No one asked any further questions. Although everyone was curious about how the school's only awakened student had done in the academic subjects, it would have been unwise to poke at the sore spot when he had clearly bombed the exam.
Only those looking to mock or provoke him would keep pressing.
Although some of the boys at Seventeen Middle School felt an indescribable jealousy over Bai Pu's popularity, they still understood that his arrival was a good thing for the school and for everyone.
That set of virtual combat equipment had allowed many Combat Class students to experience virtual combat before the college entrance exams. It was like doing a set of real past exam questions in advance. The Combat Class students had become much more confident in the virtual combat exam.
Teacher Ren walked over and comforted Bai Pu. "It's fine. Even if you can't get into one of the Eight Famous Schools, your status as an awakened person will at least get you into a key university in the district."
Bai Pu did not bother explaining himself. He simply asked, "When will the academic subject results be released?"
"Intelligent Assistants scan and grade the papers now, so it's very fast," Teacher Ren said. "I estimate that after you finish the virtual combat subject tomorrow, the academic results will be released along with it."
Virtual combat scores were announced immediately after the exam ended. There was no need to wait.
Bai Pu asked doubtfully, "Intelligent Assistants scan and grade the papers? Some subjective questions may have more than one valid approach. Can an Intelligent Assistant distinguish them flexibly?"
Generally speaking, Intelligent Assistants had rather rigid personalities. It was difficult for them to accommodate answers in a variety of styles like real graders could.
"Every subjective question on every paper is scanned by Intelligent Assistants with eight different preset personalities: aggressive, conservative, emotional, rational, and so on. Then the highest and lowest scores are discarded, and the final score is calculated."
Teacher Ren smiled. "Don't worry. The college entrance exam has a history of more than nine hundred years, and AI grading has been in use for several centuries. In the past hundred years, there hasn't been a single error in AI grading."
Bai Pu had personally experienced the usefulness of Xiao Bai, the Intelligent Assistant. It was practically like having a thoughtful butler. Humanity had indeed made tremendous progress in artificial intelligence.
The next day, the virtual combat subject exam officially began.
Under the envious, admiring gazes of his classmates, Bai Pu stepped into the examination venue reserved exclusively for awakened people—the Virtual Dungeon.
Like the Virtual Dungeon known as the "White Bone Dungeon" at the Xi City branch of the God Strategy Army, the Virtual Dungeon before him, called "Silicon Valley Base," had been designed based on an Intersection Lands site with a futuristic technological style.
Within Silicon Valley's circular base were ten passageways stretching from different points around the perimeter all the way to the base's core area.
Along the ten passageways stood rows of hibernation pods. Beside each pod were two weapon racks.
As examinees entered, the electrical systems would gradually activate, and the hibernation pods would open one after another, revealing Combat Robots.
These Combat Robots were the examinees' opponents, as well as the exam questions themselves.
Defeating a Combat Robot earned the score for that "question."
Within the "Silicon Valley Base" Virtual Dungeon, an awakened person's class skills, talents, combat skills, equipment, items, and Storage Space were all restricted by the rules and rendered unusable.
The only things examinees could use were the weapon racks beside the hibernation pods, which held all kinds of unaligned weapons.
The priority of this restriction rule was as high as 10 points! At the awakened stage, even a Heroic Profession had a base priority of only 4 points. Adding the 3 priority points granted by a three-star skill only barely brought the total priority to 7. Raising it by even another point was a pipe dream, let alone reaching a priority of 10.
In other words, the virtual combat subject exam tested an awakened person's Combat Expertise.
Of course, the college entrance exam rules did not prohibit awakened people from using skills. If an awakened person could break through a priority restriction of 10 points and use their skills anyway, that meant they were already absurdly powerful. Banning it would be entirely superfluous.
Bai Pu opened his personal attribute panel.
He swept his eyes over it.
Flesh Armor, Leaping Strike, Unstable Shield, and Whirling Throw—every skill was grayed out.
However...
The three talents of the Evolution Heart were still lit up and usable! The Evolution Heart talents had a priority exceeding 10 points! Bai Pu was stunned. No wonder the superpowered conglomerates valued Evolution Source Blood so highly. Its origins were far greater than Bai Pu had imagined. It was not merely some specialty wonder from the Flesh Plague: Origin Plane! This deduction had a basis, because the highest priority in the Spirit Realm Planes explored by awakened people was 10. Since the Evolution Heart talents could surpass a priority of 10, their source had to stand above the awakened people's plane.
Calm down, calm down. High priority is a good thing, but it still depends on the skill's power and applicability. Pure Blood Guard's ability to turn enemies into servants is useless against robots, so more than half of it is effectively crippled...
The principle of Pure Blood Guard was to create pure blood and inject it into an enemy's body, causing physical mutation and allowing Bai Pu to enslave and control them.
By its very nature, the limits of this skill were already clear—it had to target carbon-based lifeforms with bodies of flesh, blood, and bone! Robots had silicon-based bodies and did not even count as "lifeforms." If pure blood could control them, that would be a miracle.
Of course, pure blood could also be injected into Bai Pu's own body, granting as much as 7 points in free attribute bonuses. But with the more important Spirit Realm Exploration Subject exam still ahead, it would be better to save the two drops of pure blood Bai Pu had stored for that exam.
These thoughts flashed through his mind, and Bai Pu gathered his thoughts.
He stepped into the entrance of the passageway.
The first hibernation pod before him had already been successfully powered on.
Amid a series of mechanical clacks, the first Combat Robot emerged!
Jiangnan District Education Examination Institute, General Control Room No. 1.
The giant screen displayed combat footage from awakened examinees one after another.
Seven or eight people sat on either side of the long table. Each carried the bearing of a person in authority, the majesty cultivated through years of wielding power and issuing orders.
One of them wore a military uniform. Judging by his shoulder insignia, it bore crossed wheat stalks and two gold stars. Compared with Li Ling's one bar and three stars, his rank was several levels higher.
Yet this military big shot with two gold wheat stars was not seated at the head of the table. He sat in the first seat on the left.
A group of big shots.
"There's no need to bring up the ordinary-class awakened people," said the big shot seated at the head of the table with a smile. "Our Jiangnan District has Heroic Professions in this year's class. There should be quite a few Reinforced Elites as well, right?"
The executive officer standing behind him was a bespectacled middle-aged man. He immediately reported, "Secretary Qiao, there are 104 awakened people with Reinforced Elite professions in this year's class."
"More than a hundred is not a small number. Let's just show the process of these students clearing the stage," Secretary Qiao said. "Give every committee member a remote control. If anyone spots an interesting promising talent, they can bring them up for everyone to see."
"Yes." The president of the Jiangnan District Education Examination Institute, seated at the lowest end of the table, wiped away his sweat and hurriedly handed out eight General Control Room remotes.
As a world event, the college entrance exam was supervised throughout by the Spirit Realm Will to ensure fairness. These big shots watching the battles from the General Control Room would not compromise that fairness; everyone understood the stakes.
If anyone dared interfere with the college entrance exam and undermine its fairness, the Spirit Realm Will would withhold the world event rewards. That would be a major incident. Every single person present would suffer the consequences.
"Let's look at the Xu Family's child first. She is our Jiangnan District's only Heroic Profession, the standard-bearer among this year's college entrance exam candidates."
The big shot seated second from the left clicked his remote. The image he selected immediately enlarged and filled the entire screen.
Before you continue