Chapter 38: Student Number 69
Although there was only one sheet, the number of questions they had to answer was way more than what a single sheet could contain.
That’s why, every time a question was answered, the sheet would automatically update itself and show the next one.
The answers given would be recorded in each student’s talisman, and at the end of the test, it would transmit everything to the academy, where the teachers would process it all.
Zhu Rong was already used to seeing artifacts like this, in fact, he even owned several much more complicated ones that he could create himself.
If it were up to him, he could easily mess with this part of the test and get a good score...
but did he really need to pull something like that?
The answer was no!
He knew he didn’t know everything about every subject, but he didn’t need to.
It was enough for him to know everything important about them, and from there, he could figure out most of the rest.
He had five centuries’ worth of knowledge and experience in his head, and he didn’t believe a simple second year test would be able to give him any trouble.
He chuckled as he got ready to answer.
As soon as the teacher gave the signal, the first questions appeared and everyone, without wasting time, got to work.
The room went quiet, and the only thing you could hear was the scratching of pencils against paper.
Under the sharp gaze of the instructors, every student worked at their own pace.
When you didn’t know an answer, you immediately skipped to the next one to save time and get the ones you knew done first.
Time passed, and before you knew it, more than half an hour had gone by.
The female instructor still had a calm expression as she occasionally let her gaze sweep across the group of students.
Even though the test was cheat proof, they didn’t underestimate their students.
They knew that, just to pass, some of them would pull all sorts of tricks, and not a small number of them either.
Her gaze kept scanning the room, until it stopped on one student.
’Hm? What’s he doing?’ she thought as she stared at the scene in front of her.
In the middle of the rows of desks, a disciple was mixed in with the others, leaning forward over his sheet as if he was completely focused on answering the questions.
At a quick glance, there was nothing strange about it.
But for the academy’s instructors, even a single glance was enough to pick up on anything off, and right now, she was witnessing exactly that.
’Is he... sleeping?’
Her face was filled with disbelief as she stared at the student quietly napping right there in the middle of the group.
The other instructors also noticed something weird and couldn’t help but exchange strange looks, wondering what was going on.
The female instructor quickly shook off her brief shock, a vein popping on her forehead as she got ready to act,
but was immediately stopped by one of her colleagues, who handed her an object that looked like a smooth, rectangular tablet made of some grayish material.
Hm?
She took the tablet, a confused expression on her face, and poured a little of her Qi inside it.
The tablet soon lit up, and various pieces of information started appearing on its surface.
This was the main test board where all the results were recorded,
From here, you could see each student’s progress and check the answers they’d submitted.
She wasn’t sure why it had been handed to her now when the test wasn’t even over yet.
The various entries listed down and soon the information scrolled before stopping on a particular line:
[--------------------------------------
Disciple Number: 69
Name: Zhu Rong
Test Status: Completed
...
Questions Given: 50
Questions Answered: 50
Questions Skipped: 0
Time Taken: 24 min, 43 sec.
-------------------------------------- ]
"..."
The female instructor was stunned, and her gaze couldn’t help but turn to the sand hourglass showing how much time was left in the test.
’35 minutes left.’
She could clearly see there was still plenty of time remaining, and yet, she was now staring at a person who had already finished answering everything.
’No, this can’t be right, What on earth did he do?’ she thought, clearly unconvinced by what she was seeing.
Answering 50 questions in 60 minutes was already tough, even for someone who knew everything perfectly,
because it meant you’d have to read and answer every single question in less than half a minute, something completely impossible in her eyes.
There were always students who could finish the questions within the hour, but it usually happened towards the very end of the time limit, and even then, many of them left incomplete or outright wrong answers.
As far as she knew, no one had ever answered them all in half the time, let alone answered them correctly.
Obviously, this result didn’t convince her one bit, so she manipulated the tablet, and soon, the details on that student’s test were pulled up.
She decided to check through his answers herself to see if he had even answered them all properly.
The remaining time passed, and soon the students’ sheets stopped presenting new questions and were all drawn away by an invisible force.
The sheets gathered together, stacking themselves into a pile a few centimeters high and sealing themselves with a red ribbon that folded automatically, as if it had a will of its own.
As the students took a moment to clear their heads, the two instructors who were ready to begin the next tests turned their eyes toward the female instructor, who still had the results tablet in her hands.
"Hmm, Instructor Zi, is something wrong?" asked a male instructor standing to her right.
The woman, who looked like she was lost in thought, snapped out of it when she noticed the other instructors watching her.
She had a confused, defeated expression as she glanced at him and shook her head.
"I apologize, I got distracted for a moment," she said.
"Ah, don’t worry, it’s nothing serious.
But I have to say, it’s the first time I’ve seen you like this.
Did something happen?" the male instructor asked, noticing that she was still holding the results tablet and wondering if that had anything to do with it.
"Ah, it’s nothing.
It’s just... I got a little surprised by one of the student’s results," she said as she handed him the tablet.
The male instructor took it, looking confused, and gave it a glance, and before long, his eyes widened too as he read through the test results.
He was about to turn his head and say something when the female instructor spoke up, as if she already knew what he was about to ask:
"Yes, the results are correct. I checked every single answer myself," she said, still looking stunned.
Her gaze couldn’t help but fall on the person in question, who had finally woken up, while muttering to herself,
"Looks like this year’s results might turn out a little different from the previous ones."