While Liu Yang underwent the trial inside, White Fox, Scarface Mouse, and the others waited outside, passing the time in discussion.
Scarface Mouse mused, "With Big Brother Liu Yang's strength, he should at least make it onto the Mystic Ranking, right?"
With his own current strength, Scarface Mouse couldn't even break into the Yellow Ranking.
To him, anyone capable of earning a spot on the Yellow Ranking was an absolute powerhouse.
Making it onto the Mystic Ranking was practically beyond imagination.
Although each list only displayed the top 1,000 candidates, that didn't mean only 1,000 people were evaluated. Tens or even hundreds of thousands of survivors simply failed to make the cut.
Scarface Mouse, for instance, wasn't unranked-he sat around rank 15,000 on the Yellow Ranking.
He just lacked the qualifications to have his name displayed on the stele.
Between rank #1 on the Yellow Ranking and rank #1000 on the Mystic Ranking, the gap wasn't just a thousand people; it was a chasm of tens of thousands.
That was why Scarface Mouse believed if Liu Yang could reach the Mystic Ranking and break into the top 1,000 to show his name on the stele, he would already be a top-tier powerhouse.
As for the Earth Ranking and Heaven Ranking? Those were domain reserved for legendary existences-beyond what he dared to dream of.
White Fox smirked softly and shook her head. "I don't think so. Liu Yang is easily the strongest survivor I've ever met. He should at least be testing for the Earth Ranking. Whether he can secure a display rank there, though, I'm not entirely sure."
Scarface Mouse blinked in surprise. "Sister-in-law, you have that much faith in Big Brother Liu Yang's strength?"
White Fox flashed a confident smile. "Of course. How could the man I chose fail to even reach the Earth Ranking?"
"I think he can get into the Heaven Ranking! He's the strongest-he might even take first place!" a clear, pleasant voice cut in.
It was Wang Feifei, Black Tiger's daughter.
White Fox chuckled at her claim. "What would an ordinary person like you know? What do you even understand about ability users?"
Wang Feifei held her ground without backing down. "I am an ordinary person, and I might not understand ability users, but I understand Liu Yang. I've had deep exchanges with him. In my eyes, he's the most powerful man in the world, so he'll definitely take rank #1 on the Heaven Ranking!"
White Fox let out a light laugh. "Heh, spoken like a true civilian. Completely oblivious to the gulf between ability users. Confident, yet utterly ignorant."
"Hmph! Just wait and see! I know Liu Yang is the strongest!" Wang Feifei retorted, pouting stubbornly.
White Fox's smile broadened. "So confident? How about a bet? If you lose, you become my errand girl and do whatever I say. If you win, I'll be yours and follow your every command. Deal?"
"You're on! I won't lose!" Wang Feifei puffed out her cheeks.
She didn't know the mechanics of abilities or the tiers separating powerhouses, but none of that mattered. After her intense personal interactions with Liu Yang, her trust in him was absolute.
If it was Liu Yang, there was nothing he couldn't accomplish.
---
While the crowd debated outside, Liu Yang had already reached Stage 10 inside the trial space.
The horde spawned in Stage 10 was no longer composed solely of Tier-2 zombies.
Ten Tier-3 zombies appeared, each leading a squad of 100 Tier-2 zombies-a regiment of over a thousand undead!
More importantly, they demonstrated command structures, tactical discipline, and active coordination.
Liu Yang was genuinely surprised upon seeing Tier-3 zombies for the first time.
In terms of physical appearance, Tier-3 zombies looked remarkably human, save for their pale complexion. They no longer bared their teeth or drooled uncontrollably; from a distance, they looked almost like normal people.
Even more striking was that Liu Yang saw these Tier-3 zombies communicating with one another.
They could actually speak!
Their intelligence level had evolved significantly.
Liu Yang glanced at one of the female Tier-3 zombies. Not only could she talk, but she was surprisingly attractive. Her pale, snow-white skin gave her an aloof, striking allure. The only flaw was her deathly pale lips-with a swipe of lipstick, she would easily pass as a stunning beauty.
"I wonder how a zombie female differs from a normal human woman..."
A stray thought flashed through his mind, giving him a sudden urge to test out what a zombie felt like.
He immediately shook his head to clear his thoughts.
"Damn it, pull it together. I'm in the middle of a trial-what the hell am I thinking about?"
Liu Yang refocused and launched his assault on the zombie army.
Under the leadership of the Tier-3 commanders, the horde maneuvered with military discipline, actively trying to encircle him.
Within seconds, a thousand zombies locked Liu Yang in a tight siege.
"I need to take out those ten Tier-3 commanders first. Once the leaders fall, the rest will crumble into a mindless mob."
Without hesitation, Liu Yang gripped his tachi and surged forward, engaging the ten commanders head-on.
Tier-3 zombies possessed four times the physical strength and speed of a baseline human, along with the tactical intelligence to wield weapons.
Unfortunately for them, their attributes were still laughably weak compared to Liu Yang.
In under ten seconds, Liu Yang blitzed through them, instantly executing all ten Tier-3 commanders.
Every single one was cleanly decapitated.
With the remaining Tier-2 zombies rendered leaderless, Liu Yang plunged into the swarm, initiating a effortless slaughter.
After clearing Stage 10, Liu Yang finally grasped the design logic behind the trial.
Since the apocalypse had only recently begun, most ability users were still stuck at Tier-1. Even an S-Rank Tier-1 user possessed basic physical attributes that were roughly the same as lower-tier users-about double the human baseline. The only real edge S-Rank users had was the power of their abilities.
Without relying on abilities, an S-Rank user wasn't vastly superior in raw physical combat.
Therefore, when facing Tier-3 zombies in the Heaven Ranking trial, an S-Rank user relying purely on physical attributes would be outmatched.
They had to expend their abilities to defeat Tier-3 zombies. However, casting abilities drained mental energy, meaning it couldn't be sustained indefinitely.
For a standard S-Rank user, clearing Stage 10 and defeating such a disciplined horde was a monumental task.
Anyone capable of clearing Stage 10 was practically guaranteed a spot among the top 1,000 on the Heaven Ranking.
That was why the trial scaled the difficulty by drastically increasing zombie numbers at every stage.
For normal ability users, a larger horde meant exponential difficulty.
But Liu Yang was a total anomaly.
Thanks to his system enhancements, every zombie kill boosted his stats, bringing his physical attributes to an astonishing 16.5 times the human baseline. Even in the rigorous Heaven Ranking trial, he transformed a desperate survival test into a one-sided massacre-without even activating an ability!
Swarm tactics were completely useless against him. He didn't need to cast abilities, had no risk of mental exhaustion, and wielded a high-grade tachi that bisected zombies in a single stroke. Cleaving through them was as effortless as chopping vegetables. Increasing the number of vegetables meant nothing to the one holding the butcher knife.
Liu Yang was essentially a game-breaking bug in the trial system.
Even the ancient stele had never anticipated a survivor attaining stats over sixteen times the human baseline during the early stages of the apocalypse.
This so-called Heaven Ranking trial was ridiculously easy for him.
He smiled with supreme confidence.
"If future stages just keep throwing more zombies at me, I could clear Stage 100 with my eyes closed."