Cillin pretended to dig his nose so that the furious instructors wouldn’t notice that he was smiling. Although Guan Feng’s facial expression control was impeccable, Cillin knew that he was doing backflips in his head right now. He must have been so pleased with Tang Qiuqiu that he decided to indulge in a bit of mischief, not that his fellow colleagues would see it as that.
Guan Feng’s sudden appearance not only pissed off the exam instructors to no end, it also dealt a huge blow to many of the examinees present. Of course, there were even more examinees who had even greater admiration for Guan Feng.
As expected of a famous mentor! If his disciple is already this strong, how much better must the man himself be? I think mentor Guan is teaching a course or two in the affiliated schools. I gotta get in no matter what!
“What’s so funny? Don’t think I don’t know you’re snickering just because you’re covering your mouth!” An older instructor roared at Cillin. “Get to your post and invigilate the exam already!”
It was hardly fair that the instructor was taking out his frustrations against Guan Feng on him, Cillin didn’t take it to heart. He got ready to work after organizing the documents he was holding.
The examinees who were assigned to Cillin’s area worked extra hard to put on a good performance. Why? Because he was Guan Feng’s student, of course. The man they were really trying to impress wasn’t present, but surely his student would mention them if their performance was exceptional, right? The news had spread faster than lightning, and those who still hadn’t heard about this were total fools.
The first person to muster her courage and speak with Cillin after her exam was a girl. Many examinees did the same afterward. They all got in a few words with him during the lull between their exam and their departure, and most of them had wanted to speak with him about Guan Feng and the Purgatory Thunder Snake.
There were a couple of exceptions though. A young man had asked him respectfully and nervously after his exam, “Are you the founder of Return, sir?”
“I am,” Cillin replied while motioning for the examinee to relax.
“Thank you very much for founding your forum, sir!” The examinee gave Cillin a deep bow before bidding him goodbye.
The young man was one of the many people who earned a living via clearing bounties on the forum and one of the lucky few who were chosen to participate in the affiliated school test. As someone who was born at the bottom of the class system, he knew exactly how rare it was for someone like him to come by an opportunity like this. That was why he and many others like him were extremely appreciative that Cillin had developed a system that would give them the opportunity to better their lives.
Yvonne had also been assigned to Cillin’s area, but unlike the others she merely said, “See you at AF1!” before leaving the area.
Cillin’s response was noncommittal. He wasn’t planning on staying in the Empire for long, so she would not be seeing him in AF1 anytime soon.
Out of all the examinees, Yvonne was the person who was hit the hardest by Tang Qiuqiu’s performance. They were both female and about the same age, but even a total amateur could see that Tang Qiuqiu’s shooting skill was better than hers. Sure, her performance wasn’t good enough to beat Cillin’s existing record, but so what? She was still the indisputable number one out of everyone who was participating in this test. It wasn’t a matter of familiarity either. Yvonne was certain that Tang Qiuqiu could put on a stunning performance even if she had wielded an old rifle she had never used in her life. Her mental fortitude was a sight to behold as well. The targets could be living, breathing humans, and she had a feeling that the girl would’ve popped their heads all without batting an eye all the same.
She’s born to shoot. That was what everyone thought after witnessing Tang Qiuqiu’s performance.
Harvin wanted to inquire Cillin about their performance so far after the third test had come to an end, but there just wasn’t enough time. He was dragged away for the fourth test almost as soon as he was done saying hello.
There wasn’t an additional test during the third round like the previous term, but Cillin had a feeling that it didn’t necessarily mean good news for the examinees. It simply meant that the fourth round would be that much harder compared to the previous term, especially considering the fact that Wheeze would be supervising that round. That fatso had been so busy discussing tactics with King Kong and its beastial friends that it hadn’t shown its face for days. Days! Cillin could barely remember the last time Wheeze had left him for so long. Long story short, the examinees were in for a treat this time.
On a side note, the Three Dissolute Musketeers had sought out Cillin’s housemates to form a team exactly because they were Cillin’s housemates. They understood that it wasn’t the most reliable method of choosing a partner, but Cillin’s housemates couldn’t be too terrible, right?
Before the fourth test began, King Kong could be seen slowly walking across the entrance to the test area. It had been a while since Cillin saw the big guy, and it was a lot brawnier and taller than it used to be. It was certainly big enough to put the examinees under a certain amount of pressure even from a distance.
Right before King Kong was about to pass through the entrance, it abruptly stopped in its tracks and looked at the examinees. Then, it casually stuck a big, fat finger into its nose, dug around for a bit, and flicked a bogey toward the ground.
Pu!
The huge, sticky mucus became lodged at the center of the entrance just like that.
The examinees: “…” I think I’m gonna puke. I better watch every step when I enter the test area.
Cillin was immensely glad he hadn’t encountered a situation like this, and that he had the good luck of running into Teita. It would’ve been quite the “exciting” experience if he hadn’t.
King Kong sashayed away to the distance after leaving behind a wonderful “gift” to the examinees. If the poor fellows felt pressured before, now they felt as if they were about to jump off a cliff with no safety equipment.
Cillin glanced at the distant forest. He was sure that Wheeze was the one who spurred King Kong into acting this way because he saw a grayish blur right after King Kong took its leave.
Cillin didn’t need to enter the test area because he was an exam instructor. The postgraduates of AF1 and AF2 and the trouble-making animals would be doing the trouble-making for them.
Cillin was currently going through coordinate after coordinate and monitoring the examinees, but most of his attention was devoted to Gen Xingming and Harvin’s group. They were his friends and acquaintances after all. It was a lot more interesting observing the progress of someone he knew than otherwise.
Many of Cillin’s ideas were accepted and implemented in this test, but he was certain that they were trivial at best compared to the obstacles Wheeze and the animals had prepared for the examinees.
King Kong’s initial conduct had caused the examinees to pay extra attention to their feet. However, traps weren’t necessarily set on the ground only. For example, one group was absolutely toyed like a fiddle because they kept hearing the growls of wild animals from nearby, but they weren’t able to determine the location of the growl no matter what they tried. One second it came from the left, the next it came from the right, and the second after that it came from the front.
The examinees were already nervous to begin with, but the indeterminable growls positively drove them mad. They tried throwing stones in every direction, but it was no use. At some point, a black shadow that stank of blood dashed right past them and nearly caused their taut nerves to break there and then.
The fourth test was no joke. People had died in this test area before. That was why no one—the AF3 students or the selection test examinees—was taking this lightly.
On his screen, Cillin watched the cat and leopard toying with the poor examinees and shook his head. Wheeze had always loved making people nervous, and this time it even inquired Czedow’s opinion to up its game.
The robot was reading a book when he replied to Wheeze, “Humans are different from animals like you. They are naturally fearful when interacting with nature, and they form preconceptions based on personal experiences. These preconceptions and the experiences that they perceived as harmful to them would gradually accumulate into fear as they grow older and older. Although these fears rarely manifest in everyday life, that does not mean that they do not exist subconsciously. With enough pressure, it’s possible to drive a human into developing certain symptoms such as hallucinations, psychosis and more…”
As an animal—or a half-animal to be exact—Wheeze could not understand the human fear Czedow was explaining to it at all, especially since it was an apex predator who stood at the top of the food chain since time immemorial. That was fine though. Just because it didn’t understand something didn’t mean it couldn’t take inspiration from it, and boy did it took inspiration.
Fear doesn’t need to have a physical body. A predator doesn’t always need to show itself. For example, there wasn’t a single sparrow in the universe it couldn’t swallow in an instant if it felt like it. However, it didn’t do so because it loved watching their fearful reactions and futile struggles. It made the eventual consumption so much more delicious and satisfying.
It should be obvious, but this unlucky group of examinees wasn’t the only group that was ganged up by Wheeze and the other animals. One group paid so much attention to the flying cat in the sky that they neglected to check the ground. There were no pit traps that killed them instantly, but there was a King Kong bogey that was concealed beneath a layer of dust…
This term’s examinees suffered far, far more mental damage than physical damage compared to previous terms. Most of them weren’t afraid to bleed or hurt, but to sink their entire leg into a certain giant ape’s disgusting bogey? To drink from a stream only to look up and find a goddamn cat pissing upstream? Who in the fuck could handle that without losing their shit?
The air, land and sea were all booby-trapped. At first, they believed that the postgraduates would be the biggest obstacles they could encounter during the fourth test, but the deeper they went, the more they wished they had run into the postgraduates! They were at least a hundred times cuter than those goddamn animals ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!
The end of the fourth test couldn’t have come sooner. The mentally tough examinees were one thing, but the weaker ones puked so hard they looked more dead than alive by the time they reached the exit. A wriggling, half-eaten caterpillar? That was nothing! A signpost that was intentionally mislabeled to lead them to a nest of man-eating salamanders? Bring it on! Everything they thought was bad at the beginning was nothing compared to the shit they had to endure, nay, suffer the deeper they trekked into the test area. They could not imagine how those fucking animals even came up with the bizarre tricks.
Wheeze had a helluva good time despite not harming a hair on the student’s body—physically speaking, of course. Not only that, it was paid enough money to buy yet another truckload of cat food. It was an excellent deal no matter how you cut it.
The examinees thought that the fourth test was finally over, and it was, but that did not mean there wasn’t one last scare in store for them. Every examinee who had suffered the gray cat’s ministrations tensed up like a coiled spring when they saw a gray blur cut across the sky. Then, they saw the motherfucking fatso landing on top of Cillin’s shoulder and reporting its “meritorious service” to the senior exam instructors.
To borrow the words of the exam instructors participating in the shooting test earlier—the sonuvabitch has gone too far! Too far!
On the other hand, the three princes and Cillin’s housemates enjoyed a much smoother journey compared to their peers. They were the only ones Wheeze hadn’t tried to harass, and that alone made their journey so, so much more bearable. Cillin’s housemates in particular breathed an audible sigh of relief when they heard the complaints of the other examinees. They thanked their lucky stars that they hadn’t run into Wheeze—actually, no, that was wrong. They thanked their lucky stars that their housemate was Cillin, and that they had chosen to team up with the three princes, because no way the fatso would’ve ignored them otherwise.
There was a rest period after the fourth test. After most of the examinees had left the area, Chuck walked into a room where an old man was waiting for him. It was none other than the old man who had assigned Cillin to the examinees’ hostel at the beginning.
“Do you understand why I’ve assigned you to that hostel now?” The old man said while narrowing his eyes.
“Yeah. Thank you very much for your help, sir!” Chuck replied with the utmost respect. The old man was his teacher’s teacher. Without him, he would never have been assigned in the same house as Cillin and gotten all the benefits he had gotten up until this point.
To Chuck’s surprise, the old man said, “I don’t think you do, not really. The true benefit you got out of this arrangement isn’t passing the test, but getting to know Cillin. He is a lot more amazing than you imagine.”