One by one, monitoring patches were pressed onto the students' arms.
Immediately after, the judge lightly tapped the student's arm, slowly infusing a special type of spiritual energy into it.
At the same time, numbers on the monitoring patch's display began to jump as the energy was injected, starting from 0.5, rising to 1.3, then 2.4... until it finally stopped at 5. This indicated that the judge had infused a total of 5 units of special spiritual energy into the student's arm.
During this process, the judge was extremely cautious, fearing any mistake that might accidentally harm or even kill the student.
Even if it was just a regular high school student, injuring or killing them would still require compensation, with the price varying depending on the student's background.
If the student was under contract, the compensation would be even more expensive.
After all, there had been cases where the aftermath of a Foundation Establishment expert's battle accidentally killed bystanders, only to discover that they were a group of highly invested genius high school seniors.
The compensation, calculated based on training fees, living expenses, tuition, tutoring fees, sterilization fees... ended up bankrupting the responsible party.
In the few seconds of energy infusion, the student's body tensed up, and their breathing became heavier, clearly affected by the special spiritual energy.
Even though no one actively directed the energy to attack, simply having it linger in the body caused some damage.
Fortunately, the student had taken painkillers, so while they felt discomfort, it wasn't unbearable.
Once the energy reached 5 units, the monitoring patch's display began counting the time it took for the student to neutralize the special spiritual energy.
The shorter the time, the higher the score.
Since each student received the energy at different times, the ranking wasn't based on who finished first, but on the recorded time.
After stopping the energy infusion, the judge took a capsule handed to him by an assistant.
He swallowed it and smiled at the camera in front of him, saying, "To replenish spiritual energy, choose Ziyun. With just one Ziyun Spirit Gathering Capsule, my energy is quickly restored, and I can infuse 50 more students without a problem."
As the competition began, several judges infused the special spiritual energy into the students one after another.
More and more participants closed their eyes, focusing entirely on neutralizing the invading energy.
The venue grew quieter, with only the sound of breathing remaining.
As soon as the special energy was infused into his right arm, Zhang Yu felt as if a fire was burning there.
The more energy was infused, the hotter and more intense the burning became.
The sharp pain shooting from his arm to his brain made him understand why so many participants had taken painkillers.
At that moment, he wanted to punch the judge who was still infusing the energy into him.
"Damn it, no wonder I saw someone selling insurance earlier. This competition is way too injury-prone," Zhang Yu thought.
He quickly activated the "Desolate Bull Soul-Calming Technique," and the unbearable pain gradually lessened.
Then, he directed the spiritual energy from his dantian toward his right arm.
"The invading energy is heat-based," Zhang Yu recalled.
"So I need to use cold-based energy to counter it."
Following the energy conversion method taught by Teacher Yan, Zhang Yu transformed the energy in his dantian into a cold stream, directing it toward his right arm.
As the cold energy flowed through his body, it felt like a bucket of ice water had been poured over him.
When the cold energy collided with the invading heat energy, the burning sensation in his arm began to cool down.
However, his cold energy was rapidly consumed, like using a bucket of water to extinguish a fire—the flames might die down, but the water would be gone.
Zhang Yu could only try to convert more energy to fight the fire.
Fortunately, he had the "Zhou Tian Qi Gathering Technique" continuously replenishing his energy, the "Desolate Bull Soul-Calming Technique" stabilizing his mind, and strong energy control to keep converting cold energy.
...
Not long before, when the judges hadn't yet reached Songyang High School, in the competition area of Bailong High School, Han Xingye glanced at Song Hailong, who was neutralizing the special energy in his body, and then looked at the large screen ahead, thinking, "It should be almost time, right?"
Inside Song Hailong's body, his spiritual energy surged like a mighty river, rushing toward the burning energy in his right arm.
The "Kang Ling Needle" continuously replenished his energy, and with his astonishing energy reserves, he could freely manipulate the energy in his body, even wrapping the entire burning energy to extinguish it in one go.
The pain during the energy neutralization process was almost entirely suppressed by medication, allowing Song Hailong to focus solely on his task.
"With my energy reserves and control, who could possibly finish faster than me?" Song Hailong thought confidently.
At that moment, a cry for help rang out in the venue.
A student groaned and collapsed to the ground, and people immediately rushed over to feed him a neutralizing pill.
"It's fine, he just ran out of energy. He's been given the neutralizing pill," someone said.
Soon after, another student screamed, vomiting blood as he fell.
This was due to mishandling the energy neutralization, causing the special energy to scatter throughout his body and inflict internal injuries.
Han Xingye glanced in the direction of the fallen student.
"Not worth mentioning, not worth mentioning," he thought.
He knew that more and more students from ordinary high schools would likely fail, either due to insufficient energy reserves, poor energy control, or low-quality medication.
He wasn't concerned.
"Do they think taking the same pills will close the gap?" Han Xingye thought.
"Everyone's taking pills, but the gap between ordinary high schools and the top three schools will only grow wider."
As he pondered this, the large screen suddenly flashed, displaying a name: Bailong High School, Song Hailong, 1:29.
Seeing this, Han Xingye smiled slightly.
"Oh? He's faster than he was at school. Looks like the atmosphere here is making him more excited."
Soon, more names began appearing on the screen, quickly filling up the top ten spots.
The screen only displayed the top ten names.
The rankings from second to tenth kept changing, but Song Hailong's name remained firmly at the top, as if he alone was suppressing all the other students.
However, more and more names began to stabilize, and the rankings from second to tenth gradually stopped changing.
The students were shocked to see the unchanging names on the screen, and soon someone noticed an obvious fact: "All ten of them... are from Bailong High School!"
Although Bailong High School wasn't the first to receive the energy infusion, after Song Hailong took the lead, the other students from Bailong quickly neutralized the energy in their bodies, each finishing at different times and completely dominating the top ten.
Teacher Yan looked at the ten unmoving names on the screen, feeling as if a mountain had been placed in front of Songyang High School.
"Sigh, the top three schools... This kind of competition is ultimately their domain."
Just then, the rankings from second to ninth suddenly shifted down one spot, as a new name shot up to second place: Hongta High School, Xiong Bufan, 1:35.
The students from Hongta High School had also begun neutralizing the energy in their bodies.
Shortly after Xiong Bufan took second place, two more Hongta students entered the top ten.
Han Xingye turned to look in the direction of Hongta High School and immediately spotted the most conspicuous thing in his "Heavenly Eye Talisman" vision: "Protected Area | Medicine Barrel | High-Speed Energy."
The "Protected Area" evaluation was easy to understand—Han Xingye guessed this student must be from a demon descendant protected area.
As for "High-Speed Energy," Han Xingye wasn't entirely sure, but the "Medicine Barrel" was clear to him.
"How many pills did they stuff into this guy?" Han Xingye thought.
"Damn, are they secretly using demons for drug experiments?"
There must be banned substances in that demon's body.
They should really be reported.
What? Our school is doing it too? And on humans? Never mind, then.
Although Xiong Bufan's performance brought some glory to Hongta High School, he didn't take first place, and Bailong High School still dominated the rankings.
However, moments later, the top nine students all shifted down one spot again.
As the name "Ziyun High School, Le Mulang, 00:25" appeared at the top of the screen, it felt as if a bomb had gone off in the air.
"25 seconds!" More and more students exclaimed in shock.
They couldn't believe that while they were struggling to neutralize the foreign energy in their bodies, someone had managed to do it in just 25 seconds.
Was this even human?
Everyone could imagine that Le Mulang would undoubtedly receive a perfect score of 100 in this round, but the score was capped at 100, so the gap between her and the others couldn't be fully reflected.
This was the third time today that Han Xingye was shocked.
He frowned as he looked at the words "Ice Skin Jade Bones" above Le Mulang's head, thinking that her ability to neutralize the foreign energy so quickly must be related to her special physique.
Not far away, Song Hailong didn't look annoyed.
Instead, he laughed heartily as he looked in the direction of Ziyun High School.
"Interesting, interesting. It seems my biggest rival for the next three years of high school will be this Le Mulang."
It took over a minute before the other students from Ziyun High School finished neutralizing the energy in their bodies, with Lian Tianji and another student also making it into the top ten.
In the end, the top three spots were occupied by Le Mulang, Song Hailong, and Xiong Bufan.
The top ten were completely dominated by four students from Bailong High School, three from Ziyun High School, and three from Hongta High School.
Looking at the unchanging rankings, the high school students in the venue felt a heavy weight on their shoulders.
For most of them, this was the first time they truly experienced the gap between themselves and the top three schools.
The names and scores on the screen felt like a mountain pressing down on them, showcasing the insurmountable gap between the top schools and the rest.
Just then, the rankings on the screen changed again.
The fourth to tenth places all shifted down one spot.
In a competition almost entirely dominated by the top three schools, someone had managed to break through and claim fourth place.
Songyang High School, Zhang Yu, 1:38.
When Zhang Yu successfully neutralized the special energy in his body, the timer beeped softly.
That faint beep felt like a boulder dropping into the hearts of the Songyang High School students around him.
The students from the top three schools also instinctively glanced in the direction of Songyang High School, surprised to see a student from there performing at a level close to theirs.
Teacher Yan quickly took out his phone and snapped a photo of the rankings.
This was important teaching material.
Thank you to "Osmanthus and Wine" for gifting the Oscar trophy to the character Bai Zhenzhen.
(End of Chapter)