Listening to the two speak, Jiang Zhaoye fell into thought.
Was the rest of Attribute Conversion really that difficult?
Was it actually normal to convert only a single point in two months, or even fail to convert a single point at all?
He looked around. No one seemed to disagree with what the two had said; some even looked deeply empathetic...
The line shuffled forward a bit more.
Standing in line, Jiang Zhaoye absently resolved to ask his classmates about their attribute conversion progress later.
One by one, the students ahead entered the tent and came back out. Some walked with heads held high, others kept their heads down in silence, and a few were swarmed by companions the moment they stepped out, bombarded with questions from all sides.
With his turn fast approaching, a wave of inexplicable nervousness suddenly bubbled up inside Jiang Zhaoye.
He clutched his hands, his palms sweating slightly.
He wondered how he should act... to make his test results seem within a normal range.
The sun beat down relentlessly from overhead, sending a wave of stifling heat rising from the surface of the sports field, roasting everyone's patience into anxious fraying.
Finally, it was his turn... Faced with the inevitable moment, Jiang Zhaoye actually calmed down. Smoothly straightening the rumpled hem of his shirt, he stepped into the tent.
It was much cooler inside the tent. A psionic thermostat ran silently, sending a gentle, imperceptible breeze of cold air through the room to banish the late-summer heat.
The young woman with her hair in a ponytail sat behind the testing desk, head down as she organized the previous file. Hearing footsteps, she continued writing while glancing up briefly at him.
Her indifferent, working-class gaze paused on the boy's face for a moment, lingering for two extra seconds on his icy-blue eyes before she spoke with routine detachment: "Student ID, name."
"Number HCSY28271026, Jiang Zhaoye."
"271026... right?" She tapped the screen a few times to pull up his file.
"Yes."
The woman's swaying ponytail slowly came to a rest. Her eyes lingered on the touchscreen for a moment, a trace of doubt flitting across her face. She looked up at him again, her jet-black ponytail swaying nimbly with the movement and briefly revealing a spark of youthful vitality.
Looking down to compare the file photo with the person before her once more, the woman frowned. Ultimately, she said nothing, merely pointing to the instrument beside her. "Step up, place both hands on the handrails, and relax."
It was a waist-high, silver-white instrument. Its base was a circular metal platform reflecting a cold sheen, supporting a flat, transparent column with a fist-sized crystal embedded at the top, currently glowing with a soft blue light. Jiang Zhaoye walked over, stepped onto the platform, and gripped the handrails on both sides with his hands.
A cool touch radiated from his palms. He felt a slightly chilly force field begin scanning his body from the handrails, a faint numbness spreading across his skin like electricity before seeping inward and flowing through his meridians.
The hairs on the back of his neck stood on end.
"Relax, don't resist," the woman's voice was steady and flat, carrying a numb familiarity born from endless repetition. "Count to about thirty, and it'll be over."
Jiang Zhaoye behaved meekly enough, softly closing his eyes and trying his best to relax.
The force field swept through him like a scan, probing inch by inch from his meridians to his dantian, from his bones to his flesh, and from his internal organs to his brain.
The crystal's light began to shift, changing from light blue to pale green, then to orange-yellow, before finally stabilizing into a solid ice-blue.
On the display screen standing beside them, lines of data flickered rapidly.
Standing next to the display screen, the dark-skinned man watched the flickering numbers, a hint of surprise appearing on his face.
"Metal 13, Water 36, Ice 62..." He read out the data, paused, and glanced at the final number again. "Ice attribute 62?"
"Yeah." The woman leaned in for a look, her eyebrows twitching slightly as she swiped through the electronic file on her screen. "No flags... What did his middle school entrance exam file say?"
The man flipped through the file. "Metal 13, Water 14, Ice 16."
The two exchanged a look. Turning back to Jiang Zhaoye, the man sized him up again, his gaze pausing briefly on his face and then his eyes before asking in a calm voice, "Student, have you been cultivating over the summer break?"
"Yes," Jiang Zhaoye nodded with honest obedience.
"What have you been practicing?"
"The Psionic Guiding Technique and Water-Ice Attribute Conversion. The teacher in the pre-high school orientation class recommended them after the middle school entrance exams." Jiang Zhaoye's face looked thoroughly well-behaved, and his voice sounded a little tight as he explained methodically, "Actually... there's something I wanted to tell you."
Setting down the file in his hand, the man looked at him with calm, dark eyes, meeting his gaze directly. "Go ahead."
"About twenty days ago, I noticed my eyes changing." Jiang Zhaoye pointed to his extraordinarily beautiful blue eyes. "They used to be black, but one day they suddenly turned like this... The color changed, my vision got a lot better, and recently... I can even occasionally see the pathways of flowing psionic energy."
He glanced cautiously at the expressions of the two adults before him. "My mom said it might be a spirit eye awakening, and told me to mention it to you during the census."
Though the kid sounded steady enough on the surface while speaking, he didn't even notice his voice trembling slightly.
Jiang Zhaoye didn't know whether this half-true explanation would hold up, or if they would press him for details. But his obvious nervousness made him seem naive and innocent, unwittingly providing him with the perfect cover.
The man raised an eyebrow, a flicker of amusement passing through his eyes. Rather than answering right away, he stared at Jiang Zhaoye for a few seconds like he was teasing a kid—staring until Jiang Zhaoye grew visibly stiff and awkward—before slowly turning his head and saying to the woman, "Give him a deep scan."
Rolling her eyes at him slightly, the woman retrieved a smaller silver device from under the desk. It was about the size of a pocket watch, with a long, thin probe attached to the top.
Walking over to Jiang Zhaoye, she instructed in a cool tone, "Stand still and don't move."
She then lightly touched the probe to his forehead between his eyebrows, sending a cool stream of psionic energy flowing into his head.
Jiang Zhaoye felt a faint sensation of dizziness, as though something had brushed gently across his brain before quickly receding.
The woman stared at the readings on the pocket watch device. After observing for a moment, she scanned from another angle before speaking slowly: "There really are signs of a spirit eye awakening."
"What type?" The man showed a bit of interest.
"Perception-type, though I'm not sure of the exact kind." The woman's tone softened slightly, though her voice remained aloof. "The awakening progress is less than halfway complete, so it hasn't fully taken shape yet."
She put down the probe and looked Jiang Zhaoye over again, her eyes sweeping across him. "Your physical constitution is also a bit abnormal."
"Your current bone density, muscle strength, and meridian toughness far exceed the average for your peers, and they don't quite match your middle school entrance exam medical data either. Personally, I think... it looks like signs of a physical constitution awakening, though the degree of awakening is very light—even lighter than your eyes. They should both still be in progress."
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