First Place's Reward (5k)

Chapter 34: First Place's Reward (5k)

The rampaging vectors finally came to a halt.

Ron could not have maintained such a chaotic scene for long.

Even with everything he had, his most strenuous burst of [Vector Manipulation] only barely lasted three or four seconds before the sand and stones fell and the gale died down.

Everything returned to silence. Only tranquility remained within the entire "Hollow Battlefield."

As the chaos sweeping through the area subsided, Yuan, covered in horrific wounds and barely protecting his vital points with [Gravity Control], crawled out of the ruins.

His vision was blurred, and countless bones throughout his body had fractured.

Rebar, Iron Sand, chunks of concrete...

The environmental materials that should have been his weapons within those ruins had all become weapons instead, battering his body in a frenzy.

Now, not only were all four of his limbs broken, but several bloody holes had been punched through his abdomen.

His cheek was split open, one ear had somehow been torn off, and even a patch of his scalp had been ripped away.

But he was not dead yet.

The vector riot had lasted too briefly, and that just happened to leave him with a sliver of life.

Damn it—how could this guy make his own ability riot and unleash power so far beyond Lv.3? What exactly is his Ability Model?!

Was he wearing that Ability Limiter the whole time he fought me?

Though endless terror and panic filled his heart, Yuan did not despair.

Because he knew that a riot like that would not only place him in such danger.

Even Ron himself, the one who had unleashed that ability and caused it to riot, had probably suffered computational overload and was utterly incapable of moving!

This was a move that injured the enemy for a thousand while harming oneself for eight hundred.

Although he too was barely hanging on, exhausted and on his last breath—

He was still not dead!

That meant he still had a chance to preserve his first-place ranking!

Using his status and connections beforehand, he had bribed every top hundred examinee except Ron.

Since he had only asked them not to interfere in the fight between himself and Ron, those examinees had readily agreed.

But that had been then.

Now that he had nearly died at Ron's hands and completely lost his chance to win first place, Yuan would not keep pretending to be some fair and righteous good man!

Yuan raised his head and looked toward a pile of ruins in the distance.

Behind it were the examinees waiting for their battle to finish. Terrified by the massive spectacle just now, they probably did not dare show themselves. As long as Yuan could reach them, persuade them to help, have them kill Ron, and send himself to evacuate—although it would definitely cost him dearly, it would be worth it as long as he could keep his ranking!

Even if they grew too greedy and wanted to kill Yuan to take first place for themselves, Yuan could accept that too.

There were still two more chances for "Peak Contest." Once he had recovered, the hidden-score matching system would naturally match him against whoever stole his first place. Then, taking back the top ranking would be effortless—even if he could not reclaim it, as long as he did not lose to Ron, he could accept it.

After all, if the Intelligent Brain truly recorded that he had lost to Ron, then Prometheus's scoring weight—

No, no, that would not do. Prometheus's Sector Authority could only be his. Laboratory One could only be his. The final Lv.5 could only be him!

He stared at the distant ruins, gritted his bloodied teeth, and drove [Gravity Control] with all his strength.

Then, borrowing the force of Gravity Control, he used his broken hands to "crawl" forward with all his might, like a wriggling maggot.

But—as long as nobody stopped him, he absolutely had a chance to reach that place before he died completely!

That place. As long as he could reach that place—

"Sorry, it's already full here."

A shadow fell over him, and Yuan heard a familiar, calm voice.

The hope in his eyes slowly faded. Slightly dazed, he raised his head and looked in the direction from which the shadow fell—Ron stood with both hands in his pockets, leaning against a wall nearby and looking down at him from the corner of his eye.

How had he done it? How had he done it?!

Why? His ability had clearly gone out of control. He had to be suffering computational overload—

He should not have been able to move!

He opened his mouth. Blood spilled out between his lips as he whimpered, "You can't possibly... you clearly... computational overload..."

"Computational overload?"

Ron looked at Yuan with an odd expression, understanding what exactly had confused him.

Yes, computational overload. Theoretically, Ron should not have been much better off than Yuan. He should have been lying there, waiting to die.

But unfortunately—

Who told him he had the Dimensional Update Manual?

By unloading [Ability Overload] and [Beyonder Loss of Control] together, Ron's [Vector Manipulation] would immediately degrade back into [Telekinesis], which was entirely under his control—

What loss of control? What computational overload?

That was Vector Manipulation's problem. What did it have to do with Ron's blank-sheet [Telekinesis]?

"There is no such thing as impossible. You cannot understand because the gap between our abilities is not something a mere ability level can make up for."

He curled his lips in mockery. With all its feeble strength, his Telekinesis lifted a chunk of concrete beside him and hurled it through the air at Yuan.

Yuan raised a hand and desperately weakened gravity, trying to reduce the impact on himself. He even tried to resist, but no matter how weak ordinary Lv.2 [Telekinesis] was, it could still lift an object weighing up to fifteen kilograms. Its control might be crude and superficial,

only capable of moving objects in the most primitive way, but even that was not something the current Yuan could withstand.

Smack!

Like bursting a water bubble, the concrete chunk fell and effortlessly smashed Yuan into scattered Data Bubbles.

The next instant, Ron's ranking immediately rose overhead, finally reaching the very top—

He had become first place in this College Entrance Exam test!

What a hassle...

Looking at Yuan's remains scattered at his feet, crushed into Data Bubbles by the chunk of concrete, Ron could not help feeling somewhat conflicted.

Honestly, he should have lost.

Whether it was ability level or the strength of his ability at the time—every statistic related to combat power showed that Ron was clearly inferior to Yuan.

If [Vector Manipulation] had not happened to be a pure superior version of [Gravity Control],

and if Yuan had not happened to use his exclusive Ability Formula to triple the gravity within his ability range, causing that tripled gravity to inflict even greater damage on him during the vector riot—

then even if Ron had truly overloaded [Vector Manipulation], he probably would have been unable to seriously injure Yuan and would have failed.

But in the end, he had won.

A winner was a winner. No matter what methods he had used, Ron was the final victor—

Ideal City's College Entrance Exam had no uncrowned kings, only cold rankings.

Even if your ability was only Lv.1, as long as you could defeat others in the "Hollow Battlefield," the Intelligent Brain would treat everyone equally and watch you climb to the top of the rankings!

"He won—he actually won!"

"Yuan actually lost? Wasn't that guy already Lv.3?"

"He really was Lv.3? Well, yeah. With how insane that spectacle was just now, I wouldn't believe it if it hadn't been caused by an Lv.3."

"Then doesn't that mean Ron... is Lv.3 too?"

Whispers drifted into his ears. Ron turned his head and saw other examinees peeking out from behind the ruins nearby.

After hearing no movement for some time, they had assumed the battle was over and dared to take a look.

When Ron swept his calm gaze toward them, most of them immediately revealed awkward smiles.

"B-Boss, are you getting ready to leave?"

"Boss, you don't even need to kill people to take their exam IDs! I'll hand mine over directly, so I don't dirty your hands—"

Some examinees, who had never planned to leave and only wanted to fight candidates ranked above them to see if they could climb a few places higher, immediately removed their exam IDs and threw them toward Ron from afar.

They did not want to invite trouble—could they not see that Ron looked completely fine, as though he was still at full strength?

If they did not hurry and send him away, what if he suddenly got the urge to kill everyone—

Would they not lose one opportunity to raise their rankings?

As Good Citizens of Ideal City, these people understood perfectly well what it meant to avoid harm and seek benefit—

He had not expected to scare them like this.

Ron could not help finding it both amusing and absurd.

If these people had really dared to attack him and fight him now, Ron truly would not have had much ability to deal with them.

After all, Ron had completely overloaded [Vector Manipulation] during this match. He could not use that ability again until he left Virtual Reality and refreshed his state before loading it once more.

And that Lv.2 [Telekinesis] probably could not defeat these top hundred Ideal City high school students.

But who told them to be afraid?

Ron used [Telekinesis] to pick up those exam IDs through the air, then slowly left and headed toward the Evacuation Point.

The others watched Ron depart with gazes mixed with awe and admiration. Only after Ron had completely vanished from sight did they glare hostilely at the examinees around them and erupt into a new melee...

At that moment, Deng Yin watched Ron enter the green pillar of light in the livestream and turn into bubbles. He let out a long breath, his legs suddenly going weak as he nearly collapsed to the ground.

Fortunately, he gripped his walnut cane tightly and used it to support himself against a chair beside him.

Thank goodness, thank goodness...

Thank goodness Ron had managed to defeat Yuan. Otherwise, Deng Yin did not know how he would have faced Ron.

I should have told him about the Formula and Authority sooner...

He could have told Ron about those two matters days ago, but Ron had only just reached Lv.2, and with the College Entrance Exam approaching, Deng Yin had feared that Ron would aim too high. He had decided to wait until after the exam to tell him everything—

Yet during the College Entrance Exam, Ron had actually encountered a Superpowered with a Formula.

If he had told Ron about the existence of Formulas sooner, perhaps Ron could have realized what Yuan was doing and achieved victory more easily.

But... he had won after all.

Deng Yin closed his eyes, and everything within Laboratory One surfaced vividly in his mind.

Now, it seemed that Ron's genius far exceeded his imagination. At Lv.2, he had defeated an Lv.3 with a Formula.

Even though both Formulas and Authority were matters that college students normally needed to consider, Deng Yin felt it was time to alter his teaching plans.

Ron should be thinking now about how to construct his own Formula, how to contend for Authority, and how to embark on the long road toward becoming Lv.5!

It was time to tell him about Laboratory One.

He thought for a moment, hesitated for a long time, then finally sighed and made a call—"Irina... I want to introduce you to my new student."

"One... who can become the final Lv.5 genius."

Meanwhile,

the moment Ron returned to the Preparation Hall, he immediately exited Simulated Reality without hesitation, bought new Resurrection Coins, and refreshed his state.

[It has been detected that this is the examinee's second purchase of Revival Permission. To reward our returning customer, we are now offering you an even more affordable Resurrection Coin bundle!]

He saw a new GG screen pop up in his brain-computer interface:

[Resurrection Coin Bundle (includes Kaifeng Cuisine member discount 10, Bull Energy Drink—and comes with 1 Revival Permission) 99% off!]

When he saw that huge green "99% off" label, Ron even jolted, thinking the Ideal City College Entrance Exam Association had actually shown some kindness and given examinees an enormous discount...

But when he looked lower, his expression immediately darkened.

[Price: 100,000 Credit Points.]

Where the fuck was the 99% off?!

They had bundled in a bunch of meaningless products and given a one-percent discount, yet it was still a full hundred percent more expensive than one Resurrection Coin at the original price?

What kind of joke was this?!

Ron immediately clicked the "X" in the upper-right corner of the GG screen, intending to buy a single Resurrection Coin instead. However, he discovered that each person was only allowed to purchase one 50,000-Credit-Point Resurrection Coin per day. Every remaining Resurrection Coin was sold in bundle form.

Every bundle offered an unimaginably generous discount, but in reality, once calculated, each additional Resurrection Coin purchased cost twice as much as the previous one...

What a fucking scam!

Forget it—he had to preserve his ranking. He had to participate in every battle of the "Peak Showdown," or he would drop in rank due to absence.

Only two matches remained. Ron could not lose first place because he hated spending money. He could not lose over something so trivial.

Ron looked at the price with some pain, gritted his teeth, and clicked purchase, watching the Credit Points in his account instantly shrink by a noticeable chunk.

The next moment, he entered Simulated Reality again and waited for the next "Peak Showdown" to arrive.

Ron had originally thought Yuan might refuse to accept defeat and continue fighting him for two more rounds, but Yuan unexpectedly missed both subsequent matches.

He seemed to have already given up on taking back first place.

Naturally, the remaining examinees posed no threat to Ron. He barely needed to act, easily enduring the two Peak Showdowns and reaching the end of the College Entrance Exam.

[Attention! Matching time has ended. This examination venue—the "Hollow Battlefield"—will close in ten minutes.]

[Please exit Virtual Reality, gather your personal belongings, and leave the examination venue in an orderly manner.]

Ron exited Virtual Reality and stepped out of the Fully Immersive Pod, feeling slightly unaccustomed to reality.

The exam was over...

He stretched and moved his stiff body, which had gone rigid from lying motionless in the Fully Immersive Pod.

Squinting against the sunset shining into the room, Ron walked lazily out of the examination venue beneath everyone's reverent gazes.

In Ideal City, scores were not released immediately after the College Entrance Exam ended. Although the ability test rankings had already been determined, the papers for the academic subjects still needed to be standardized. After roughly a week of grading, the final College Entrance Exam scores would be determined and reported to each examinee.

But that no longer mattered to Ron.

Having undeniably taken first place in the ability test, Ron would inevitably become the top scorer of this College Entrance Exam.

The ability test carried far more scoring weight than the academic subjects. While academic scores could indeed influence rankings below several hundred thousandth place, among the top ranks...

The gap created by ability test scores was a chasm that those parasites could never bridge, no matter how much money they spent or how much they cheated in the examination venue!

"Ron!"

Not far away, a girl with short brown hair waved at him as she hopped excitedly. Electricity surged over her body, bursting into flickering sparks.

The moment Ron came out, he saw An Hui bouncing around like a rabbit and could not help finding it funny.

He walked over and teased her, "Why are you so happy? From that far away, I couldn't recognize you. I thought some giant electric rat had gained sentience and started hopping around here."

"You're the giant electric rat!"

An Hui shot Ron a glare, but when she followed his smiling gaze and saw the sparks unconsciously bursting around her,

she realized how undignified she had been.

She immediately restrained the dancing arcs of electricity around her. Her face slightly red, she gave a light cough.

"Doesn't this just prove that my ability is powerful enough to produce all this electricity?"

After making a couple of excuses for herself, An Hui quickly put the matter behind her and looked at Ron with delighted eyes.

"First place, first place!"

She clenched her fist and lightly punched Ron on the shoulder:

"You unfilial son, how did you train to suddenly become this strong?"

As she spoke, her tone was a little sour:

"I thought you were really about as strong as me—my evenly matched, peerless rival in this College Entrance Exam. I was ready to battle you all the way to the wild borders of the Hollow Battlefield and wipe out the rankings of the top five hundred candidates..."

It seemed Huihui had not fallen far behind either. After grinding points for two days, she had climbed into the top five hundred as well—

Well then, as expected of Huihui. She could hardly be called behind.

Ron curled his lips. "But I really did battle other candidates all the way to the wild borders of the Hollow Battlefield. How does it feel to see me successfully wipe out the first-ranked candidate and claim the title of College Entrance Exam champion?"

"It feels like my son has the potential to become a great emperor. You should measure yourself against those eleven Lv.5s!"

An Hui grinned. Bickering with Ron, she headed toward the taxi pickup area outside the exam grounds, ready to call a rideshare—when a pure-black extended hovercar suddenly pulled up beside them and quietly stopped there.

Such a luxurious car... Wait, who was it?

Could it be Yuan?

Had Noah Pharmaceuticals become so brazen that they no longer cared about making a move in broad daylight, right after the exams?!

At the very least, he had to let Huihui call the police first. Countless thoughts flashed through Ron's mind. Just as he instinctively shielded An Hui behind him, the passenger-side window rolled down, revealing a beaming face:

"Junior brother! How could the College Entrance Exam champion take a taxi home by himself?"

Kevin raised a thumb and pointed it at the extended hovercar.

"The old man's been sulking because he didn't teach you anything in advance and wants to make it up to you, so he sent me to pick you up."

As he spoke, the extended hovercar's doors automatically opened, projecting onto the ground a familiar logo made of clouds and cameras: Heavenly Hearing Media.

One of Ideal City's three corporate giants—this was Heavenly Hearing Media's car?

Ron was somewhat puzzled, then heard Kevin say:

"Get in, Ron. The old man paid quite a hefty price this time to get you something good!"