Gold City.
In the central square, the countdown had finally turned zero. The new Gene Rookie Competition had finally begun.
First round, City Audition:
Picking the strongest producers among all the participants from each city to join the second round. Due to the difference in the size, number of people, culture, and difference in levels of each city, the quota of passable participants of each city was assigned in accordance with their previous competition results.
Gold City only had three spots, while the number of participants of this city was 632 people.
From the very start, the competition was already very cruel.
In the virtual community, all virtual broadcast courses were halted, turning into personal streams of producers who participated in this competition. Everyone else could directly view this competition from the virtual streams.
With the virtual stream technology, the viewers were almost like they were personally at the venue of the competition.
This was also the grandest occasion at Gold City.
At 9:30 AM, all the participants reached the Gene Production Association punctually.
"Whoosh!"
"Identity verification."
"Chen Feng."
"Verification complete."
Chen Feng entered the competition area assigned to him.
It was an area with a size of nine square meters, surrounded by glass. Around him were all sorts of materials and virtual equipment. All of the equipment was set in predetermined locations and every single action of his would be streamed for the live broadcast.
These are the materials used for the competition?
Chen Feng looked through all the materials, trying to guess the materials that might be used.
Soon, the others had entered one after another as well.
Chen Feng was surprised to find that Mu Yuan and Wang Yue were not far away from him.
Chen Feng’s heart jolted. "What’s the matter?"
There were over 600 participants, how could there be such a coincidence? Hold on, he recalled that Mu Yuan was not someone from Gold City. Why the heck was this guy here?
"I transferred my account here to this city earlier." Mu Yuan walked over and sighed as he said, "There’s only a quota of two at my Clear City. Both have already been occupied. Seems like I can only come over here to see how I do here."
Chen Feng: "…"
Where’s your face?
Chen Feng felt doubtful. "Why are all of you in the same arena as me?"
"Focused individuals," Mu Yuan said in a low voice. "Everyone included in the focused protection plan was placed here. Although there are a lot of participants, those able to make it to the final three are probably all right here."
"So that’s the case."
Chen Feng understood.
Focused individuals, eh?
Chen Feng contemplated. At this time, Wang Yue’s gaze landed on Chen Feng. Both their gazes started crossing swords midair, and intense sparks resulted from it.
"Ah."
Chen Feng looked at him as he lightly crossed his neck with his right hand, filled with killing intent.
"You…"
Wang Yue instinctively trembled, almost peeing himself from the scare. Shortly after, he realized that Chen Feng was trying to scare him. When he finally summoned his courage to once again raise his head, he noticed the faint smile in Chen Feng’s eyes.
Damn it!
Wang Yue’s heart jolted.
Despite pretending that he wasn’t bothered by it, in truth, he was extremely afraid of Chen Feng, even if they were now at the Gene Production Association!
Chen Feng’s extreme combat power, his unending trump cards, and his terrifying strength capable of killing D-class warriors were still causing him nightmares.
Chen Feng…
Wang Yue clenched his teeth. Even if I can’t defeat you, I will definitely surpass you in regard to gene production!
As he thought of his improvements these days, he felt somewhat confident.
"Ah."
Chen Feng smiled faintly, no longer bothered with Wang Yue.
"Soon."
Chen Feng looked at the time.
At ten sharp, the staff members of Gold City’s Gene Production Association entered the arena. The one standing in front was Zhang Wei.
He’s the one in charge of this arena? No wonder…
Chen Feng contemplated.
"Everyone," Zhang Wei said as he smiled, "there are too many participants for this first round. Hence, we won’t be conducting individual tests. Let me explain the rules and regulations of the competition."
"The first round is somewhat special. The chosen representative of each branch will be the one to decide the content of the competition. We won’t bother telling you all how cruel a competition the Gene Rookie Competition is. In order to ensure that you all survive this competition alive, we at Gold City will be focusing on one’s foundation in production."
"This competition will be divided into five stages. Each of the stages will have their own points. The top three with the highest scores will be eligible to participate in the second round of the Gene Rookie Competition."
"Oh yeah."
Zhang Wei suddenly smiled. "I’m sure everyone here is familiar with the Bucket Principle[1]. The Gene Rookie Competition is the same. Your weakness will be a deciding factor in your final results in this competition. Hence, those failing to reach 60 points in each stage will be directly eliminated from the competition."
"Now—"
"We will begin the first stage, production theory. This stage will cover all the theoretical foundation you have built in your career as a gene producer, containing the problems you might encounter in each formula or course of your gene production. The full score is 100 points, with 0.2 points per question. The time limit is half an hour. Those failing will be eliminated from the competition."
What?!
Everyone’s expression changed greatly.
Half an hour?
One thousand eight hundred seconds!
Full score of 100 points with 0.2 per question, which meant... there were 500 questions?
In other words, one needed to answer a question every 3 seconds on average? Regardless of the question one faced, one must finish reading the question and answer it in three seconds!
No time given to one to think!
"Hiss—"
Everyone inhaled a mouthful of cold air.
This was only the first stage, yet it had already shocked everyone.
"Then..." A smile appeared on Zhang Wei’s face. "Competition begins!"
"Whoosh!"
Light swirled before their eyes.
In front of everyone, an illusory light window appeared. On it were the questions. One needed to choose their answers from the window in front of them.
Chen Feng took a look, mhm…
Somewhat simple.
Whoosh!
He picked his answer quickly and started seriously answering the questions.
Regarding his foundation, Chen Feng was still somewhat confident. The rich theoretical knowledge the body’s original owner had and the bitter studies Chen Feng had done recently gave him this confidence. Despite the high amount of questions, all of them were multiple choice and fill in the blank questions. This was something devised not only for the competition, it was also here to consolidate the producer’s knowledge.
From this, one could see how much thought Gold City had put into this.
Whoosh!
Whoosh!
Everyone was frantically answering the questions.
This was the first time they had encountered such competition. Hence, they did not have a clear idea on the height of achievements of themselves or others in this aspect. Therefore, all of them were seriously answering the questions.
Currently, at the livestream area of Gold City in the virtual community, the order of the participants who had previously been arranged in accordance to their popularity had been instantly messed up and started being rearranged in accordance to their individual scores in this competition.
In 20 minutes, the top scorer had already accumulated a score of 80!
Everyone entered his virtual stream and, like they were physically there, started looking at him with their own eyes not far away from him. As they watched him, they found that he had only used one second for each question.
"Too powerful!"
"This guy seems like someone from the Wang family?"
"Damn, these rich kids have indeed prepared themselves well."
This person was indeed Wang Yue!
His strong spiritual energy gave him a much better memory. Those vague or fleeting thoughts that flashed through in his mind could be easily grasped, helping him to greatly surpass an ordinary person.
At the same time, the second ranked person was relentlessly pursuing his score as well!
Whoosh!
Whoosh!
The competition was still progressing.
Chen Feng frowned slightly. "It’s getting somewhat hard."
The initial questions were somewhat simple. However, toward the end, the questions were becoming more and more difficult. Up until now, there were even some questions that Chen Feng could not understand. What was vexing was the fact that there were too many fill-in-the-blank questions!
As for multiple-choice questions?
Mhm, this was not a problem at all for Chen Feng!
Chen Feng was sure that, if he had been transmigrated to this world earlier to participate in the high school final examinations, he might even have become a top scorer or something… releasing a book on the secrets of scoring in examinations or something. With his Luck Aura, he could simply guess his way to become a top scorer!
Pity.
Chen Feng sighed endlessly.
He looked at his score, mhm… 58 points.
Chen Feng sighed. "I have still overestimated myself."
He had truly worked hard recently. However, he had not expected that his level would only barely be sufficient to pass this.
From the time when he was still an aspiring gene producer till now, less than three months had passed. His path had been too fast and rushed. Despite his production level being sufficient, his knowledge in regard to gene production was still somewhat lacking compared to these youths participating in this competition.
Most of the producers were between 23 and 25 years old.
Chen Feng was only 18 years old.
And he had only been in this profession for less than three months.
Whoosh!
Another multiple choice question that he did not know the answer to appeared.
After thinking about it, Chen Feng decided to give up on it instead of wasting his luck values. Since he had a sufficient score to pass this stage, there was no need to waste his luck values here.
Catching the attention of others with a high score?
He wasn't in a hurry to do that.
The Gene Rookie Competition was a production competition through and through.
However, the first round audition done by the branches had actually decided to let them compete in their foundations. For Chen Feng, this was extremely unfavorable. Despite his ability, if his foundations were not sufficient, he would get eliminated during this round, losing the opportunity to participate in the actual Gene Rookie Competition! Hence, he had to save his luck values!
Saving them for the crucial moments!
"500 points…"
Chen Feng looked at his luck value.
After one whole month, he had only managed to save 500 points of luck value. Hopefully, this would be sufficient to support him until the end of the competition!
This was his only trump card capable of helping him make a comeback.
Time passed.
The 30 minutes ended quickly and the results of the first stage were announced.
Number 1: Zhang Lin with 96 points.
Number 2: Wang Yue with 92 points.
Chen Feng had a score of 60 points with a rank in the 200s. Mu Yuan, on the other hand, had 90 marks yet was only ranked 13, failing to enter the top 10.
"Wang Yue actually got number 2?"
Chen Feng was astonished.
It was inevitable for Wang Yue to have better foundations than him.
After all, he had only been a producer for less than three months, while Wang Yue had become a producer two years ago. They were simply in a different league.
For Wang Yue to get the number 2 ranking, he found this interesting.
"Your improvement is quite fast, eh?"
Chen Feng had a toying smile on his face.
Foundation was still a foundation, in the end, especially the theoretical part of it. Regardless of the methods used for the competition, ultimately, they would still need to start producing genes. This was what Chen Feng was waiting for.
From the available three quotas, he had to get his hands on one of them!
Footnotes:
1. Bucket Principle - The capacity of a bucket is determined by its shortest plank. Therefore, the overall capacity of the whole bucket will be impacted if there is one short plank.