Chapter 9: 9

The Shockwave was successfully executed, and the tremors shook the Zombie King to the ground once more.

Xiao Lin’s vision turned black at the same time. After utilizing that skill, his strength finally reached its limit. Before he fainted, the last picture in his line of sight was two energy bombs accurately striking the target. The Zombie King’s head was completely blown up into fragments.

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Success at last; but unfortunately, he could not complete the mandatory task.

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When he could open his eyes yet again, Xiao Lin found himself lying in a huge metal hall. Enveloped in a milky-white halo, his bodily fatigue disappeared at an astonishing rate. After the admission test, he was more than piqued by the academy’s wonders.

The halo lasted for a long time before it gradually dissipated. Xiao Lin discovered that he was probably the last to wake up, as everyone else was looking at him with dissatisfaction.

“As expected of a loser with an attribute score of less than ten. You made all of us wait for you!” Wang Dalin spoke in a peculiar tone. He was killed by the Zombie King and failed to complete his tasks, the blame of which he attributed to Xiao Lin.

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“Did you think you had 46 total attribute points too? You were so deluded to fight the Zombie King. You don’t know what death means, do you? Hmph, at least there’s no penalty for failing the admissions test,” Wang Dalin sneered proudly, complimenting Gu Xiaoyue while he was at it, but the girl’s attention was not on him at all.

Xiao Lin was not interested in entertaining him. Gu Xiaoyue stood gracefully beside him, still maintaining her cold arrogance. Fatigue seemed to be absent between her eyebrows, and the magical halo had also healed her completely. However, Xiao Lin was very disconcerted by the fact that he should have awoken around the same time as Gu Xiaoyue did. However, he was the last to wake up. Was his physique really that bad?

His last memory was that the Zombie King ought to have died. Xiao Lin shot the girl an inquisitive look and she responded with an imperceptible nod.

Xiao Lin breathed a sigh of relief. It was fortunate that they could probably get the rewards for those two optional tasks. There was no way for them to get the mandatory task done since he fainted at the last moment. He had only himself to blame for his poor physical strength.

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It was raucous inside the metal hall as everyone discussed the earlier test. Some were impressed by the academy’s super-technical and nearly realistic simulation. Although everyone was scared at the time, they felt very excited after giving it a second thought. At the very least, it proved that many of the things that instructor Qin Chuan said before were not a lie.

Some people had difficulty accepting all that and were shouting to go home. Even if the test was a simulation, they could actually feel suffering and fear just before their deaths.

There were a few who expressed regret for the earlier battle. They were the last few who participated in the battle but were quickly killed, and they were all wondering whether the Zombie King mission had been completed.

“Impossible! I heard one of the girls say that Gu Xiaoyue and Xiao Lin were the only ones left in the end. How could they have won?”

“But that girl’s attack power is amazing. She could kill ordinary zombies in seconds. Damn it, I really want to learn magic!”

“What’s the use? The Zombie King was too fast. How could Xiao Lin’s loser attributes stop it?”

As those who experienced the situation personally, Xiao Lin and Gu Xiaoyue both wore tacit expressions. They were reluctant to speak, and those who came to inquire about it left dejectedly. More and more people began to feel that the Zombie King mission was left incomplete.

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In fact, everyone engaged in the discussion simply to conceal the anxiety in their hearts. The admission test was over, but Qin Chuan—who claimed to be their instructor—had not yet appeared, and the silver metal door was tightly closed. No one knew what would happen next.

Unbeknownst to them, 12 men and women had gathered in a conference room not far away. They sat at a long conference table; they were all instructors of the freshmen’s classes. Before them was a stack of reports, specifically of freshmen who had just finished the tests. Everyone was either perusing through them or in deep thought. Various expressions were presented on their faces, including ones of surprise, excitement, and disappointment.

At the end of the long table, a handsome man in a suave suit held a cigarette in his mouth and lounged on a high-end leather sofa. He was the only person in this room who was not reading reports, but instead, looked at everyone with a smile.

After some time, the cigarette butt was the only thing left in the man’s hand. He stretched out his finger, tapped the table lightly, and snapped everyone back from their respective thoughts. The instructors who stood tall in front of the freshmen were all full of respect in that instant. They were utterly afraid of being caught unawares in front of that man. Qin Chuan might have been brave enough to scold the Admissions Department casually in front of the freshmen, but he did not even dare let out a single peep in front of the department head.

“Has everyone read the admissions test report for your classes? Well, as the head of the Admissions Department, allow me to summarize.” The man who was purportedly the department head sported a gentle smile. He seemed to be in a good mood and cleared his throat. No one in the meeting room dared to interrupt as soon as he started speaking slowly.

“There are 1,360 students enrolled this year and are divided into twelve classes. Based on the Smart Computer’s statistics, the results of the admissions test are as follows: Grade F, 560; Grade D, 450; Grade C, 500; Grade B, 83; Grade A, 52.”

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Having said that, the Admissions Department head paused for a few seconds, as several instructors counted in silence. Suddenly, they uttered an abrupt “Hey!”, raising their heads and looked at the man incredulously. The others understood in an instant, and their faces wore looks of surprise.

The department head was very satisfied with everyone’s expressions. After satisfying his vanity, his smile became even brighter. “We finally have people who achieved Grade S: a total of 15!”

The silent conference room erupted instantly. Each instructor was shocked and confabulated.

“The students this year are amazing! When I first entered the academy, only five people who achieved Grade S in the admissions test.”

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“My class was even worse! Only two!”

“I recall that achieving Grade S requires one to complete three tasks and at the same time survive!”

“Yes, Grades S, A, and B are achieved by completing three, two, and one task respectively. Grade C is for when they don’t complete any tasks, but were recorded killing zombies. Grade D is when students were proactive, in spite of their failure to complete the mission and having zero kills. As for Grade F, it consists of students who had done nothing but escape out of fear,” one instructor fluently explained.

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“For freshmen, the Zombie King is not so easy to deal with, unless they are talented students who were born with skills. You don’t have any talented students in your class, do you!”

Having said that, the head of the Admissions Department waved his hand and laughed. “We’ve come to the point now for me to announce another set of data. Within this year’s students are a few confirmed to be talented. Of the fifteen who achieved Grade S and completed the three tasks, thirteen of them talented students. Be it the physical examination report or the results of the admissions test, this year’s crop has been the best in ten years!”

The department head waved his hand repeatedly, expressing his excitement. As the head of the Admissions Department, the performance of each freshman and the proportion of talented students directly affected the school’s evaluation of him and whether he could be re-elected as department head. Judging from that year’s batch, he felt that his re-election would no longer be a problem.

The meeting room, which was quiet for a while, became lively again. The instructors experienced various different moods. The proportion of talented students was beyond imagination, and what the department head said was true. The quality of Dawn Academy’s new students had been declining in the past decade, especially recently. In the past few years, the number of talented students in each new enrolment had dropped to even less than five.

The instructors smiled reluctantly. There were plenty of talented students, which meant that the competition between them would be even more intense. It was even more difficult to obtain rewards that rightfully belonged to the instructor. In addition, those talented students would soon be able to step on their heads in one or two years at most. It was only natural then that none of them could be happy.

“There are fifteen Grade S freshmen, but only thirteen talented students. That leaves two more,” an instructor expressed his doubt, likely wanting to shift from the depressing topic of talented students.

“Probably achieved that by teaming up with the talented students,” someone remarked absent-mindedly. That statement was open to doubt though since all of them knew that the Smart Computer determined whether or not a person completed the Zombie King mission by highlighting their contributions. Thus, the possibility of opportunism was basically zero.

The department head did not keep everyone in suspense and quickly revealed the answer. With a meaningful look, he spoke again, “Old Qin, among the twelve classes, your Freshmen Class Seven is the only one without any talents, yet they managed to break two records that had existed since the establishment of Dawn Academy.”

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The Old Qin he mentioned was Qin Chuan, the instructor of Freshmen Class Seven. He kept a strange expression throughout the meeting, but he was shocked at that point. He looked at the department head in surprise and asked, “They broke a record? What record?”

The other instructors were also puzzled.

“Hehe, looks like none of you know enough about the academy’s history!” The department head smiled but did not blame them. He was in a very good mood that day and said, “The first record is that two non-talented students from the same class achieved Grade S in their admissions test at the same time. The last time a non-talented student got a Grade S was eight years ago, and that was only one person.”

The first record did not actually signify much, but the department head’s expression then became rather serious. “The second record is having the highest intelligence score in the history of Dawn Academy’s freshmen. Gu Xiaoyue, a student from Freshmen Class Seven, has an intelligence value of 36 in her physical examination report!”

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Qin Chuan was the only one prepared for that. Everyone else inhaled sharply.

The department head’s tone was low, yet full of enthusiasm. “It could be said that, throughout the two-hundred years of history among academies all over the world, there are only 40 or so people with an individual intelligence value of more than 30. Although Gu Xiaoyue isn’t the highest among them, she’s the only non-talented student! In other words, this batch has generated a world record!”

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