Mechanical Puppets, Nine at Once

"Forget it. I can see some of you still don't believe me, so I'll prove it to you!"

"Remember my name: Yang Shuai, from No. 2 High School!"

Yang Shuai shook out his hands and went straight back to the door of his room.

Without another moment's hesitation, he stepped forward and pressed the door switch.

Everyone hurried after him and watched Yang Shuai walk inside.

"The door's about to close, so hurry up and watch carefully," Yang Shuai called from inside the room.

Immediately afterward, they saw him charge at one of the mechanical puppets inside.

The instant he approached it, a red light flashed on the mechanical puppet.

The corners of Yang Shuai's mouth curled up. Knowing the mechanical puppet had been triggered, he slammed a punch at it.

At the same time, the mechanical puppet reacted just as quickly, throwing a punch of its own.

Boom!

The man and the puppet collided in an instant.

Everyone focused their eyes and saw a figure flying backward. The people standing in the doorway paled and hurriedly dodged aside as the figure flew out just before the door closed.

"Holy shit! It's not half-finished!" Yang Shuai's head lolled to one side, and he passed out.

Beep, beep, beep...

An alarm suddenly sounded, and two people soon came in from outside. When they saw Yang Shuai on the floor, they picked him up and carried him straight out.

"Not even five minutes, and that's the second one eliminated. I reckon another half will be eliminated this time!" one of them said quietly.

Everyone heard him, and their expressions changed.

They looked at room 37 again, their eyes filled with shock.

Bang!

In room 37, Qin Chen punched the mechanical puppet in front of him so hard it started smoking, completely robbing it of its ability to fight.

"They've already started eliminating people!"

Qin Chen walked over to the wrecked mechanical puppet and smiled faintly.

He had naturally heard the alarm just now and guessed it had sounded because someone had been eliminated.

These mechanical puppets were not so easy to deal with. The students here were ranked thirtieth and below, and very few had reached Mid Body Tempering. Avoiding elimination would not be so easy.

Having wrecked one mechanical puppet, Qin Chen looked ahead. There were nine more.

"They can't all be at Early Body Tempering, or it would be too easy," Qin Chen reasoned to himself.

A mechanical puppet would be activated as soon as someone came within two meters of it.

He guessed that once a puppet was activated, he would earn points if he lasted half an hour, whether he injured it or not.

If they were all at Early Body Tempering and he activated only one, lasting half an hour would be far too easy.

Besides, if they fought them one at a time, quite a few students could even wreck some of them. Points probably weren't that easy to earn.

He looked up at the cameras in the room and smiled faintly.

The instructors here awarded points based on performance, so to earn more points, he not only had to defeat more mechanical puppets, but also had to consider how he defeated them.

With that in mind, he charged straight within two meters of another mechanical puppet without hesitation.

A red light flashed on the mechanical puppet, and it activated instantly, charging at Qin Chen.

But Qin Chen did not fight it. Instead, he charged toward another one.

He charged at them one by one, and before long, he had activated all nine mechanical puppets. The whole room erupted into chaos.

Meanwhile, alarms kept sounding in the other rooms, and a staff member responsible for carrying people out came in from outside. Hearing the tremendous commotion from Qin Chen's room, he could not help looking over in surprise.

"What's going on? With that much noise, could all the mechanical puppets have been activated?"

At that thought, he shook his head. If all the mechanical puppets had been activated, the student inside probably would have been unable to get back up and been eliminated long ago. There couldn't possibly be such a commotion.

"Could the mechanical puppets have gone out of control and started fighting each other?" His expression changed.

But he lacked the authorization, and once someone was inside, he could not force the room open. He had no choice but to walk to the door and look through the peephole.

"Holy shit!" After seeing what was happening inside, he could not help shouting.

Four mechanical puppets were already lying on the floor. Surrounded and attacked by the others, a young man was moving freely among them.

What was more, every punch the young man threw was like a heavy hammer blow, taking down one mechanical puppet with each strike.

"What kind of monster is that?" he exclaimed.

What frightened him even more than his surprise was that the young man showed no mercy.

Mechanical puppets were costly to make, so their defense was stronger than their attack.

During the assessment, they would stop attacking once they were damaged to a certain extent, preventing excessive losses.

But with every punch the young man landed, he practically smashed a mechanical puppet apart. They were complete write-offs, impossible to repair.

At the same time, a man in military uniform was walking toward a control room with a stack of documents.

"Instructor Yang, these are the files on the people entering the training camp this time," the man said, placing the documents in front of a woman.

"Instructor Luo, have you looked through these files?" Yang Xue did not rush to read them, instead glancing at the man.

Luo Bin nodded. "I gave them a rough look. This batch really is better than the last one, but there aren't any particularly outstanding individuals."

"Didn't two of them reach Peak Body Tempering?" Yang Xue said with a smile.

Anyone who reached Peak Body Tempering before the college entrance exam had every chance of becoming a One-Star Martial Artist by the time of the exam. Geniuses like that were outstanding enough.

"I know. If this were before, I'd think having those two was pretty good, but now..." Luo Bin shook his head.

"Are you talking about the first General Star selection?" Yang Xue asked.

Luo Bin nodded. "I looked into it. Some provinces in the Western War Zone have already produced One-Star Martial Artists, but in Jiang Province, there aren't any in Rongcheng or any of the other cities."

"So Jiang Province won't be competitive at all in this General Star selection. This is the first one, too. What a pity."

Dragon Country had several major war zones, each encompassing multiple provinces.

Jiang Province belonged to the Western War Zone. This time, each of the war zones would select one General Star from within its own territory.

The selection was open to third-year high school students under eighteen who had not yet taken the college entrance exam.

Because it was the first selection, everyone from the war zone's upper ranks down to training camp instructors like them attached great importance to it.

If a General Star emerged from among their trainees, it would bring them immense face wherever they went. Anyone who became a General Star would also receive special cultivation from the war zone and have limitless prospects. For them, having taught someone like that would also be a source of pride.

Yang Xue said no more. She picked up the files and leafed through them, looking first at the files of the two students at Peak Body Tempering.

"Yu Yang, Xu Fei." After glancing at their files, she suddenly said, "Bring up the video feeds from their rooms."