The first thing Lin Huang did after receiving the new Emperor’s Heart Ring was register himself so he could partic.i.p.ate in the Regular Hunter a.s.sessment. Time pa.s.sed quickly and before he knew it, a week went by with Lin Huang spending most of his time resting. Besides that, he also practiced Army Attack Tactics for a couple of hours every day to keep his skills sharp. The training was not to upgrade his abilities but rather to avoid his body from getting lazy so he practiced every day to keep up his momentum.

It was half a month before the a.s.sessment would start and was almost time to depart. Lin Huang spoke to Lin Xin and Lin Xuan that night at dinner.

"I will head to foothold No.7B24 in two days to join the Regular Hunter a.s.sessment. The a.s.sessment itself will take about one month and the journey back and forth would take more than 20 days. So, it looks like I"ll be away for almost two months," he explained.

"Brother, will you be able to come back before the year end?" Lin Xin asked. She seemed really upset.

"That shouldn’t be a problem. The Hunter a.s.sociation would take that into consideration that as well. As soon as the a.s.sessment ends, I should have sufficient time to get back home," Lin Huang nodded.

"Lin Xuan, listen to your sister, tell her when you’re hungry. Don’t leave the house on your own. If you need to head out, follow your sister," Lin Huang said to Lin Xuan. Lin Xuan nodded.

"Xin Er, I have many monster carca.s.ses with me, I"ll transfer them to your storage s.p.a.ce. Don’t just eat meat like Lin Xuan does, get some vegetables and fruits as well. I’ll transfer you some credit points…" Lin Huang then transferred the monster carca.s.ses and credit points to Lin Xin as he said.

"Don’t worry about spending the money, buy all the things that you need to buy…" he continued.

Lin Xin did not say a word and all she did was to nod. She knew that the Regular Hunter a.s.sessment only happened twice a year. If Lin Huang missed this round, he would have to wait until June of next year. On the next day, Lin Huang headed to Baqi City after lunch and bid farewell to Lin Xin and Lin Xuan. He checked into a hotel at the central plaza of Baqi City. He stayed there to wait for the Demonic Crystal s.p.a.ces.h.i.+p which would depart the next morning.

After a nights rest in Baqi City, Lin Huang took the s.p.a.ces.h.i.+p to foothold No.7B24 the next morning. The journey to the foothold would take 11 days and thankfully it was a smooth one. However, there were many pa.s.sengers on the s.p.a.ces.h.i.+p. Most of them look like they were hunters too, perhaps also partic.i.p.ating in the a.s.sessment. On the 11th day at noon, the s.p.a.ces.h.i.+p arrived at foothold No.7B24 in the north of Baqi City.

Foothold No.7B24 was also called Beixuan City. There were more than 180 B-grade footholds in Division7, and foothold No.7B24 was one of the earliest ones to be established. It was huge, covering an area of more than 11,000 square kilometers. The permanent residents numbered at 16 million people with a five million strong population of people who came in and out of the city. It was considered a crowded foothold compared to other B-grade footholds.

After he disembarked the s.p.a.ces.h.i.+p, Lin Huang arrived at a hotel that was located nearby the Hunter a.s.sociation. He had booked the hotel room before he departed. He then registered himself at the reception. It was three days before the a.s.sessment, and Lin Huang planned to adapt himself to the environment for the next couple of days. After a short rest in the hotel room, he started practicing Fatal Tactics.

It was a Rare close combat skill, utilizing most of the muscles and bones in his body. With every hit, Lin Huang could clearly feel like he was familiarizing himself with his own body. Now that his Army Attack Tactics was level-8, combining that with Fatal Tactics would heighten its strength. He had been practicing the skill for almost 20 days now... It was not clear if it was the effects of Army Attack Tactics or something else. Although he had only been practicing for a couple of hours every day, the rate he acc.u.mulated skill card pieces did not decrease.

On the next day, Lin Huang had acc.u.mulated 600 Fatal Tactics skill card pieces by the afternoon. A notification from Xiao Hei popped up.

"600 Fatal Tactics skill card pieces have been detected, would you like to combine them into a Rare Skill Card - Fatal Tactics?"

"Yes," Lin Huang replied. He did not expect he would be able to obtain a complete skill card before the a.s.sessment even started.

"Consuming Fatal Tactics skill card pieces x600"

"Congratulations, you have obtained a Rare Skill Card - Fatal Tactics"

Lin Huang looked at the new skill card immediately.

"Skill Card"

"Skill Name: Fatal Tactics"

"Rarity: Rare (Epic)"

"Type of Skill: Close combat skill"

"Skill Level: Unknown"

"Status: Available"

"Remarks: With the upgrade in strength from Army Attack Tactics being more than level-6, this skill is comparable with an Epic combat skill."

"Card Remarks: Not bad"

He could not help but to laugh when he saw the remarks. He did not expect his limited training to give him a close combat skill card that was comparable to an Epic card. Initially, he practiced the close combat skills without any expectations since he excelled in sword skills. He did not train to acc.u.mulate skill card pieces but to adapt and prepare himself for the a.s.sessment. That was why he only trained for a couple of hours and rested for the remainder of the day.

It was a great surprise that he managed to obtain a new skill card before the a.s.sessment started. As long as Army Attack Tactics was at level-6 or more, one could draw strength that was comparable with an Epic-level combat skill. Now that his Army Attack Tactics was already at level-8, his combat strength would be much more powerful. It was as if he had obtained an Epic combat skill out of the blue.

"That’s great, I can just fight with my bare hands if I encounter any small monsters in the future. There’s no need for me to bring out my sword all the time," Lin Huang laughed to himself.

On the third day in Beixuan City, Lin Huang woke up before seven in the morning. After breakfast, he headed straight to the Hunter a.s.sociation. The official opening hours was 8 a.m. but it was not even 7:15 a.m. when Lin Huang arrived. Still, there were many people already waiting at the entrance. There were many scammers among the crowd, and they were selling a.s.sessment booklets. There were quite a number of people getting scammed by these crooks.

One scammer came to Lin Huang and pointed at the project page in front of him and said, "Young man, we have the latest a.s.sessment booklet, it has the latest content of the a.s.sessment. Would you like to get one?"

"It’s okay," Lin Huang shook his head. He had heard about such booklets before but it was his first time seeing them. However, he knew that the booklet had information from the past a.s.sessments that the scammers had put together. It was not related to the current a.s.sessment at all.

The Regular Hunter a.s.sessment had different content every year, and it was impossible for the contents of the a.s.sessment to be leaked before the a.s.sessment started. The scammers were there to scam partic.i.p.ants who did not know the rules. Seeing Lin Huang being so sure of himself, the scammer knew that Lin Huang had seen the a.s.sessment rules before this so he stopped bugging him. The scammer then left and began looking for other partic.i.p.ants.

Many were scammed, and Lin Huang stood speechless as he watched. However, those who purchased the booklet must have had a lack of confidence in their own abilities and were not sure if they would pa.s.s the a.s.sessment. Some of them were just trying their luck so they bought the booklets anyway knowing that it would not help them in the a.s.sessment.

There were more and more people at the entrance, and more people were scammed. Lin Huang had no idea how much the booklet was sold for but looking at the number of people who purchased them, he could tell that the scammers had made quite a large sum of credit points. There were at least 10,000 people at the entrance of the Hunter a.s.sociation at 8 a.m.

Suddenly, the door opened and a tanned middle-aged man walked out. Everyone was silent as he walked out.

"My name is Xu Jinpeng, I am the head examiner for the preliminary a.s.sessment," the tanned man introduced himself. After a brief pause, he continued, "I would like to announce that the preliminary a.s.sessment has ended!"

Everyone was stunned by what he had just said, including Lin Huang. "Did the head examiner slip his tongue, maybe he meant ‘started’ instead of ‘ended’?" Some people muttered in panic. Almost everyone present had the same thought rush through their minds.

"Now I"ll announce the partic.i.p.ants that have been disqualified…" The head examiner Xu Jinpeng began to read out names one by one, "w.a.n.g Xiaopeng, Zou He, Ye Haoxuan…"

"This is ridiculous!" A few of them voiced out after the first few names were called out. Xu Jinpeng looked up and proceeded to read off his list.

"I’m not buying this! If you’re disqualifying me, you must give a reason that makes sense!" A guy from the back shouted. One of the scammers who was selling booklets suddenly appeared next to the tanned man and said in a loud voice, "From today onwards, the names that were read out loud are blacklisted from the Hunter a.s.sociation, and you won’t be able to join any a.s.sociation within the next three years!"

The man then waved to the other two scammers and left. Many were confused at first but soon, they began to understand what was happening.

"They are Hunter a.s.sociation staff who pretended to be scammers… That would mean that... The preliminary a.s.sessment was meant to disqualify the partic.i.p.ants who purchased the booklets," Lin Huang concluded as he finally understood what had happened.

Almost half an hour, the head examiner Xu Jinpeng finally finished reading off the disqualification list. There were more than 1,100 people that were disqualified. Xu Jinpeng looked up and looked around. He then said, "I believe some of you know why these people were disqualified. The scammers who were selling the a.s.sessment booklets are our staff. Those who were disqualified were the ones who purchased the booklets."

"Firstly, we find that not reading the a.s.sessment rules before coming to the a.s.sessment is a grave negligence to the programme. Such people lack responsibility and don’t care about the consequences since they’re not even willing to perform the most basic due diligence. We, at the Hunter a.s.sociation, are the complete opposite of that. No matter what the consequences may be, we"ll do our best to complete the task at hand."

"Second, they knew that the information in the booklet is fake but yet they purchased it anyway. This is equivalent to knowing that a piece of news is fake but yet they still try their luck and convince themselves to believe that it is real. Such people lack will, and are easily manipulated. We don’t need people like this.

"These two reasons are the foundations of the preliminary a.s.sessment. If anyone disagrees with it, you are welcome to file your complaints," the man said casually with a nod. What Xu Jinpeng said made everyone speechless.

"Aside from those who were on the list, those who arrived after 8 a.m... Congratulations, you have been disqualified as well. He added, "I don’t think you need me to tell you the reason."

"The rest made it into the first round of the a.s.sessment. You can now pa.s.s through the door behind me into the Hunter a.s.sociation and join us for the the next round."