12: Chapter 12: Accept the quest and defeat all the ferocious beasts.

The city was vast, and encountering a Rank Two ferocious beast on its outskirts was a very low probability event.

All the Rank Two ferocious beasts should be near the buildings in the core area.

Su Mu stowed his spear and continued advancing toward the core area.

Normally, having entered the city area, the space should be getting smaller.

He should have run into other examinees by now.

Yet, Su Mu hadn't encountered a single examinee since entering the city area.

However, this was understandable.

Jianglan City's college entrance exam results weren't particularly outstanding in the entire Jiang Province; it was a momentous occasion if even one student made it into the province's top ten each year.

In the past two years, the best result had only reached the top 50 in the province.

The ferocious beasts in the core area were basically intended for the top one hundred examinees in the province.

This year's core area boss was even more ridiculous, featuring a Rank Three initial-stage ferocious beast.

As for Su Mu, the only one with an S-rank talent in this year's exam, his strength was certainly within the top one hundred of the province.

Of course, Su Mu wasn't a reckless youth who would blindly rush into the core area to clash with the Rank Three initial-stage Explosive Flame Panda.

His current strength was sufficient to deal with Rank Two ferocious beasts, but he would inevitably fall short against a Rank Three.

Su Mu wandered the outskirts of the city, mostly encountering Rank One high-stage ferocious beasts.

Find beasts! Kill them! Gain conversion points!

Find beasts! Kill them! Gain conversion points!

...

As Su Mu moved between the city buildings, a sense of déjà vu grew stronger.

Suddenly!

Su Mu froze in place!

Before him was an abandoned building, inconspicuous in the derelict city.

But several large characters on the building were still recognizable.

"Hegu County People's Gover.."

The part where the character for "nment" should be had already collapsed.

This was Su Mu's hometown, the county town that had suffered from a beast tide years ago.

Su Mu's eyes turned bloodshot.

Ding! Returning to the place where you once lived, you have the following choices.

One: Clear all ferocious beasts in the town, killing every last one. Reward: S-rank Source Power Cultivation Method—Final Thunder Art. (This reward can be obtained in advance.)

Two: ...

Without waiting for the system to finish option two, Su Mu directly chose option one.

Subsequently, a crystal appeared in the system space.

Su Mu took out the crystal and asked the system in his mind.

"System, how do I use this?"

A mechanical voice sounded in Su Mu's mind.

"Host, this is a Memory Crystal. After crushing the crystal, the memories will automatically enter the host's mind."

Without hesitation, he crushed it. The shattered crystal turned into specks of starlight and entered Su Mu's mind.

Final Thunder Art: Thunder is not born of life, but governs destruction; it is not the beginning of all things, but the authority of the end.

The power of this cultivation method lies not just in summoning lightning, but in the authority of destruction.

...

Su Mu circulated his Source Power according to the cultivation method in his mind.

Dark clouds gathered in the sky once more, and Su Mu's aura continued to rise.

"Rumble!"

A bolt of lightning struck down!

Ding! Congratulations to the host for successfully breaking through to Rank One initial-stage.

[Name]: Su Mu

[Rank]: Rank One initial-stage

[Source Power Cultivation Method]: Final Thunder Art (Beginner)

[Source Power]: 368

[Soul]: 287

[Talent]: S-rank Thunder-Dark Domain

[Combat Skills]: Thunder Cloud Spear (Proficient), Chidori (Beginner)

[Weapon]: Spear Technique (Skilled)

[Conversion Points]: 582

After entering Rank One, Su Mu finally understood why his talent was called Dark Thunder Domain.

A surge of lightning radiated outward with Su Mu as the center, forming a circle with a radius of 20 meters.

Moreover, the lightning around Su Mu was completely invisible; presumably, this is what "Dark Thunder" referred to.

Within the lightning domain Su Mu formed, his control over lightning was greatly enhanced.

Holding the silver-white spear, all of Su Mu's attributes were significantly boosted.

Relying solely on the explosive power of his legs, Su Mu's movement speed was already almost catching up to Zhou Yang's.

This was truly incredible.

The greatest characteristic of elemental talents is that the traits of different elements are very prominent.

The lightning element has extreme destructive power.

The wind element has high mobility.

The earth element has strong defensive power.

But with the Dark Thunder Domain open, not only were Su Mu's destructive power and speed enhanced...

...he also possessed extremely powerful perception within the domain.

He charged through like a mad dog.

'Ding! Killed Rank One high-stage ferocious beast Blood Moon Wolf, conversion points +10.'

'Ding! Killed Rank Two initial-stage ferocious beast Saber-Toothed Tiger, conversion points +20.'

'Ding! Killed Rank One high-stage ferocious beast Hellhound, conversion points +10.'

'...'

Just like that, Su Mu didn't stop for a single moment, either killing beasts or on the way to find them.

As Su Mu continuously swung his spear, more and more beasts were slain, and his conversion points increased at a flying pace.

His college entrance exam points were also skyrocketing.

Opening the map again, Su Mu took a look.

His current location was only 500 meters from the core area; he could enter it by following the street straight ahead.

His mind was set.

Su Mu stepped out and charged toward the core area.

Just 100 meters away from the core area, a figure wearing a cyan combat suit and stepping on a long sword flew rapidly toward Su Mu.

Looking closely, two Rank Two ferocious beasts were following behind.

It was Zhou Yang, whom he had met before.

Up ahead, Zhou Yang also spotted Su Mu.

"Student Su, run!"

As Zhou Yang got closer, Su Mu realized those weren't two Rank Two beasts, but four.

And several Rank One beasts were following behind them.

This was already a small-scale beast tide.

Time went back to half an hour ago.

Zhou Yang and Wu Shuang were watching the rapidly changing scores behind Su Mu's name on the leaderboard.

508!

527!

...

617!

This made the two of them very anxious, and they immediately took action.

Zhou Yang used his speed to lure beasts out of the core area, and then the two of them would kill them together.

Going back and forth like this a few times, they had also killed four Rank Two beasts.

But the beasts also possessed some intelligence; after realizing these two were setting traps for them...

...a large wave of beasts followed Zhou Yang out.

This led to the situation where a large group of beasts was chasing Zhou Yang.

After seeing the beasts behind clearly, Su Mu was not only unafraid but exceptionally excited.

'Clear all ferocious beasts in the town, completion 43%.'

"I've been killing on the outskirts of the town for so long and only reached 43% completion."

"As expected, most of the beasts are in the core area."

Flicking his spear, Su Mu didn't retreat but advanced.

He charged into the beast swarm.

"Holy crap! Su Mu, are you crazy? These are four Rank Two beasts."

"What are you trying to prove as an enhancement type?"

Zhou Yang cursed loudly.

But he didn't flee directly; he shouted toward the nearby ruins.

"Wu Shuang—come out and help!"

A person wearing a red combat suit jumped out from the nearby ruins, holding a Tang Dao.

"Damn! This brother is truly brave."

"Stop talking nonsense. We caused this beast tide; no matter what, we can't just run away."

In the gap between their words...

Su Mu had already engaged the beast tide.

Still a horizontal sweep with the spear, first forcing two beasts back.

Then he thrust the spear straight ahead.

A few consecutive thrusts killed one of the Rank Two initial-stage Saber-Toothed Tigers.

In the blink of an eye, another beast had closed in on Su Mu.

It raised its front paw to strike down at him.

At this moment, Su Mu's Dark Thunder Domain came into play.

With his perception greatly enhanced, Su Mu had already anticipated it.

He dodged to the side, took a step back, and turned for a returning horse spear thrust.

It pierced the beast's eye, with the spear tip emerging from the other eye.

'Crack—'

The beast's brain shattered instantly, a mixture of white and red fluids flowing onto the ground.

'Thud!'

The beast collapsed.

Standing not far away, Zhou Yang and the other were filled with shock.

(ﾟДﾟ≡ﾟДﾟ)

"Uh, Zhou Yang, are you sure he's Su Mu?"

"Yeah!"

"Then do we still need to go help?"

"Probably not."

A few more minutes passed, and Su Mu had completely dealt with this small beast tide.

'Clear all ferocious beasts in the town, completion 54%.'

Su Mu retracted his spear and turned around.

At this moment, in the monitoring room outside the exam venue, things had completely exploded.