ASER – Chapter 37

Suddenly, in a brief instant, A’Diao seemed to see something. She frowned, but her heart rate plummeted, dropping directly into the green, normal range.

She coldly watched the big guy who had fallen and was being carried away by the teacher.

It was Tian Zhongye.

She wasn’t thinking about how useless this well-built, strong-limbed big guy was, but rather—

1. The time on the wall clock didn’t match the time on her wristwatch after the countdown.

2. The marks on the clothes of the teacher who came in to retrieve people didn’t match how they were on the sports ground. On the sports ground, his trouser cuffs were stained with dust, but when he came in, they were very clean. He had come in during the exam; he simply had no time to clean them.

3. The sweat on Tian Zhongye’s forehead was constantly there; even the position and size of the sweat droplets were exactly the same as when he had entered the gymnasium after finishing his run.

4. When he spurted blood, there was warmth, but no smell of blood.

A’Diao blinked, then looked at her optical computer. The blood-red display on it quickly returned to normal as her heart rate calmed, but around her, the illusion of people screaming, fainting, and vomiting blood persisted.

It was an illusion; everything was fake. But these questions in front of her had to be real. Jinling Academy was indeed conducting an assessment, but it was a dual assessment of written examination and psychological fortitude.

So damn cunning.

However, this was likely the first time such an illusion was employed. Those teachers must all be watching, afraid of any mishaps, so…

A’Diao narrowed her eyes and looked up at most of the gymnasium hall, then suddenly raised her hand towards the empty air.

She gave the middle finger.

Screw you! You scared me to death! Then I’ll piss you all off!

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From Zhou Jiang +1288!

From Jiang Zecheng +1000!

From…

The teachers were this generous?

Very good, her Mental Energy was almost at 22,000 again.

Inside the monitoring room, Zhou Jiang and the others were extremely astonished.

“No way, could this little girl have seen through it?”

“Impossible. If someone like Cui Yun, who’s been trained since childhood and knows some secrets, saw through it, I’d believe it. But this girl… Oh right, even Cui Yun fell for it; he was trembling with fear just now.”

“An accident? Has she gone mad?”

While everyone was discussing, Zhou Jiang silently edited another note into A’Diao’s file: “Suspected to have seen through the illusion, but her level of awareness is unknown. Further judgment needed based on her exam results.”

In the principal’s office, the principal, who was reviewing documents, saw the notification about the file update. He checked the content and immediately raised an eyebrow.

If she could see through it now, then she was a one-hundred-percent prime candidate.

There were many candidates with good aptitude, but those with a good mental state were exceedingly rare.

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Two hours were steadily passing. In the last five minutes, A’Diao had already finished all the questions she knew how to do. She glanced at the remaining time and picked a physics question that was beyond the syllabus and not very familiar to her. Just one minute into working on it, a group of students in front suddenly started a commotion, as if they had rabies, wildly fighting… Limbs flew everywhere. Thwack!

A human head landed on her desk.

Bloody.

Fucking hell… Who was controlling this illusion?

Damn it!

A’Diao swept it away with the back of her hand, knocking it into the nearby trash can, and then continued working on the problem.

Last five seconds.

A’Diao finally calculated the answer and wrote down—Conclusion for this problem: Xiaoming will be thrown out of the spaceship, land on tree B, be impaled through the anus by the tip of a branch, with his large intestine piercing his small intestine, and die from excessive blood loss.

Beep beep beep! Red lights flashed throughout the entire gymnasium, all screens went black, and no further operations were allowed.

Some people sighed in relief, some burst into tears, some couldn’t hold on any longer and fainted, others stared blankly, and some looked at the floor with a wooden expression.

It was finally over.

A’Diao sat in her seat, quietly observing these people. In her eyes, everyone was in their original seats because she had long since broken free from the illusion. But for those who couldn’t, it seemed almost everyone had fallen for it. Looking at Xu Luo and the others, they didn’t seem to be in good shape. Some were even wailing as if at a funeral, probably because someone they knew had “died.”

For example, Tian Zhongye next to her was hugging a chair leg and crying.

“Sister, oh, my sister! You died so miserably! If I had known, we wouldn’t have come for this exam… There were so many questions I couldn’t do, it was too hard!”

“So hard, you were so angry your makeup caked,” A’Diao thought.

A’Diao quietly propped her cheek on her hand, watching him cry, while thinking: When he realizes he was in an illusion, then…

Suddenly, the main doors opened, and some bees flew in. An announcement stated that today’s exam was over, the overall scores would be announced in half an hour, and candidates were asked to go out to the sports ground to rest. Tea and desserts had been prepared…

Eat your damn desserts! My sister is dead!

Tian Zhongye was furious.

But A’Diao once again smelled a faint fragrance from these bees.

This fragrance was a little different from before… She suddenly raised an eyebrow.

Oh-ho, she knew how they had been made to hallucinate.

The fragrance emitted by these bees was the trigger. They had fallen for it right from the start.

First poison, then use technology plus Spiritual Energy methods to induce hallucinations and control the illusion.

Damn it!

Tian Zhongye quickly regained his senses. Looking at the chair he was hugging, then at his sister Tian Zhongxiang who was staring at him speechlessly, he scratched his head. “A’Xiang, you’re not dead?”

Tian Zhongxiang rolled her eyes. “We were in an illusion. Nobody actually fainted, vomited blood, or died. And there was no such thing as elimination by heart rate.”

Tian Zhongye couldn’t figure it out for a moment. “Impossible. Oh right, that little girl next to me even vomited blood. Her mouth was like a morning glory fountain, spraying wildly in a 360-degree arc, it was terrifying. Look, her corpse is still stiff over there, staring right at me.”

Corpse A’Diao: “…”

This big guy was a bit slow to come to his senses.

Tian Zhongxiang couldn’t bear it any longer. She turned his head to make him look properly. Just then, a bee flew over and, pssh pssh pssh, sprayed him with some refreshing and mind-clearing fragrance.

He finally saw clearly.

He saw A’Diao give him a truly soul-crushing eye-roll.

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During the break, A’Diao sat cross-legged in a corner of the sports ground, munching on cake and gulping down soda. The Tian siblings happened to be nearby.

By the way, Tian Zhongxiang was the other female among the top twenty in the physical fitness test.

However, she was in fifth place at that time.

Her ranking was astounding. Now, many people were asking about the siblings’ origins; their physical fitness was too incredible.

The two siblings were easygoing. They chatted idly nearby, occasionally pulling A’Diao into their conversation.

A’Diao had always been adept at adapting her conversation to people, and in no time, she had gotten their background story.

Their family ran a martial arts school, considered an ordinary family. But they caught the good opportunity of the Spiritual Energy resurgence. Their father was smart; he immediately trained them relentlessly, then spent all their family fortune to get a Jinling household registration, and successfully sent the two of them to this examination site.

Now it all depended on whether the two of them could soar to success.

A’Diao looked at the large screen, secretly wondering what her own results were.

Like her, even when Cui Yun and the others were resting and waiting on the sports ground, they weren’t actually very calm.

After all, they were all young people around twenty years old. Their futures were at stake; how could they not be nervous? However, for people like Cui Yun, getting into Jinling Academy was a certainty; it was just a matter of what rank they would enter with.

“Previously, Cui Yun was first in physical fitness, but Xu Luo’s academic results have always been excellent. He dominated in his first and second years. It’s very possible that after the combined scores, he’ll surpass Cui Yun to become first.”

“Whoever is first, it’s none of our business. We don’t even know if we can get in ourselves.”

After much discussion, the teachers suddenly came out. A tall and burly teacher spoke: “The results are out now. But this time, there were three thousand candidates, and a total of 500 will be admitted. Those in the top 500, pay attention to your wristwatch information; there will be arrangements for tomorrow’s second exam. The rest may leave.”

This elimination rate wasn’t low.

Everyone immediately became agitated, like boiling water, and crowded around the large screen to check for their names.

A’Diao started looking from the first name. Mainly because she was also young and curious about who had dominated the exam. She looked.

First was Cui Yun, second was Song Ling, third was Xu Luo.

Following them were Zhang Cheng, Lin Yunmo, Bai He, Wang Shen, Tang Zhongxiao, Rao Qinya, and Tian Zhongxiang.

The top ten were here.

“Wait, who are Song Ling and Zhang Cheng? I don’t think they were among the front runners in the physical fitness test. Could it be their written exam scores were too good, directly pulling up their total scores?”

“Are you stupid? Did you forget about the other sports ground?! Damn, when I was running, I thought I was already far behind. Only now do I remember there was another sports ground next door. This ranking needs to be shifted back by more than half.”

A’Diao, like them, also suddenly realized that while her physical fitness ranked 20th on sports ground B, combining the two sports grounds, she probably hadn’t even made the top 40.

Danzhou was too large, and the caliber of the 3,000 people here was too high. She had previously faintly hoped she could make a stunning debut, but now it seemed laughably naive.

Just the fact that the written exam went beyond the syllabus was a considerable blow to her, and she could vaguely guess that her results wouldn’t be outstanding.

On the other hand, the seemingly carefree Tian Zhongxiang was surprisingly formidable. Fifth on sports ground B for physical fitness, and with the written exam, she actually secured 10th place. Had she also seen through the illusion?

Either that, or she had answered many questions correctly even within the illusion, and her results were valid.

Truly impressive!

Then what was her own rank?

A’Diao’s eyes were nearly blurring as she scanned through the names.

“Hey, A’Diao, you’re 51st! That’s amazing!” Tian Zhongye, who had first been ecstatic about his sister’s results, suddenly spotted A’Diao’s name while looking for his own and immediately patted her shoulder to point it out.

A’Diao saw it, somewhat surprised. She had thought she would be outside the top 100. After all, in the written exam, there were many concepts she had never even heard of; out of 700 questions, she had left 200 blank.

If she didn’t know an answer, she gave up on it, picking and choosing questions, practically skimming through them.

She guessed that the at least 300 candidates from Jinling, with their years of intensive test preparation, would surely score high. While she didn’t think her written exam rank would be beyond 300th place, she was certain it wouldn’t be within the top 100.

So how did this 51st place come about?

A’Diao soon found out.

From 3,000 candidates, 500 were chosen. The other 2,500 despaired, as if they had lost their parents. Among those within the top 500, some were ecstatic, some sighed in relief, while others were very dissatisfied, feeling their rank was too low—like Xu Luo, whose ambitions were higher than the sky.

Third, third! He was actually only third!

Below the list was the formula for calculating the scores.

Physical Fitness Lap Score 30% + Written Exam Score 40% + Illusion Psychological Fortitude Test Score 30% = Total Score.

Only then did many people realize there had also been an illusion test. But the data didn’t list the scores for the illusion test; it was probably kept secret. Moreover, the written exam scores were presented vaguely, showing only rankings and not raw data, making it impossible to deduce the illusion test score by subtraction.

“Everyone go back now. Those within the top 500, come for the exam tomorrow morning at 8 o’clock. Don’t forget.”

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