Instantly, no one asked any further questions. Although everyone was curious about how the school's only Awakened did in cultural subjects, it was unwise to bring up someone else's clear failure.

Only those bent on mocking or provoking would press on.

Although some boys at the Seventeenth Middle School felt an inexplicable jealousy toward Bai Pu's popularity, they were well aware that his arrival was a good thing for the school and everyone involved.

The virtual combat equipment allowed many students in the combat squad to experience virtual combat in advance, much like working through a real exam paper before the college entrance exam. The students were greatly increased in confidence for the virtual combat exam.

Teacher Ren came over and comforted Bai Pu, "It's okay, even if you can't get into one of the Eight Great Universities, just by virtue of being Awakened, you can at least get into a major regional college."

Bai Pu didn't waste energy trying to explain, he just asked, "When will the results for the cultural subjects be out?"

"Nowadays, everything is scanned by smart assistants, so it's very quick," Teacher Ren said. "I expect that by tomorrow, after you finish the virtual combat exam, the cultural subject results will be out as well."

The results for the virtual combat are announced immediately after the exam ends, no waiting required.

Bai Pu wondered, "Smart assistants scanning? Those subjective questions might have more than one angle to answer, are the smart assistants capable of flexibly recognizing that?"

Generally speaking, smart assistants have rather rigid personalities and find it difficult to accommodate multiple styles of answers like a real examiner.

"Each subjective question on every paper is scanned by eight different preset personalities of smart assistants — aggressive, conservative, emotional, rational... then the highest and lowest scores are removed, and the final score is calculated."

Teacher Ren smiled and said, "Don't worry, the college entrance exam has been around for over nine hundred years, and AI grading has been going on for a few hundred years. In the past century, there hasn't been a single mistake in AI grading."

Bai Pu, having experienced the usefulness of smart assistant Xiao Bai himself, found it to be like a considerate housekeeper. Humans have indeed made significant progress in the field of AI.

...

The next day, the virtual combat exam officially began.

Under the envious and admiring gazes of his classmates, Bai Pu stepped into the examination venue dedicated to the Awakened — the virtual dungeon.

Just like the virtual dungeon "White Bone Cave" at the Divine Strategy Army Xicheng Branch, this dungeon named "Silicon Valley Base" is designed based on a futuristic junction site.

Within the circular base of Silicon Valley, there are ten passageways that extend from different directions from the periphery to the core of the Silicon Valley base.

Along the route of the ten passageways, there stand hibernation pods. Next to the hibernation pods are two rows of weapon racks.

As the examinees break in, the power system gradually activates, and the hibernation pods open one by one, revealing combat robots.

These combat robots are the examinees' opponents and simultaneously serve as each exam question.

Knocking down a combat robot earns the score for that "exam question."

In the "Silicon Valley Base" virtual dungeon, the Awakened's professional skills, talents, combat skills, equipment, items, and storage space are all subject to rules restrictions, rendering them unusable.

What examinees can use is only the weapon rack beside the hibernation pod, which holds various attributeless weapons.

The priority level of this restriction rule is as high as 10 points!

At the Awakened stage, even the Hero Profession only has a basic priority level of 4 points. Adding the Three-star Skill bonus of 3 points, it barely reaches a total priority of 7 points. Trying to increase by even 1 more point is a luxury, with 10 points being an insurmountable gap.

In other words, the virtual combat exam tests the combat specialization of the Awakened.

Of course, the college entrance exam rules don't prohibit the Awakened from using skills — if an Awakened has the ability to break through the 10-point priority restriction and use the skill, it means the Awakened is already so strong that prohibition would be unnecessary.

Bai Pu opened his personal attribute panel.

He glanced over it.

Skills like Flesh Armor, Jump Slash, Unstable Shield, Helical Throw were all grayed out.

However…

The three major talents of the Heart of Evolution remained lit and usable!

The priority level of the Heart of Evolution talent exceeded 10 points!

Bai Pu was shocked. No wonder the Superpower Group valued the Evolutionary Source Blood so highly. It seems the origin of Evolutionary Source Blood is far greater than Bai Pu imagined, not just some simple Flesh and Blood Plague: a specialty curios from the Origin Plane!

This speculation is well-founded, for the highest priority level in the Spirit Realm Plane explored by the Awakened is 10 points. The Heart of Evolution talent that exceeds a 10-point priority must originate from a source higher than the Awakened Plane.

"Calm, calm. Having high priority is good, but also consider the skill strength and applicability. The ability to transform slaves with Pure Blood Protection is useless on robots, rendering it half redundant…"

The principle of Pure Blood Protection is creating pure blood, which is injected into the enemy's body causing deformation, thus placing them under Bai Pu's slave control.

In principle, the restriction scope of this skill is clear — it must be a carbon-based life form with a flesh and bone body!

Robots are silicon-based bodies and don't even fall under the category of "life form," being controlled by pure blood would be absurd.

Of course, pure blood could also be injected into Bai Pu's own body, providing up to 7 points of free attribute bonus. But considering the more critical Spirit Realm exploration exam ahead, it would be better for Bai Pu to save these two drops of pure blood for the Spirit Realm exploration.

These thoughts flashed by, and Bai Pu gathered his thoughts.

He stepped into the passageway entrance.

The first hibernation pod in front was already successfully electrified.

Amidst a series of clicking sounds, the first combat robot appeared!

...

Jiangnan Regional Education Examination Institute, Control Room No. 1.

A big screen displayed the combat scenes of Awakened examinees.

Seven or eight people sat on both sides of the long table, each exuding the aura of authority, raised over long periods of command and issuance of orders.

Among them was someone in military uniform, his epaulettes bearing crossed wheat and two gold stars, undoubtedly much higher than Li Ling's single-barred three-star rank.

This person in the military uniform with gold spikes and two stars was seated as the first on the left instead of the main position at the table.

A group of top brass.

"There's no need to show those with ordinary professions," said the chief in the main seat with a smile, "We have Hero Professions even among this year's Jiangnan Region candidates; there should be more Enhanced Elites, right?"

The practical officer standing behind them, a middle-aged man with glasses, quickly reported: "Secretary Qiao, this year there are 104 candidates in the Enhanced Elite Profession category."

"Over a hundred is not few. Let's focus on showing the process of these candidates clearing stages," said Secretary Qiao, "Give each committee member a remote control, whoever sees an interesting promising candidate can pull it up for everyone to watch."

"Yes." The Jiangnan Regional Education Examination Institute director, sitting at the last seat, hurriedly wiped his sweat and handed out eight remote controls for the control room.

As a world event, the Spirit Realm Will oversees fairness throughout the college entrance exam. These big shots watching in the control room don't disrupt fairness as everyone understands the importance.

If anyone dares to meddle in the exam and disrupt fairness, the Spirit Realm Will will withhold the world event rewards. That would be a serious incident, and everyone here would be implicated.

"Let's first take a look at the Xu family's child, the Jiangnan Region's only Hero Profession and the flagship of this year's examinees."

The big shot seated second on the left clicked a button on the remote control, and suddenly the selected screen rapidly enlarged, filling the entire display.

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