Wen Jing found a red and white bird nearby to test his combat strength.
"Grumble!"
The red and white bird, which was leisurely preening its feathers on a branch, suddenly saw a terrifying alien creature it had never seen before appear in front of it and screamed in fright.
The alien creature's compound eyes on its head were cold and merciless as it swung its pair of scythe-like forelegs and attacked.
After a flash of lightning, the red and white bird fell into the giant insect's mouth.
After Giantification, Wen Jing's attributes didn't change much. His strength did increase slightly, but because of his larger size, his speed decreased considerably. Overall, the increase in strength was less than the decrease in speed.
However, she dealt with the Red and White Bird faster than she had expected.
The birds' dominance over insects completely disappeared after the Giantification. In fact, her presence startled the Red and White Bird, who had never seen such a creature before. Wen Jing also had immunity to lightning, causing it to completely lose the initiative in the battle.
While eating bird meat, Wen Jing objectively evaluated himself in his mind.
"This current appearance is really embarrassing."
The size difference between northern and southern cockroaches is much smaller than it was before and after her Giantification, yet the latter evokes a fear many times greater than the former.
But now that she is the source of that fear, she naturally doesn't dislike her appearance; she only dislikes that her appearance isn't strong enough.
After a battle and comprehensive Analysis, it was found that Wen Jing in his Giantification form was not as strong as in his normal form and needed to continuously consume energy.
This is a relatively weak ability compared to Wind Blade and Isolation Layer, and it can only be somewhat useful when dealing with special enemies like Shadow Wolf.
However, the Empowerment Stone is essentially a blind box, and although it's a bit of a disappointment, Wen Jing doesn't think he can get the perfect superpower every time he opens a blind box.
It's useless if it's not useful; who knows, maybe it will be discovered to have some new uses in the future.
After returning to his original state, Wen Jing rampaged through the treetops for a while longer, then increased his speed to 45. Seeing that the time was almost up, he returned directly.
Upon arriving in the material universe, she saw an unread gold notification on her terminal.
The new format for the grade-level ranking competition, which has been the subject of much discussion, has finally been announced.
The college-level ranking competition three days later will no longer be the lengthy one-on-one match held in reality in the past, but will instead adopt a league-style format and introduce virtual reality technology.
All Student Council in each grade will be collectively placed on a competition planet for a massive free-for-all, and ranked according to their final battle Integral.
Chapter 55
Virtual reality is the same technology used in the Trial Tower, which can synchronously simulate the energy intensity of the Awakened in a virtual space.
In the past, only the Trial Tower at the Red Earth Academy applied this technology, and that was established in the early days of the three academies.
As for the grade ranking competition, the old format of Ocher Soil was still to hold the competition in a real venue. Because it was a 1V1 match, and it was divided into positioning, elimination, advancement and finals, even though the venue and logistics were sufficient, a mentor who could completely control the event was needed as a referee, which meant that each competition basically took a full seven days to hold.
Now that it has finally aligned with the other two colleges, it's no wonder it's being called a major move.
Because the Freshman League three months later will also be held in a virtual reality environment, the students of the other two colleges can adapt to the simulation on campus in advance, but only Ocher Soil has never had this opportunity.
The new format is a free-for-all competition for all grades, and the announcement details the competition rules:
On the competition planet, you earn 1 Integral for each opponent you defeat.
Defeating an opponent with excess Integral will grant you half of their Integral.
Once eliminated, the player is left with half of their remaining Integral, which becomes their total score in the match. If a player is eliminated without killing any opponents, they receive 0 Integral. Rankings are based on the length of time it takes to be eliminated.
Finally, the competition will last for three days, and the rankings will be based on the Integral accumulated by the surviving students at the end of the competition.
In summary, to get a high score, you need to defeat as many opponents as possible while ensuring your own survival.
Those who score high are not stupid; in the later stages, they will prioritize preserving their strength and will not easily engage in battles.
After reading it, Wen Jing couldn't help but feel a little strange: it's become a battle royale mode, why not add a shrinking circle restriction?
She opened the campus forum, which she didn't usually browse, and sure enough, it was full of discussions about the new competition format.
I randomly picked a popular post to enter -- [Just as I guessed, it's aligned with the trend, but not completely.]
The forum is anonymous, but it does display your grade level. Today, the most active users on the forum are mostly first-year students.
1L (Second Year): Judging from the currently announced tournament format, this competition will definitely be all about survival skills in the later stages.
2L (First Year): What are the parts that the senior mentioned weren't fully aligned?
3L (First Year): How long can I hide? I can't just dig a hole and bury myself, can I?
4L (Third Year): You know what, they did that in my Freshman League.
5L (Grade 1) replied to 4L (Grade 3): And the result?
6L (second year) replied to 2L (first year): The real Freshman League has a much more complex content and format, with extreme terrain and environment. It is updated every year based on the performance of the previous year's contestants. Our college has simplified it too much. There is no restriction to force the participants to gather at the end. In the end, the one who can survive is definitely the one who gets the high score.
7L (3rd year) replied to 5L (1st year): A Mystic Radiance Academy user used an amplified area-of-effect attack to plow the ground...
8L (First Year): If that's the case, why not implement this restriction?
9L (Grade 3) replied to 8L (Grade 1): It costs extra.
"It costs extra!"
Faced with questions from other department leaders in the college, Xie Ming produced a bill. "In virtual reality, the price increases by 40% for every rule added!"
"I heard the prize for first place this year is even better than in previous years?"
The speaker was Vice Dean Gao Shi. He looked like a mature and steady middle-aged man, but he was actually over three hundred years old. He had served as the executive vice dean of the Red Earth Academy for over a hundred years. If it weren't for Dean Bai's arrival, the position of dean would have fallen to him.
Dean Bai, sitting at the head of the meeting room, glanced at him and chuckled, avoiding his probing. "It's precisely because there are fewer restrictions and rules that we need a prize that can motivate the students!"
Gao Shi didn't want to press the matter further, but someone else would ask for him.
"Dean, aren't you going to announce the prizes yet?" The speaker was the logistics director, who was sitting in the third row from the front and had always been in charge of all the planning and arrangements for the college. It was quite reasonable for him to ask this question.
Dean Bai waved his hand. "No rush, we can announce it when the competition starts, just to give everyone a surprise."
The dean remained as carefree as ever, but all the mentors present, except for Xie Ming who knew the truth, wore thoughtful expressions.
"But..." The logistics director was about to say something more when Louisa, the elective course instructor sitting in the same row as him, interrupted him.
Louisa said coolly, "If we say it now, the whole academy will probably know about it soon."
Upon hearing this, the logistics director glanced at her with displeasure, but quickly fell silent after meeting her gaze.
The seating arrangement in the entire conference room, apart from those who held management positions within the college, was based on merit.
Louisa, the elective course instructor personally recruited by Dean Bai, has no other duties besides teaching, yet she can sit in the same row as the head of logistics, which speaks volumes about her abilities.
Everyone present understood what Louisa was implying: she was referring to the premature leak of the tournament format changes.
Dean Bai's original plan was to keep it a secret from the students until the competition started, but the news spread quickly among the students, so she simply announced it ahead of time.
Although the final explanation was that the Student Council had deduced something from changes in financial transactions with the college, the people involved in the meeting room naturally knew the truth.
This is actually why they were reluctant to disclose it at first—to prevent students from arranging to fix matches.
Wherever there are people, there is a social dynamic, especially within groups where there are essentially only two classes—the wealthy and the ordinary people.
In this situation, not to mention Red Earth Academy, even the top-ranked Mystic Radiance Academy is involved in match-fixing.
After all, not everyone has the ambition and ability to compete. In the eyes of most people... or rather, in the prevailing view of this era, becoming Awakened that one has already "landed" in this life, can easily earn money that ordinary people cannot earn in their lifetime, and theoretically has a long lifespan to enjoy.
Aside from the threat of Genetic Collapse requiring a certain frequency of entry into the Ancient Wilderness, the benefits of becoming Awakened are numerous.
Under this premise, the children of chaebols want to improve the academy's ranking to gain more resources within their families. Some Awakened feel that since they are also working for the group to make money, the two sides hit it off. The phenomenon of fixing matches and buying rankings naturally became the norm, and the hidden profit chain process was even very well-established.
The new competition format was announced three days before the competition started, and many people had already finalized their contracts. Even before the official ranking matches began, they already had a 'guaranteed score'.
Even Wen Jing received a lot of messages, some from his classmates and some from the children of wealthy families from previous years.
However, the conditions offered were all rather ordinary, or they were contracts to prevent her from attacking him during the competition. After all, Wen Jing -known and had now broken into the top fifty in her grade. Just think about how high the conditions would be to bribe her.
Wen Jing glanced at it and closed it, understanding why the first-place reward remained so mysterious even after the competition rules were announced.
*
Three days later, the highly anticipated freshman ranking competition was held as scheduled.
All 11,741 first-year students gathered at the event venue without exception.