Book 3, Chapter 92: Tournament

When Chen Chuan returned to his room, he received a message from Hongfu.

“Congratulations on passing the mandatory technique exam. You’ve received the highest mark possible. You’ll be able to check your updated assessment points after the end of the semester.”

Upon hearing that, Chen Chuan’s mood improved.

There were plenty of ways to increase his assessment points, but most of them offered only a meager increase, and they were all one-time things, such as getting a point for guiding a new student around the campus, like Tan Zhi had done for him. After that, even if the student guided other new students, they wouldn’t get more assessment points.

The easiest way to increase assessment points was by getting stronger, such as increasing one’s chances of reaching the Third Limit. By getting more than an 80% chance, his assessment points had shot up. So, getting stronger was much easier than doing anything else.

For example, Chen Chuan had also gotten assessment points for passing his technique exam, though he would argue that it was more accurate to say that he just recovered the assessment points he lost. After all, those who didn’t need to take the exam had higher assessment points than those who did. That was, of course, if the student managed to perform outstandingly during the exam, like Chen Chuan did today.

Still, it was rare for lecturers to be willing to give a high mark, like today. Besides, even if the lecturer was willing to do it, how many would be able to earn it?

This meant that the best way to increase assessment points was to reach the Third Limit. The moment a student did that, they would get absolute priority for all services offered by the university.

Even now...

Chen Chuan did a quick check and found that he was among the first to get the Radiant Light session this month. His name was no longer near the bottom of the list, like before.

After some thinking, he contacted Mr. Zheng. “I passed my technique exam today.”

The news delighted Mr. Zheng. “With how quickly you’ve been improving, you should have had no problem passing your exam. It was just a matter of what mark you would get. Who was your examiner?”

“Mr. Jiang Tian,” Chen Chuan answered.

Mr. Zheng laughed at that. “Xiao Jiang? Did he do something completely out of the ordinary?”

“He took great care of me,” Chen Chuan answered sincerely.

“Did he now? That’s good. I’ll have to thank him,” Mr. Zheng said.

Chen Chuan nodded at that and said, “Yes. I was thinking the same.”

“While you’ve passed your exam, it doesn’t change the fact that the Resolution Department recommended me to be your tutor. If you want to continue your lessons with me, you can still drop by my house,” Mr. Zheng offered.

“I’ll definitely come,” Chen Chuan promised.

Mr. Zheng had only taught techniques that Chen Chuan could master at his current level, so there was a lot more to be learned from him. But even if Chen Chuan didn’t consider that, Zheng Tongtong’s existence alone would make him come back. He wouldn’t be able to find another excellent sparring partner like her.

Since the Resolution Department had given him such a good learning resource, there was no reason for him to give up on it.

After the call ended, he checked the calendar on the wall. It was already June. Before he knew it, he had been in Central City for half a year, and there was less than a month until the end of the first semester.

Even though he always made sure to call his family on his days off, it had still been a long time since he went back. He was determined to go back to Yangzhi City during the break to visit his family, mentor, and friends.

At this point, his mind wandered over to Yu Gang.

Yu Gang and Lu Ke had arrived in Central City earlier than he did, but since they didn’t exchange any contact information, Chen Chuan didn’t know where they went. He only knew that they were in the lower city district.

It was a huge place, though, and he had absolutely no idea where they were or how their lives were. After he went back to Yangzhi City, he was going to check whether they left any means for him to contact them.

Since Chen Chuan had just finished his exam, he didn’t train. Instead, he made himself a hot drink, sat down on the sofa, and started reading the news from the niche channel.

Aside from local news, the niche channel also provided news about the entertainment industry. When Chen Chuan wanted to relax, he would browse it. Recently, the hottest topic in the entertainment section was the tournament in Central City.

There were plenty of discussions about it. The moment Chen Chuan went to the platform, he saw tons of voice messages in the chat. The most popular topic was the tournament’s participants.

He took a look at the list and found that some of the more famous students had their pictures uploaded. There were even some videos of their previous fights.

These participants were believed to have a high chance of reaching the finals or semi-finals. Among them was Cao Rui, the student Chen Chuan had run into in the elevator, so he paid more attention to him and checked the videos of his fights.

Cao Rui’s overall strength was pretty good. He hit hard and had great battle instincts. Chen Chuan would even say that he was not that much weaker than the official students.

This should be due to his implants making up for the weaknesses of his mutated tissue.

But after taking a closer look, Chen Chuan found that while these students had a lot of implants, they didn’t have as many as the martial artists on Rhinoceros’ Horn, nor were they as crazy-looking. Instead, they seemed to naturally belong to the students. If Chen Chuan ignored the embedded lines and the traces blatantly left behind to show that they had implants, they looked no different from normal students.

It seemed that the external students were highly compatible with their implants. Of course, there was also a possibility that those with a low compatibility rate had already been eliminated.

Since the tournament was a fight to the death, the students didn’t fight against each other. Instead, their opponents were usually criminals, thrill-seeking martial artists, and members of various anti-corporation groups.

After being captured, they were forced to participate in the tournament, where they had to kill their opponents to survive. Not all of them were martial artists, but they were allowed to use all sorts of weapons, thus increasing the level of brutality and entertainment value. It was no wonder why it could attract so many people, then.

Chen Chuan checked the videos of previous fights. Of course, if he wanted to watch the full fights, he had to pay, so he only watched the highlight reels. This helped him save a lot of time.

While watching, Tan Zhi suddenly contacted him, and Chen Chuan answered it right away.

“Chen Chuan, I heard that you had to take a technique exam this semester. Did you pass it?”

“I just did,” Chen Chuan answered.

“That’s great. I heard that with the university’s newest policy, those who don’t pass will have their assessment points deducted, and the ones at the bottom will be demoted to external students. Did you know that? And think about what external students are! They’re just tools dancing in other people’s palms,” Tan Zhi said.

“Didn’t you say before that if you don’t pass, you can just pay the university money?” Chen Chuan asked.

“I was just going to talk about that. That was in the past. Apparently, the university management had a meeting and didn’t just increase the price for passing, but also limited this offer to a one-time opportunity. This is bad news to the students who are used to paying to pass their exams,” Tan Zhi said with a sigh.

After some thinking, Chen Chuan said, “I also heard that those with less than a 50% chance of reaching the Third Limit will be sent to become tutors for the external students.”

“I’ve heard about that as well. This affects quite a lot of students, you know? They can’t even drop out. I think that we’ll soon start seeing official students fighting in tournaments. I just hope that this axe will never fall on our heads,” Tan Zhi said fearfully.

Chen Chuan grunted at that.

They talked a little longer. When they were about to end the conversation, Chen Chuan gave Tan Zhi a reminder, “Wei Wusheng has been murdering the martial artists who boarded the cruise ship. You have to be careful. Tell that to Pan Xiaode and Qi Huixin too.”

Upon hearing this, Tan Zhi sighed. “Don’t even bring that up. I don’t dare to step outside my room now, much less go out to dance. I can only do it in my own training room. I heard that those two have been grounded at home for this reason too. They complained about it to me yesterday. By the way, aren’t you part of the Resolution Department? When are you guys going to arrest him?”

“I can’t say. He’s a Third Limit martial artist, after all. If he wants to hide, it’s hard for us to catch him,” Chen Chuan pointed out.

Tan Zhi sighed yet again. “Which means we have no other choice but to wait. I don’t want that guy coming after my life.”

“It shouldn’t take much longer,” Chen Chuan said.

“That’s good to know. Anyway, I’m going to hang up now. I’ll treat you to coffee whenever we meet again,” Tan Zhi said.

“Sure,” Chen Chuan said, and they ended the call.

Tan Zhi had thought that Chen Chuan was just comforting him, but he wasn’t just giving empty promises. If the Resolution Department was unable to arrest Wei Wusheng as he kept on murdering martial artists, he was bound to approach Chen Chuan, and he would use that chance to get rid of him.

But Chen Chuan also had a feeling that Wei Wusheng wasn’t going to find him until he was fully prepared, because even though Chen Chuan had been so active outside lately, Wei Wusheng never came knocking at his door.

Time passed as Chen Chuan continued reading the news and various other information. When it was almost 10 p.m., he got up to wash up and go to bed, but Ni Qianqian interrupted him.

“I saw that you passed your technique exam, Chen Chuan. I asked around and heard that your examiner gave you a really high mark.”

“I was lucky and met a good examiner,” Chen Chuan replied.

Ni Qianqian was quite surprised. “Is that so? Are you sure you’re talking about Jiang Tian? He’s... I don’t know what to say about him. Oh well. That has nothing to do with you. Since you were studying under Mr. Zheng and preparing for your technique exam, I didn’t give you any tasks, but now that you’re free, you need to start paying attention to the tasks from the department.”

“What do you need me to do?” Chen Chuan asked.

“You know about the tournament, don’t you?”

“Yes.”

“It will start at the end of June and will last until September. Since Jibei Road’s Central City is the only place in the country that has this sort of tournament, I’m pretty sure that people from other Central Cities will come here too. That’s why we have to figure out a way to get rid of the problem known as Wei Wusheng before the tournament.”

“Does the department have a plan?” Chen Chuan asked.

“We tried working with the martial artists from Rhinoceros’ Horn so that the moment Wei Wusheng showed up, we could take action, but the results weren't good. We just found out that Wei Wusheng has a junior brother who might be helping him. Perhaps we can find some clues from this guy.”

“Is he part of the Heavenly Pardon Gang?”

“No. He was kicked out a long time ago, but he received help from Wei Wusheng before, so they might still be in contact. Tomorrow, the department will send a person to make contact with him.

“You don’t have to worry about this. But we’ve put too much manpower into this recently, so we’ve been slacking off in a lot of other areas. The department wants you to work with the officers on duty at Glowing Dew District. They’ll send someone to pick you up, so just wait for their message.”

“Got it. I’ll wait,” Chen Chuan said.