With the cooperation of these parents, in less than fifteen minutes, all the children of appropriate age in Longmen Village had lined up.
Fang Ming naturally joined the queue openly.
Seeing that the queue was formed, the village chief looked towards the cultivator sitting on the flying sword. The cultivator nodded with satisfaction, then leaped down from above the flying sword.
With a wave of his hand, the flying sword circled his body and then slowly merged into his arm.
According to Fang Ming's estimation, the flying sword had likely entered the cultivator's "dantian" or "sea of consciousness." However, ordinary eyes could not see another person's dantian, so from the outside, the flying sword appeared to have merged into his arm.
The cultivator did not seem to intend to test them one by one.
Fang Ming saw that after dismounting the flying sword, the cultivator flicked his hand, and another magical artifact appeared out of thin air, besides the flying sword.
Let's call it a magical artifact for now – it was a mirror.
The cultivator's hands moved continuously, as if he were using some incantation, but Fang Ming, a chuunibyo from Earth, naturally couldn't understand what incantation it was.
He could only speculate based on common sense gleaned from online novels.
Fang Ming witnessed the final result of the incantation.
After the cultivator finished the incantation, a blue light shot out from the mirror, directly piercing through the entire line of children waiting to have their aptitudes tested.
These young boys and girls, and children, saw this for the first time.
They saw their bodies being penetrated by a blue light.
Although they had heard their parents' words and knew that this was a critical moment and they shouldn't move, the older boys and girls still showed expressions of surprise on their faces.
People from small villages rarely saw immortals in their lifetime, so it was normal for them to show such expressions upon seeing a magical technique for the first time.
However, some younger children, seeing themselves being penetrated by the blue light, instinctively jumped away, causing the blue light to miss them.
The cultivator, seeing this scene, seemed to be used to it. He merely said, "Idiots, you don't cherish opportunities when they are presented."
And then he fell silent.
The village chief sighed inwardly as he watched the unfolding events, but he was helpless.
He knew that despite the parents' repeated instructions, some children still had a mischievous nature that defied orders. While this playfulness was harmless at other times, being mischievous at such a crucial juncture meant that the immortal master would naturally not re-test their aptitudes.
They had lost their chance.
Even if they had the aptitude, they would have lost their immortal destiny forever.
The village chief was not directly involved in the benefits, so he could only sigh inwardly.
The parents of the children who jumped away were furious, looking at their children who had evaded the blue light test, they wished they could beat their own children to death.
Immortal destiny, this was immortal destiny!
How often did such an opportunity arise?
But now their own children couldn't even pass the first step – because they hadn't participated in the test at all!
If they missed even the aptitude test, how could they cultivate immortality in the future?
If the immortal master were not present, these parents would have already rushed forward to beat their children.
Even under the angry gazes of their parents, the mischievous children showed no sign of having lost a great opportunity.
Being young, they did not understand what an immortal was, nor how great the opportunity for cultivation was. Without a concrete sensory experience, they naturally did not know what they had lost.
These mischievous children were only a small minority among the children.
They did not constitute the majority.
The majority of the children, like Fang Ming, remained in place even when they saw the extraordinary blue light penetrate their bodies.
Some children remembered their parents' previous teachings.
As for Fang Ming, he had understood the stakes involved – it was clear that the cultivator was impatient to test aptitudes here, and deliberately causing trouble by avoiding the blue light was suicidal, wasn't it? Disregarding the cultivator's authority?
Although it was possible that due to the cultivator not being of the demonic path, he couldn't kill young children, openly provoking him like this meant there was no hope of getting another chance to test.
That was impossible.
Fang Ming, having been fourteen years old before his transmigration, had already established his own values. Naturally, he was not like the eight-year-old body he now inhabited. Even from an experiential judgment, he could deduce that the blue light posed almost zero harm.
From any angle, it was impossible for the cultivator to suddenly unleash a lethal spell on all the children of this village and carry out a massacre. It was merely an aptitude test; enduring it with one's body posed no danger, neither death nor any other risk.
Therefore, when the cultivator's mirror artifact cast the blue light for the aptitude test, Fang Ming directly took it head-on, without running or doing anything else.
Indeed, Fang Ming's choice was correct.
The blue light emitted by the mirror artifact used by the cultivator did not harm any of the children, including Fang Ming.
In Fang Ming's eyes, white clouds floated up from all the children, including himself.
Some children, young boys and girls, had only one white cloud floating above them.
This was the most common situation, accounting for about seventy percent.
Then, some children had two white clouds floating above them.
This situation was much less common than the first, accounting for about twenty percent.
After that, there were some boys and girls with three white clouds, but these were even fewer, only four people.
Fang Ming did not see anyone with four or more white clouds. The highest was three white clouds.
This made Fang Ming have his own judgment about the value of the number of clouds.
If nothing unexpected happened, those with a rarer proportion of the population should have higher cultivation aptitudes.
For example, those with three white clouds, only four people, accounting for less than three percent of the total population. Such rarity, according to general assumptions, should belong to those with relatively high cultivation aptitudes.
Based on the proportion of the population, Fang Ming felt the reliability was quite high. After all, it was more plausible for three percent of the total population to possess cultivation aptitudes than for seventy percent of the total population to possess them.
And Fang Ming looked back at himself, realizing he was neither the minimum of one white cloud nor the maximum of three white clouds. He only had two white clouds, accounting for about twenty percent of the total population among the crowd.
This aptitude was considered average among these children, young boys and girls. Could he cultivate immortality?
Fang Ming did not know.
He could only secretly lament that even in a small village, it accounted for twenty percent. What about other villages? What about towns?
Clearly, even if they had aptitude, it was by no means top-tier or exceptional, but likely very ordinary.
And whether this ordinariness would be enough for the current cultivator to take them into a sect was hard to say.