Chapter 17 - Exam’s Reward
After defeating the Heroic Osteomancer, Han Wu waited half a day for the twelfth wave to begin. The twelfth wave consisted of another Heroic Osteomancer accompanied by ten Unique Skeleton Knights.
Han Wu sent out Steely and twenty Sapper Locusts to swiftly crush the new invaders.
The other students, however, were having a hard time. They had put in so much effort just to kill a single Osteomancer during the eleventh wave that they didn’t have enough time to clear the bone fragments from the battlefield before another Osteomancer, accompanied by ten Skeleton Knights, emerged from the gate.
The young geniuses were already traumatized by the previous battle, lamenting and complaining at how ruthless the exams were. Cursing and grumbling at the overwhelming difficulty posed by the Osteomancer, three more students gave up and dropped out of the exam, leaving only three students remaining—Han Wu, Qin Shuang and Huang Fei.
The test continued since the winner hadn't yet been decided. Huang Fei had to withdraw on the fourteenth wave because most of his units had been gravely injured, finally securing third place.
By the sixteenth wave, most of Qin Shuang’s units were worn out from the prolonged battle. Half of her Rank 1 Lightning Towers had been destroyed, and she had even lost six of her Ancient Treants. She wasn’t confident in overcoming the next wave, so she gave up as well.
That was how Han Wu placed first. However, until the exam was over, he wouldn’t know his position, since he was still participating in it. He continued to defeat a number of waves, finally reaching the twentieth wave.
Once again, he had to fight a Heroic Osteomancer, this time with 5000 Unique Skeleton Knights marching out from the gate as well. This time, the Skeleton Knights took the lead in the invasion. Fortunately, with his Sapper Locusts, he managed to turn the numerical advantage of the Skeleton Knights against them.
As the Sapper Locusts exploded, the Skeleton Knights were blown apart by the shockwaves. With how closely packed the Skeleton Knights were, the resulting bone shards from the explosion accidentally injured their own companions. The explosions lasted until most of the Skeleton Knights were reduced to mere bone fragments.
The Osteomancer attempted to transform into a bone giant, but was immediately killed by Steely the moment it came through the gate. The Scorching Dwarves cooperated with Steely, effortlessly dispatching the rest of the Skeleton Knights.
The homeroom teachers were closely observing the sole remaining screen in front of them, watching as Han Wu passed the twentieth stage.
The emotionless voice of the machine sounded again at that moment. “The twenty-first wave will soon start and the difficulty will be increased significantly. Students, prepare yourself.”
The gate grew to four times its initial size, with a thick and suffocating air of death slowly drifting from the gate. Han Wu clearly felt the temperature in his divine realm drop several degrees.
A glistening white throne made entirely out of bones slowly emerged from the gate, its seat occupied by a menacing Skeleton Lord attended by two Osteomancers. Beneath the throne were 10,000 Skeleton Knights, tasked with bearing the massive throne. To think that powerful Unique life forms were being used as mere porters for the Skeleton Lord!
The homeroom teachers exclaimed in shock and fear, “That’s a Skeleton Lord!”
A Lord life form had appeared on the twenty-first wave. Almost none of the Demigods present had a Lord life form in their divine realm.
Han Wu took one look and knew he was definitely outclassed this time. A Lord life form could easily overwhelm his units, even with an excellent plan or a numerical and terrain advantage.
Han Wu wisely chose to withdraw. The moment he did so, a strong suction force from the gates stopped the march of the skeleton army, pulling them back into the gate. Though the Osteomancers and the Skeleton Knights were immediately sucked back, the Skeleton Lord managed to resist the suction force for an astonishing five seconds.
In those five seconds, rather than engaging in a last-ditch assault, the Skeleton Lord broke off a piece of its rib and threw it deep into Han Wu’s divine realm.
The rib fragment flew towards the far end of Han Wu’s divine realm without his notice, successfully escaping the range of the mysterious suction force. After confirming that its rib was safe, the Skeleton Lord stopped resisting and allowed itself to be sucked back into the gate along with its throne.
Han Wu’s heart was still racing—he had thought the Skeleton Lord was going to launch a final assault on his units. After all, a casual attack from a Lord life form could easily kill a Heroic unit. He would’ve lost a lot had Steely been killed. Thankfully, everything was finally over, and he was once again summoned before the golden wheel.
He looked up and noticed a massive ranking board at the top of the golden wheel which displayed the names of every student who participated in the ranked exams. He quickly scanned through the list, trying to find his name, and was quite surprised to see his name in first place, glowing with golden light.
“I’m… I’m first?” Han Wu stuttered, pleasantly surprised. He was certain he would get a good result, but he had never expected to win first place.
The golden wheel then projected another ranking board, which detailed the total points of each class.
Han Wu was only interested in two of the classes—Tian Wen’s and Liu Letian’s. Tian Wen’s class which obtained 252 points secured first place, surpassing the class in second place by an overwhelming gap of 20 points. Liu Letian’s class, on the other hand, was ranked eighth with 192 points.
Liu Letian was so furious that he wanted to bang his head against the wall. Had Han Wu and the other two not switched classes, his class would’ve secured first place! Overcome with a bitter blend of loathing and regret, he sighed in utter helplessness.
Not only had his class failed to enter the top three spots, he had also lost five Divine Essence due to losing a bet with his rival, despite gifting his nephew many resources. He had really lost a lot this time.
Tian Wen, on the other hand, was simply drowning in a sea of pure bliss. Not only had his class placed first, he had even received five Divine Essence for free from an irritating colleague.
After checking the results, some students were forcefully ejected from the void—they had failed the qualifier exam and were therefore expelled. Even though expulsion would not harm their divine realms, it was a given that, without the support of the school, it would be very difficult to reach the Demigod stage. In fact, they had almost no chance of advancing in life.
Most remaining students were overwhelmed by a complicated mix of relief and regret. Those who had given up before attempting the ranked exams were deeply regretting it already. If they had known how easy the first few waves would’ve been, they wouldn’t have given up so quickly. Unfortunately, they couldn’t rewind time, so they could only look on at the other students as they received their prizes.
The award ceremony soon started right after the exam; the golden wheel spun, giving each student who participated in the ranked exam a random resource card.Han Wu was disappointed with the card he received—a single iron ore worth at most 2 Divine Points. The award for just participating in the ranked exam was way too cheap!
Soon, the rewards for the top 100 students were given out: a piece of divine realm worth a 100 Divine Points. The students could choose any terrain they wanted.
Han Wu considered carefully before choosing the most expensive option, the forest. Each square kilometer of forest cost 5 Divine Points. In total, he obtained 20 sq km of forest.
He chose the forested terrain for two main reasons—he could harvest lumber from the forest, which was useful as forging material for the Scorching Dwarves, and the leaves could serve as feed for his locusts, making it the most beneficial terrain he could think of.
The time arrived to distribute rewards to the top 50 students, each entitled to a Rank 1 Sacred Object. An index appeared in front of the students, displaying all the Ranked 1 Sacred Objects the school had amassed.
Han Wu read through the index and soon grew dizzy looking at the long list of Sacred Objects. He never knew the school was so rich that they had tens of thousands of Rank 1 Sacred Objects in storage.
Han Wu didn’t know what to choose, but his homeroom teacher advised through an encrypted message, “Han Wu, it’ll be more beneficial for you to choose the Rank 1 Sacred Object Poison Orb.”
Certain his teacher was leading him down the right path, Han Wu chose the Poison Orb without hesitation.
The award ceremony continued; the top 30 students received a single Increased Growth Card each while the top 20 students received a Rank 1 Temple each.
It was soon time for the more exquisite prizes. The top 10 students could choose any Divine weapon which cost a maximum of 100,000 Divine Points.
Han Wu carefully considered the needs of his divine realm. Steely already had four Hurricane Greatswords, so he didn’t need any new weapons. Even if he did, Han Wu would need to exchange four weapons. Weapons were useless to locusts, so he didn’t even need to consider them. In the end, he could only consider gifting the Divine weapon to the Scorching Dwarves.
After analyzing the Scorching Dwarves attributes and racial talents, Han Wu searched specifically for weapons with the fire attribute resembling a hammer.
There were still quite a lot of Divine weapons for him to choose from that fit his criteria. He quickly sifted through the results and found the one with the highest value.
[Warhammer Hellforge. Costs 99,999 Divine Points. Made from the core of a Lord Nine-headed Hell Snake. Contains immense fire energy. Minimum requirement: Fire attribute Heroic life form.]
Han Wu checked the description and hesitated. The hammer fit his criteria, but the last requirement was a headache, since he didn’t have any fire attribute Heroic life form.
He didn’t want to lower his requirements to find a Divine weapon that the Elite Scorching Dwarves could use either. In any case, only an idiot would turn down a chance to leech off the school!
In the end, he chose to get Hellforge. Though he couldn’t use it yet, he could still store it until the Scorching Dwarves became Heroic life forms.
The top 5 students each got a Unique Seed while the top 3 students had their Core level increased by one. In the end, under the envious eyes of the other students, Xu Mei personally handed Han Wu a single Divine Essence card.
Even Qin Shuang, who was extremely rich, had her eyes glued to the Divine Essence card. It was, after all, quite a tempting object, even to her.
Han Wu stowed it away, bringing the award ceremony to an end.
Chacha's ThoughtsSkeleton Lord
Apparently there's a manhua of this novel and this is their depiction of the Skeleton Lord
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