Chapter 136: The Storm is Gathering, the Wind Sweeps Through the Tower

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Ye Chao was currently on the field of the High-Temperature Endurance Cross-Country event.

To be precise, it was on the circular track for powered locomotives situated in the public plaza.

This track served multiple purposes.

Usually, it accommodated locomotives, but at critical moments, it doubled as the city walls' most powerful charging circuit. Right now, it had transformed into a series of massive microwave generators, continuously radiating heat and scorching the participating students.

Ye Chao was naturally among them.

However, his appearance had undergone another change—upper body in a pilot's suit, lower body encased in a massive transformable mecha...

A standard endurance-running pilot suit simply wouldn't do; even if he could reduce his weight by 73%, his chicken-weak physical stamina wouldn't hold up.

Moreover, endurance running didn't strictly require the upper body... So, after a compromise, this was what he looked like.

It was as if a plaza mascot, bare-chested on top, was sprinting around while still wearing its lower-body costume...

Though comical in appearance, his speed was truly phenomenal, easily double that of a fully morphed mecha.

Requiring no physical exertion of his own, purely electric and zero-emission, the pilot suit enveloping his entire body was embedded with a liquid-cooling circulation system that constantly stripped away the intense heat and delivered a comfortable temperature...

The game he was playing was fundamentally different from everyone else's.

If not for the fear of being collectively beaten up—at least, that was how Alpha Ji had warned him—the game he actually wanted to play was called KartRider.

That would have been even faster! And far more stable!

Of course, he wasn't slow right now either... Aside from being a little bumpy, his experience was no different from a spectator sitting back and watching while holding a small wooden stool.

Therefore, as he ran, he could leisurely observe the status of the other examinees.

Not that he was looking at the other examinees on the field, of course.

Even though there were indeed a few candidates whose personalities had manifested as bicycles, motorcycles, or the like, making them quite fast, however...

There were several steep slopes and stairs along the track. Unless their auxiliary vehicles could freely switch between mecha and kart forms like Ye Chao's could, no matter how energetically they were running now, they would crash and burn the moment they hit an incline.

None of them were worth Ye Chao's attention.

The only person he cared about was Xu Tiange!

Although the wager had been agreed to unilaterally by Alpha Ji, ever since he had tasted power, a deep-seated urge to match himself against others had stirred within his heart.

When scientists invent something, they naturally want to test it. It was simply human nature, entirely unrelated to concepts of justice or evil.

At the long jump venue.

It was Xu Tiange's turn.

"Ooh-ooh-ooh! Xu Tiange is starting her run-up! That lithe sprint really looks like an agitated chicken!"

The live broadcaster was bursting with excitement.

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"She's jumping! She's jumping! So high..."

The audience's pet creatures were shouting in unison.

"18 meters! The full-score line! Effortless! She clearly still has stamina to spare."

"With this, Xu Tiange secures another 20 points, bringing her total score to 1,333."

"This is merely her first jump! She still has two more attempts ahead!"

"Can she shatter Jiangcheng's high school entrance examination record of 19.3 meters, or even Yunzhou's 21.5-meter benchmark? Let us wait and see—"

Cui Zhaoze, hoarse-voiced, suddenly stuttered to a halt: "Oh, her gesture means... she's giving up!"

Though his voice sounded like a broken gong, this fellow spoke at lightning speed, and his brain turned just as fast: "Could it be that she and Ye Zichao made a pact to skip the bonus points and settle the score once and for all during the mixed martial arts stage?"

God knows what Xu Tiange was thinking, but he certainly hadn't had any such thought...

"She did," Alpha Ji's voice suddenly popped up in his head.

"What?" Ye Chao was utterly bewildered.

"Xu Tiange thought precisely that..."

"Didn't you go on strike?" Ye Chao asked, baffled.

[Ye Chao's Favorability -33]

Alpha Ji struck a psychological dagger right into Ye Chao's heart and couldn't be bothered to reply.

==========

The competition rolled on, and the atmosphere remained fiercely high.

For the next three days, Ye Chao combated high temperatures with water-cooling, activated electric heating during the cold snaps, and sealed and pressurized his pilot suit to maintain a steady breathing rhythm whenever oxygen grew thin...

He secured the absolute maximum score in the endurance category with his own steady rhythm.

His final score, just as Cui Zhaoze had predicted, was 1,460 points!

Xu Tiange refused to be outdone either, wrapping up all her exams in four days with a final score of 1,465!

She surpassed Ye Chao by a mere 5 points, staging a comeback to snatch first place.

However, a gap of 5 points was practically meaningless prior to the mixed martial arts phase—unless both of them failed to make the top eight—and how could that possibly happen?

During the final days of the schedule, the other students naturally exerted every ounce of their strength, refusing to let this couple steal all the spotlight and reduce them to mere cannon fodder.

Even extras had their dignity!

Driven by this force, they truly managed to unleash potential they had never displayed before, repeatedly shattering records, securing bonus points, and dramatically raising the benchmarks for several events in Jiangcheng.

It was foreseeable that examinees in Jiangcheng would have a rather tough time for the next few years.

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However...

The advantages Ye Chao and Xu Tiange held in the minor subjects were simply too overwhelming, their margins in the field internships were substantial, and they excelled in the major subjects as well... They were flawless in all 360 degrees. Even with the other students trying their utmost, they were despairingly left behind by well over a hundred points.

Ultimately, prior to the mixed martial arts tournament, the rankings from third to tenth place were: 1,338, 1,335, 1,333, 1,331... down to 1,321.

Scores like these would have easily clinched the top scholar title in any ordinary year, and by a very comfortable margin at that, considering the first-place finisher in mixed martial arts could only earn 150 points.

Yet this year, they were merely scores for participants running alongside the champions.

This was indeed an exceptionally brilliant cohort, one worthy of the proctoring panel expanding the quota.

Their efforts, their struggles, and their burning passion ultimately conspired to turn them into—outstanding extras, whose presence only served to make Ye Chao and Xu Tiange appear all the more extraordinary and head-and-shoulders above the rest!

"The Peerless Pair!" "The Divine Goose Duo!"... Titles of this sort were unknowingly bestowed upon the two of them.

Between these two, who was on top and who was below? Who came first and who followed? Who took the offensive role and who the defensive? This became a topic of intense fascination for everyone in Jiangcheng, pets included.

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The Scrap Warehouse.

Ye Chao's exclusive training ground.

"Shadow Clone!" Ye Chao manipulated the projection of the imaginary space, turning one into two, two into four, four into eight... In one breath, he cast dozens of phantom images, which scattered in all directions according to his respective commands.

However...

"Whoosh!" Propelling a gas cylinder, Gun Gun charged forward in a rolling surge and accurately pinpointed Ye Chao's true body.

Fang Ju was much the same; after hesitating for a mere second, he likewise picked out the real body from among the phantoms.

"How on earth... do you guys manage this? A snake's infrared sensing? A bat's echolocation? An earthworm's setae perception? Or a dog's stereoscopic sense of smell..." Ye Chao was completely perplexed.

Although the operator had switched from Alpha Ji to himself, he still retained a modicum of confidence in this technique.

While Alpha Ji's half-physical, half-spiritual state could indeed offer immense help, he preferred relying on his own abilities.

The calculation engine was merely an insurance policy—an insurance policy to ensure he could still pass the college entrance examination even if mecha forms were banned.

Now that the exams had been successfully cleared, and the somewhat rule-breaking transformable mecha hadn't ended up being banned after all—though he had no idea why—he had even less reason to rely on it now.

What would happen if he lost the bet with Xu Tiange?

If he lost... well, he'd just accept the loss like a man.

Xu Tiange, I can attend the same university as you, that's not a problem, but... I'm going to study independently at Yunzhou University of Science and Technology, that doesn't count as breaking the agreement, right?

Of course, avoiding a loss altogether was still the best outcome.

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