The one who drew the iron axe looked dejected, while those who drew other axes felt an eagerness to try.
Xiao Xun looked at the three boxes in front of him and muttered, "Pick a soldier, pick a general, ride a horse and fight..."
His finger tapped on the boxes in time with the words he spoke. When he reached the last word, he chose the middle box.
"This one it is!"
The attendant behind the box opened the lid. Inside lay a gleaming iron axe. The wooden handle was smooth, and the axe head was coated in black anti-rust paint.
Xiao Xun was stunned. "Are you kidding me! Is my luck really this bad?"
In a fit of pique, he reached out and opened the lids of the remaining two boxes. It was true, his luck was bad, and there was no one to blame.
Xiao Xun didn't know that all of this was within Empress Selaphis's calculations. No matter which box Xiao Xun chose, it would contain an iron axe. It was a simple magic trick that anyone with magic could see through, except for Xiao Xun, who had no magic at all.
Holding the axe, Xiao Xun thought, "Didn't they say it was an open-book test? How is chopping trees a test?"
After everyone had drawn their axes, they stood at the same starting line.
The elder shouted, "Begin."
The people around Xiao Xun took off running, each faster than the last. Some even used magic to fly into the sky.
In the blink of an eye, Xiao Xun was last. He couldn't run anymore, and coupled with the "autumn tiger" (a term for intense autumn heat), he simply started walking slowly.
Those behind him were murmuring amongst themselves, "Did Lord Sveinn give up?"
"Certainly not. Someone of his stature must have another way."
"Not necessarily. Lord Sveinn seems to be unable to use magic, and he drew an iron axe. How can he possibly complete this!"
"This also shows that our Empress treats everyone equally. Everyone has an equal chance. Truly a benevolent ruler who loves his people!"
The commoners, after these two trials, came to two conclusions. First, Xiao Xun was not a pretty face; he was no ordinary person. Second, the Empress of Saint Roman had achieved fairness and did not play favorites, displaying true imperial demeanor.
After walking for nearly an hour, Xiao Xun finally reached the foot of Mount Migale.
Mount Migale was the largest mountain range near the capital, with vast, overlapping peaks stretching as far as the eye could see.
Xiao Xun stood with his hands on his hips, "The problem is I don't even know what the Laurel Immortal Osmanthus looks like! I can't just chop twenty branches off any tree I see!"
Saying this, he swung the small axe in his hand, finding it quite comfortable.
He casually chopped at a nearby tree trunk. It was quite sharp, and he thought, "Could this axe have been specially forged for me? Does it just look like an ordinary axe on the surface? But is actually a divine weapon?"
With this thought, he happily continued forward. There were no other contestants in sight. "Strange, where did they all go?"
He walked along a small path, using his axe to chop through the thorns in front of him.
Unexpectedly, there was a large boulder hidden beneath the thorns. With one swing of his axe, it was knocked flying by the hard stone and landed in a small river nearby.
Xiao Xun hurried over to retrieve the axe. Unexpectedly, a large bubble rose from under the water, exploded, and a golden light shot into the sky.
An old man's upper body emerged from the water. His face was grave, and in his hand was the axe Xiao Xun had just dropped. "Young man, did you lose this axe?"
Xiao Xun looked at the axe in the old man's hand and thought, "The script isn't supposed to be like this! Shouldn't he ask me first if it's a golden axe or a silver axe?"
But he still chose to honestly say, "Yes, it's the axe I dropped."
To his surprise, the old man became furious. "How can you have no sense of public decency, carelessly discarding trash, and even injuring this old man."
With that, he leaped out of the water. His lower body was a fish tail, likely a merman from legend.
After landing, his fish tail transformed into legs. Holding a trident, he lunged at Xiao Xun.
Xiao Xun had no choice but to run. But the old man was incredibly fast, and his trident was immensely powerful, like Poseidon's in mythology, with the divine might of the Sea King, surging forward with the force to split mountains and cleave seas.
"Grandpa, I'm sorry, I really didn't mean to. Please stop chasing me."
Xiao Xun pleaded as he ran. The old man turned a deaf ear. As the giant trident was about to fall from the sky, Xiao Xun spread his arms to block it.
After a flash of white light, the old man disappeared, and so did the trident.
At this moment, two contestants who had been laughing with their hands on their stomachs appeared beside Xiao Xun. However, they quickly stopped laughing. They looked at Xiao Xun, bewildered. "What, what just happened?"
Neither of them had seen what happened. They were blinded by the white light, and when the light disappeared, their illusion also vanished.
Xiao Xun finally understood that everything that had just happened was the doing of these two. He stood up angrily.
"What are you doing?"
Facing Xiao Xun's furious gaze, the two replied indifferently, "Just causing you some trouble. We have no hope anyway, so we can't just watch you win so easily."
"What kind of psychology is that? Truly perverted." With that, he returned to the river to look for the axe.
One of the contestants advised him, "Lord Sveinn, don't bother. You won't find it before sunset."
Xiao Xun straightened his back. "That axe is so heavy, and the river isn't deep. How can you not find it?"
"I'm not talking about the axe. The Immortal Osmanthus tree is a legendary tree. Not only is there no such tree on this mountain, but even if there were, with our abilities and the tools we have, we definitely couldn't chop down a single branch.
Not to mention, those magical beasts are not easy to deal with. If an ordinary person doesn't have a divine weapon, they can't even fight back, let alone have a chance to escape.
Furthermore, the Laurel Immortal Osmanthus tree is only recorded in books, and very few people have seen what it looks like. What axe you have is useless. This competition is to screen us ordinary people. Give up!"
Xiao Xun didn't believe that Mu Jiahe would give him an impossible task. He ignored the two and returned to the river to look for the axe he had dropped.
When he reached the riverbank, he saw the fish that had jumped out earlier. It turned out they were using illusions to create reality, and there was indeed a large fish.
After finding the axe, he used it to scrape off the fish scales, cut it open, remove the innards, and washed it with river water. Then, he inserted branches into it and set up a simple rack.
Using the art of making fire by friction, he began to roast the fish.
Although there were no seasonings, the aroma of the roasted fish attracted many contestants.
Everyone had rushed into the competition and relied on the previous day's trial to provide food. They hadn't expected to have to find their own food for today's trial, and they hadn't brought any. At this moment, they were all famished.
One of them said, "I'll trade my mountain-splitting axe for your fish..."
Another, seeing Xiao Xun looking at the person offering the axe, pushed him aside and came before Xiao Xun. "What's a mountain-splitting axe? I'll trade my Whirlwind Divine Axe for it, how about that?"
Xiao Xun looked at the other person holding a white-gold axe that looked like it belonged in a sci-fi movie. There was a small black fan blade on the axe.
With these people being so powerful and all possessing magic, Xiao Xun felt they were mocking him and refused, "No trade. There are plenty of fish in the water, can't you catch and roast them yourselves?"