However, a local teacher from Tian Nan City watched for a moment, and knowing what arrays lay ahead, his expression soured.

"This is bad! With that Pet Beast’s ability, the arrays for the next few hundred meters will be completely useless against it!"

He was thinking from the perspective of Tian Nan City High School; if Gu Ming took first place, then naturally, the students from his own school wouldn’t be able to.

His comment made the other teachers realize it as well.

The entire mountain was a massive array construct, containing over a thousand individual arrays. These were layered hierarchically, dividing the mountain into five distinct array zones.

No matter how the arrays ahead changed, their underlying control logic remained the same: manipulate the temperature, making it fluctuate wildly between extreme highs and lows.

For example, upon reaching the 500-meter mark on the mountainside, the array would cause the temperature to shift every half hour—hot one moment, cold the next.

The higher the altitude, the faster the changes occurred.

If a team couldn’t break the array quickly, they would face the agonizing ordeal of being caught between ice and fire.

Regardless of whether a team had Fire Element or Ice Element members, they had to plan their moves carefully.

Failure to quickly break the array would severely drain a Beastmaster’s Physical Ability.

Therefore, the subsequent arrays were designed primarily to test the students’ speed in analyzing and breaking them.

If they found the correct path and left the area before the temperature changed drastically, they could reach the summit in conditions their Pet Beasts could just barely tolerate.

The analysis required to break these temperature-differential arrays involved algorithms taught in university-level courses on temperature-measurement arrays.

Without a firm grasp of these algorithmic tools, it would be difficult to deduce the correct path.

People had previously been optimistic about Ah Kun because it had a calculation array engraved in its mind, giving it a chance to crack the timing of the mountain’s temperature changes.

But now, its new Breathing Technique was devouring all the surrounding Spiritual Qi, creating a pseudo-vacuum zone that left the pair completely unaffected.

After all, these arrays didn’t employ any particularly advanced principles. While it was surprising that Ah Kun had cracked the problem, it was still within the realm of possibility.

Ah Kun had bypassed the first official, direct method for solving the exam’s challenge, and it had also rendered the second method irrelevant.

The second method, which was also rendered useless, involved the secondary array: the Mist-Tracing Mountain Array.

The mountain’s topography, the shape of its ley lines, the layout of its Spiritual Qi—all had been utilized by Array Beastmasters to form a massive labyrinth.

The high- and low-temperature zones delineated safe and dangerous areas, with Ice Blade Spirit Trees serving as the "walls" of the maze.

Students walking through it would encounter a powerful disorienting effect around the 400-meter mark, like running into a "ghost wall."

This was one of the abilities of the Mist-Tracing Mountain Array.

If a team had a student skilled at breaking Mist Arrays, they could attempt to unravel it and discover a hidden passage left by the exam officials.

It was a secret path leading directly to the summit.

However, uncovering this hidden passage also required a significant amount of calculation.

Without sophisticated algorithmic tools, brute-forcing the calculation would take at least seven days.

And during those seven days, any slight delay or obstruction by other students would be disastrous.

Furthermore, this method required a Pet Beast specialized in exploration to counteract the disorienting effects of the Mist-Tracing Mountain Array.

Besides these two methods, there was a third.

This was the principle of "one power to break ten thousand laws"—using absolute strength to flatten all obstacles and charge straight to the summit.

This "power" didn’t refer to simple brute strength, but rather the ability to ignore the terrain’s mechanics and force a path up the mountain.

Gu Ming was currently taking this third path.

The teachers in the observation area watched with intense gazes as Ah Kun devoured the Spiritual Qi in a ten-meter radius. As the duo moved, this sphere of influence moved with them.

The question was, what level of Breathing Technique was required for Ah Kun to continuously inhale the surging Fire, Water, and Ice Spiritual Qi without affecting its Beastmaster?

Teacher Ruan hadn’t considered this question before. He had his own Pet Beast run the calculation and quickly got an answer.

"That’s the Breathing Technique capability of a Three-star Pet Beast, at the very least. Can its Breathing Technique be this powerful right after reaching the Entry Level?" Teacher Ruan murmured, his eyes filled with a covetous light. He desperately wanted to poach Gu Ming for his school.

The arrays set up for the exam included specialized spirit-gathering arrays designed to produce and concentrate Spiritual Qi.

This system was designed to create a Cultivation environment for Two-star Beastmasters. When Ah Kun entered with a Breathing Technique that exceeded that standard, it was able to create its pseudo-vacuum.

"Gu Ming’s Ah Kun has extraordinary potential. A common Mutated Grouper Fish certainly wouldn’t have this kind of ability."

The admissions teacher from Shifangyu University’s eyes lit up. The large, deep-blue crab beside him clapped its claws together, as if cheering.

’A student like that, with a Pet Beast like that, should be studying at our Shifangyu University.’ 𝓯𝓻𝒆𝙚𝒘𝓮𝙗𝓷𝒐𝓿𝙚𝒍.𝙘𝓸𝙢

Hearing this, Teacher Ruan glanced back, wanting to object, but no words came out.

’Then again, as a high school teacher, I’m no longer qualified to recruit Gu Ming.’

’After this competition, he’s definitely heading to university.’

Teacher Ruan gave a soft, self-deprecating chuckle at his own foolishness.

...

「Back at the competition.」

When the so-called high- and low-temperature zones were all the same to him, Gu Ming realized he no longer needed to waste effort solving the puzzle.

It was a classic case of "all roads lead to Rome."

Gu Ming continued straight up. Whenever he encountered an Ice Blade Spirit Tree blocking his path and swinging its blades, he simply found another way around it.

When someone can just climb over the walls of a maze, the maze itself becomes pointless.

He forged a path where none was designed, crossing through an area not covered by the disorienting Mist Array, and set foot on the 500-meter mark.

Behind him, Lou Meng of Forest Valley High School had long since been left in the dust.

Gu Ming knew someone was tailing him, but he didn’t need to do anything about her. By simply moving forward, the harsh environment itself was enough to cut her off.

Lou Meng had no way to forcibly absorb Spiritual Qi for protection, so she could only watch helplessly as the duo ascended.

She gritted her teeth and called her team captain, Jiang Jinling.

After hearing the report, Jiang Jinling was silent for a moment.

She looked toward the higher reaches of the mountain and, after a short wait, sure enough, she spotted Gu Ming’s figure.

Others on the mountain also spotted the duo’s figures and cried out in surprise.

"Ah!"

"How did he get up there? So there really is a way!"

"I just saw him going downhill a minute ago! How did he end up all the way up there?"

Some "geniuses" immediately concluded that the correct way up was to first go down and then find a hidden path back up.

On the spot, some people immediately took action, retreating to the scorching-hot "steamer" zone at the 300-meter mark.

The students further down couldn’t have been happier to see dozens of spots open up above them.

Seeing people willing to descend, they gladly made way, then quickly scrambled to take their places at the 400-meter mark.

Meanwhile, the "geniuses" who had gone down tried to replicate Gu Ming’s route and retrace his steps up the mountain.

However, as the saying goes, don’t bite off more than you can chew.

Soon, several Pet Beasts from Jinghai High School had suffered grievous injuries, forcing their team to retreat.

Mo Ying watched Gu Ming’s ascending figure, his face expressionless, his fists clenched tight.

His Purple Crystal Python’s scales were scorching hot, and its eyes had become cartoonish crosses—a sign it had fainted from the extreme heat.

Seeing this, a Thousand-eyed Wind Bird swooped down from above, extended its talons, and snatched the dozens of students from Jinghai High School and other teams into the air, flying them toward the rear medical station.