Five hundred would have actually been enough.
Eastsea Academy had purchased a device rated up to one thousand out of caution, entertaining the fantasy that some student might surpass five hundred points.
No one had ever imagined that one day, someone could actually exceed one thousand.
Click.
A soft sound, and the screen suddenly went black, shutting off completely at the instant the reading froze at "999."
Wu Zhangkong stared at the crashed device in silence for a few seconds before composing himself, his voice carrying a barely perceptible dryness: "The upper limit of this device is one thousand points."
He looked up at Arthur, his tone carrying a complex undercurrent. He had already thought quite highly of Arthur, yet it seemed he had still underestimated him: "Your Spiritual Power has exceeded the measurement range of this testing device."
Gu Yue's eyes carried a strange light. She had long known that Arthur's talent was unprecedented among humans, yet she had not anticipated that his Spiritual Power would be this extraordinarily high.
Perhaps before the Silver Dragon King, this level of Spiritual Power was as a mayfly before the vast sky.
But for Gu Yue, who had rebuilt herself from scratch after starting over, she could feel more clearly just how terrifying a talent this was.
It was a potential capable of replacing the sky itself.
Arthur looked at the darkened screen and, after a brief moment of thought, said to Wu Zhangkong: "My Spiritual Power should be at the mid-stage of the Spirit Sea Realm."
It had originally been at the early stage, but a few months ago it had advanced to mid-stage alongside Gu Yue's breakthrough.
To others nearby, these words meant little. Zhou Zhangxi and the others, having recovered from their shock, blinked without much reaction. They had no frame of reference for what mid-stage Spirit Sea Realm actually signified.
Wu Zhangkong, however, understood perfectly. Mid-stage Spirit Sea Realm far exceeded one thousand points of Spiritual Power. Even he himself was only at that level.
He drew a slow breath, suppressing the turbulence within him, and set down his record sheet: "Spiritual Power testing concludes here. Arthur's result will be logged as 'exceeds measurement range.' We will now proceed to strength testing. Everyone, gather in the room next door."
The strength testing that followed brought its own surprises.
Zhang Yangzi scored the lowest this time, with only a few dozen kilograms of force.
Zhou Zhangxi came in at over one hundred kilograms.
Gu Yue reached over three hundred kilograms.
Then it was Wang Jinxi's turn.
"Wang Jinxi!"
At the sound of his name, the lean and tall Wang Jinxi walked up to the strength testing device and took a deep breath. The Spiritual Power test had cost him dearly in terms of face; now came his greatest strength, and it was his time to shine.
Thud! The left-hand reading finished: the screen displayed "423 kilograms."
Thud! His right hand came down, and the value jumped to "468 kilograms."
Combined arm strength of nearly one thousand kilograms, on par with a purely power-type Soul Master. Wang Jinxi was satisfied with this result; after all, he still hadn't fully recovered from the injuries he'd sustained in the promotion match.
Under the circumstances, this score was acceptable. Zhang Yangzi couldn't help but let out a loud shout as well, venting the frustration still lingering from earlier.
"Tang Wulin."
Wu Zhangkong's voice rang out; the order of testing had been arranged in his mind from lowest to highest.
Tang Wulin walked up to the device, his eyes instantly lighting up. After absorbing the energy from the first seal of the Golden Dragon King, he had clearly felt his strength surge by more than just a small margin.
He clenched his fists, and his entire skeleton let out a faint series of crisp pops as the faint aura of the Golden Dragon King spread outward.
Na'er's expression shifted slightly.
Tang Wulin's left fist came down first.
Boom!
The screen leaped to "1,156 kilograms."
His right hand followed immediately after.
Boom!
The value surged to "1,348 kilograms."
Amid the reverberating impact, Wang Jinxi, who had been feeling rather pleased with himself just moments ago, stood there dumbfounded. He had known Tang Wulin was strong, but he hadn't anticipated the gap between them being this vast.
"That scale of yours, put it on and go again." Wu Zhangkong said, his expression unchanged.
Tang Wulin raised his right arm, and golden scales instantly covered it. The dense aura of the Golden Dragon King caused Wang Jinxi to instinctively step back. His own martial soul had involuntarily shuddered with a sense of submission.
Tang Wulin then brought out his Dragon Claw and struck a force of nearly four thousand jin.
Gu Yue's expression remained calm; she had expected this.
Na'er's eyes flickered. The power of the Golden Dragon was surging within her.
So it really is the Golden Dragon King.
"Next, Na'er."
Without any preparatory motion whatsoever, Na'er walked calmly up to the device, raised her arm slightly, and threw out a perfectly ordinary-looking punch.
BOOM!
A thunderous impact, far louder than anything before it, exploded outward, and the device shattered outright.
Smoke billowed up, and fragments of components scattered across the floor.
There's someone even stronger?!
This time it wasn't just Wang Jinxi.
Zhou Zhangxi was nearly losing his mind. As an agility-and-attack-type Soul Master built around high offense and low defense, what he feared most was exactly this kind of opponent who could kill him in a single punch.
His face pale with shock, Zhou Zhangxi kept staring at the pieces strewn across the floor. If that punch had landed on him, wouldn't he end up scattered in pieces too?
Wu Zhangkong looked at the wreckage covering the floor and was silent for a few seconds. This device's upper limit was ten thousand jin of force. Na'er had clearly surpassed it by a significant margin.
He turned to look at Na'er, a faint helplessness entering his voice: "How much force did you use?"
"Not much. Just a casual punch."
In that moment, Tang Wulin was nothing more than a little brother next to Na'er. He had only absorbed the energy from the first seal of the Golden Dragon King.
Na'er, on the other hand, wielded the complete Golden Dragon martial soul, and on top of that, her martial soul was unlike anyone else's.
Compared to every other Golden Dragon martial soul user throughout history, Na'er's martial soul was indistinguishable from that of a true Golden Dragon. It was power that Gu Yue had seized from the residual divine energy of the Dragon God, which had split in two at the moment of her escape from the Divine Realm.
Testing concluded.
Rather than clinging to Arthur as before, Na'er quietly moved to Gu Yue's side. The two of them exchanged a brief, wordless glance and then looked away, a natural understanding passing between them.
"Arthur." Wu Zhangkong glanced at the destroyed device and shook his head. "Forget it, you don't need to be tested. That's all for today."
They clashed practically every day; there was no need for a test. Wu Zhangkong understood perfectly well just how much force Arthur could put out.
He left quickly, intending to go back and think things through. There were far too many monsters in this Zero Class. He needed to carefully consider how to teach them.
He might not be able to teach them all that much, but he absolutely could not lead them astray.
Even at Shrek, he had never encountered talents like these.
If Shrek had possessed these few individuals back in his own day, then what kind of genius could he, Wu Zhangkong, have claimed to be? He wouldn't have even ranked.
Thinking about it, even someone as cold as Wu Zhangkong couldn't help but silently offer a moment of sympathy for the geniuses of this generation.
Class was dismissed, but unlike usual, there were no cheers. Zhou Zhangxi, Wang Jinxi, and the others left in low spirits.
It wasn't as though being easily defeated was all that devastating in itself.
But being crushed purely by raw numbers, this kind of absolute disparity, was the true despair. Pure figures had laid the gap between them out in the most blunt and unsparing way imaginable.
The scene Arthur had anticipated, where Na'er would immediately rush over to find him after class, did not happen.
Watching Na'er walk away alongside Gu Yue, with none of their earlier rivalry between them and seemingly in perfect harmony, Arthur turned it over in his mind for a moment and then let it go.
He didn't particularly care about matters of sentiment.
He never made advances, but he never refused them either. If Na'er came to him, he would quietly accept it; if she didn't, he wouldn't give it a second thought.
He never wore himself down with inner conflict.
That night, Na'er walked through a darkened corridor and eventually stepped into Gu Yue's room.
Inside, she found Gu Yue sitting at the vanity, practicing putting on makeup.
Na'er's brow furrowed slightly. She didn't ask why Gu Yue was practicing that. Instead, she said simply: "When do we make our move?"
۞۞۞۞
~ Push the story forward with your Power Stones