712 Third Time is the Charm

2 days later, Alex arrived at the southern side of the capital where the evaluation for the Lightsworns was taking place.

It was a large, open ground with a lot of tents. From there, Alex could even see the purple building in the distance that was the royal palace.

Standing in line for the registration, Alex looked at the many people in colorful robes walking around them, all doing their own things.

'If things go well, I will finally be wearing that," he thought.

The first time he had thought of joining the Lightsworns, he had been sidetracked into training for over 2 years.

The second time he had thought of joining them, he had found his mother and suddenly another 2 years had passed.

Now was the third time.

"This time's the charm right?" he thought as he waited for his turn.

"There are too many of you trying to get into the Lightsworns. Do not waste our time, or we will throw you out immediately," someone shouted from the front.

Instantly, everyone got alert and looked forward. From time to time, the man repeated the same thing, putting the newcomers on edge too.

Finally, after nearly 40 minutes of waiting, it was Alex's turn.

He walked into a tent and saw a man with a talisman waiting for him in front of a stone wall.

There was a formation carved onto the wall and Alex had to place his hand on it for it to show any and all information about him that it could find.

Alex had studied about this before coming here, so he knew what he must do. So, he placed his hand without even a prompt from the person, and immediately a variety of information appeared on the screen.

The man looked at the screen, gave a split-second look of surprise, and proceeded to record the information.

23 years old - True Lord 9th Realm - Superior Metal root.

"Name?" the man asked.

"Yu Ming," Alex replied.

"Any sect or family?" he asked.

"No," Alex said as he shook his head.

That made the man give him a curious look before looking at the information on the stone. He was probably wondering how someone so young could have such talent and cultivation base yet not belong to any sect or family.

Alex was a little surprised by the information himself.

'So despite me staying 3 years in the demon realm, it only counts the time I experienced, huh?' he thought to himself.

The cultivation base wasn't anything new at all, but he was surprised that it showed his spiritual roots. Except, it was completely wrong.

'Is my Metal root so much better than the rest that their formations can't even separate the other roots?' Alex thought. 'Also, what happened to my Yang root? It's obviously just as good as the metal too.'

The only reason Alex could come up with was that the formation on the wall wasn't advanced enough to learn it all, even though it was a Saint rank formation.

Alex quickly left the place and went to another location where he was made to sit down to the side as a group of people watched someone else fight a puppet on a stage.

The person fighting was a woman with True Lord 3rd  realm cultivation base, and the puppet she was fighting against had the same cultivation base as well.

A man stood to the side, recording everything that he saw on the stage. The woman fought for a while before it was clear that she was struggling against the puppet.

"Stop," the man said and the girl stopped. She knew she had failed.

After she left, another man's name was called out and he began fighting against the puppet.

Just as they started, Alex was surprised to see the puppet's cultivation base suddenly increase to True Lord 6th realm to accommodate the man's own True Lord 6th realm cultivation base.

The fight lasted for a few minutes, in which it was clear that the man was strong enough to win against the puppet.

The evaluator stopped the match and passed the man.

"You have passed both of the tests. You can now go become a Lightsworn," the evaluator said as he brought out something from his bag.

When Alex saw what it was, he was a little confused.

'A sand watch?' he thought when he saw the evaluator place it on the table and the sand started flowing.

"Here in the Lightsworns, we do not accept tardiness. So, you have until this time to go and register yourself in the other tent right," the man pointed.

"Yes," the man said and ran away.

The evaluator then turned around and called another person to fight. This lasted for a while until it was Alex's turn to go down and fight.

He walked up to the puppet and its cultivation base changed to True Lord 9th realm.

That was way too weak. Still, Alex had to fight for almost a full minute, so he started.

The puppets attacking style was a simple hand-to-hand combat, so Alex decided to go with that too.

He dashed close to the puppet and delivered a weak, but still strong enough punch directly onto its chest.

The puppet tried to move away, but it wasn't fast enough. Alex's punch landed squarely on the chest and the puppet flew away.

It quickly stood back up, but Alex was already on top of it. He kicked it to the side and dashed in the direction it flew to attack it once again.

"Stop," the Evaluator said and Alex stopped.

'So fast?' he thought, but it was obvious he was better than the puppet.

"Good, you've passed. Same as everyone, you have a minute to reach that tent over there and register yourself," the Evaluator said and flipped the now pull sand watch.

Alex nodded and immediately left the room.

The tent was far, but not very. It would take him half a minute at best to reach it if he ran the whole way.

So, he ran.

Just as he was about to reach the opening of the tent, he heard a rather loud voice coming from the side.

"Mother, come on. I will carry you back," a small body of barely 8 years old said to his mother, who looked sickly.

"I am alright, my son. You don't have to—"

Before she finished, she immediately started coughing and vomited out a bunch of blood.

Alex's eyes immediately went wide and he rushed to her without thinking.

"Are you alright miss?" he asked, but the woman simply kept on vomiting blood.

"Miss, quickly eat this," he said as he brought out a poison antidote pill and a healing pill.

He brought the pill close to her face, but she showed no reaction.

"You passed," A voice came from behind him.

"What?" Alex said as he turned around and saw a man looking at him with a talisman in his hand.

"You passed the test," he said. "Whatever you are seeing is an illusion that was created to test your empathy and compassion. You can go to that tent and register for real now."

"Oh," Alex said as he turned around to look at the woman who was still vomiting blood. "So this is fake?" he thought and tried to touch her.

While his mind told him that he was touching someone, he could feel a surreal feeling that only came with knowingly being in an illusory formation.

"I see," he said. "Thank you."

Alex turned and went to the tent to prepare for the finalization of him entering the Lightsworns.

There were a bunch of people already in the tent he went to, but not everyone that had passed the puppet test was there.

'They failed at the empathy test?' he thought.

He sat by on an empty seat and waited for the tent to fill up. 20 minutes later, it was finally full.

"We have recorded your information and have registered you into the Lightsworn. However, one more task remains for you to fully become a Lightsworn and enter our legion," the man said.

Suddenly, words appeared in the air on a floating screen that started with 'I make an oath to the heavens…'

"Once you've said this oath, you will become a Lightsworn," the man said.

Everyone clamored to start saying the Oath. Alex prepared to say it as well.