Friends, School's Out!
The system's design, intended to trick most players, inadvertently helped Zhao Yijiu enter the top 100. Isn't that building one's happiness on the suffering of others?
Otherwise, based on Yu Xing's guess that Zhao Yijiu had 62 points, this kid wouldn't have made it into the rankings.
Of course, Zhao Yijiu was probably not the only one who suddenly benefited, and it's unknown how many of those who scored in the nineties got there because of the bonus points.
The blackboard has already read out the list of all those who have advanced to the next round of activities. The names cover the blackboard densely, and those whose names were not read out, even if they successfully completed the preliminary activities, have lost their eligibility to advance.
Yu Xing managed to memorize most of the names thanks to his memory. Although he knew that there would likely be analysis posts on the forum soon after he left, he wanted to be on the safe side. If the system required complete secrecy, some unknown and low-ranking strategists would easily hide from others' view, and it would be difficult to guard against them if they tried to sabotage him.
Almost as soon as he finished writing, the words on the document disappeared rapidly, replaced by several new lines of notification.
[Candidates who complete the exam but do not rank in the top 100 will receive a reward of 3000 points.]
[Unrelated candidates have been removed from the examination room]
The top 100 candidates will receive corresponding rewards based on their rankings; specific rewards will be distributed after the simulation is completed.
[The grouping rules are now announced: The competition will be divided into five sessions, with 20 participants in each session. The event will begin in two days. During this period, all sessions will have a selection function available, allowing participants to freely choose a session within the two days. The list of all selected participants will be publicly displayed to ensure that teams are placed in the same session.]
[Those who fail to select a session within the specified time will be randomly assigned to a session with vacancies.]
[By the way, deaths in the second phase of the event will be real deaths~ Of course, those who want to quit now no longer have the chance!]
Yu Xing's eyes narrowed slightly. The way this session was chosen wasn't unexpected. But don't be fooled by the system's nice-sounding explanation that it's to allow individuals or teams with a clear intention to cooperate to enter the same session. If that's really the case, then private communication would suffice. Isn't the so-called public announcement just a way for adversaries to keep track of each other's movements?
Given this, wouldn't the Lingren deliberately choose the same names as him and his teammates when they saw their applications?
Even if the benefits from the event are reduced, they still come to mess with his mentality; Lingren are absolutely capable of doing such a thing.
Yu Xing pursed his lips, considering whether to play a last-minute selection game, choosing which match to enter at the last minute. However, the success rate of this method was not high, because there might not be enough options left for their entire team to enter together.
[The five locations for the core activities in Phase Two are: City of Madness, Town of No Light, Ghost City, Chaotic Border, and Dead Silent Island.]
[City of Madness: For some reason, this city has descended into madness. Those who are lucid tremble with fear and struggle to survive. Do you think only people are mad? Newcomer, don't look in the mirror, and don't look at the moon.]
[Town of No Light: This is a town without daylight, where people wander in endless darkness. When will the bells of dawn ring? Will they be bells of celebration, or the final death knell?]
[Ghost City: How could this city seem normal? Every living person carries a terrifying shadow. Towering buildings stand tall, and countless monsters lurk in the shadows. To survive here is probably just a dream.]
[Chaotic Border: The war between humans and the Ghost Realm has never ceased. Those on the frontier are forever struggling in nightmares. Now you are one of those struggling. Have you ever witnessed true catastrophe?]
[Dead Silent Island: This is an island that seems uninhabited. You were shipwrecked and drifted to this island, only to find that everything that moves on it becomes a source of fear. A deserted village? A hospital? A school? No, it's all hell.]
One chalk word after another appeared on the greenish blackboard. As Yu Xing looked at these introductions, she quickly made a rough division of the five scenes.
These scenarios all appear to be simulation dungeons with three parallel storylines: survival, puzzle-solving, and combat. However, they each have a different focus. For example, in the Chaotic Border, where humans and ghosts are fighting against each other, there might be a task where the simulation player and the experience player compete to see who kills the most ghosts.
The Town of No Light seems to focus more on puzzle-solving, so the competition might be between the two sides to see who can figure out the reason why the town has no daylight faster.
The other three might be a bit more dangerous, perhaps requiring the recommender and experiencer to survive the high threat posed by the ghost itself. Yu Xing felt that even in competitive events, it was impossible for the two sides to truly break off relations and allow the deducer and experiencer to kill each other directly. If that were the case, the two systems wouldn't need to pretend to hold such an event, and the Absurdity System wouldn't need to test the deducer's brainpower so comprehensively in the first phase of the event.
Despite the system's inherent flaws, he has so far rarely seen instances where system designers and developers kill each other. The Fear Hospital barely qualifies as half an instance; if everyone maintains a good mindset and coordinates to ensure they only die twice at most, it's possible for everyone to survive.
Qu Xuanqing did participate in a program where half of the participants were guaranteed to die, but the main theme was fighting against ghosts, and who lived and who died depended entirely on their own abilities. However, after Yu Xing found Qu Xuanqing refused the invitation to that program and never went on it again.
Just as Yu Xing's thoughts were wandering, the words on the blackboard suddenly paused, and then fell silent.
Immediately afterward, Yu Xing heard a muffled thud. He turned his head and saw an empty corridor outside. The sound was very far away, seemingly coming from several walls below. The muffled thud lasted for several seconds, and even the place where Yu Xing was sitting felt a jolt, like an earthquake.
Only after the tremors subsided did the last blood-red text appear on the blackboard.
[The gates of Xuechi Middle School are now open. Please leave the school in an orderly manner. The first ten students to leave the school are eligible to designate one student who is not among the first ten to be assigned to the same session as them. The designated student cannot refuse.]
The blood-written words remained on the blackboard for about five seconds, and then the classroom lights exploded.
Not only the lights in the dark classroom, but also the corridor lights outside exploded at the same time. The exploding light bulbs shattered into pieces of glass, which scattered in all directions. Many pieces hit the ground and tables, and the window glass was also cracked. Yu Xing felt a pain in her cheek, and when she touched it, she felt a warm sensation on her hand.
Beneath my fingertips, I could feel the skin being cut open.
Yu Xing's pupils contracted, and she immediately stood up.
The school was plunged into complete darkness, and he stood in the darkness, only able to hear his own breathing.
And here we go again, the system saves the most frustrating part for last!
At the same time, he finally heard a sound from the school other than his own. It sounded like someone was moving desks and chairs in the next classroom; that must have been another deducer.
When he first entered the school, he left the classroom to look at the sign outside. At that time, he was sure that the classroom next door was empty. But now, after the last notice appeared on the blackboard, it seemed that other people had suddenly appeared in the classrooms on both sides of him. Yu Xing took about three seconds to figure out that the change in space was due to the light bulb exploding, which merged the independent spaces where all the deducers were located into one.
Why? To grab a spot!
If everyone is in their own space, walking towards the school gate in the dark, then who can be among the first ten to leave will really depend on skill and luck. If a group of people were to get together, wouldn't a fight break out?
Yu Xing: "... They're up to something."
The entire school was pitch black; it looked like all the lights that could be blown up had been blasted. He didn't even know which floor he was on. After all, with spatial shifts, it would be unfair if some people were on the fourth floor while others were on the first.
And whether he himself can make the top ten is irrelevant, but at least the Lingren can't. If the Lingren is in the top ten, I guarantee I'll call his name and separate him from his teammates.
Thinking of this, Yu Xing first felt around in his drawer.
He took out two things.
When he returned to the classroom from the simulation, he had already noticed that the two items he had turned back to retrieve before going up to the attic had indeed been brought out.
A lighter, a candle.
Just before he stepped onto the stairs to the attic, a sudden Spiritual Sense struck him, reminding him of a lighter. So he went back to Ye Ming's room and, just in case, took the lighter and candle from under Ye Ming's bed. He put them in his pocket, and when he got to the classroom, the two items appeared in his drawer.
Yu Xing's Spiritual Sense was remarkably accurate, which was the basis for his premonition that something else would happen after the papers were finished being graded, once he entered the classroom.
It really came in handy.
The physical abilities of the deducers should now be at an above-average level. When taking the exam, they were suppressed to the level of an average person. After returning from Yu Wan's world, their physical abilities have been unlocked to a certain extent, which is equivalent to turning from a well-behaved student into a school bully who can fight. It seems that the system wants them to "fight" here.
He put the lighter in his school trouser pocket and the candle on the other side, and without wasting much time, he walked straight out of the classroom in the dark.
His five senses haven't returned, and the others probably haven't either; it's like a group of blind men Yugi for a door.
Moreover, this darkness was no ordinary darkness. Without any light source, Yu Xing couldn't even see his own five fingers, which was clearly an effect produced by being possessed by some kind of force.
Even if someone stood in front of him now, he probably wouldn't be able to tell whether that person was male or female.
Yu Xing stepped on the shards of glass, listened to the sound of the glass breaking, and clicked her tongue.
Even though sneakers have fairly thick soles, people still worry about whether they'll puncture their feet, making them much more cautious and reserved in their behavior.
He was probably the least concerned about these things. After leaving the classroom and roughly figuring out his location, he started running. He could hear whispers of "Holy crap!" coming from some of the nearby classrooms.
Yu Xing's vision gradually adjusted to the darkness. The sky was particularly gloomy, without even a trace of moonlight or starlight, offering no help whatsoever. He quietly reached for his lighter and lit it for a moment.
In that instant, he realized where he was. He was at the corner of a corridor, and the stairs were right next to him, with up and down stairs, indicating that he wasn't on the first floor.
But Yu Xing's firelight also attracted the attention of others. He immediately noticed that more people were approaching him, and the footsteps behind him were somewhat chaotic, all of them making a "crunching" sound as they stepped on broken glass.
The number of people still remaining at school wasn't particularly large to begin with, and the prizes for the top ten weren't especially attractive to those without ill intentions. Besides, everyone was a rational strategist, so there was no chance of a chaotic scramble like during a supermarket sale. Just then, a rather calm male voice asked from behind, "Hey, do you have a lighter?"
"That's great! I was really afraid of bumping into something while walking in the dark~" Another smiling female voice came from behind. Her voice sounded sweet and coquettish, like she was pouting, which instantly reminded Yu Xing of a woman like Shafuri.
"Could we keep the lighter on? We're not obsessed with the rankings, we just want to get out of here smoothly. If there's light, it'll be much easier if we all go together, right?" This sounded like a teenager.
Yu Xing: "..."
This group is only being "friendly" because it's dark and their faces aren't visible; normally, any one of them would be a big shot in the simulation who would be called "brother" or "sister."
Yu Xing thought for a moment. He had a reason for needing to leave as soon as possible. The people behind him didn't really have any impact on him, but he didn't want to expose himself. So he secretly cleared his throat, adjusted his resonance, and produced a neutral voice that was neither clearly male nor female. "I have an enemy, and I'm in a hurry."
"Oh, I see. I understand. You go ahead, little sister. I'll find the exit myself." The woman with the sweet, coquettish voice spoke again, as if she were very familiar with this kind of thing.
After she spoke, the others behind her understood immediately. They secretly pondered in their hearts that they had never heard this voice before, neither in their own deductions nor in the videos of those big shots.
Is she a low-key woman?
Their thoughts yielded no results. Only Song Xue, who lagged behind at the back of the crowd and remained silent, glanced at Yu Xing's retreating figure with some confusion.
Her eyes were very special, a fact that many people were well aware of. The darkness here didn't affect her much; she was probably one of the few people in the entire school who could barely see. Therefore, she clearly saw that the person running down the stairs was a tall man.
Moreover, the figure from behind looked somewhat familiar.
Song Xue knew that the person who could evoke this sense of familiarity must be someone she had seen in the past three months, either in reality or from deduction videos or live streams. She searched her memory, and then a slightly lively expression suddenly appeared on her usually cold and indifferent face. She murmured to herself, "Could it be Yu Xing?"
Although Yu Xing used a sacrificial offering to conceal her face when she watched the live stream, she still saw Yu Xing's true appearance through the screen with her own eyes and was deeply impressed by it.
"Does this person not only possess sacrificial offerings to alter their appearance, but are also a master of voice disguise?"
Song Xue remembered this information and planned to Yan Ming when she got back.
She was well aware of the difficulty level of this event, and it was quite interesting that Yu Xing and she had the same score, and that Yu Xing was automatically ranked first during the grading process.
She strolled along with the small group of seven or eight people who had gathered by chance, pondering who Yu Xing's so-called enemy was.
If Yan Ming's intelligence last time was comprehensive enough, then this enemy should be the Lingren.
To dare to actively compete for a top-ten spot, and to run headlong into the hands of Lingren, is truly a bold choice.
On the other side, Yu Xing had already gone down one floor of stairs. The good news was that his original location was now on the second floor after the spatial transformation, and he was now on the first floor. He just needed to walk around the corridor to find the door.
He was still practically running to find his way, occasionally lighting a lighter to check his location. He passed several people loitering along the way, and when he finally found the gate, it displayed "03," meaning three people had already left.
Just as he was about to cross the gate, a very familiar voice came from behind him.
The Lingren, lurking in the darkness behind him, spoke with an air of composure, yet tinged with a barely perceptible hint of mockery and pleasure. "Walking so fast, are you trying to hide from me? A Xing, you really don't want... to be on my side?"