Trial in the World in the Mind

Qin Guan instantly understood what his friend meant—it hadn't been Xiao Qiang answering the question. The mobile AI system in his head had clearly given him the answer…

No wonder then that Professor Li did not say a word even though he was filled with pent-up rage. He knew this just as well!

Professor Li had to have wanted to punish the student who did not listen attentively in class, but Xiao Qiang used his AI to help him answer the question. What could Professor Li do about it?

Was he to have Xiao Qiang extract the silver disc and throw it away? Forget it, not even the scientists could do anything about them…

Qin Guan suddenly had a bad feeling. He now understood why Xiao Qiang had repeatedly emphasized the importance of the silver discs.

Qin Guan's own AI could not speak, which was why he had fallen asleep yesterday and did not bother to investigate this thing while Xiao Qiang and the others had looked into them until five in the morning. From this, they already knew all the various uses of the AIs.

One could take the class they were in, for example. Introduction to Aesthetics had always been a major disaster area when it came to failing for those in the Chinese Language course because this subject was on rather abstruse theories, and its exams were even closed book tests.

However, there would no longer be anyone who would fail the exams for Introduction for Aesthetics. Every person could use the AI in their brains to record entire textbooks. When the time for the test came, the AI would only need to recite the information sentence by sentence, and the student would transcribe it without trouble. It made it easy for them to score full marks in the test.

If that was truly the case, then the National College Entrance Examination…

Qin Guan felt that this was a little ridiculous. It was only at that moment that he truly understood how the appearance of mobile AI systems might bring about a disastrous and irreversible change to to the social structure.

...

It could be seen that Professor Li was not in a very good mood, because he dismissed the class at 11:50.

He was a professional when it came to dragging out the lecture. When he got excited, he could continue until 12:30 and still not be done. Once they were finally let free and could go to the cafeteria to eat, there would only be a few dishes left…

Clearly, Professor Li was also worried about the discs. His lecture for the day was delivered in a very perfunctory manner, and he even dismissed the class early.

Qin Guan did not take pleasure in his misfortune. As the associate dean, Professor Li was very serious when he delivered his lectures, and he was always responsible. His students might make sarcastic comments about him all the time, but in private, they respected him greatly.

Qin Guan felt a little pity for him.

It was very clear that the silver discs brought about a change that would overthrow the society, especially when it came to education. 

Qin Guan and Xiao Qiang went to the cafeteria and chatted while they ate.

Xiao Qiang kept on emphasizing the things the silver discs could do, which included helping them remember information, analyze certain problems, provide suggestions, and other things.

However, the mobile AI system was not omnipotent. It did not possess scientific and technological knowledge that surpassed the current era. It was ignorant toward how it came to earth and entered everyone's brains.

This meant that the discs were just auxiliary systems. They helped people memorize information, analyze simple questions, and chatted with them, but it was a little too much to hope that these things could help them push the world's scientific research forward.

Some people believed that the main functions of the auxiliary AI system were restricted, which was why they had mentioned 'evolving together'.

This was basically what Qin Guan had learned from the netizens' investigation. Xiao Qiang had verified all that he had read online. 

As the duo talked, noon arrived.

Qin Guan suddenly realized two more rows of words had appeared at the lower left corner of his vision.

[Activating Beginner Level Map of Trials…]

[Map of Trials 1 has been activated]

Qin Guan was shocked. When he directed his gaze at Xiao Qiang, who sat across him, he found that his friend's eyes were unfocused. It was clear that he was listening attentively to the voice in his head.

"I can become stronger if I complete the trial?!"

Xiao Qiang looked shocked.

Qin Guan looked around him. Xiao Qiang was not the only one reacting in this way. It was clear that everyone received this piece of information. Qin Guan could tell it from their nervous and alarmed expressions.

This information was definitely delivered to them via the AI's voice and not like what Qin Guan had received. His AI had delivered the message with two rows of vague words at the bottom left corner of his vision.

Xiao Qiang quickly shoved a few mouthfuls of his lunch into his mouth. "Let's hurry up and eat. Once we're done, we'll go back to the dorm."

...

Qin Guan's bed was already covered by his dormmates' junk. Fortunately, he could still sit at his desk underneath it.

Their dorm was a six-person dorm. Besides Xiao Qiang, Qin Guan's four other former dormmates had also just returned, making it clear that they, too, had gone to class.

It was not because they loved studying, but because no one dared to skip Professor Li's class…

"All of you received the notification about the trial, right?"

"Yeah, let's hurry up and go in. We'll see what's going on in there."

"You guys go ahead first. I'll stay here and guard your bodies. If you don't come back…"

"Could you not say something so ominous, you idiot."

They climbed into their beds and closed their eyes.

Qin Guan sat in his chair and noticed that while he kept the description box in his field of vision, a unique symbol had appeared at the top right corner of his sight. When he clicked on it, he could see the center of his field of vision spread out to turn into a portal, and its name was [Map of Trials 1].

'What the heck is Map of Trials 1? Is there someone who would name something so carelessly?' Qin Guan made a sarcastic quip in his heart.

When he tried to enter the portal, a confirmation box popped up in his sight.

[Before you enter the map, please make sure that you are either sitting or lying down. Once you enter the map, your physical body will enter a stage of light sleep. Should you encounter any dangers in reality, you will be forcefully awakened. Once you complete the map of trials, you will receive rewards in reality. The harder the difficulty, the greater the rewards will be.

[Will you enter the map now?]

It was clear that Qin Guan's buggy system delivered the same message as the other people's mobile AI system, but while the others' systems provided voice service, they did not have any sort of UI (user interface). His, however, only had UI messages and no voice.

This was obviously much more troublesome. When the others had any questions, they could just ask their system, while Qin Guan could only dig through the words and make wild guesses.

Based on what the system said, once he completed the trial, he would become stronger in reality. It was no wonder then that everyone was in a hurry to join the trial.

Qin Guan chose to enter the trial. The moment he closed his eyes for two seconds, he entered another world.

It was a white space. Right away, a huge dialog box appeared in front of Qin Guan, and there was another version of himself standing beside it.

His appearance and height were the exact same, but his clothes were different. Qin Guan was dressed in his T-shirt and shorts—the same as what he wore in reality—but the version of himself across from him was dressed in a pair of ragged, gray short pants. Aside from them, he didn't have anything else. He did not even have shoes.

Qin Guan tried to wave at the beggar version of himself, but received no response.

"Even if I'm not dressed, I'm still handsome."

Qin Guan made a guess that the beggar version of him was his character in the trial. When he looked at the dialog box to his left, he became even more certain of this assumption.

His name, gender, age, and appearance were all fixed and could not be changed.

The only thing he could choose was his identity. Among his choices were student, office worker, freelancer, pink-collar worker, athlete…

The last choice was useless person.

There was even a small row of words that served as a description for this column.

[Your identity will determine your initial attributes. You should choose the identity that attracts you the most. You do not need to choose your identity based on your identity in reality. After all, everyone deserves a second chance.]

"So, students will be better at learning, office workers will have greater endurance, freelancers will have better creativity, pink-collared workers will be better at communication and are able to get discounts when they buy things? Ha, even I'm impressed by my imagination!"

The dialog box did not provide any descriptions for the attributes. In fact, there was not even an attribute box. What Qin Guan had just said were all his guesses.

The only difference between the identities was that his clothes would change. For example, if he chose to be an office worker, he would be dressed in dashing formal wear; if he chose to be an athlete, he would be dressed in a tank top and shorts that short-distance runners wore, and his muscles would bulge out prominently.

"I'll definitely choose to be an athlete. Their physical attributes are clearly much better. It'll provide me with great advantages during the early stages."

Qin Guan chose to be an athlete, but he suddenly realized that the [Begin Trial] icon had turned gray, and when he clicked on it, there was no response.

"What the heck?"

Qin Guan was a little dumbfounded. When he looked at it closely, besides the useless person option, all the others were gray.

"So you're saying… I can only begin by being a beggar?"