Evolution - Chapter 50
Chapter 50
Tired as they were, and complain as they might, the content of the assessment was set, and its duration was seven days. The students had no choice but to pull themselves together and silently take the spatial clasps from in front of their seats to inspect them.
Inside was all their equipment: two sets of military protective suits, two pairs of military boots, only enough purified water and dry rations for three days, a small military knife, an old-fashioned laser gun, a laser sword, a fire-starting device, a tent, three rolls of hemostatic bandages, some wound medicine, and a rescue device.
The equipment indicated the level of danger they might encounter; it seemed bloodshed was highly likely.
The rescue device was for giving up the exam when faced with a situation too dangerous to continue. Pressing it would form a protective shield that lasted for twelve hours and continuously emit a distress signal. The instructors would arrive at your location within twelve hours to rescue you.
They departed from the Capital Star and needed to make three hyperspace jumps within two days to reach the exam planet.
Along the way, apart from those who already had small teams and looked pleased, everyone else was listless.
The feeling of the whole world being your enemy was just too miserable. They wanted to cry.
Two days later, the warship finally arrived at the exam planet. The instructors called out to the students, who looked like they were about to wilt after sitting for two days, “You can each bring one cold weapon. If you already have one, pick it out. If you don’t, you can come borrow one. If you lose it, you pay for it! Three times the price!”
This string of words flowed out smoothly, sounding just like a vendor on a train shouting, “Snacks, drinks, instant noodles!”
Ji Changqing borrowed a collapsible long spear. She disassembled the shaft into two sections and the spearhead into one, then forcibly stuffed them into her one-cubic-meter spatial clasp.
At a time like this, a familiar weapon brought her a greater sense of security.
Under the instructors’ guidance, everyone began strapping on their parachute packs.
As the warship began to enter the planet’s atmosphere, everyone saw people from other warships being dumped out in rows, like trash.
Everyone was stunned by this simple and crude method.
What happened to checking if the parachute was properly strapped on and safe before jumping?
Wasn’t this way too irresponsible?
Their instructor was already shouting, “Check your parachutes! Have the person in front of and behind you check and confirm! Haven’t you been weaned yet? Does an instructor have to hold your hand for everything?! Just think about how many of you there are!”
Come to think of it, it made sense. There were nearly half a million people. If they lined up one by one for an instructor to check and confirm before jumping, a whole day might not be enough. Dumping them out ship by ship was clean and efficient. They could be done in less than an hour.
With looks of utter despair, the students nervously checked the parachutes of those in front of and behind them. They followed the textbook standards to the letter, fumbling through the checks, while also re-checking their own packs again and again.
The Fourth Military’s instructors were so wild and unreliable right from the start. Could they really survive the seven days of the exam?
While they were still feeling uneasy, the side hatch of their warship opened, and a group of people fell out, screaming.
Ji Changqing took a deep breath. Her speed increased as she plummeted from the sky. She steadied herself, looked down, estimated the distance, and opened her parachute. She carefully adjusted her direction to avoid the miserable fate of getting hung up for public display, unable to get down.
After landing safely, she packed up her parachute, took out her long spear, assembled it, and slung it across her back. She spent a good while studying the map on her exam wristband, got her bearings, and strode forward.
For this exam, the Fourth Military had cordoned off a large area on the planet, which had been scouted beforehand as suitable for the entrance assessment. They had scattered various items representing points—flags, objects, badges, and so on—throughout the area.
The map on the exam wristband would display points of light for the point items. Different colored lights represented items of different point values, starting from 5 and capped at 100. However, it didn’t show what the specific item was or its shape. You could only search for it and judge for yourself.
Once a point item was collected and stored in the exam wristband, the wristband would display your current point total. It would also refresh at midnight every day to show your point ranking. However, the point of light for the item would never disappear.
It was basically telling everyone: “Come on, come on, I’m over here! Come and snatch me! Fight! Don’t stop!”
As if they were afraid the students wouldn’t fight!
The maliciousness of the design was simply outrageous.
But even knowing the malicious intent and the difficult road ahead, they had to cry their way through it.
There were over 120,000 enrollment spots. For someone like Ji Changqing, whose academic exam scores were in the lower-middle range, ranking in the top 100,000 in this assessment still wasn’t safe enough. A conservative estimate would be that she needed to be in the top 50,000 to be secure.
You had to be ruthless enough to survive!
When you’re a pauper, you have nothing to fear. Ji Changqing moved quickly, heading toward the light point with the highest score.
The most despicable part of this exam was that not only was it a non-team mode where the light points didn’t disappear after an item was collected, and your score and rank were displayed…
…but also that it randomly dumped students like trash without a set starting point, yet it had a designated finish line!
It was deliberately forcing the students to converge at the last moment for a massive slaughter!
So, it didn’t matter if you roamed the mountains and fields searching for and chasing points. But wanting to accumulate enough points and then hide until the competition ended? Sorry, don’t even think about it!
The most brutal fighting would definitely happen on the final stretch!
Who knows how many students were cursing this cruel world while resignedly running all over the place for that deadly yet alluring little demon called “points.”
The first day was quite calm. Ji Changqing encountered several groups of people on her way, some traveling together, others alone. Everyone just glanced at each other from a distance and tacitly kept their distance.
It wasn’t time to fight yet. Everyone was a pauper; fighting now would be nothing but a waste of time and energy, with no benefits.
She wasn’t in the mood to team up with anyone at the moment either. She was still trying to figure out how to accumulate enough points to survive until the end.
By dusk, she had collected a few small flags and about ten badges along the way. She had also taken down a rhinoceros, had her fill of roasted beef, and pulled a small, soft ball worth 100 points from the rhino’s stomach.
To carry more of the beef, she took out her parachute, used the special parachute knife to cut off several pieces of the canopy, wrapped her daily necessities in a multi-layered bundle, and used the rest to wrap the chunks of beef.
She stuffed her spatial clasp to the brim.
As the sun was about to set, she observed the terrain while walking. After midnight tonight, once the point rankings were released, no one’s personal safety could be guaranteed.
She had to get a good night’s sleep before midnight.
Then, she saw the very miserable sight she had tried so hard to avoid.
An incredibly unlucky student had gotten stuck between two trees during his descent. He was suspended about ten meters in the air, with nothing to grab onto and no leverage. Looking at the broken branches and fallen leaves on the ground, one could imagine how fiercely he must have struggled, all to no avail.
Hearing footsteps, the unlucky fellow immediately looked up and shouted hoarsely and emotionally, “Brother! Sister! Help! Give me a hand and get me down! For the next seven days, I’m all yours! I’ll do whatever you say! For real!”
The practiced lines and hoarse voice showed that he had been struggling all day, shouting for help to every heartless person who passed by, but not a single one had offered him a hand.
It was truly a tale to make the listener grieve and the hearer weep.
“Ah, I can transfer credits to you on the spot! I can give you everything!”
Ji Changqing silently looked up at him.
The unlucky fellow looked down at her, his gaze emotional and sincere. His eyes were filled with the will to be saved!
“Can’t you just cut the lines with your parachute knife and get down?”
The unlucky fellow burst into genuine tears. “I don’t know where the knife went!”
Ji Changqing was truly amazed.
The parachute knife had its own sheath and was attached to the gear. To lose it during the descent… this guy was truly the chosen son of misfortune!
“Then you can still request a rescue!” Ji Changqing suggested with great sincerity.
The unlucky fellow was sobbing his heart out. “I can’t! If my family finds out I requested a rescue and quit the exam, they’ll kill me!”
Those people would never believe he was this unlucky; they’d just assume he was making excuses, and the consequences would be dire.
If he failed to get into the Fourth Military, having his allowance and everything cut off would be a minor issue. The terrifying part was that he’d get a mixed doubles beating from his family—the trouble with having a large family. A male-female mixed doubles beating. If his family members formed random pairs, a conservative estimate was that they could beat him for half a month without repeating a combination.
Therefore, he couldn’t just hang here for seven days. He had to break free from these bonds and rush toward a new world.
He sobbed and lamented his miserable fate from above. Ji Changqing was probably the only person who had passed by who was willing to talk to him. This might be his only chance to get free, and he absolutely couldn’t let it go!
Listening to his tale, Ji Changqing, who was building a fire below, slicing the beef into thin pieces with her military knife, and starting to grill, let out a long sigh. This was truly a tragedy of the human world.
The aroma of grilling meat gradually filled the air. The unlucky fellow sniffed. “This is level-six mountain rhino beef. Hey, hey, eating it like this is such a waste. You should marinate it for an hour in ten-year-old Maru Fruit wine first, then add a bit of muxiang spice while grilling and sprinkle on a little salt. That would be perfect.”
So he was a foodie, it turned out.
“Don’t you have a military knife and other weapons in your spatial clasp? Take one out and slowly grind away at the ropes. You should be able to get out in a day or two.”
“The standard-issue weapons we’re equipped with might not be able to cut through these parachute cords even if you grind until their energy is depleted.” The unlucky fellow looked at Ji Changqing with a reproachful gaze, then added in surprise, “You actually don’t know? This is a new type of parachute that came out half a year ago. It’s extremely safe, and only the specially equipped parachute knife can cut it. I heard the Academy of Sciences provided a special batch to the Fourth Military just for the entrance exam.”
Ji Changqing, who had already dismantled her own parachute into eight pieces, felt a pang of guilt. “Do you have to pay if it’s damaged? Is it expensive?”
The unlucky fellow, smelling the aroma, forgot his sorrow and kept slurping up his drool. He cleverly seized on the key point: “I don’t know if you have to pay, but it’s probably quite expensive, right? But that’s small change for me. Let me down, and I’ll transfer you the money. Enough to pay for ten of them!”
Ji Changqing leisurely ate her grilled meat, sliced some new pieces and put them on to grill, then looked up at the unlucky fellow. “I can let you down, but the question is, besides money, what use are you?”
Her mental power cultivation was unusual, so she could clearly sense that this unlucky fellow had no malicious intent. He was genuinely, truly just unlucky.
Thank goodness for the little “avoid disaster, attract fortune” skill from the Beginner’s Heart Medal! In this shameless entrance exam, she wouldn’t be completely screwed over by someone!
The people who passed by earlier had ignored him, first, because everyone was a competitor, so one less was one less. Second, it was hard to tell if it was a trap, so they simply didn’t bother.
In any case, the worst outcome would be this guy requesting a rescue, losing his qualification, and quitting. It wasn’t like his life was in danger.
The unlucky fellow was overjoyed. He didn’t rush to list the benefits of saving him. Instead, he first launched into a wave of flattery for Ji Changqing: so skilled and daring, such good judgment, a beautiful and kind-hearted young lady…
When he got to “beautiful and kind-hearted young lady,” Ji Changqing’s expression was quite a sight to behold.
“Cut the crap. There isn’t much time. I’m leaving after I finish eating.”
Get to the point, none of this empty talk!
The unlucky fellow awkwardly shut his mouth. He began to list his strengths: “I’m rich, level-seven in physique, I won’t hold you back, and I’ll do whatever you say. How about that? Oh, and I can cook! I brought seasonings! I’ll never stab you in the back…”
Ji Changqing took out her parachute knife and waved it. “Can you catch this?”
The unlucky fellow gazed affectionately at the parachute knife in her hand. It was his key to freedom! He nodded hastily. “Yes, yes, I can!”
Ji Changqing then tossed the knife to him and focused on grilling her meat, keeping an eye on her surroundings as well.
In less than ten minutes, the unlucky fellow had cut the parachute cords and was falling. At the last moment, he gave a soft cry, took out his personal cold weapon—a fan—and swiped it forcefully toward the ground. Using the force generated by the fan, he slowed his descent, flipped nimbly, and landed steadily on his feet.
Then, he saw Ji Changqing, her face dark, throw away the grilled meat in her hand, swing her long spear, and lunge at him!
The unlucky fellow’s face fell in terror!
No, wait! You just lent me a hand and rescued me, why are you trying to kill me now?
Fortunately, his brain didn’t fail him this time. In a flash, the soul of a foodie burned brightly, and everything became clear. He hopped around dodging her attacks while yelling, “My bad, my bad, my bad! I forgot you were grilling! I’ll pay you back, I’ll pay you back, I’ll grill for you!”
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