Before submitting his paper, Gu Ming contacted an editor at the Flood Dragon Monthly Report.

After having had several manuscripts published consecutively, he had become a familiar and respected name at the paper.

A staff member had even gotten his phone number specifically to solicit his next article.

As long as it was one of his papers, it would be reviewed immediately and fast-tracked through the approval process.

According to their agreement, as long as Gu Ming submitted a paper certified as Double-Colored Holy Light or higher, the paper would unconditionally reserve space to publish it.

Exactly how much space it received would depend on the manuscript’s quality and potential.

Therefore, right after Gu Ming submitted his work, he immediately received confirmation from the editorial department that it would be published.

With a certification from the Hall of the Great Dao, the editorial department had no reason to turn it away.

Seeing that his paper had been accepted, Gu Ming breathed a sigh of relief.

The teachers from his school who were with him saw this and looked at each other, at a loss for words.

For Gu Ming, writing articles about Pet Beasts was as easy as eating and drinking. It passed review instantly. It was enough to leave anyone speechless with envy.

After seeing the teachers off, Gu Ming took his two Pet Beasts into the Dream Training Space for some special training.

The goal of this training session was to improve Ah Kun’s Wave-Swallowing Technique and Cyan Treasure’s various Skills.

The training consumed nearly ten Achievement Points, but in return, he achieved a satisfying Master-Level Mastery of Wood Escape and improved various smaller Skills.

Due to the sheer number of Skills, they will not be listed one by one here.

The next morning, Gu Ming traveled through the Golden-Eyed Dragon Gate that appeared above the school’s athletic field, heading for Tian Nan City.

That’s right—the candidates participating in the competition didn’t need to take public transportation to get to the venue.

Tian Nan City possessed an inter-provincial "small world gate," the Golden-Eyed Dragon Gate. By opening it above each school’s athletic field, students could enter from their campus and be transferred to Tian Nan City.

Of course, the competition itself was not held inside the Golden-Eyed Dragon Gate, but at a physical location in Tian Nan City.

This also avoided the risk of a repeat incident with the Golden-Eyed Dragon Gate being invaded by Demon Fiends.

These days, the provincial authorities were extremely cautious about using the Golden-Eyed Dragon Gate. Even while open, it was strictly monitored by multiple High-star Beastmasters to prevent Demon Fiends from hijacking the Space-Time Passage.

An incident like that was something they would never allow to happen a second time.

After arriving in Tian Nan City, Gu Ming took note of the surrounding mountains and forests for the first time.

To his surprise, the assembly point for the Tian Nan City competition wasn’t located within the city itself, but in a People’s Park on the outskirts.

The park was currently closed to the public, filled with talented students from every school across the province:

Each school had registered anywhere from a dozen to eighty people. With all the schools combined, the number of participants on-site totaled in the tens of thousands.

With so many competitors, the first round of eliminations was bound to be brutal.

The entire competition schedule was extremely tight. The whole process, from the provincial, national, and finally to the international stage, would take only about forty days at most.

Most Beastmasters only had a few months of training. Contestants like Gu Ming, who came from a poor background but possessed outstanding Talent, had even less time. With just over three months of cultivation, he was exceedingly rare among the participants. 𝕗𝐫𝚎𝗲𝘄𝐞𝕓𝐧𝕠𝘃𝕖𝐥.𝐜𝚘𝚖

The supervising teacher for this trip was still their homeroom teacher, Teacher Ling.

At the People’s Park venue, she pointed out the most talented individuals from each school to her students. The faces were largely the same ones they had seen at the provincial exam, with almost no one missing.

A few of the prodigies they had only glimpsed last time weren’t participating in this competition, mainly because their ambitions lay elsewhere.

Although the competition tested a wide range of knowledge, the Cultivation Technique assessment was incredibly demanding, enough to eliminate the vast majority of participants.

Teacher Ling explained,

"Of the students who come to compete, ninety-nine percent of them are just here for the experience. They’re not serious contenders; they just want to see what it’s all about.

"In the end, they’ll just go back to their high schools to prepare for the college entrance exams."

This was precisely why the competition was scheduled to end before the college entrance exams. That way, the students who didn’t make the cut could still return to school and take part in the mad scramble that was the college entrance exam.

The material being tested here, however, was far too advanced for most of them.

Therefore, the real threats to Gu Ming in this crowd were actually the students who hadn’t been given much attention before.

These included Lin Miao from Jinghai High School, Mo Ying from Shadow High School, and the prodigy from Forest Valley High School, Jiang Jinling.

Gu Ming had met the students from Jinghai High School and Shadow High School before.

The students from Forest Valley High School, however, were a mystery. Teacher Ling specifically warned Gu Ming to watch out for Jiang Jinling.

Her Pet Beast was a Grass Spirit with a mutated bloodline and extremely strong Grass Element Perception. However, her true strength didn’t lie in her Pet Beast, but in the multiple Cultivation Techniques she had created for her Elf Beast.

Fighting her would be incredibly tricky. She could use all sorts of Grass Element Power to toy with her opponents. If Cyan Treasure were to face her, victory would be difficult.

This, however, only piqued Gu Ming’s interest. ’I wonder if I’ll get the chance to face the prodigy from Forest Valley High School in this competition,’ he thought.

As Gu Ming and Lu You were teamed up on the field waiting for the assembly, several small birds split off from a Thousand-eyed Wind Bird in the sky above. One by one, they chirped, announcing the competition’s first prompt.

Just as his teacher had revealed, the preliminary round would be a screening based on the theme of Cultivation Technique creation.

This prompt caused the expressions of many candidates to sour. They had been hoping for a lucky break, thinking they could pass simply by gathering herbs in the mountains or through sheer combat prowess.

Fortunately, the competition allowed students to form teams. In a team, while some might excel at combat, others would naturally be skilled at devising Cultivation Techniques.

As long as a team could capture the attention of the judging panel, every member would receive an equal share of the bonus points.

The most brilliant performers would catch the eye of the admissions offices from the nation’s top 100 universities and receive generous recruitment offers.

However, very few could ever reach that level.

Team members who were just coasting and made no significant contribution, while they might still receive an admissions offer, would not get perks like waived tuition or cultivation fees. They would have to pay the standard rates.