Class Exercise 2

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The second task was to climb over five towering walls.

Most of the students who had completed the first task had stopped here. The first wall was only three meters high, but it seemed to be made of some kind of metal.

Its surface was as smooth as a mirror, utterly devoid of anything to use as a foothold.

Wen Jiu soon ran to the foot of the first wall. After crawling through the mud pit, she had become half-covered in mud.

She rubbed her hands together, then wiped her face to clear the mud from around her eyes. After that, she suddenly threw herself at the seemingly polished wall.

Everyone else had already imagined the inevitable sight of her crashing heavily to the ground, because they had all tried the same thing and promptly slid back down.

But Wen Jiu had not charged forward recklessly. She had noticed the tiny, regularly spaced indentations in the wall.

As she leaped and reached for the first one, a small stone suitable for climbing sprang out from the indentation.

She seized the stone and leaped again, touching the second indentation. Then came the third, the fourth, and so on...

The crowd stared wide-eyed as Wen Jiu climbed steadily upward. A few of them soon came to their senses, rushed to the base of the wall, and carefully searched for the marks she had left behind.

Wen Jiu had only just crawled out of the mud pit, and there was still plenty of mud on her fingertips. Every place she had touched was stained with earth.

The others quickly found the indentations that differed from the wall’s smooth surface. They hurriedly pressed them, causing climbing stones to spring out, and began making their way upward.

By the time they discovered the marks, Wen Jiu had already reached the top of the wall. She leaped down and landed steadily, then ran toward the second wall, which was twice as high as the first.

This wall was different from the previous one. Its surface was no longer perfectly smooth; instead, it was uneven and covered with all kinds of spikes.

Far fewer people stood at its base—only a handful. They had all made it over by relying on their supernatural abilities.

Yet no one knew what was wrong with this second wall. No matter how they used their abilities, they could not get over it.

One student with a wood-based ability was still trying desperately. He summoned a length of vine and sent it creeping toward the base of the wall.

But just as the vine was about to touch the corner, the protrusions on the wall abruptly transformed into sharp spikes and shattered it instantly.

The others shook their heads as they watched. They had tried all sorts of abilities themselves, but none had worked.

Wen Jiu also noticed what the student had done. She silently wondered whether the spikes on the wall would rise up and injure anyone who climbed it.

But merely thinking about it was useless. They still had to try.

Wen Jiu walked up to the wall and gently placed her hand against it.

The spikes did not move at all.

She was just about to test the climb when she suddenly heard a cold laugh.

“There’s naturally no reaction when you touch it from there. Once you climb up, it’ll start attacking you.”

Wen Jiu followed the voice and saw a handsome young man with delicate features, his chin raised with unmistakable arrogance.

“Is that so? Then thank you for the warning.” Wen Jiu was not angry in the slightest. Instead, she smiled at him.

His attitude was unpleasant, but he did not seem to harbor any ill intent.

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Hearing her reply, the boy inexplicably became uncomfortable. He turned his head away and stopped looking at Wen Jiu.

Seeing that he had nothing more to say, Wen Jiu began attempting the climb.

The others watched her slowly ascend from below.

After she had climbed a little over two meters, the spikes suddenly began attacking her.

One sharp spike after another shot toward her.

Caught off guard, Wen Jiu was struck by several of them. Although they merely grazed her limbs, beads of blood still seeped through the tears in her uniform.

The students watching from below grew anxious and hurriedly shouted to her.

“Jump down first!”

“Be careful!”

“Come down and let’s think of another way!”

Even the boy who had laughed coldly earlier felt a trace of pity. He lowered his head, unable to bear watching any longer.

But Wen Jiu paid them no attention. She gritted her teeth and endured the pain. During the brief interval when the spikes withdrew, she raised her head and looked toward the top.

More than half the distance remained. She stared at the spikes above her, lost in thought as she quickly considered how she could get over the wall.

So many students had already tried, and their supernatural abilities were useless. That meant she could only climb it by ordinary means.

The higher she went, the denser the spikes became. The slightest lapse in attention would result in injury.

Soon, Wen Jiu made her decision.

She continued climbing. Even when she failed to dodge in time and was cut again, she still clenched her teeth and kept ascending.

The students who had originally intended to wait below for someone else to find a solution were roused by her determination.

One after another, they began climbing the wall themselves.

By the time Wen Jiu successfully crossed the second wall and landed on the other side, she was covered in wounds.

But she had been extremely careful to avoid the attacks, and these minor injuries did not affect her ability to continue training. Wen Jiu merely ran toward the next wall.

The third and fourth walls that followed had no additional trials beyond being even higher.

Wen Jiu therefore climbed them with ease, until she reached the third task.

Aerial rings.

There was no denying that this task was a severe test of one’s mental fortitude. A set of parallel bars stood ten meters in the air, and participants had to cross the distance by gripping the suspended rings above them.

There were no safety harnesses or other protective measures—only an inflatable mat beneath them, in case of an accident.

Wen Jiu suddenly understood what the teacher had said at the beginning of the school term.

Compensation would be provided to students who suffered disabilities.

That was money no one wanted to collect. She only wanted the scholarship.

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Wen Jiu first climbed a ladder to the starting point. The parallel bars appeared to be more than five meters long.

After estimating the distance, she took a deep breath and grasped the first pair of rings. She then maintained a steady pace, moving from ring to ring as she progressed securely forward.

This task primarily tested mental strength and endurance. Wen Jiu kept up a constant rhythm throughout, because if she stopped midway out of exhaustion, it would be difficult to continue.

After all, hanging in the air for an extended period consumed a tremendous amount of energy.

So Wen Jiu did not stop, and reached the finish line steadily.

Quite a few people were still working their way across the aerial rings. Wen Jiu was the first to reach the final task.

In truth, it was similar to the first task: both required crawling forward.

The difference was that the mud pit had been replaced with a sand pit. Without hesitation, Wen Jiu slipped beneath the barbed wire and began crawling slowly through the sand.

She had to repeat the course twice more before it counted as complete, so she did not want to waste too much energy at this point.

After finishing the final task, Wen Jiu ran back toward the location of the first task.

After completing the entire course three times, she had become a mud-covered creature freshly dredged from a bog.

Sand clung to her body as well, completely obscuring the stains of blood on her uniform.

Wen Jiu sat at the assembly point, waiting for the others to return. Bored, she raised her hand and glanced at it.

For some reason, she was reminded of how, whenever she had been mischievous in the past, her master would angrily scold her for being a muddy little monkey from the mountains.

Now she really had become one.

“Here.”

Zhou Sen handed Wen Jiu a nutritional drink. After thanking him, she accepted it and poured it into her mouth.

The exhaustion weighing on her entire body vanished almost instantly.

“You’ve completed the training. You can leave.” Looking at the small Wen Jiu, Zhou Sen had not expected her to be the first person to finish the course this time.

Wen Jiu did not put on any airs. She acknowledged him and hurried back toward the dormitory.

Qiao Shishi was tidying up inside when she suddenly looked up and saw a mud-covered figure crawling in.

The sight gave her quite a fright.

“Go take a shower, Jiujiu.” After recognizing her, Qiao Shishi let out a sigh of relief.

Wen Jiu nodded, went into the shower room, and washed herself completely clean before coming back out.

“Wait—why is your hair shorter?”

Qiao Shishi looked at Wen Jiu. Her platinum-blond hair, which had once reached her waist, now barely fell to her collarbones.