by <unknown>
"Lucky for me, there were two topics which I had reviewed just before the exam, maybe I will be able to score more than 600 points."
"Jiang Shaoyang, that monster is truly terrifying, he actually submitted the paper more than an hour earlier. I wonder how many points will he score? Maybe he scored more than 800 points?"
"No matter how many points Jiang Shaoyang scored, it was to be expected, but there was another guy who also submitted the paper at the same time as Jiang Shaoyang, who was he?"
"Shaoyang!"
Several dozen examinees from the Deep Sea University faired pretty well, and naturally, walked towards Jiang Shaoyang. However, when they saw him sitting alone, they were astounded. One by one, they came forward to greet him.
"What—"
When they saw Jiang Shaoyang's hands spread out on the coffee table, all of them let out a shocked gasp.
Jiang Shaoyang's hands were red and swollen. His hands were almost 30% thicker than normal and steam was rising from them, it appeared as though he had placed them inside a steamer and steamed them.
"What happened?"
Everyone was greatly astounded.
"Nothing much, I have not had so much fun in a long time."
Jiang Shaoyang heaved a sigh of reluctance. The sluggish look on his face instantly became as that of intense excitement. His eyes sparkled as if two shining gems had been fitted in his eye sockets.
"Hey, do you know—"
There were still some Deep Sea University's examinees who were totally unaware of everything, all they saw was many of their fellow students gathered here, so, they too swarmed over.
Another guy's face beamed with excitement as he burst into laughter and said, "Do you know there was another guy who submitted the paper at the same time as Jiang Shaoyang? I just learned that it was none other than Li Yao!"
"What?"
At this moment, everyone became cheerful.
Even the older and prudent students could not help but smile, and those whose tempers were relatively frivolous, even more so, shook with laughter, "Oh, really? Isn't Li Yao the guy who's famous for challenging us? What a joke! He could not even last five hours of the written exam and gave up halfway!"
Li Yao, who was carrying a large water bucket, calmly walked over. As for hundreds of Deep Sea University's examinees, he turned a blind eye and drilled into the crowd.
"Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh!"
In the blink of an eye, numerous sharp gazes pierced him.
Everyone didn't expect him to actually have so much guts that even after shooting off his mouth, he still dared to enter deep into the crowd of hundreds of 'enemies'.
Although they had heard Li Yao was quite adept at fighting, while everyone present was a refiner, refined, academic men, and couldn't fight...
However, they could, at the very least...use their gazes to despise him, mock him, and tease him, couldn't they?
"What is this guy planning to do?"
"Who knows! What is he even carrying? That looks really cold."
"From what I hear, this guy is very violent. He wouldn't intentionally make trouble and fight with us? Quickly go and call the invigilators!"
Li Yao was like a bloodthirsty shark that was swimming deep in the sea, the small fishes and shrimps gave way to him on their own, no one dared to block him even for half a second.
"Splash!"
Li Yao walked straight to Jiang Shaoyang and poured the large bucket filled with ice cubes on the table before sitting across him. Afterward, he inserted his hands into the heap of ice blocks, a moan filled with relief escaped his mouth.
His hands were also like as that of Jiang Shaoyang, they were red and swollen, and steam was rising from them as well.
Jiang Shaoyang inserted his hands into the heap of ice cubes to cool them down and said while deadly staring at Li Yao, "I have never encountered an expert like you among my contemporaries. I am very happy with today's battle, but even after competing for such a long time, we still ended in a draw. It is truly regrettable.
"Fortunately, the Refiners' Registration Examination has three rounds. We can still see who wins and who loses from the scores."
Having heard this statement, all the examinees of Deep Sea University were flabbergasted; they became dumb as a wooden chicken.
On the outside, they looked stupid and absent-minded, but a tsunami of emotions was raging in their hearts.
"Did—Did I hear it right?"
"So earlier, that expert Jiang Shaoyang mentioned was none other than Li Yao!"
"It sounds like Jiang Shaoyang had a match with him and the two ended up drawing."
"This Li Yao is actually on par with the Tenth Star, Jiang Shaoyang?"
In a moment, the hundreds of gazes peering at Li Yao, that were filled with scorn, contempt, and mockery were now instead filled with surprise, fear, and shock!
At that moment, countless faint bursts of exclamations rang everywhere.
The lobby, which was hustling and bustling a moment ago, suddenly became dead silent in the blink of an eye.
On the semi-arched dome, a huge hologram appeared, projecting the results of thousands of examinees.
The names of examinees who had scored over 600 were displayed in golden, glittering characters.
While the names of examinees who had scored lower than 600 were displayed in slightly dim green characters.
The golden numbers were sparsely scattered among a slew of lush green numbers.
Most of the golden figures stayed in between 600 and 700, only a few were above 700.
Among all the numbers, there were two numbers that began with "9" which immediately stood out; they were especially dazzling.
"Deep Sea University, Jiang Shaoyang, 931 points!"
"Grand Desolate War Institution, Li Yao, 901 points!"
"Wow!"
The lobby was in a deathly silence for about ten seconds, like the calm before a storm, after the strange calmness, the entire lobby burst forth with tempestuous waves of energy!
"Jiang Shaoyang scored 931 points, he is truly worthy of...what? Another guy scored more than 900 points? Li Yao? Impossible!"
"Li Yao! The Li Yao from the Grand Desolate War Institution! That ignorant, crazy guy who doesn't know fear? He actually scored over 900 points!"
"If I remember it correctly, isn't he the guy who submitted the paper at the same time as Jiang Shaoyang, both of them had submitted the paper more than an hour earlier! Who would have thought that he would be so terrifying? No wonder he can shoot his mouth like that!"
"Monster! Both of them are monsters!"
The examinees of the Deep Sea University had, even more so, taken a huge blow.
They looked at their pathetic 600-700 points and then, again and again, looked at shimmering 901 points of Li Yao. They were having a hard time believing it. In their heart, they repeatedly asked themselves if there was something wrong with their eyes or ears?
"You won the first round," Li Yao said calmly; he wasn't surprised by such result.
He was from a non-technical background. No matter how solid his theory was, how could it ever surpass Jiang Shaoyang who was from a family with a history of giving birth to academic geniuses?
Having a difference of 30 points was pretty normal.
"I had an unfair advantage."
Jiang Shaoyang admitted very frankly, "Many of the people who made the paper were from Deep Sea University. I am quite familiar with their style of exams. It is rather natural for me to score over 900 points, but for you, who is from Grand Desolate War Institution which has completely different refining ideologies, to actually score over 900...
"You're good! You're really good!
"I'm anticipating the competition with you in the next two rounds more and more. I'm going to enjoy defeating a monster like you!"
Not much of a break was provided in between the three rounds of Refiners' Registration Examination.
This was not only a test of a refiner's knowledge and skills but
also a test of his or her spirit and will.
After the results of the first round, the written test had been announced, the failed candidates were dejectedly escorted out of the lobby to the special guest house prepared by the army.
After the departure of the failed candidates, all that remained were 844 examinees who once again entered the examination hall and sat down inside the egg-shaped cabin.
Following which, the glyphs on the eggshell lit up brightly, before the examination cabin went back under ground and took the examinees to a huge underground base.
In a huge training room, thousands of crafting furnace simulators were arranged in a row.
These simulators weren't connected to any crafting furnace system; they only had a circular control interface composed of a dozen holograms.
The super crystal processor with powerful computing power could simulate various complex situations that could happen in a crafting furnace and even simulate thousands of complex and intricate failures that could occur during the process.
All the candidates had to do was rule out all the failures and complete hundreds of refining tasks.
Every successful task completed would grant a point respectively which would be automatically added. Anyone who could accumulate 1,000 points within five hours would pass the second round and could enter the final round, the "practical exam."
"Beep!"
In front of Li Yao, the circular control interface, like the vibrant wings of a butterfly, gradually spread out.
The second round, the refining simulation test, began!
In the blink of an eye, the light green control interface turned burning red as various performance parameters madly fluctuated, suddenly, the parameters shot through the roof before suddenly falling to zero.
A blood-red message popped out, reminding the user that the "crafting furnace" was on the brink of a meltdown!
In the first test, the examinee had to find the reason why the crafting furnace was about to meltdown and restore the crafting furnace to the normal state by eliminating all the errors through the control interface.
The very first topic at hand was super difficult, many examinees let out a cry of despair.
Li Yao, on the other hand, had his will to fight soar to the high heavens. His slightly red arms seemed to have been wrapped in red-lotus like flames!
In the control room, a dozen of holograms displayed the refining videos of Li Yao and Jiang Shaoyang.
Even though the style and technique of the two were totally different, there was one thing in common.
Fast, they were as fast as sparks from a flint!
The three were veteran refiners, what things they had not seen or experienced? Yet, they were rendered speechless. As they quietly watched the peak showdown between two monster-level examinees, cold sweat dripped down their forehead; for a long time, they were unable to calm their hearts.
After the two entered a crazed state and their hand speeds soared to the limit, Dong Liuqi finally could not hold himself, his six fingers wiped the cold sweat as he said with a sigh, "These kids are truly incredible. Are you sure both of them are in their teens?
"When I was of their age, even ten of me could not compare with them!"
The master crystal processor converted the points of the two into two progress bars which were directly being projected before the three invigilators.
Along with the completion of each task, the progress bars of the two were chasing each other as they progressed at an extremely fast rate!
Finally...
After three hours fifty-two minutes and thirty-seven seconds, Li Yao's progress bar made a jump and reached the endpoint; Li Yao was first to gather 1,000 points!
Two minutes and nine seconds later, Jiang Shaoyang's progress bar reached the endpoint but it was too late.
"You won the second round."
In the simulation training room, countless examinees were immersed in the complex and intricate tasks, unable to extricate themselves. Some had suffered cramp in their arms and legs by moving them too quickly, and some were even foaming at the mouth.
Li Yao and Jiang Shaoyang were, instead, quietly stood facing each other.
"With the previous two rounds, we are once again tied."
"However, you and I, are both very clear that whether it is the written test or refining simulation, they are just boring games, nothing more nothing less!"
"The third round, the practical test, is the real contest!"
Chapter 214: A Test Filled With Traps |
After two hours.
342 examinees stepped onto a giant lift and continued to advance deeper into the ground.
The lift was like an enormous metallic disc which relied on anti-gravity array glyphs to silently move in the darkness.
The stabilizing array glyphs at the edge of the disc flickered with weak blue light, illuminating the terribly tired and haggard faces, one after another.
Even if the examinees were powerful cultivators, operating their brains at super high speed continuously for a dozen hours had made them somewhat exhausted.
The examinees were divided into two distinct groups.
340 examinees sat at the edge of the enormous disc, forming a huge ring.
While at the center, there were only two examinees.
They were none other than Li Yao and Jiang Shaoyang.
The monstrous performance of the two had shocked everyone. Everyone could not help but maintain a certain distance from the two unconsciously. They were afraid that they would interrupt the duel between the two monsters.
It was as though two T-rex from billions of years ago stood facing each other, while no other creature dared to stand between the two.
In a moment, a brilliant flash blurred everyone's vision.
Finally, the lift broke through the veil of darkness and sank a kilometer below the ground.
A grand and magnificent scene came into everyone's sight, making everyone hold their breath.
They'd entered an incredibly vast underground stalactite cave.
As they raised their head to look, countless stalactites hanging down the hundreds of meters high roof covered their vision.
When they looked downward, all they saw was pitch black darkness; they simply couldn't see the bottom.
As they looked around them, the cylindrical stalactite cave was over a kilometer in diameter and its walls had been artificially excavated into thousands upon thousands of caves.
It was a hive. This place looked like the interior of a huge steel hive.
And they were but the smallest ants.
Even the enormous lift looked like a lonely boat after having entered the stalactite cave. All around them, countless shiny metallic discs were flying; giving the picture of a busy life.
"This is the strength of our nation!
"Only by mobilizing the strength of tens of billions of citizens of a nation can make it possible to build such a vast and magnificent world under ground!
"Only with this kind of power can we compete with billions of demons and devils in the endless cosmos!"
Li Yao sighed with emotion. While he'd come to experience his own insignificance, he also felt deeply proud for being a citizen of such a powerful country.
The disc slowed down and flew towards the wall shining with a metallic gloss.
Two firefly-like specks of light floated up from deep within the underground and flew next to the disc.
The speck of lights were two soldiers with metallic wings attached to their backs.
The two soldiers each held a magical equipment that released a red light which covered the entire disc.
"Beep! Beep!"
A dazzling red light suddenly turned into a warm green light; the identification of everyone had been verified.
On the walls, the entrances of hundreds of man-made caves were sealed by huge, metallic doors which, at this moment, silently slid open.
The enormous disc rose and fell, all in accordance with the r
oll number of the examinees; delivering everyone to their corresponding cave.
Li Yao drew a long, deep breath and strode into his own cave before the metallic doors behind him closed slowly.
The final round!
Li Yao looked around the cave with great curiosity. He was quite familiar with the furnishing inside the cave. It was a repair workshop, and at the back, there was also a small refining room as well as a warehouse. It was small, but it had everything.
"Beep! Beep!"
The exam crystal processor displayed a message, displaying the topic's details of the practical exam, according to which the examinees had to repair a puppet warbeast to 90% of its battle force using the facilities in the repair workshop and the raw material from the warehouse within 24 hours.
"A maintenance-type task?"
Li Yao beamed with joy, was the task custom-made for him?
At the corner of the workshop, something small was covered with a tarpaulin. As Li Yao uncovered it, he was dazzled.
"Mystic Wolf?"
The puppet warbeast was quite similar to the "wooden oxen" that Li Yao had repaired in the small mountain village a year ago. It was controlled by artificial intelligence implemented in a crystal processor, giving it the ability to operate autonomously.
The Mystic Wolf was a puppet warbeast that was manufactured by Wolves Valley thirty-three years ago.
And it was purchased by the army in large numbers because of its excellent design and high performance.
This kind of puppet warbeast was created using bionics. It was designed with reference to many wolf-type and leopard-type demon beasts' appearances and characteristics. With its narrow, streamlined, and agile body, it could adapt to multitudes of complex terrains. It was especially suitable for fighting in plains and jungles, even if it was on a steep mountain, it could climb quite easily.
The Mystic Wolf belonged to a light warbeast category, with a length of 1.56 meter and a total weight of 156.33 kilograms. Two light crystal railguns attached to either side of its body. Additionally, a flying sword launcher could also be attached to its abdominal region that could fire twelve mini-flying swords; greatly enhancing its long-range firepower.
In addition, at the end of its limbs, vibro-claws built using a super alloy were respectively installed. Its jaw that was filled with steel teeth had extremely high bite force, and a flamethrower was also installed in its throat which was driven by flame array glyphs and could project a long stream of fire with a temperature of over a thousand degrees; it was capable of reducing the enemies into ashes in the blink of an eye.