27: Chapter 27 The Cruel Elimination of the Balance of Power

Inside the examination hall, the air felt as if it had been gripped by an invisible hand.

Everyone—whether on the stage or off, inside the examination hall or outside—froze in place.

The broadcast still hung in the air, the trailing note of the words "Please, the first contestant" not yet having dissipated.

Yet, Li Qingyue had already stood up.

With the figure of a twelve or thirteen-year-old girl, she stood on the edge of the dais, right before the guardrail.

Those crimson eyes looked down upon the examinees in the miniature world.

She spoke.

Her voice was not loud, but every word seemed to be carved into space itself, exploding directly into the depths of everyone's minds.

"This assessment—"

"will not follow boring formalities."

"Things like stage demonstrations, individual introductions, and judge scoring? A waste of time."

She paused.

The corners of her mouth curled slightly.

On that porcelain-doll-like face appeared an expression that absolutely should not have been on a loli's face—the smile of a predator.

"So, for the first round,"

"I will do the screening for you."

As her voice fell, she raised her right hand.

Slender fingers emerged from the cuff of her deep blue robe, holding a card between them.

It was no ordinary card.

It was—

"Holy crap!!"

Zhao Dahai grabbed Su Bai's arm violently, the color draining from his chubby face in an instant. "That, that card—"

Su Bai followed his trembling fingertip to look.

That card.

It was golden.

Not ordinary gold, but a dark gold, epic and seemingly condensed with the radiance of an entire era.

The patterns on the card's surface flowed slowly, like a living galaxy. Every line was breathing. With every breath, the surrounding space trembled.

For the first time, Lin Xiao's expression showed a crack.

As the daughter of the Lin family, she had seen more high-rank cards than the entire class combined. Seventh-rank, eighth-rank—she had even once seen a ninth-rank Element Card through blast-proof glass.

But those cards—compared to the one in front of her—were all garbage.

"Legendary-grade."

Lin Xiao's voice was so soft it was almost inaudible. "That is a Legendary-grade Magic Card."

Legendary-grade.

The S-rank among ninth-rank cards!

There are no more than a hundred Legendary-grade Magic Cards in existence worldwide. Each one is a strategic weapon capable of changing the course of a war.

And now, such a card was being held between Li Qingyue's two fingers, as if she were holding a playing card.

Li Qingyue withdrew her gaze.

She flicked her slender fingers.

The golden card left her hand, carving a straight trajectory through the air—and then struck directly into the "Mustard Seed in Sumeru" miniature world!

BOOM!!!!

It wasn't a sound; it was a vibration at the level of laws.

The sky of the miniature world split open. The clouds were torn apart from the center as if by an invisible giant hand, revealing the void behind it that did not belong to this dimension. Then—a giant phantom of a scale slowly emerged from the crack, blocking out the sun.

It was a universal balance formed entirely of condensed golden light. The scale pans at both ends were large enough to carry a building. The central support pillar of the balance was engraved with dense ancient runes, each one burning with pure white fire of truth.

Su Bai looked up at that balance.

He felt his Mental Power trembling.

It wasn't fear; it was awe.

It was the kind of tremor etched deep into one's genes, like an ant suddenly realizing it was standing in front of a human.

"【Space-Time · universal balance】."

Li Qingyue's voice exploded across the sky.

"This is a Legendary card I don't often use for combat. One of its functions is appraisal, using the laws of truth to measure the basic circuits of your Magic Cards. Those that pass stay. Those that don't—"

She didn't finish, and she didn't need to.

Because the balance had already begun to move.

Hum—

The first ripple of law expanded from the center of the balance's scale pan.

The golden ripple, like ripples on a lake, spread in all directions with the balance as the center. The speed at which the ripple swept past was not fast—about dozens of meters per second—but every inch of space was meticulously ground over by it.

Then, the first card shattered.

It was a student from the neighboring Class Six. The longsword card in his arms trembled violently the moment the ripple swept over it, emitting a harsh, mournful cry. Three seconds later, dense cracks appeared on the card's surface.

Crack.

The card snapped in half.

Before that student could react, a pillar of white light lit up beneath his feet. The next second, his entire person disappeared from the miniature world—forcibly teleported back to the real world.

Then, the second. The third. The fourth.—Like dominoes.

"My card—my card shattered!!"

"What's going on?! I didn't cheat!!"

"The circuits were drawn by myself!! I really drew them myself!!"

Wails rose and fell.

But Li Qingyue had no expression.

She simply stood on the high platform outside, looking down at everything in the miniature world with those cold, crimson eyes.

Those who cheated, copied homework, cut corners, drew a circuit line wrong, or had unstable spatial frameworks—all were teleported out by the white light.

Vice President Wu Molin was wiping sweat from his brow nearby, wanting to say something but not daring to speak.

Because he knew very well: in the eyes of a powerhouse at Li Qingyue's level, there was no distinction of quality among these students' cards—only "usable" and "unusable."

And most were unusable.

"Holy crap, holy crap, holy crap—"

Zhao Dahai hugged his mace card tightly, sweat pouring down his chubby face.

The golden ripple swept over him.

The card in his arms trembled violently. Trembled. Trembled.

Then—it stopped.

The card surface was intact.

Zhao Dahai froze for a second, then sat down on the floor, gasping for air.

Lin Xiao's longbow card also passed. She remained calm, but her knuckles gripping the card were slightly white.

Su Bai looked down at the Kyubey Card in his hand.

The moment the golden ripple swept past—it didn't move an inch.

The pink Magic Card even glowed with a faint, dark pink, eerie light. It wasn't passive endurance, but rather—disdain.

Yes. Disdain. It was as if that plush cat were saying: Mere truth appraisal, you dare to judge me?

【Su Bai, that power is very annoying.】

Kyubey's voice sounded in his mind, its tone rarely carrying a hint of displeasure.

【However, it cannot do anything to me.】

"Are you sure?"

【Sure. Its appraisal range is the 'Law of Truth'. And one of Kyubey's core concepts is the 'Law of Deception'. Deception will cause systematic errors in the measurement of truth.】

"...You're quite articulate for a cat."

【This is not a cat. This is Kyubey.】

Su Bai couldn't be bothered to respond.

He looked up and scanned his surroundings.

On the field, the originally dense lines of students were now pitifully sparse.

Within a few minutes, over ninety percent of the students were teleported out by the white light.

Class Seven was even more devastated—besides Su Bai, Zhao Dahai, and Lin Xiao, only Wang Shaotian and three other students with above-average grades remained. As for Class One, Li Haoran and his few elite followers had also held on.

Su Bai silently counted.

There were only twenty-something people left in the entire field.

"This is only the first round," Su Bai said in a low voice.

"The official test hasn't even begun yet."

Outside, on the high platform, Vice President Wu Molin looked grave.

This seventh-rank card-making grandmaster had remained silent since the exam began, but now he couldn't help but speak in a low voice:

"Master Li, is it not a bit..."

"A bit what?" Li Qingyue didn't turn her head.

"A bit lenient? To be able to screen out ninety percent of people in the first round, the content left to see later will be—"

"Just this much." Li Qingyue interrupted him.

"Vice President Wu, I said I only have four hours. I don't need to watch a group of people who can't even draw basic circuits steadily waste my time on stage. Those who can pass the universal balance appraisal at least show that they didn't cheat, didn't plagiarize, and the circuits were drawn by themselves—regardless of whether they were drawn well or not, at the very least, they are honest."

She paused, the curve of her mouth deepening slightly.

"Besides, something interesting has already appeared."

Her gaze fell in one direction.

Not on Li Haoran.

It was on Su Bai.

More accurately—it was on that dark pink Magic Card in Su Bai's hand.

"That card didn't move an inch under the universal balance's ripple of truth."

Vice President Wu Molin followed her gaze and frowned. "Indeed. However, judging by the color and texture, it doesn't look like any high-rank weapon."

"It not looking like one is exactly the point." Li Qingyue turned around and sat back on her chair. Her two lower legs hung off the edge of the seat, swinging casually.

"A card whose background even the universal balance cannot fathom means that it is either so trashy that the appraisal system can't be bothered to measure it—"

"Or,"

"it is something the appraisal system cannot measure."