Found You!

"Hmm, hmm-hmm~♪"

Ron hummed a tune, leaning against a crumbling wall as he casually scrolled through short videos, looking utterly unconcerned about the exam.

It was quite something. Although the Gaokao Testing Committee allowed candidates to access video websites within Simulated Reality in order to make money...

That was meant to give sponsored candidates opportunities to livestream from their personal perspectives. Many candidates used those personal livestreams to promote themselves and their companies, reaping profits in the process.

Someone like Ron, who was simply using it to browse short videos as if he had come to Simulated Reality for a picnic...

There was probably no second person like him in all of Ideal City.

Examinees came and went, and everyone who saw Ron wondered why someone was sprawled out in the Preparation Hall the entire time.

Could he be an NPC for this ability test?

But he had an admission ticket...

After sending yet another examinee who had been curiously staring at Ron into the "Hollow Battlefield," the proctor sighed and walked over to him.

"...Aren't you going into the Hollow Battlefield yet?"

Ron did not care. His gaze remained fixed on the screen as he casually replied,

"No rush... Teacher, I remember you said I could rest for as long as I wanted, right?"

I did say that, but no one expected you to really keep putting off entering the Hollow Battlefield until the final day...

The proctor looked at the incredibly relaxed Ron and found himself at a loss for words.

...How the hell did this kid manage it?

That question had been piling up in his mind for a long time.

In the Simulated Reality established after this College Entrance Exam reform, there was the influence of that thing from the sky—the Void...

Even in this Preparation Hall, staying inside would gradually make one more exhausted, until they no longer had the strength to operate their Personal Reality.

At that point, the Intelligent Brain would automatically kick them out.

Yet Ron had already stayed here for two full days, stubbornly holding out until the final day of the College Entrance Exam—

His Personal Reality was clearly powerful enough to resist the influence and maintain his presence the entire time!

The thought left the proctor feeling rather emotional.

Maintaining his presence... didn't that mean he already had an ability level of Lv.3, just like me?

Tsk... After all these years, another student had actually reached Lv.3 during the College Entrance Exam.

Was he so confident that he could enter the Hollow Battlefield on the final day and still beat everyone else?

...That was truly the bearing of a future Lv.5.

The proctor stared at Ron, countless thoughts flashing through his mind. Then Ron suddenly shut off the short-video app and stood up, making the proctor's eyes widen slightly.

He stood up! Could it be that he was finally going to enter—

But just as that thought surfaced, he saw Ron open a call window.

"Senior, today's the settlement day, right? How much did we make?"

Make... money?

The proctor stared at Ron in astonishment, only to hear a voice from the call window.

"We made just under six hundred thousand total. If we split it fifty-fifty, I'll give you a little extra to round it off. That comes to exactly three hundred thousand Credit Points..."

On the other end, Kevin counted the Credit Points he had earned thanks to Ron. Yet there was not the slightest trace of happiness on his face—he instead looked deeply worried.

"I did as you said and only told our junior sister about it, so she could invest some money and earn a little too. I didn't tell the teacher—but are you really sure you'll be okay, Junior Brother?"

A problem?

Brother, for three hundred thousand Credit Points, even a problem would stop being a problem!

So much money, so many Credit Points...

With a little more, he could even pay off his loans...

Ron's heart stirred.

"Of course I'll be fine... Senior, hurry up and throw in the rest of the money. Bet directly on me making the top ten. We can make another fortune!"

"Huh? Again?"

Kevin was genuinely a little scared.

"Your score hasn't risen at all lately. The old man is so worried he's practically losing his hair..."

"Can you really fight your way into the high ranks in a single day? Today's the final day. If anything goes wrong, no one can help you..."

"What are you scared of?"

Ron waved a hand dismissively. "I'm the one taking the exam, and I'm not afraid. You're just spending money on a bet. What's there to be scared of?"

...It was precisely because he had to spend money that he was scared.

Still, although Kevin was somewhat afraid of losing everything, he gritted his teeth and tossed all his Credit Points in at once.

"Junior Brother, you earned this money entirely through your own efforts anyway. Your brother has nothing more to say. I'll listen to you!"

"That's more like it."

Ron curled his lips into a smile and hung up.

[Superpowered], durability full.

[Vector Manipulation], durability full.

By watching edited short videos on the video site, he had also more or less figured out what abilities every candidate in the top hundred possessed...

Ron was now fully prepared. All that remained was the final push for points!

He walked to the matching card-scan station, only to hear a slightly dry question from behind him.

"You... stayed here for so many days just to earn some Credit Points?"

The proctor looked at the confidence naturally emanating from Ron, then thought back to his own judgment that Ron was very likely an Lv.3...

"What's your name?"

Before Ron could reply, the proctor opened the betting website.

"I want to make a little money too..."

This proctor...

Ron could not help finding it amusing, but he still gave the proctor his name. He scanned his admission ticket at the station and quickly appeared inside the Hollow Battlefield.

The familiar scene unfolded before him once more. Just like the match where Ron had been paired with An Hui, the Hollow Battlefield clearly only spawned examinees on this one map.

Ron did not choose to sneak around immediately. Instead, he swiftly surveyed the examinees around him at the fastest possible speed—

810, 723, 610...

Sure enough, after defeating that batch of examinees last time, his hidden rating had increased. The people he was matched against were all at least in the top thousand.

They were already enough to serve as stepping stones for him to rapidly climb into the high ranks...

With that in mind, he followed the route he had learned from An Hui and rushed to the high-rise beside the Evacuation Point—

But the moment he arrived, he was stunned to discover that two people were already lying in wait there, prepared to camp the Evacuation Point!

"There are actually others..."

The two examinees reacted at once, attempting to strike first and reduce Ron, the person competing with them for the spot, to dust.

But before they could make a move, a volley of sand and stones riddled them like sieves. They turned into Data Bubbles and completely dispersed.

+40000

+52500

Ron picked up their admission tickets and skillfully lay prone on the roof of the high-rise.

I didn't expect this strategy to spread so quickly. Good thing I'm strong enough, or those two really might have ambushed me...

He silently thought to himself and waited for the Evacuation Point in the middle of the road to light up green. Before long, more unaware prey came to evacuate.

+61300

With this stable and efficient strategy, Ron's points, which had originally been near the very bottom of the rankings, surged rapidly. In less than half a day, he crossed the massive threshold of 5,000,000 points—

He had reached one hundredth place on the points leaderboard.

Unlike those earlier easy battles, after reaching the top hundred, Ron no longer faced opponents he could effortlessly crush.

Within the top hundred, the deployment rules of the Hollow Battlefield changed.

The top hundred examinees did not participate in regular Hollow Battlefield matches. Instead, they entered the Peak Contest, which matched players at fixed thirty-minute intervals and allowed only twenty participants each time.

Among the top hundred, ordinary points no longer held any meaning.

Only by defeating an opponent ranked higher than oneself in the Peak Contest, which matched only top-hundred examinees, or by claiming the final victory in a match, could one advance in rank once again!

"Finally..."

Ron looked at the overall College Entrance Exam rankings in the sky, knowing that the real test was only just beginning.

A countdown of less than ten minutes sat beneath the leaderboard, signaling that the next Peak Contest would begin within ten minutes.

He unloaded [Superpowered], waited for the setting repair to finish, and counted down silently in his heart...

As [Superpowered] finished repairing, the countdown for the Peak Contest was nearly at its end as well.

Ron loaded the setting back in, and in the next instant, his vision darkened before brightening again.

He appeared in the familiar Hollow Battlefield once more, but this time, things were different...

The top hundred examinees were not like those lower-ranked candidates, hiding their heads and cowering in fear!

In an instant, the entire Hollow Battlefield erupted—

More than a dozen examinees immediately found opponents suited to them and launched attacks without hesitation against candidates ranked only a few places above them, determined to kill them in one blow.

Even Ron felt a little unnerved watching this... Weren't these people afraid that after fighting to the death, someone else would swoop in and reap the rewards?

But as soon as that thought crossed his mind, Ron realized why.

Right... In the Peak Contest, there was no need to fear dying in the match!

The Peak Contest only opened once every half hour. Even if they really died, these top-ranked examinees could calmly leave, buy a Resurrection Coin, and return to prepare for the second contest...

What they truly cared about was whether they could find an opportunity during this match to defeat someone ranked higher than them and seize that person's rank!

As long as they successfully beat those opponents and did not die at the hands of lower-ranked examinees, they could advance several places when the match was settled.

For these geniuses capable of reaching the top hundred, their family backgrounds and investments gave them enough room for error. Any progress counted as victory, and failure simply meant they could start over...

Moreover, the people they targeted were those closest to them in rank, so the gap in strength was not particularly great.

With an all-out ambush, victory was entirely possible. Naturally, they did not care about what came afterward.

However, the peculiar ecosystem created by these rules in the Peak Contest left Ron in peace.

He wore an odd expression as he looked at the "neighbor" who had spawned near him—

The moment this person appeared, he had glanced at Ron and seemed eager to attack immediately. But upon seeing Ron's rank of 100, he instantly lost interest.

He was ranked above Ron, so even beating Ron would not improve his rank. He simply did not care about Ron's existence...

He remained wary of Ron, and only when he saw that Ron did not seem to intend to attack did he gradually relax, keeping his guard up as he prepared to leave.

Watching him, Ron quietly slipped into the ruins of a nearby high-rise and could not help curling his lips.

He had not expected that, in his very first Peak Contest, the combat mechanics would let him disappear into the background again, allowing him to wait for the other examinees to finish fighting and then reap the rewards...

But just as joy rose in his heart, he saw one examinee's battlefield suddenly freeze—

A burly figure flashed in like a ghost, forcibly grabbing two examinees who were fighting for their lives by the necks and lifting them up!

...What was this?!

Ron's eyes narrowed as he carefully looked toward that person, only to see faint ripples spreading through the air around him, twisting as though scorched by heat waves.

But Ron knew that the air was not what was distorting.

...It was space.

Space itself trembled slightly around this hulking man because of his presence...

Seeing that scene, Ron could not help thinking of Xia Zhi.

When Xia Zhi had teleported him to the District D Patrol Bureau headquarters, similar ripples had appeared around her!

This was a spatial ability user!

Not far from Ron, the "neighbor" who had just been full of confidence and fighting spirit, apparently ready to challenge someone ranked above him, had now gone pale...

As he looked at the hulking man who had appeared out of nowhere and was lifting people with both hands, his voice trembled with horror.

"Fuck, how did I get matched with that big guy funded by Noah Pharmaceuticals?!"

A big guy funded by Noah Pharmaceuticals?

Ron immediately pricked up his ears and heard him mutter,

"Third place... Why am I matched with third place? I'm only ninety-first!"

He gritted his teeth, wearing a pained expression.

"I'm going to lose a life for nothing again... Do I still have enough loan capacity? If I borrow any more, I'll almost be out of credit to buy Resurrection Coins..."

Third place... Third place?!

That Gaokao Emperor?

Ron immediately recognized him.

He had seen this fifth-place candidate many times in those short-video compilations earlier...

He was a "professional examinee" who had already reached the peak of Lv.2 and taken the College Entrance Exam seven or eight times.

It was said that he had suffered a severe injury years ago, losing his chance to advance to Lv.3. His Personal Reality had been permanently limited to Lv.2, leaving him unable to graduate from university.

So, in a fit of anger, he had dropped out and returned to his hometown to repeat high school. He kept claiming to be a high school student and had taken the College Entrance Exam seven or eight times.

Although his injury had prevented him from reaching Lv.3, he possessed a Lv.2 spatial ability refined to perfection...

Thanks to his experience from taking the exam year after year and his battle-hardened abilities, he was practically a shameless cheat in high school, easily bullying ordinary people with neither capital nor strength.

As a result, every time, he could easily earn admission to the Three Great Academies. Yet he rejected every university offer and repeated his final year of high school again...

What he did was really just a form of performance art. No one had ever heard of him gaining any profits from it.

For the past few years, he had actually been nothing more than a complete pauper, just another member of District D like Ron.

But it was said that recently, because his ability was powerful enough, Noah Pharmaceuticals had found a way to treat his injury and invested heavily in him...

Now, he was no longer what he used to be. He had devoted himself fully to fighting for the top ranks of Ideal City's College Entrance Exam.

Ron had not expected to run into such a figure in his very first Peak Contest.

Ron fell into thought as he watched the hulking man in the distance mutter something. The two examinees he had grabbed said nothing before he squeezed with both hands, crushing them alive into Data Bubbles.

Then he appeared like a ghost in another battle and grabbed someone in the same manner.

For some reason, no one could resist his raw physical strength at all. They were simply lifted off the ground by force...

What was wrong with this guy? He was clearly a spatial ability user, so why did he possess physical strength comparable to a body-enhancement ability user?

Could I beat him in those aspects...?

Ron pondered as he estimated the gap in strength between them, watching the man haphazardly grab one examinee after another and ask them something before crushing them into Data Bubbles.

After crossing the battlefield and casually crushing more than a dozen examinees, he finally arrived not far from Ron and seized Ron's "neighbor," who had been trying to sneak away...

Only then did Ron finally hear what he had been asking.

He said—

"Do you know where Ron is?"

He was looking for me?!

In an instant, Ron's hair stood on end, and his gaze immediately turned grave.

"I-I-I don't..."

Ron's temporary neighbor stammered under his breath, then suddenly seemed to think of something. His eyes widened slightly.

"Wait... Ron? You mean Ron?!"

"Yes."

After hearing the big man's hoarse reply, the temporary neighbor abruptly turned and pointed toward the ruins where Ron was hiding—

"I remember! I remember someone hiding there. I saw his ranking on the leaderboard!

His name... was Ron!"

"Thank you."

Ron heard the big man let out a dry laugh, then tighten his hand and crush the man into a Data Bubble.

Then, like a ghost, he suddenly teleported behind the ruined cover...

He teleported right in front of Ron!

Looking at Ron, who was staring at him with extreme vigilance and had a collar around his neck flashing a bright red light, he revealed a savage grin.

"Finally..."

He licked his slightly chapped lips, his eyes filled with killing intent.

"I found you!"