Chapter 58: The Goldfish Dreamboat’s Limit
Chapter 58: Chapter 58: The Goldfish Dreamboat’s Limit
It was almost 10:00 AM.
The waiting hall of the Hero Association was nearly full. A quiet atmosphere, laced with whispers.
An indescribable tension filled the air, which seemed to grow thick and cold.
Wang Xi noticed that most of the exam candidates around him looked restless. Some were constantly taking deep breaths, lightly stomping their feet, or patting their cheeks to ease their nerves.
He, on the other hand, felt nothing.
His mind was at peace, steady as a rock.
Soon, at 9:50 AM, three smartly dressed Hero Association staff members in suits came to the front of the hall. One spoke in a flat tone, their voice amplified by a headset and broadcast through the hall’s speakers:
"The first round of the exam is about to begin. Please enter in an orderly fashion according to your assigned number."
The hundreds of people in the waiting area all rose to their feet. No one dared to speak, simply following the staff’s directions down the corridors on either side of the hall.
Wang Xi’s number was 666, placing him near the very end. He followed the crowd into an examination room at the end of a corridor.
The room was clean and bright, reminding him of the college entrance exams from his past life. There were only twenty people in each examination room.
The first round was a written exam.
After Wang Xi took his seat, the other candidates in the room also sat bolt upright. He noticed cameras in all four corners of the room, as well as two camera drones patrolling overhead.
There were two Examiners, a man and a woman, belonging to the Hero Association and the Overlook Bureau respectively.
Wang Xi glanced at them.
Both Examiners were at the Three Stars level.
He quickly looked away as the test papers were handed out. After a quick scan, he felt a bit relieved to see that he knew how to answer most of the questions.
The written exam wasn’t actually that difficult.
Its main purpose was to ensure candidates had a basic understanding of supernatural phenomena like Mazes, disasters, the Wilderness, and Disaster Areas.
To make a rough analogy, it was pretty similar to the "Subject One" theory test for a driver’s license in his previous life.
It was all rote memorization.
And that happened to be Wang Xi’s weakness. The reason was simple: he had a bad memory. That’s just how it was for a pretty boy with the memory of a goldfish.
Textbook knowledge was like a scumbag’s promise—ephemeral, fleeting, and getting angry about it was useless. He didn’t consider himself a scumbag, so the knowledge points made him no promises.
’Oh well. I’ll just do my best.’
SCRITCH, SCRITCH, SCRITCH...
Wang Xi gripped his pen, ticking off the options for each question.
’How do Maze entrances most commonly appear? What are its two usual forms? Are the internal scenes fixed?’
’B, they attach to existing entrances; fixed and temporary; and no.’
’Are disaster levels and categories related to the Maze itself?’
Wang Xi rubbed the barrel of his pen, thinking for a moment.
He quickly settled on an answer and marked it down.
SCRITCH—
’C, they are unrelated, but the lower the Maze’s number, the higher the probability of a high-level disaster occurring.’
’Why is the Wilderness unsuitable for human habitation?’
’A, due to the effects of reality distortion, ordinary people exposed to it for long periods will go insane and die suddenly.’
Wang Xi had specifically looked up information on this question. In settlement cities like Valley City, every district had "electric towers" built. Not only did they possess powerful offensive capabilities, but they also had the special function of weakening reality distortion.
Therefore, it was only relatively safe within the high walls.
As for why disasters still randomly occurred in the cities, there was no definitive answer yet. But generally speaking, the probability of a disaster appearing in the Wilderness was far higher than in the cities.
Before long, Wang Xi finished one multiple-choice question after another.
He reached the short-answer section.
’What are the disaster levels and categories?’
The very first question was a gimme. Wang Xi was delighted, his pen flying across the paper as if guided by a divine hand:
"Five levels, five categories."
"The disaster levels, from lowest to highest, are: Relatively Stable (Gray), Regional Seal (Blue), Major Incident (Yellow), Sudden Cataclysm (Orange), and Mobile Calamity (Red)."
"The disaster categories are: Legion, Sovereign, Gemini, Colossus, and Celestial Swarm."
Here, Legion refers to a disaster appearing as a group; Sovereign is the opposite, consisting of only a single individual; Gemini is a variant of Sovereign, with two main individuals; Colossus, as the name suggests, often manifests as a behemoth; and finally, Celestial Swarm refers to multiple Colossi, and is the most destructive type.
...
...
The 90-minute exam ended quickly.
Wang Xi glanced at the clock at the front of the room. It was exactly 11:30 AM.
A staff member came to collect the test papers.
After a short wait, the male Examiner announced the end of the first round. Only then did everyone rise and leave in an orderly fashion.
Wang Xi noticed that almost everyone else had a smile on their face; they had clearly done well.
’Whatever, I didn’t do badly either.’
He chuckled, quite satisfied with himself.
The second round of the exam was scheduled for 2:00 PM. As was tradition, both the written and practical exams would be completed on the same day, with results announced that same day as well.
Therefore, all the candidates would eat in the Hero Association’s dining area, free of charge.
Although the food was nowhere near as good as Temperamental Sweetheart, there was plenty of it, so Wang Xi let loose and ate his fill.
Now that his Randall Body Refining Technique had reached Perfection, and with the enhancement from "Drinking and Eating Giant," his appetite was astonishing.
He easily polished off a meal meant for four people all by himself.
What Wang Xi didn’t know was that his unrestrained gorging was being filmed dead-on by a camera drone.
On the livestream, a black-haired young man in a corner of the dining hall held his bowl in his left hand and chopsticks in his right, shoveling rice into his mouth with a CLANG, CLANG, CLANG. The trays in front of him were piled high with bones, fish skeletons, banana peels, and fruit pits, and he had more than a dozen stacked bowls.
"Dude, how can he eat so much!"
"Whoa! Number 666! He’s f*cking awesome!"
"This Sixth Brother is pretty handsome, and he’s not even that built. His appetite is something else, hahaha!"
"Waaah, stop eating! If you keep going, you’re going to eat the Hero Association into bankruptcy!"
"Just seeing such a master chow down makes my life complete!"
Wang Xi put down his bowl and chopsticks, taking a halftime break before preparing to continue. He had just pulled out his phone and opened the livestream when he was greeted by a screen full of comments.
He couldn’t help but chuckle. ’Who the hell is this guy? So handsome and can eat so much. The greasy-mouthed look is actually kinda cute...’
The next second, his expression changed.
Holy shit...
Isn’t that me?!
He snapped his head up and saw a camera drone hovering in the air not far in front of him, its lens pointed right at him.
At that moment, a thought flashed through Wang Xi’s mind—
’I’m screwed!’
’I’ve been disgraced in front of all the people of Valley City!’
Then a second thought immediately followed—
’Well, what’s done is done. Might as well keep eating.’
Wang Xi was a true Sea King, his mental fortitude unshakable. Facing the camera, he even flashed an elegant, brilliant smile and gave a thumbs-up. He put down his phone, ran to the serving area, and brought back two more trays of freshly prepared food...
The melodious CLANG, CLANG, CLANG of his utensils resumed.
His suave movements, his natural expression, that dedication to eating... it left the livestream audience completely stunned.
"Dude, you’re making me hungry."
"I gotta say, Sixth Brother is seriously handsome!"
"Hahahahahaha!"
"I hope Sixth Brother passes the exam!"
The comments flew across the screen.
Although Wang Xi didn’t get much screen time before the camera cut away, this brief scene made countless people remember him—the handsome, big-eating Sixth Brother, Wang Xi.
...
...
「1:00 PM.」
In the Hero Association waiting hall, a giant screen on the front wall scrolled through the rankings for the first round of the exam.
Every candidate was staring intently at the screen.
Wang Xi was no exception.
But he stared for a long time.
Nothing.
Still nothing.
The top 200 were almost all perfect scores, and even those down to the 400th rank had scores of 90 or above...
Wang Xi knew exactly why.
The use of Universal Cards was not restricted at any point during the Professional Warrior exam. So it was perfectly normal for some candidates to use Cards to memorize information or take memory-enhancing potions beforehand.
If you wanted to talk about fairness... nothing in this world was fair, except death.
And in this new era, even death had become unfair because of the existence of Universal Cards.
Wang Xi simply couldn’t afford those expensive memory potions, let alone a Universal Card that aided memorization.
Though he felt a twinge of regret, he didn’t dwell on it.
Because the second round, the practical exam, was still to come, and that was the main event. The written and practical exams were weighted 20/80, and the final total score would determine who passed.
"Wang Xi, Number 666 — First Round Score: 80, Overall Rank: 678."
Wang Xi finally found his name at the bottom of the list.
He was speechless.
His rank was even lower than his number.
’That was 80 points!’
’I gave it my all!’
In the livestream chat, comments scrolled past:
"As expected of Sixth Brother. He really just came here to eat."
"Take the test, eat your fill, go home."
"No loss as long as you’re full."
"Don’t talk nonsense. A guy who can eat like Sixth Brother must be able to fight. He’s gonna crush everyone in the practical exam later!"
"Yeah, I’m waiting with bated breath. He’d better really crush it, or I’m gonna lose my mind."
At that very moment, the members of Team Two, who had just finished eating at the Cupid’s Home Affairs Dining Hall, were gathered in the lounge area watching the livestream.
They had missed the scene of Wang Xi chowing down earlier, but now they all saw the familiar name on the big screen. They couldn’t help but look at each other, falling into a strange silence.
"So, besides Miss Jiali,"
Zhu Yuhe’s mouth fell open, her eyes wide as if she’d seen a ghost.
"The pretty boy is also taking the Professional Warrior exam today?!"
"It can’t be someone with the same name, right..."
「Hero Association, Conference Hall.」
High-ranking officials from the Overlook Bureau, the Security Bureau, the Defense Team, the three major financial consortiums, and numerous private organizations were seated around a circular table, watching the livestream on a screen.
Discussions about the six seeded candidates rose and fell. Without exception, all of them had achieved perfect scores on the first written exam.
Just then, both Yu Zizi and Ning Meng noticed that the silver-haired girl sitting between them was holding back a smile.
Following Section Chief Chu’s gaze, they saw the name at the bottom of the rankings.
"Chu Nai, what are you smiling about?"
Ning Meng asked, confused.
The silver-haired girl’s smile vanished as if it were a fleeting illusion. She shook her head and said softly,
"It’s nothing."
Only Yu Zizi seemed to guess what was going on.
’Section Chief Chu doesn’t seem to want that young man to pass the exam. That must be why she’s so happy that his written exam score is at the bottom.’
In reality, Chu Nai was simply reminiscing about the past. Brother Xi’s grades had always been this bad, ever since they were little.
’Some things never change.’
Her beautiful eyes twinkled.
The time soon came to 1:50 PM.
The same three Hero Association staff members in suits from before came to the front of the hall once more. A flat voice echoed from the speakers all around:
"The second round of the exam will now begin..."