High Martial: I Grind Professions

Chapter 462: Chapter 300: Bone Age 40

His pace was unhurried, his aura restrained.

A stark contrast to the dazzling brilliance of Keynes.

He calmly stepped into the device, and the metal door slid shut without a sound.

The runes on the device’s surface lit up again and it began to operate.

One second... two seconds... three seconds...

Time seemed to stretch.

At first, the crowd paid it no mind, assuming it was just a routine procedure.

However, ten seconds passed, then twenty... The device’s light, instead of fading, grew brighter and brighter.

The dark silver runes flickered violently, as if breathing, and an extremely faint hum of energy could even be heard from within the apparatus.

This anomaly was completely different from everyone else’s test.

Just as the crowd was beginning to feel surprised—

HUM!

The device’s light suddenly reached its peak, then receded in an instant like a receding tide.

The metal door slowly opened.

Everyone’s gaze, whether subconsciously or with bewilderment, turned toward the device’s display screen.

A single number was clearly displayed there:

”Bone Age: 40”

Immediately after, a cold, synthetic mechanical voice seemed to confirm this unbelievable result, ringing out over the silent plaza:

”Bone Age: 40. Rating: Special Grade!”

”...”

Dead silence!

Absolute, dead silence!

It was as if time itself had completely stopped flowing.

Everyone’s movements, expressions, and even their breathing froze.

The shock, envy, composure, disdain... all emotions on their faces were instantly covered and shattered by a horror called ”disbelief”!

Pato’s reaction was the most intense.

The smugness and sense of superiority on his face shattered like fragile glass in an instant.

His scaled eyes flew wide open, and his mouth fell agape, wide enough to fit a fist.

Gasping sounds, ”Hahh... hahh...” escaped his throat, as if he were being choked.

He stared intently at the ”40” on the screen, then whipped his head around to look at Li Wen at the device’s entrance, his eyes filled with extreme absurdity and disbelief.

”Wh-what?!” He finally squeezed a cracked shriek from deep in his throat.

”F-Forty?! Impossible! Absolutely impossible! The machine! The machine must have been overloaded when it tested Keynes and broken down!

A guy with a ninth-grade bloodline, at the peak of the Venerable Realm? Bone age of forty? What kind of cosmic joke is this?!”

He pointed excitedly at the device, his body trembling slightly from extreme shock and denial.

His own bone age of 126, and the ”upper-middle” rating he had just been so proud of, had now become a colossal joke in the face of this ”40.”

The massive disparity nearly made him lose control.

Meanwhile, Keynes, who had been standing at the very front of the crowd enjoying the glory of his ”Superior” rating, now found the composure and the faint, barely-there smile completely wiped from his face.

His eyes, which seemed to hold the brilliance of stars, suddenly contracted, and an unprecedentedly sharp glint erupted from the depths of his pupils.

Like two tangible, sharp swords, they pierced through space to lock firmly onto Li Wen, who had just walked out of the device.

That gaze was filled with extreme astonishment and suspicion, as well as a trace of something he himself hadn’t even noticed... a tremor!

Ninety-six years, Superior rating, the number one of this batch... all these halos instantly paled in comparison to ”forty years, Special Grade.”

This was no longer just a gap, but a fundamental chasm!

This meant that his opponent had reached a level of cultivation efficiency and potential that was currently unimaginable to him!

Although he had sensed through his racial talent that Li Wen was not simple, he had never imagined his bone age would be so low.

A strong sense of crisis and an unprecedented level of gravity instantly replaced all his previous attitudes.

He no longer saw Li Wen as a passerby who posed a minor threat.

But as someone who must be taken seriously—perhaps even his greatest rival in this trial!

For the first time, his handsome face lost its composure, leaving only solemnity and deep thought.

After the brief, suffocating silence, a deafening uproar erupted!

”What?!—”

”Forty?! My heavens!!”

”Special Grade?! Am I seeing things?!”

”Is the machine broken? Or are my eyes playing tricks on me?!”

”Peak Venerable Realm at a bone age of forty?! H-how is that even possible in reality?!”

”Is he the scion of some super-reclusive family or an immortal sacred land?!”

”Blue Star Human Race? I’ve never even heard of that race! Could it be a newly emerged high-grade bloodline race?!”

”Pato was just mocking him yesterday... Hahaha, now he’s been completely slapped in the face!”

”Forty years... Special Grade... My universe...”

Cries of alarm, shouts of doubt, and gasps of shock rose and fell, one after another; the crowd erupted into chaos.

Everyone’s eyes focused on Li Wen like searchlights, filled with shock, scrutiny, disbelief, and deep awe.

Lorne Meck was also completely stunned. He had only known that Li Wen had been in the Extreme Combat Arena for a very short time and that his rank had risen frighteningly fast.

But he never imagined his bone age would be so terrifyingly young!

He looked at Li Wen with a complex expression—shock, admiration, and also a hint of dawning comprehension.

Even the instructor Blood Blade, who had always been as cold as an iceberg, could no longer maintain his complete composure.

A flicker of intense surprise clearly passed through his eyes, which were like ten-thousand-year-old ice, and his gaunt fingers even twitched unconsciously.

He had been an instructor at the Moro Intermediate Empire’s Source Net training camp for over a thousand years.

He had seen countless geniuses, but to this day, the number who had achieved a ”Special Grade” rating for bone age could be counted on one’s fingers!

Every single one of them, as long as they didn’t fall midway, was destined to become a supreme existence that would shake an entire Star Domain.

He had thought that having one ”Superior” like Keynes in this batch was already a rare find.

But he never expected that, in the end, such an ultimate dark horse would appear out of nowhere.

And from an obscure ”Blue Star Human Race” at that.

Blood Blade’s gaze was like a physical blade as he scrutinized Li Wen from head to toe, truly and seriously, for the first time.

It was as if he wanted to pierce through his calm exterior and see the terrifying potential hidden within.

His previous impression of Li Wen as ”ordinary” was completely overturned.

This young man was anything but ordinary!

The secrets and talent he concealed might far exceed the imagination of everyone present!

”Silence!” Blood Blade’s baleful voice rang out again, forcefully suppressing the great commotion in the plaza, but his gaze never left Li Wen.

”Bone Age: 40. Rating: Special Grade. Recorded,” he said in a low voice to a device on his wrist, his tone carrying a gravity it hadn’t possessed before.

He gave Li Wen a deep look.

Then, Blood Blade’s gaze swept over the entire field before falling back to the list.

”The test continues. Next, Rocky.” His voice returned to its icy coldness, but everyone could feel that the atmosphere in the plaza had completely changed.

Li Wen, this young man with a restrained aura from the unknown Blue Star.

With just a simple bone age test result, he had instantly become the most dazzling and mysterious focal point of this elite training camp.

Everyone firmly committed this name to memory—Li Wen, bone age forty, Special Grade rating!

Time flew, and by noon, the bone age tests were all complete.

The cold light of the bone age testing device completely faded, but the courtyard plaza remained enveloped in an invisible heatwave.

The shock of a forty-year bone age was like a huge boulder thrown into a calm lake.

It sent endless ripples of shock through the hearts of the 189 prospective members of this batch, which refused to subside for a long time.

Countless gazes, filled with shock, scrutiny, disbelief, and a barely perceptible trace of awe, were focused on Li Wen.

He stood there, his aura still restrained and calm, as if he weren’t the one who had just caused such an uproar. His composure was a stark contrast to the surrounding clamor.

”Li Wen, you really were hiding your true strength,” Lorne Meck said emotionally, standing beside Li Wen. His tone was complex, and his blue eyes shone with a brilliant light.

”I only thought you might not be weak before, but I never expected... you were actually like this...”

For a moment, he couldn’t find the right words to describe it.

Reaching the peak of the Venerable Realm with a bone age of forty was not unheard of among high-grade bloodlines.

But to have honed one’s skill realm to the point of rapidly advancing to the Sun and Extraordinary ranks in the Virtual Cosmos’s Extreme Combat Arena... the comprehension and talent that implied were simply terrifying.

In the mainstream understanding of the universe, bloodline determined the lower limit of a living being’s potential, while comprehension determined the upper limit they could ultimately reach.

For beings not of the three lowest-grade bloodlines, it was not difficult to raise their physical realm to the Saint Realm by relying on piled-up resources and a long lifespan.

But to break through to the Star Lord realm, which was like an insurmountable chasm, one’s skill realm (that is, the depth of one’s comprehension of the Law) was an absolute threshold that could not be bypassed.

This was also why countless beings in the universe were stuck in the early-stage Saint Realm their entire lives, wasting away their years.

It was for this very reason that high-realm Cultivators from a path like the Blue Star Human Race’s ”Extreme Cultivation System”—which required an extremely high skill realm as a prerequisite for physical breakthroughs in the early stages—were especially precious.

This not only meant they possessed an incredibly solid foundation and combat power far exceeding their peers, but also that they had the top-tier comprehension needed to climb to even greater heights.

Faced with Lorne’s heartfelt astonishment, Li Wen just smiled modestly and said nothing more.

While everyone’s thoughts were in turmoil, Instructor Blood Blade’s icy voice rang out again, instantly silencing all the whispers:

”Bone age test is complete. Time is precious. We will now proceed to the next item: Combat Power Test!”

He gave no one time to catch their breath or process their emotions, his swift and decisive style on full display.

Led by Blood Blade, the group passed through the training base’s magnificent complex of buildings and arrived in a wide-open area.

A simple, massive, nine-story giant tower stood there majestically, exuding a vast and ancient aura.

Its body was inscribed with countless profound runes, through which a faint flow of energy could be seen.

This was the renowned place for combat power assessment within the Source Net—the Heaven-Reaching Tower!

”The Heaven-Reaching Tower,” Lorne Meck whispered a quick explanation, noticing the inquisitive look in Li Wen’s eyes. ”This tower has nine layers, and each layer is harder than the last.”