33 Examination Briefing
A month and a half had passed since Li Tian started school. Friday. Today, the school had its monthly school meeting. This time, it seemed that almost every high school senior had an inkling of what was about to happen. Every year three was called to stay back in the gymnasium. Principal Zhong stood on stage with his ensemble of year three teachers. He coughed lightly in the microphone before beginning his speech.
"I'm sure every one of you seniors know what event is going to happen very soon. After all, we have been preparing you for this ever since you entered this high school. The annual 'Survival of the Fittest' examination is going to take place two months later. The venue of the examination will be done in the virtual reality space. Let us look at the details of the examination."
Principal signaled for the slides to appear on the stage. The first slide spoke about the general administration details of the examination.
"Students will be allowed to group yourselves up into groups of four. If you are unable to find a group, you may hand in a consent form to your form teacher, and they would allocate for you. You may choose to work with lesser people than the maximum but do note that in the case where we have an odd number of people left over, we will be slotting in students to groups that do not have four people. Do also note that you are not required to just group up with people in your class."
"The examination is like the battle-royale games that you youngsters should all know about. The examination shall last for seven days, where students will need to hunt for food and sleep in the natural terrain. This is thanks to the virtual reality pod which has been calibrated to release the required nutrients when you consume a certain type of food. As such, if you consumed a poisonous food, you would correspondingly receive a dose of poison. Even if you're lying in a virtual reality pod, you are still in a semi-conscious state, meaning you still need sleep to sustain your body. Note, the only items you would be given in the beginning of this examination, would be the standard issue seasonal army clothing to battle the different temperatures and a standard issue army weapon of choice. You can only choose one type of weapon for this competition. Stealing and using of other examinee's weapons are allowed."
The second slide spoke about the format of the battle-royale.
"The first three days of the examination is focused on Demonic Beast hunting. You are strictly not allowed to target other students during the three-day peacetime period. Only Demonic Beasts hunting is permitted. On the fourth day, a notification will be issued to everyone, which would signify the beginning of the battle-royale. A barrier would encase the entire virtual ground, to which no students can pass through the barrier. Gradually, the barrier would get smaller and smaller, up till the very last day. This is to encourage fights."
"When a team is eliminated by another team, the attacker will be able to subsume the total amount of points of the eliminated team. Do note that once eliminated, you will keep the total amount of points you had, and these points will be used for your final grade for this examination. Although the examination is conducted in the virtual world, the latest virtual reality machine allows for 100% realism when a student enter the virtual world. With this, current ailments on a student's body would be transferred into the game. In addition, the pain tolerance level is set at 0%, which meant that every injury in game would feel the same as in the real world. Do note that if every team was wiped out before the last day, the last team would automatically win. There is a surrender function whereby if the team members, that are currently alive, shouted 'forfeit' together, the team would be able to leave the examination. The team that last did damage to them would then acquire their points."
The screen showed a giant image of a map that looked to be split into four separate quadrants.
"I'm sure many of you have done some research online into the virtual world's layout. The layout has not changed over the past 20 years since we started this examination. This is because, the terrains chosen to mimic our country's natural habitats. On the top left quadrant, we have the Desert terrain, which mimicked the Sun Scorch Desert in the Southern and Eastern Border of Hua. On the top right quadrant, we have the Snow terrain, which was inspired from the Northern snowy Borders of Hua. On the bottom left quadrant was the Mountain terrain, which was created using the mountain ranges of Mount Huang. Lastly, in the bottom right quadrant was the Forest terrain, which was inspired by Hua's internal Red Iron Forest lands."
The next slide proceeded to analyze the different types of Demonic Beasts in the examinations.
"It wouldn't be nice of us to put every type of Demonic Beast that was originally present in these terrains into the virtual world. As such, the committee had only placed in 10 types of Rank 1, 5 types of Rank 2, 3 types of Rank 3 and 1 type of Rank 4 Demonic Beast in each of the different terrains. The points allocations are as such: 10 Points for Rank 1 kill, 100 Points for Rank 2 Kill, 500 Points for Rank 3 Kill and 5000 Points for Rank 4 kill."
"Please only go for Demonic Beasts that you know you and your team can kill. The three days leeway is to provide teams who are not confident in PvP (Player versus Player) combat, but still want to gain some points for your university admission score. Do note that the university admission score threshold is all only determined after the examination. The threshold will be normally distributed to provide fairness to all students."
"As many students come from different high schools, their terrain in which they did their practice runs would also be different. On this topic, the entire year three cohort will be conducting a joint training exercise in the terrain that you will be spawning in. For us in the Eastern Sector of Hua, you will be spawning in the Red Iron Forest lands biome. As such, next Friday on the 18th of September, the entire year three batch in Ningguo High School No.1 will be having a joint training session in a nearby forest in Ningguo for the whole weekend."
"We will be issuing you the same standard gear which you will be offered inside the virtual world too. The tasks you have to complete in the training exercise will be exactly the same as the examination. However, the difficulty in this exercise is lower than the actual examination."
The most common type of forest in Hua was the Red Iron Forest. This forest was normal to have Demonic Beasts lurking inside of it. As such, for teaching purposes, the army had strictly cordoned off two Red Iron Forest in Ningguo for students to learn how to battle with Demonic Beasts. The ranks of the beasts inside were not higher than Rank 3, which allowed for a safer practice ground for students. The Rank 3 Demonic Beasts in the controlled Red Iron Forest were only equivalent to the lower layers of Qi Refinement Realm, which most Year 3 students are almost at. Even though only Class 3A had a whole class of Qi Refinement Realm cultivators, when students work in groups, they would be capable of taking down a Rank 3 Demonic Beast.
Principal Zhong then flashed out a slide showing a form.
"For this training session, you students have a weekend to decide and submit a form with names of people you are planning to work with for the examination. There is also an area for you to fill in what sort of weapon you would like to be provided. I would like to emphasise again that the groupings do not have to be done within the scope of the class. This grouping for the examination will be the same grouping for your joint training session. So, do keep that in mind when selecting your group. If someone does not have a group, they could submit their name to their teacher and they would help them get allocated."
"If there are any other questions, you may approach your form teachers to have them answered. Thank you everyone for your attention. You are dismissed." Principal Zhong ended the briefing to give the students time to integrate in the information.
During the daytime classes, Li Tian rejected the large number of female classmates that wanted to group with him. He had been staying lowkey over the past month and only interacted with the three people in his club. Sadly, his mission status for 'Close Friends' has not changed at all. He needed this to work in his favour as the consequences are too dire.
