Chapter 117: The College Entrance Examination Sports Meet

Further exploration of Hallelujah Mountain proved impossible, as that Terror-Ox remained anchored right in front of the camera.

At first, Ye Chao thought it was just being greedy or something, but the images transmitted back left him completely disillusioned.

It seemed this place was not just a teleportation point for Alpha-Ji alone. Continuous monitoring revealed that every few hours—sometimes even just minutes apart—people or animals would inexplicably appear right next to the Terror-Ox, only to be swallowed in a single bite.

Some were lucky enough to escape, but most became the creature's rations.

This giant Terror-Ox would just lie there, sustaining its existence entirely on the food that delivered itself to its doorstep.

What a dream life!

***

The Other Shore Flower is a peculiar, exotic plant from the Era of Catastrophe, often living in symbiosis with primordial beasts.

When it blooms, its fragrance can pull humans or beasts into a temporal illusion, manifesting them near the parent plant to serve as fodder for the primordial beast.

***

However, this wasn't necessarily a bad thing.

Because after this, Alpha-Ji suddenly became much more obedient and well-behaved.

She did whatever she was told without haggling. She no longer threw tantrums every half hour demanding a walk, nor did she insist that Ye Chao accompany her.

Whenever she grew tired from work, she would even ask for permission to rest.

Ye Chao had no idea why, but that didn't stop him from enjoying it.

Even Gungun sensed something was off, learning to gesture and write to ask what was wrong with Alpha-Ji.

What was wrong? Nothing! Everything was better than ever!

Life is like a tangled mess of hemp, always knotted here and there. And time, amidst these knots and tangles, slipped away unnoticed.

In the blink of an eye, the countdown read: "9 days until the college entrance exam!"

As the school’s countdown reached single digits, the very air in Jiangcheng seemed to tighten.

The Alpha-Ji and Ye Chao recycling and refurbishment line worked day and night, finally processing nearly half of their inventory and delivering half of the helmet orders.

With over three hundred units—plus those originally at the Third High School, and the many others who pulled strings to beg Ye Chao for a purchase—every high school senior in Jiangcheng could now, on average, get about three hours of machine time per day.

The four-sector circular Infinite Tower Defense game had quietly stacked up to ten levels, with each level accommodating over forty players simultaneously.

The "Quality Plaza" was packed shoulder to shoulder, as bustling as a novice village in a popular online game.

It was only because of the initial reparations followed by large orders that materials never ran out. The imaginary space—its CPU, GPU, hard drive capacity, and total power—continued to climb; otherwise, it would never have been able to hold so many people online at once.

Training in the virtual world was a race against time, incredibly intense. After honing their skills there, the students returned to the real world to sweat it out as well.

After all, the college entrance exam was imminent!

Even the worst students were putting up a desperate struggle.

The students were working hard, but the teachers—and indeed the entire upper echelon of Jiangcheng—were even more frantic.

Why were they getting involved?

Because in this era, the college entrance exam was more than just a test; it was a festival for the entire population!

Over a thousand children were about to complete their studies, either to continue their education or to step out into society.

This was both a coming-of-age ceremony for the youth and a celebration for the city as it welcomed new blood, growing more prosperous and stronger with each passing year.

That was why, during the exam season, factories would shut down, the government would grant holidays, bars would open, certain food restrictions would be lifted, and the entire city would be decorated anew. People would dress in their finest, singing and dancing.

The Jiangcheng radio station would see its highlight moment—evolving into a television station, providing visuals for the first time, even if only for a fleeting dozen days.

It was as lively as the Olympics!

And in truth, it really was a sports meet!

With fifteen hundred participants, it featured over twenty events, including squats, carrying, throwing, the hundred-meter dash, obstacle courses, ball games, the ten-thousand-meter run, stealth, mountaineering, weaponry, and marksmanship.

Moreover, everyone had to participate in every event!

There were no preliminary heats, semi-finals, or finals; everything followed a set schedule, one iteration after another, until it was done.

The event lasted over ten days and required dozens of venues throughout Jiangcheng, both inside and out.

This was why the leadership was so busy, and why the exam inspection team and the four major interviewers had arrived half a month early.

Every venue had to be measured to ensure it met specifications: height, size, flatness, and friction.

If a venue could not be used for any reason, or if weather or biological conditions made the wilderness unsafe, they had to ensure there were enough backup sites.

Were the consumables—the projectiles, the guns, the arrows—up to standard?

Were there enough professional scorers? If a mistake occurred, were there clear channels for appeals?

Had the tracks outside the city been cleared of hazards, and could they be monitored throughout to ensure no accidents occurred?

Could the temperature be kept low enough in the cryogenic stealth zones?

If the free-combat arenas were damaged during the fighting, were there enough spare materials to repair them, and for how many rounds?

One must realize that for the Olympics, the cycle from application to construction to final execution takes eight years, and often that isn't even enough!

The college entrance exam might not have the same stature as the Olympics, but the fact that every single person had to participate in every single event made up for all other deficiencies.

Only because this world possessed superpowers—where repairs required no tools, moving things required no machinery, and temperature control required no electricity—could they barely sustain a celebration of this scale once a year.

A city needs such a celebration!

The common folk, who scraped by all year, growing gourds and raising fungi, mending their clothes over and over, needed the festival to vent their frustrations.

The government officials, who spent the year pinching pennies and keeping the city’s water, electricity, and roads functioning, needed the festival to rally the people.

The soldiers, who danced on the edge of a blade and tested the limits of death every day, needed rest and indulgence.

The high schools needed to show their faces to attract better students.

And the students needed to perform and make a name for themselves, for this was essentially the highlight of their lives.

Come to think of it, this was true not only after the catastrophe but before it as well.

For eighty or even ninety percent of people, the college entrance exam represented the peak of their intellectual life—it was just that after the catastrophe, physical fitness was added to the mix.

Even years later, after graduating, entering society, getting married, and growing old, they would still remember this time and this moment, consciously or unconsciously bringing it up again and again.