you say! Don't you know what kind of place the jade forest is, don't be too full of yourself you really think you can survive there alone?!"

"I told you to piss off."

"Hmph, fine i will wait for the instructors to bring your corpse out at the end of the test." With theses word the youth left red of anger.

He felt humiliated, he couldn't sense any qi from Ye Mo so he knew he was just an ordinary kid like the others yet he dared talk to him, a third rank qi gathering cultivator this way.

In his heart he had put a mark on him. If by chance they met during the test, he would make him regret refusing his offer.