School Entrance Assessment

Jupiter City Fourth Middle School

The new spring semester.

After the routine morning run, the senior high students remained behind as the principal announced the teaching plan for their final semester.

"Students! The coming semester will be our final sprint. I believe most of you have already prepared yourselves for the adjustment.

While the existing curriculum remains unchanged, the dismissal time for senior high students will be changed from 17:40 to 21:40.

The school will provide free nutritious dinners and optional boarding services. Students whose commute exceeds forty minutes are advised to board at school.

Evening classes will begin at 18:30 after dinner.

First, there will be two hours of intensive nighttime physical training.

After a ten-minute break, the final hour will be determined by each student's strongest subject.

Today, all senior high students will undergo a placement assessment using the same format as university admission examinations.

During the day, you will take written tests in academic subjects and logical reasoning in your classrooms. The physical assessment will take place at night.

Your nighttime classes will ultimately be arranged according to your specific results."

The principal's speech was concise and clear. Most students at Fourth Middle School had already adjusted themselves during winter break, ready to face this half-year sprint.

The morning exam covered academic subjects such as history, geography, humanities, arts, psychology, and more. These were the subjects Luo Di felt least confident about, and his grades usually ranked around the middle.

Academic subjects accounted for a relatively small portion of admissions, only twenty percent.

However, if a student could place among the city's top one hundred in academic subjects, they could be admitted to university and continue their studies in knowledge-related fields.

The assembly ended.

Everyone returned to their classrooms one after another, preparing for the three-hour academic examination.

Gao Yuxuan sat in his seat with his eyes closed, resting. This was his strongest field. As long as he performed properly, he could rank not only first in the class, but among the top three in the entire grade.

Because this examination was of great importance, the proctor was not their regular teacher.

A male teacher entered the classroom carrying a bag of exam papers. His eyes were slightly sunken and his complexion pale, though his clothes were neat and appropriate.

His footsteps were heavy, and he seemed to struggle just carrying the bag in his hands. People as thin as him were rarely seen in this day and age.

While he organized the papers, the students whispered among themselves.

"Isn't that the academic teacher from Class One?"

"I think his surname is Guo. I've heard from people in their class that his teaching style is strange, which is why Class One's overall academic grades aren't very good. Their Physical Education Class gets taken over a lot too."

Luo Di, seated by the window, did not join the discussion and had no interest in what they were saying.

He merely felt that this teacher was unusual, unusual in a way he could not put into words.

As Luo Di observed Teacher Guo's extremely frail body, his peripheral vision unexpectedly caught a visual signal. Turning his head, he saw the class monitor in the middle of the classroom looking his way and giving him an exaggerated cheering gesture.

The examination began.

Five papers covered cultural knowledge from various fields, and the three-hour answering time was extremely tight.

However, not long after the exam began, Luo Di's "habit" surfaced unconsciously as he focused on answering the questions.

Click.

The sound of his tongue clicking was especially loud in the sealed, quiet classroom.

Even Luo Di himself was startled.

Only then did he suddenly remember that because of his tongue-clicking habit, all his examinations last semester had been arranged separately in the teachers' office. He had carelessly forgotten about it during this new-semester assessment.

As some students turned to look at him,

the proctor also came over to his desk.

Luo Di explained the situation as quietly as possible, intending to take his papers to the teachers' office and finish the examination there.

But just as Luo Di was about to stand, a hand gently rested on his shoulder.

Teacher Guo spoke in a firm, powerful voice with extremely standard Mandarin. "I saw you go to the office alone for exams last semester. Is this a habit you can't control?"

"Yes."

"You don't need to go to the office. Continue answering.

After graduation, you'll face all kinds of situations. Many times, you won't have a quiet examination environment like this. You'll need to quickly draw upon the knowledge stored in your minds amid noise and emergencies.

If you can't even tolerate this much noise, then don't bother taking the exam.

The same goes for everyone else. Don't worry about your sitting posture. Don't deliberately restrain yourselves. If you want to cough, cough. If you want to shout, that's fine too. As long as you aren't deliberately causing disruptions, it doesn't matter.

Of course, if you cheat, I'll be the first to drag you out.

Do your best on the exam."

The students of Class 5, Senior High were all bewildered. It was their first time hearing such "standards" during an examination.

But as everyone gradually accepted Teacher Guo's words, the tension in their bodies and minds slowly eased. It felt as though they had returned to the carefree state of winter break, and the knowledge buried deep in their minds was gradually brought forth.

As for Luo Di's tongue-clicking, they had already grown used to it last semester. It had completely become ambient noise.

By the end of the examination, no one felt as exhausted as they had in the past. Some were even thrilled by their unexpectedly strong performance.

The papers were handed in.

Watching Teacher Guo's departing back, Luo Di suddenly wanted to listen to his classes.

"What are you looking at? Is Teacher Guo really that handsome... Come on, let's eat."

The class monitor walked over and bumped Luo Di's shoulder. Gao Yuxuan was already waiting outside the classroom door.

"Class monitor, do you know that teacher?"

"Not very well. I ran into him occasionally when I was helping out in the office before. Teacher Guo is a strange person. His desk is piled with all kinds of books unrelated to his subject. He doesn't seem to like using conventional lesson plans, and he rarely makes presentations. He likes teaching on a whim.

I heard he graduated from an excellent university. He's just rather withdrawn... kind of like you."

"Oh."

After lunch, the afternoon logical analysis examination was also a written test, though its design was highly unusual.

A specially crafted wooden box was handed to every student. They had to find a way to open the box in order to retrieve the examination paper inside. If the box was damaged, fifty points would be deducted immediately.

The paper itself contained only one question.

Based on written descriptions, images depicting multiple-person scenarios, and extremely limited information, students had to write as comprehensive an inference process for the event as possible and profile the main people involved.

Some students might finish their answers within an hour.

Others might fail to finish even by the end of the examination, perhaps not even reaching the key points.

Luo Di's answers that day were quite perfect, perhaps because of the events he had recently experienced.

Soon, the most important part of the evening arrived.

In the past, they would have all returned home by this time. It was everyone's first time staying at school in the evening, and they were more or less unaccustomed to it. Even more unfamiliar was the nighttime physical assessment being held for the first time.

It was also the most important test, mainly divided into three major events.

Speed, strength, Comprehensive Combat.

Although the temperature still hovered around ten degrees Celsius, most students had changed into light sportswear.

The most eye-catching was the class monitor's black skintight suit, especially the silver letter—I—printed high on her chest.

There were seventeen senior high classes, with a total of 721 students.

Although Luo Di, Wu Wen, and Gao Yuxuan ranked in the top three within Class 5, Senior High, their rankings changed considerably when placed against the whole grade.

Based on last semester's final physical assessment results,

Luo Di ranked third in the grade.

Wu Wen ranked tenth in the grade.

Gao Yuxuan ranked thirty-first in the grade.

It was worth mentioning that Gao Yuxuan ranked first in academic subjects across the grade.

The first test was speed, a testing method the students called the "hundred-thousand run."

The method was simple.

Students had to complete both a hundred-meter sprint and a thousand-meter run. During the first hundred meters, they had to sprint at full speed, and the teachers would record their hundred-meter time.

Then, without stopping, they had to continue and complete the thousand-meter run.

The final score would be calculated based on the times from both speed tests.

There was another point that needed special clarification.

Whether it was this entrance assessment or the final university admission examinations that would determine their futures, appropriate auxiliary methods were permitted, with very comprehensive regulations in place.

Students were allowed to take or inject approved drugs that would not harm the body, within specified dosage limits.

They were allowed to wear or equip auxiliary gear and prosthetics, limited to basic auxiliary types that would not affect minors' growth and development.

After all, they would face all kinds of dangerous situations in the future, and these things could also be used to assist in combat.

To ensure fairness, a certain number of points would be deducted from the final score for drug use and specialized clothing.

This physical assessment proceeded in class order.

Since their student numbers were close together, Luo Di and the other two happened to be placed in the same group for the speed test.

The moment Luo Di stepped onto the outer lane assigned to him, he immediately sensed an incongruous atmosphere.

The class monitor in lane two had already assumed a standard starting position. The usual gentleness had vanished from her face, replaced by an overwhelming presence.

Perhaps she sensed the gaze from the outer lane.

The class monitor, who had been staring straight down the track, stiffly turned her head. The seriousness on her face instantly shifted into a smile. She even freed one hand to greet him while pointing at the special clothing she wore.

Gao Yuxuan, trapped in the middle lane, had already secured his sports glasses. When he sensed the exchange between the two, he deliberately hunched himself down a little.

At that moment, the teacher at the starting line slowly raised the starting pistol.

Everyone immediately shifted into a crouching start, their calf muscles tensed.

Bang!

The gunshot rang out.

Luo Di almost instantly caught the command. His muscles drove his entire body forward, producing a perfect start.

The focused nighttime running he had done for hours every evening showed its results at this moment. Luo Di naturally adopted a running posture identical to the one in the textbook.

Even Luo Di himself could clearly feel that this start had been nearly perfect. Perhaps he could compete with the class monitor in speed.

However,

he had thought that a perfect start would at least ensure that no opponent ran alongside him within the first thirty meters of his peripheral vision.

And indeed, his peripheral vision caught no one running alongside him.

But... in Luo Di's left field of vision, he spotted someone—a person with an extremely strange running posture who had completely surpassed him the instant the race began.

Class monitor!?

The class monitor in the black skintight suit had already pulled more than three body lengths ahead of him.

Moreover, her running posture completely defied any so-called "standard." Her upper body leaned sharply forward, and with an exaggerated stride frequency and a span that nearly tore her legs apart, she forced her body to sustain that forward angle.

Otherwise, under normal circumstances, she would have fallen long ago.

Whoosh!

The class monitor was the first to cross the hundred-meter mark.

The speed display showed an astonishing number: 9.55.