Chapter 153 – Confident Xu Xingchen!

Ye Sheng nodded, smiled slightly, and said nothing.

“You two know each other?” Xu Xingchen, who was standing nearby, leaned over like a curious child, looking curiously at Ye Sheng and Shangguan Ying.

“We used to be classmates!” Ye Sheng nodded gently.

“Xu Xingchen!” Upon seeing Xu Xingchen, Shangguan Ying’s expression darkened, a layer of frost covering her pretty face. It was clear she knew him.

“And what’s your relationship?” Ye Sheng looked at him.

Xu Xingchen chuckled, “Friends!”

“Who’s friends with you?” Shangguan Ying snorted coldly upon hearing this and turned to Ye Sheng to reveal Xu Xingchen’s identity. “He is the legitimate son of the Xu family, with an extraordinary status. How did you end up with him?”

Ye Sheng looked surprised. Although he had guessed early on that Xu Xingchen’s identity was unusual, he hadn’t expected it to be this impressive.

The Xu family was one of the top aristocratic clans in Ghost Mountain City, capable of influencing the city’s future development with a single word. As the legitimate son, Xu Xingchen’s status was naturally extraordinary.

At this moment, the others in the basement recognized Shangguan Ying, their faces lighting up with joy.

“What luck, we actually ran into a Super-Limit Tier!”

Unlike other Prodigies who were kept hidden for training, Shangguan Ying was extremely famous in Ghost Mountain City. Many people knew her and even regarded her as an idol.

“It really is good luck. Following a Super-Limit Tier in the first round is almost a guaranteed pass.”

Over a dozen people whispered among themselves as they looked at Shangguan Ying, but none dared to approach. How terrifying the Combat Power of a Super-Limit Tier was, they could easily imagine.

Shangguan Ying swept her gaze over the group and said coldly, “I’m not the strongest in this basement. There’s someone else here…”

Everyone was stunned, their faces filled with disbelief. In this basement, there was actually someone stronger than Shangguan Ying? How was that possible?

After speaking, Shangguan Ying’s gaze turned directly to Xu Xingchen.

Following her gaze, everyone looked at Xu Xingchen, who was not tall and wore black-framed glasses.

“What does that mean? Is this little guy strong?”

Everyone looked suspicious.

It wasn’t their fault—Xu Xingchen looked exactly like the boy next door, nothing like a master.

Seeing their confusion, Shangguan Ying made no effort to hide Xu Xingchen’s strength. “I’m only a ‘Beginner Tier Super-Limit,’ but he is a ‘High-Tier Super-Limit’! Just one step away from Giant Level!”

“What?!”

“This little guy is a High-Tier Super-Limit?”

The basement immediately echoed with sharp intakes of breath.

Having his strength exposed, Xu Xingchen didn’t mind at all. He pulled out an ice pop and began sucking on it. He had been kept hidden and trained by the Xu family, and his Combat Power had never been publicly announced, so naturally, many people didn’t know him.

“If Shangguan Ying says he is, then he must be!”

“I really didn’t expect this!”

The dozen or so people whispered among themselves. With two Super-Limit Tiers suddenly appearing in the basement, one of them being the terrifying ‘High-Tier Super-Limit,’ they felt immense pressure, as if they had entered a high-level match!

Xu Xingchen glanced at the group, looking quite pleased with himself. He turned to Ye Sheng, expecting to see a look of admiration on his face.

But he was destined to be disappointed.

Ye Sheng hadn’t paid him any attention at all, his expression utterly calm!

“Hey, I’m an expert, aren’t you surprised?” Xu Xingchen’s face fell. He had expected Ye Sheng to look astonished, but that wasn’t the case at all.

…

The basement was dimly lit.

Shangguan Ying looked at everyone and got straight to the point: “I assume you all understand the rules for the first round.”

Everyone nodded. Naturally, they had all familiarized themselves with the rules before participating in the Federation Grand Examination.

Ye Sheng’s gaze remained calm. He, too, had learned about the competition rules.

The first round was the “Hunting Trial,” designed to place immense mental pressure on the examinees while exposing them to the brutal survival-of-the-fittest nature of the cultivation world.

The rules were simple…

At night, a portion of the participants would randomly become hunters, while the rest would be the hunted!

Hunters needed to accumulate a certain number of points to ensure they wouldn’t be eliminated.

Points were earned by hunting others.

This forced hunters to take the initiative and seek out others to hunt.

For the hunted, it was simpler—they just needed to survive the night!

During the daytime, everyone could only hide underground.

This was because the entire Blood Fiend City was subjected to extreme weather conditions during the day. Sometimes, the entire day would be bitterly cold, with frost covering the entire city. Even a 4th-stage Cultivator would be frozen into an ice sculpture if they ventured out.

Other times, it would be a molten firestorm, capable of melting entire buildings. To avoid being burned alive or frozen to death, the only option was to hide underground.

But as soon as night fell, the entire Blood Fiend City would come to life. The extreme weather would dissipate, collapsed buildings would be restored to their original state, the city would glow with neon lights, the streets would look brand new, and countless Ghost Spirits would appear, living out their lives as they had before death.

Shangguan Ying continued, “Since everyone understands the rules, we need to establish an agreement among ourselves.”

At night, hunters could also emerge among their group of over ten people.

Hunters appeared randomly each time!

Someone might be a hunter tonight but become one of the hunted the next night—there was no certainty.

Moreover, all of the over ten people present were from Ghost Mountain City. To preserve more strength for the second round’s melee, it was the duty of Experts like Shangguan Ying to protect more Ghost Mountain City examinees through the first round.

Shangguan Ying said coldly and firmly, “When night falls, whoever becomes a hunter must leave to hunt others and can only return here at dawn the next day.

Of course, whether they can return depends on their own fate. Does anyone have any objections?”

Shangguan Ying scanned the room with her gaze.

“Agreed!”

“I have no objections!”

“This rule is very reasonable.”

The over ten people nodded one after another. This rule was already a convention; Shangguan Ying was merely reiterating it.

“Good!” Seeing that everyone agreed, Shangguan Ying nodded, then sat cross-legged, closed her eyes, and waited quietly. At the moment, it was still daytime on the surface, under extreme weather conditions, so there was nothing they could do.

Seeing this, the others also took the opportunity to rest.

During the first round, the daytime was uneventful, but the nights were particularly tense, as they could face attacks from hunters at any moment.

To avoid elimination, hunters would spare no effort and were exceptionally ruthless. No one wanted to be eliminated in the first round.

For a while, the basement fell into silence.

Xu Xingchen patted Ye Sheng on the shoulder and said with a relaxed smile, “Don’t worry, with me here, I’ll make sure you get through the first round safely!”

With his High-Tier Super-Limit combat power, he indeed had the qualification to speak such words.

Ye Sheng glanced at him, closed his eyes, and paid no further attention.

A wisp of his consciousness had already entered the ‘Nightmare Ghost Realm,’ where he condensed a figure and continued to increase the level of his Annihilation-grade Skill.

He wanted to promote from a Beginner-Tier Giant to a High-Tier Giant as soon as possible!

Especially after seeing the number of examinees reach tens of millions, even he felt a faint sense of pressure. No one knew how many Monstrous Talents and Aberrations were hidden among the tens of millions of examinees!