Chapter 38: Battle Royale Mode

Three hours passed quickly.

In the examination hall, the broadcast voice sounded once again.

“The third round of the exam is about to begin. All examinees, please prepare yourselves. The exam rules will now be announced.”

“This exam adopts a multiplayer competitive mode. All examinees will be randomly scattered across a large map. Each of you will receive a scorecard, which will display your current score.”

“Examinees can earn points by killing Fierce Beasts or by plundering the scorecards of others.”

“When an examinee successfully plunders another examinee, they will receive half of the plundered examinee’s points.”

“The plundered examinee will be randomly teleported to an area within a hundred-meter radius where no one is present. If plundered a second time, that examinee will lose their qualification to continue the exam, and their final score will be based on their points before elimination.”

“This exam will last for seven days. The map area will shrink daily at 24:00.”

“After the fourth day, all examinees will lose the opportunity to be teleported. If your scorecard is plundered, you will lose all your points and be eliminated from the exam. However, the points you accumulated before elimination will be retained as part of your College Entrance Exam score.”

“Additionally, after the fourth day, plundering another examinee’s scorecard will grant you all of their points.”

Jiang Yan listened carefully to the exam rules, feeling that this final exam was truly brutal. The entire text hinted at plundering others’ points.

“Isn’t this just like that four-letter game from my previous life?”

The daily shrinking of the map was clearly intended to increase the likelihood of encounters between examinees.

Losing the “revival” opportunity after the fourth day was meant to encourage competition among examinees.

A single College Entrance Exam was enough to reveal Blue Star’s underlying attitude toward Martial Artists.

It was one of wild growth, never cultivating flowers in a greenhouse.

Jiang Yan continued listening to the subsequent point calculation rules.

Unlike before, this final round had no ranking points. All points had to be earned through sheer strength.

Killing a first-tier Fierce Beast earned 5 points.

Killing a second-tier Fierce Beast earned 10 points.

Killing a third-tier Fierce Beast earned 50 points.

Killing a fourth-tier Fierce Beast earned 100 points.

It was worth noting that if an examinee believed they were about to be killed by a Fierce Beast, they could press the help button on their scorecard in advance.

After seeking help, the examinee would be directly eliminated, teleported out of the exam hall, with no “revival” opportunity.

Jiang Yan pondered. Since the rules stated that killing a fourth-tier Fierce Beast would earn points, it meant that fourth-tier Fierce Beasts existed in this exam. He wasn’t sure how many there were, but he guessed they wouldn’t be too numerous.

Killing one third-tier Fierce Beast was equivalent to killing ten first-tier ones. In this exam, the strong could easily widen the gap with ordinary examinees.

Soon, the exam began.

Jiang Yan appeared in a barren desert. In his hand, he held a technologically advanced, metal-encased card. Its black screen displayed a “0.”

Below the black screen was a red button, locked with a fingerprint. Only he could press it. Once pressed, Jiang Yan would be eliminated.

He tucked the scorecard into his pocket and observed his surroundings.

“There’s not a single blade of grass here. It seems hiding is impossible. But this actually works in my favor.”

Jiang Yan continued using Wind Riding combined with Nine Leaps Continuous Steps, leaping into the sky to survey the terrain.

In his field of vision, the north was a vast expanse of snow-capped mountains, the west was barren, the east was low grassland, and the south remained a bald, desolate stretch.

Within his line of sight, he spotted many examinees and Fierce Beasts.

The live stream fans had already grown accustomed to the flying and shifting scenes in the stream, even joking that to watch Jiang Yan’s live stream, one should first get a helicopter pilot’s license.

The real-time tracking of the live stream footage was truly making the audience suffer.

“I can’t take it anymore, I’m feeling a bit dizzy. I’m going to the bathroom to throw up a few times.”

“Same here.”

“I think Jiang Yan should focus on hunting Fierce Beasts first. After four days, he can start plundering others’ score tokens to maximize his gains.”

Some began analyzing the pros and cons, planning for Jiang Yan, believing this was the only way to accumulate the most points.

This bullet comment gained the approval of most viewers.

Hunt monsters for the first four days, snatch tokens for the last three, plus the thousand points Jiang Yan had already earned—even at worst, he could secure a spot in the top hundred.

Currently, the true strength of the examinees hadn’t been fully revealed, so no one could definitively claim Jiang Yan would become the College Entrance Exam champion with absolute certainty.

Of course, he was the most popular candidate for the champion at the moment, but that was merely an expectation.

The commoner defeating the privileged—no matter how many years passed, it remained a topic the masses loved to discuss.

Just as the bullet comments suggested, Jiang Yan indeed had no intention of confronting the other examinees during the first four days. He decided to wait until the last three days, when the “sheep” had grown fat, before starting the slaughter.

He dove down from mid-air, swinging his saber, and a second-tier fire-breathing lizard, unable to defend itself in time, became another victim under his blade.

Just as he was about to leave, a sharp shout came from behind him.

“Wait!”

Jiang Yan turned around to see a woman with a ponytail and a pretty face, hands on her hips, arrogantly ordering him:

“You stole my monster. As punishment, hand over your score token now.”

Jiang Yan raised an eyebrow, thinking to himself if this person was an idiot.

Seeing the disdain on Jiang Yan’s face, the woman stomped her foot in anger, raised a whip, and said fiercely:

“Since you won’t give it to me willingly, don’t blame me for being impolite.”

With a flick of her hand, the whip in her grasp transformed into a venomous snake, lunging toward Jiang Yan.

Jiang Yan countered with his saber, shattering the whip under the young woman’s astonished gaze.

The alloy long saber hovered above the woman’s head.

“Hand over your score token.”

“I won’t!”

“Heh, while killing isn’t allowed in the exam, there’s no rule against crippling someone,” Jiang Yan sneered.

Jiang Yan’s saber lifted the woman’s chin, the blade slowly cutting through her skin as bright red blood flowed from the wound.

Fear began to show on the woman’s face.

“You… you can’t do this.”

Boom!

Jiang Yan kicked the woman away, sending her flying backward. Her head struck the ground, the violent impact leaving her dazed, and she fell unconscious on the spot.

Jiang Yan walked over, retrieved the score token from her clothes, and took the opportunity to study how this little device worked.

The score token in front of him vanished along with the woman’s body.

Jiang Yan checked his own score token.

【2.5】

“It seems she had killed a first-tier Fierce Beast earlier.”

A first-tier Fierce Beast was worth 5 points. Deducting half left 2.5 points—completely accurate.

Jiang Yan decided not to move. He had a better idea.

Since seizing points from other examinees after the fourth day yields their full score, does that mean he could instantly become first place by taking down the top scorer?

Before that, he wouldn’t need to waste time and effort hunting Fierce Beasts.

But this approach has one drawback.

If Jiang Yan fails to defeat the top scorer and hasn’t earned any points beforehand, he’d be eliminated with zero points.

“So, can I actually beat the top scorer?”

Jiang Yan currently has no frame of reference and doesn’t know how strong the other top examinees truly are.